Why it is important?

Portugal has an aged teaching staff. In twenty years of the country’s history, working time has increased in an average of 10 years. Portuguese teachers live in situations of instability, embarrassment and demotivation, that is, of disenchantment. Some of this disenchantment results from the generational difference between teachers and their students, accentuated by the digital familiarity that characterizes current students’ the profile and by the distinguished interests, languages and reasoning of teachers and students. Consequently, there is a feeling of inefficiency in the developed curriculum, which triggers burnout processes, aggravated by the increase in the retirement age. Simultaneously, more and more tasks are required from school and education in general, more responsibilities are given to them and more quality of the educational action is expected.

What do we aim ?

This project was designed to respond to this mismatch, counteracting some of the effects of teacher aging, reversing the identified vicious circle and turning that aging into a potential for curricular innovation. Its purpose is to foster the relationship between teacher agency in curricular making and the educational action practices mediated by mobile technologies. The innovative nature of the project is its ability to give a new meaning to the professional experience of teachers aged over 50 in order to promote the renewal of their commitment to teaching and curriculum innovation mediated by the use of mobile technologies.

How is it planned to be workable?

From a methodological point of view, this project links research to intervention and to basic and secondary school teachers’ training. ReKindle+50 projects to diagnose, monitor and evaluate the change in practices, in what we call digital migrations, and their sustainability in the short and medium term. It convenes two teachers’ training centres that have been actively involved in the “Future Classrooms” initiative. It also convenes two research teams from two Portuguese universities that have in common research and intervention in the main topics addressed in the project: teachers’ training and professional development, curriculum innovation and the potential of mobile technologies to achieve this. Despite these commonalities, the research problems in which the team members are interested are diverse and will allow the project to have the complexity the topics ask for, which will also be a scientific, pedagogical and ethical challenge. This challenge is to investigate the potential of the relationship between the professional development of older teachers and the use of mobile technologies and its effect in curriculum action. Expected results will manifest in the digital migrations that older teachers are able and its effects in its professionalism. The project will also have more comprehensive institutional and political effects.