Since 2020 there has been a shift in UK Higher Education, from initial ‘emergency online teaching and learning’ to better thought out and a more pedagogically effective use of technology.

Indeed, the rise of generative AI brings a heightened expectations around high usability. So, what do these developments mean for educators in HE that is not just about taking guidance on the ethical and responsible use of AI or using AI-based personalisation to enhance learning experiences? Meaning that recognises AI usage as common practice among staff as well as learners. This necessarily speaks to teacher and tutor competence in using digital technology. Even four years is a long time (since Higher Education saw considerable adaptations in the use of digital during covid) in an ongoing revolution as AI and technology enabled tools and resources continue to make themselves available.

Following the emergency pivot to online delivery in 2020, the Higher Education sector is now described as in an ‘emergent context’, as institutions consider their long-term strategies. Digitally supported, fully online and remote learning were common in Higher Education before the pandemic led to what has been referred to as a ‘gravity assist’, a useful metaphor that describes the ways in which digital and online teaching practices were propelled forward.

Covid emergency measures for online education were generally seen as good enough with decisions made quickly and under pressure. Now, there is an opportunity to build on those developments with digital and AI-enabled learning a core and intentional part of teaching. Now is also the time to stop thinking about how individual tools can enable teaching and instead consider how a holistic digital outlook can enhance learning, wherever it takes place, whether supporting a great, full-time, on-campus experience or making learning more flexible, inclusive and personalised for students who are off-campus, in apprenticeships or on placement.

Doing this will require bringing people, practice, pedagogy, space and technology together in conversations.

The University Vocational Awards Council’s (UVAC) own research shows:

• The years 2020-2022 accelerated a move to online and digital pedagogy in work-based and apprenticeship learning, beyond simple adaptations designed to avoid face-to-face contact and can be discarded as emergency measures become less needed.
• For most programmes the post-pandemic norm has not been fully digital but blended and potentially “digital first”; online methods will be used where they have clear benefits, whether pedagogically or from a perspective of efficiency and logistics.
• “Flipped” or “inverted” approaches, a mix of synchronous and asynchronous methods, judicious use of simulations, online tripartite meetings and online learning communities are likely to feature, and increasingly accessible technologies such as AI, augmented, mixed and virtual reality could play a larger role as their potential becomes recognised.
• A major need in work-based and apprenticeship programmes is integrating theoretical and practical learning, requiring the institution to become involved in prompting, facilitating and supporting workplace learning in partnership with the employer.
• Attention is also needed to the choice of hardware and digital platforms, ensuring that technology is suitable for work-based applications as well as delivery-based online learning, fully accessible from home and work as well as from the institution, and supportive of accessibility principles such as universal design.

This leads to accepting that a focus on individual practitioner development of competency is important.

Four key areas can be identified.

1. Understanding and using the available technology effectively.
2. Developing capability in digital and blended learning pedagogy, both to support the design and delivery of individual sessions and components and to aid design at programme level.
3. Fluency across methods that make use of digital means to support learning at work, including through reflection on practice, undertaking projects, systematic enquiry and reviewing learning.
4. Institutional systems, policies and management need to support emerging practices as, for example, even in universities where work-based, work-integrate learning is well-established, systems and procedures may be “preconfigured towards the full-time undergraduate”.

But how should teachers be supported by an effective digital competency framework for professional practice? The following are seen as a priority:

• Helping students to use AI and devices
• Designing a rich mediated digital-enabled learning environment
• Promoting inclusive, creative, meaningful and personalised teaching.

Conclusion

Any digital competency framework should provide a point of departure for teachers who wish to understand and employ a set of digital competency skills in their own context and practice.

Signature digital pedagogies are also a necessary consideration. As is supporting academic staff to make informed choices about how they use technology to underpin the curriculum. What is clear is that there is still a large need to surface shared themes and provide tutors and teachers with ideas for embedding digital wisely whilst underpinning the pedagogy.