Teacher identity, teacher agency and teaching competence in COVID-19 turn

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the pressing need for teachers to develop competence in harnessing digital technologies for teaching and learning. This urgency was exacerbated at the start of the pandemic when remote teaching was non-negotiable. At an unprecedented scale, online learning is accelerated and creates changes to teachers’ roles and their identities. To better understand how teachers enact professionalism in their practice, examining teacher agency is crucial. Its role in assisting teachers to transit through uncertain times to minimise educational disruptions not only demands respect from the public, but also necessitates further inquiry into teachers’ professional learning. This paper raises issues related to evolving teacher identities and teacher agency in the COVID-19 turn. It particularly points out the importance of making a distinction between content provision and education as teachers create their online presence in remote teaching. Given that teacher identity and agency are negotiated and constructed through relationships, social interactions and contextual factors, this paper uses the formative and design experiments approach as an example to discuss these two concepts. It offers this approach as a way of strengthening teacher identity and agency whilst developing teacher competence in integrating technology into teaching. The paper concludes with a discussion on future research agenda on teacher identity, teacher agency and teacher competence with the goal of creating positive social futures in the COVID-19 turn.