ONLINE EDUCATION DURING A TIME OF PANDEMIC: TEACHERS' PERSPECTIVE OF ONLINE EDUCATION, DIGITAL COMPETENCIES AND THE POST-COVID-19 LEGACY

In the recent years, the scholarly debate on the importance and development of digital competences within the teaching profession has become increasingly nuanced. While the dimensions and depth of the concept remain highly appraised, it remains unclear the extent to which teachers nowadays are closer to developing adequate digital competencies and whether online teaching itself is considered a beneficial practice. Studies have shown different levels of prejudices in students' learning and well-being during the pandemic, so the question is: do teachers adjust their online teaching practices so as to increase learning outcomes, while considering the well-being of students? The present paper tries to address these issues accordingly, by means of on online quantitative study that was carried out between January 1st 2020 - January 28th 2021, on a sample of 1267 Romanian respondents. The questionnaire illustrates the teachers' experience of online education during the COVID-19 pandemic and the central dimensions of our analysis consisted of: the teachers' perceived progress on digital skills; trust in own digital competences; the level of trust offered by the courses attended on delivering online lessons; the perceived benefit of using digital skills in teaching from the perspective of students' learning outcomes; a general evaluation of all educational tools offered by online education; and the extent to which the methods and applications of online education will be integrated in the future. The results point to a positive self-assessment of teachers' digital skills, as well as an important willingness to implement the online education tools back to the everyday classrooms.