The Future-Ready Teacher

    My first year of teaching was when COVID-19 hit. When we were told we were not coming back from Spring Break, I scrambled to learn how to finish the school yearbook with my students remotely. In the end, only one of my students really helped and I ended up finishing the book. It was not fun. I also learned, as a mom to then two preschool age children, I was not born to teach little ones. 

    COVID-19 changed education in so many ways. From having to quickly learn technology so remote learning could be added, to students texting teachers at all hours, to realizing that not all students are going to respond through Zoom (unless you're my son and he used it as his social hour with friends), teachers were required to add more hats to their duties when the world shut down. 

    Now, we are scrambling as educators to play catch up with students that fell behind because of COVID. We are also having to change how we teach. Let's face it, with the technology that COVID forced in, it's difficult to just go back to a traditional classroom setting. Students are no longer to sit and listen to lectures when they have been use to interactive lessons and videos. 

    Teachers and school districts have to be ready for the future. It's coming, whether we like it or not, and education has to change with it if we are to adequately prepare students for the world. 

COVID and Education: Challenges, Opportunities, and the Future of Learning

Rethinking 

    COVID has taught all of us that in education the "one-size-fits-all" approach no longer works. Dr. Bridget Long, Dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, said in a YouTube video that teachers now have to let go of all of their assumptions about students, and learn to expand their boundaries in how to reach and engage the classroom. This is easier said than done. Many teachers still prefer the traditional lecturing model, but that does not translate to a remote learning environment, no matter the platform used (Barron, et al., 2021). 
    "We are selling ourselves short if we only think of a school or university as a place - a spot on a map - rather than as a group of dedicated people working towards the important mission of supportive learners," Long said. "We have to start thinking about education as more than just a physical building."
    COVID has allowed teachers to reach people from around the world. Physical space is no longer a problem. Students can interact with other classrooms or students in a different country. Teachers can bring in guest speakers via Zoom. Long said teachers have to start shifting their mindset from compromise to opportunity. Teachers can transform their lessons and make personal connections with students. 
    Remote learning taught us how to be adaptable and resilient in education (Barron, et al., 2021). In our school district, we created a Google Classroom just for teachers with resources and videos showing how to implement technology during COVID. Many teachers have continued using these strategies. Google Classroom, Blooket, Quizlet, Kahoot, and others are some of the programs we are continue to use in the classroom. In fact, programs like Blooket, which creates a video game out of a lesson, have become popular due to students wanting to interact with the program. Gamification enables students to receive instant feedback that can show how they rank among their peers (CB Insights Research, 2020). The CB Insights Research article also reported that a Houston ISD teacher said gamification helped his students perform better at reading and science, and reduced the time it took for students to accomplish their goals to only 10 months, compared to 14-18 months (2020). 
    There are teachers out there that will do anything and all they can do to get that lesson across to their students. 

Support

    If teachers are going to move forward, then school districts must also move forward. This means that school districts will have to invest in technology. Effective data mining requires setting up a physical infrastructure that includes servers, cloud networks, and hardware, as well as employee people who have the knowledge to handle this equipment (CB Insights Research, 2020). In a rural school district like mine, this means money. To upgrade technology in many public school districts, the district must rely on voters to pass bonds. That is not easy as many voters don't want their property taxes to increase, which is how school districts in Texas receive the majority of their funding. Technology needs to be seen as an investment, not a burden. School districts will be doing themselves a huge favor if they invest instead of turning their backs on technology. 
    At the same time, school districts need to invest in professional development for their teachers. Train teachers how to better use technology and integrate it into their classroom. The International Society for Technology in Education states in its standards for educators that "Educators continually improve their practice by learning from and with others and exploring proven and promising practices that leverage technology to improve student learning." Teachers should learn and test out new technologies and approaches with their lessons. They should also actively participate in local and global learning networks, and stay current with research that supports improving student learning outcomes. Teachers should be required to attend at least one professional development class that deals with technology and integrating it into the classroom. The country of Ghana set up a Virtual Learning Taskforce which enabled 90 percent of teachers to keep training remotely (EdTech and COVID-19: 10 things you need to know YouTube video, 2021). Learning no longer has borders. 
    School districts should also look into building learning teams that involve, not only the teacher and student, but parents, siblings, and career leaders (EdTech and COVID-19: 10 things you need to know YouTube video, 2021). Besides their education, students are also dealing with mental health issues from COVID and other stresses, school safety being a major one here in Texas since the Uvalde school shooting in 2022. During COVID, many realized that school districts do more than just educate. They provide free meals, emotional support, stability, and health care, Long said. Yes, it does take a village to educate a child.

    

   The Future

     My children are 6 and 7. I watch how they interact on their Amazon Kindle Tablets (bought during COVID) and I realized the traditional classroom of lecturing is not the best way for them to learn. They need interaction. They have been born interacting with everything around them. My children will never know a world where you have to sit through commercials on television because of streaming networks like Netflix and YouTube. They will also not ever have a classroom without some type of technology device in it. Online learning programs like Lexia and Starfall have become integrated into my children's learning. At the same time, my high school students are now equipped with one-to-one learning technology in the form of Google Chromebooks. 
    Devices such as these mentioned above, along with smartphones, smart watches, and fitness trackers, have become an integral part of people's lives (CB Insights Research, 2020). Because of this, many universities have experimented with becoming smart campuses, where students can easily access things like paying for laundry, food in the cafeteria, or a soda in a vending machine with their smartphone (CB Insights Research, 2021). Imagine the same on a high school campus, where a student uses his phone to check into each classroom for attendance, elevating the burden on teachers, or even facial recognition. 
     Then there is AI, or artificial intelligence. As a writer, I am afraid a bit of AI. I mean, you can tell a program like ChatGPT to generate an essay on anything in minutes. At the same time, AI can be helpful to teachers. AI can help students overcome language barriers by using Microsoft's Presentation Translator (CB Insights Research, 2021). This tool allows a student to pick from a number of languages so they can read or hear the lecture. AI can also help teachers create lesson plans, email reminders, explain a lesson, find keyboard shortcuts, and more. We cannot overlook this new technology. We must, as educators, find a balance with AI. 
    The future-ready teacher needs to be prepared to match the learning and support needs of all students, Long said. There needs to be a balance of using technology with human interaction. 
    The way our students receive information is changing. Teachers and educators are going to have to continue to change their methods as well. 

References

Barron, M., Cobo, C., Munoz-Najar, A. & Sanchez Ciarrusta, I. (2021, February 18) The changing role of teachers and technologies amidst the COVID 19 pandemic: key findings from a cross-country study. World Bank Blogs (2021) The changing role of teachers and technologies amidst the COVID 19 pandemic: key findings from a cross-country study (worldbank.org)

CB Insights. (2020, October 2). Covid & Post Pandemic Education: 6 ways tech could transform how we teach & learn. CB Insights Research. https://www.cbinsights.com/research/back-to-school-tech-transforming-education-learning-post-covid-19/

EdTech Hub (2021, February 16). EdTech and Covid-19: 10 things you need to know [Video]. YouTube. https://youtu.be/cOkhyBbg92k

Harvard Graduate School of Education. (2021, March 30). COVID and Education: Challenges, Opportunities, and the Future of Learning [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KlzTEl8ATo

ISTE. (n.d.). https://www.iste.org/standards/iste-standards-for-teachers