Space related school project to improve digital competences for high school teachers and students: CanSat Spain case study

Digital competences refer to the skills and knowledge needed to understand, use, and communicate with digital technologies. In terms of public policies, promoting digital competences has become a priority as it is considered crucial for the economic and social development of countries. In the educational field, digital competences are vital for student learning and training, as well as for teacher training and improving educational quality. Furthermore, the lack of digital competences can perpetuate the digital divide and social exclusion. Teachers play a crucial role in developing students' digital competences, essential for student success. To this aim, training in digital competences and a proactive attitude towards their use in the classroom must be boosted, as teachers' role in fostering digital competences. In order to meet such demands, professional digital competence is required as an important issue for teacher education to be addressed (Lindfors et al., 2021). The present study aims to investigate the transformative effects of digital competency development on teachers of secondary education level. Through a comprehensive literature review, this study seeks to provide understanding of how digital competences can positively impact educational outcomes, such as student achievement and teacher performance. We set the focus on specific teacher training courses, as CanSat school project. By examining the specific context of space-related resources, we will analyse the potential benefits of teacher training process and teacher network learning communities, teaching methods, such as project-based learning, the recognition of teaching activity and the level of student participation, to optimize educational practices in an increasingly digital world. Afterwards, we will perform an adaptation of the questionnaire used in "SELFIEforTEACHERS" tool. This will allow us to carry out an analysis of the perception of the level of digital competence used by teachers through a mixed, quantitative and qualitative methodology on a further stage. The evaluation of teachers' digital skills will allow us to improve and personalize teacher trainings in order to meet their needs properly, in line with what is described in Basilotta-Gómez-Pablos et al. (2022). In addition, as another key objective, we also expect to identify space related content as a suitable and motivational tool to let teachers put their knowledge into practice, addressing the shortcomings identified by Prieto-Ballester et al. (2021). (...)