Competence Development for Teachers Within a Digital Inter-professional Community

Competence development for teachers is of increasing importance as the use of digital tools poses a challenge to the pedagogical approach within the teaching context in schools. Schools are responsible for ensuring that students are able to use modern technology as tools for searching for knowledge and for communication, as well as for creation and learning. Hence, teachers need to develop their competence in integrating digital technologies into their pedagogical practices. Digital tools function as resources for interaction and collaboration across space and time, and also considerably facilitate inter-professional work and communication. This paper is based on an action-based qualitative study of a Nordic education project that focused on competence development among teachers, and where inter-professional collaboration and the use of digital tools was of great importance. The aim of this paper is to analyze how teachers’ competence development with regard to innovative pedagogical skills can be supported in an inter-professional community of practice, using digital technologies. Different pedagogical approaches, curricular contents, digital resources and organizational conditions were produced in the virtual collaboration within this community of practice.