PREPARING TEACHERS FOR TEAMWORK IN A DIGITAL EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENT

Abstract

This chapter provides a theoretical rationale and a practical examination of the development of teachers’ teamwork skills in a digital educational environment. The relevance of the topic stems from the fact that the digital transformation of education is changing not only the tools of teachers’ professional activity, but also the very logic of their interaction with colleagues, administrators, professional communities, and learners. Under these conditions, teamwork is no longer merely an additional organizational ability; it becomes an important component of contemporary educational leadership. The aim of the study is to clarify the essence of teacher teamwork in a digital educational environment, identify its structure, assessment criteria, and indicators, develop a methodology to foster teachers’ teamwork skills in this environment, and analyze the results of its pilot implementation. The study employed theoretical analysis of scholarly sources, modeling, generalization, structural-functional analysis, and elements of a pilot formative experiment using self-assessment, structured observation, analysis of digital artifacts, and comparison of results from two assessment points. The author’s understanding of teachers’ teamwork skills in a digital environment is refined as an integrated set of professional actions that ensure effective interaction through communication, coordination, role distribution, collaborative product creation, facilitation of group processes, and reflective adjustment of activity. Three interrelated components of teacher teamwork in a digital educational environment are identified: communicative-facilitative, cooperative-productive, and organizational-projective. An assessment framework is substantiated, including criteria, indicators, levels of development, and diagnostic tools. A methodology for developing these skills was designed and implemented through a series of three weekly online training sessions using Zoom, messengers, shared documents, and Miro-like digital boards. The pilot experiment involved 26 future master’s students in secondary education at A. S. Makarenko Sumy State Pedagogical University. The results showed positive dynamics across all components, with the most noticeable growth in the organizational-projective dimension of teacher teamwork. It was concluded that the development of teachers’ teamwork skills in a digital educational environment requires targeted methodological support, professionally relevant collaborative tasks, a functionally structured digital environment, reflective guidance, and institutional recognition of teamwork as a significant component of pedagogical activity.