«Emergency Remote Teaching» in Italy and Norway: Empirical Research Findings and Implications for Teacher Training

As schools closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, online learning opportunities became crucial for the education of millions of students worldwide. In most countries, the transition from face-to-face teaching to distance learning took place in an emergency situation. Consequently, the sudden change was not preceded by organizational, technical, nor didactic reflections. Schools, teachers, pupils and their families found themselves facing an entirely new situation. For long periods, the didactic activities had to be carried out entirely online, without being able to even plan a return to "normality". What has happened, and is still happening, in the face of the Covid-19 crisis has certainly led to inconveniences and criticalities in a sector as essential to society as that of school education. However, the experience, if analyzed with the lens of science and educational research, can provide interesting insights on which to reflect and work, at the policy level, in the near future. In particular, it is interesting to observe how school teachers have managed to deal with the emergency by using their digital competence. We assume, based on the current literature and frameworks, that an educator's digital competence go far beyond technical skills, to seek a balance between different components so to embrace professional, pedagogical and technological knowledge. We also assume that the opportunities digital technologies offer go well beyond temporary solutions during the Covid crisis. «Digital technology allows us to find entirely new answers to what people learn, how people learn, where people learn and when they learn» (OECD, 2020). Having said that, it is important to say that these opportunities, to be truly such, require teachers to have specific preparation to integrate face-to-face teaching and distance teaching, that is acquired with training and experience. Our article aims, first of all, to analyze the main results of the empirical research produced in Italy and Norway on “emergency remote teaching” during the pandemic. We will consider quantitative and qualitative studies exploring the experiences, the perceptions and the opinions of schools, teachers and students, in addition to policy and evaluation papers issued by international, national and local institutions. Starting from the analysis and comparison of data gathered in and about the two countries, considerations will be drawn on the digital competence of teachers and on the areas that most need interventions at the level of teacher training and education policies in the near future.