Technology will never replace teachers…
…but teachers who are comfortable with technology will replace those who are not comfortable with technology.
We all understand that software has changed just about every facet of society: music, newspapers, banking to name a few. Software is changing education by allowing teachers to see in an instant which students are doing the work they assigned, how the students are doing overall, and even how students are doing on particular concepts.
When teachers don’t take advantage of these tools, they increasingly end up spending their time on low-value tasks that software can do for them.
Explaining certain topics to a group of students from the front of the room and asking each student to learn the material at approximately the same pace is also far from optimal. Let a software program provide students with instruction via video, audio, and text and rotate around the room to check in with each student and to provide assistance, encouragement, and additional instruction when necessary.
Allow students to create on-demand, student-driven quizzes to work on concepts that the program tells them they are weakest in. Research by Henry Roediger and Mark McDaniel at Washington University (authors of a fantastic book about the science of successful learning titled Make It Stick) shows that when students give themselves assessments as they are learning material, the learning sticks with them for longer.
Teachers who are comfortable with educational technology tools that free up their time to focus on the most important (and most rewarding) aspects of being a great teacher will increasingly distinguish themselves from educators who are not comfortable.
Photo courtesy of The Daily News: Classroom iPads enhance educational experience at Kingsford High School.
