While I’m not proud to admit it, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, I thought teaching remotely would be a dream come true. It wasn’t that I didn't value, cherish and miss the face-to-face interactions I had with my students, but because I naively assumed that my more reluctant colleagues would see the light and finally embrace edtech. As a techie at heart, I envisioned a digital utopia where post-pandemic schools would become fully digitized with students and teachers always remote and online while still preserving the magic of human interaction.

But when I looked over my classes after returning to in-person instruction, I had the sinking feeling that I had exchanged the traditional model of student instruction with individual seats in rows and columns for a replica with devices instead. Are we just educational luddites or has the edtech revolution fallen short of its promises? As educators, we need to be more discerning and discriminating about the use of technology in our classrooms and be willing to admit when the drawbacks outweigh the benefits.

The Hype Has Left the Building

The tech landscape at my school was far from unique before the pandemic. Between early adopters and strident naysayers, most teachers fell in the middle. Google classrooms were rarely used, and laptops, while ubiquitous, were primarily used during standardized testing season. The landscape seemed ripe for a tech revolution but it never gained the critical mass needed to be realized.

While I thought the integration of new tech at my school would be a good thing, it turned out to be mediocre, at best. Working from home on a subpar laptop, most of my time was spent waiting for things to load. Even the best tech couldn't drown out the sounds and distractions from neighbors in my building who were also forced to shelter in place and work from home. A dropped Internet connection – a minor annoyance in the best of times – became the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Ironically, though, it was the lack of human interaction that became the central issue. Chat messages were not able to mimic lively in-person exchanges between students, shared documents couldn’t replace collaboration in real-time, and a collage of student avatars was certainly no substitute for seeing students face-to-face — even in the rare instances when they would choose to turn on their device cameras. When tech adoption was voluntary, these shortcomings could be mitigated by using technology to enhance rather than replace human-centric teaching. When there was no alternative to making it the centerpiece, its deficiencies became impossible to work around.

Being a computer science teacher, I thought I had a natural affinity for technology that could translate into a successful tech-agnostic approach to curriculum and instruction; however, by Thanksgiving of the following year, I had led one too many uninspiring and demoralizing online classes where it felt like I was talking into a deep, dark void. Swapping stories with fellow teachers over the past year, it is apparent that these experiences are nearly universal. As the medium and the messenger, technology became the scapegoat for all the frustration and discouragement teachers and students felt at that time, including myself. Ultimately, when put to the test, the edtech boom in 2020 fell far short of its hype.

The Exhaustion Lingers On

The lingering fatigue many teachers and students are experiencing with edtech is real, and in hindsight, completely predictable. Lockdowns and hybrid classes during the pandemic gave edtech companies a golden opportunity to peddle their wares to a captive audience, and it gave teachers enthusiastic about edtech a virtually limitless playground to try out new tools and apps. The tech deluge also necessitated that users create multiple accounts on multiple platforms, each with its own dashboards to monitor and quirks to work around. “I just delete all the emails from tech companies and people offering PD because it’s just too much,” a colleague told me in the later stages of the pandemic.

Even students, the “digital natives'' whom many of us assumed would be much more facile with technology, eventually got tired of juggling so many different platforms. In each of my classes — from freshman introductory programming to my senior-level advanced placement calculus — as the months went on, I noticed much lower student engagement with numerous tech platforms I used to teach. Every new app seemed to fill the gap and provide features that other apps were missing, so it was tempting to try and find a use case for all of them, but the experience left us dazed, confused and apathetic.

Much of my time was spent learning keystrokes and navigating preferences instead of thinking about the more impactful question of how to incorporate technology in a meaningful way that would facilitate the human aspects of teaching and learning, like discourse and creativity. The time I spent fiddling and tweaking classroom tech gave me a harmless, mindless and justifiable escape from confronting the realities of an unprecedented worldwide pandemic, but these distractions were also emblematic of my worldview before the world changed. My preference for a technological solution above all others was as much an unconscious attempt to mitigate and hide deficiencies in my own teaching as it was about my belief in the superiority of bits and bytes. This was a hard truth to swallow, one which spurred me to delete more than a few accounts and intentionally cherish the slivers of human contact that managed to make it through digital filters and firewalls.

Observing my classes during these early days back to in-person instruction and seeing a sea of silent, unresponsive, and almost shell-shocked students, I felt more defeated, ineffective and powerless than at any other time in my career. There is an exhaustion that lingers from that experience, an exhaustion that teachers have not had the time and space to recover from before being thrown back into the classroom to make up learning losses and bolster social-emotional learning deficits.

Accepting What Never Was

As we continue on in this new school year, I finally feel a sense of normalcy has returned to our campus. Classrooms are filled with excited and happy student voices, but among us teachers, there is still skepticism about edtech that remains. While that may seem unfortunate, it is actually healthy and, in the long run, serves as a cautionary tale for us all. Like all of the human actors in the pandemic drama, edtech was forced into a role that it was never designed for.

Our humanity remains at the heart of good teaching, and tech is best used to support, enhance and facilitate the human-to-human interactions that underlie it. When it tries to assume a starring role and become all things to all people, its rapidly diminishing benefits become outweighed by its drawbacks. While my digital utopia never came to fruition, at least edtech has given us a better ability to distinguish between a dream and reality.

© Frame Stock Footage / Shutterstock

Amy Ballard, Ph.D., a math teacher and instructional coach at Brashier Middle College Charter High School in Simpsonville, South Carolina, has more than two decades of experience and spends a lot of time thinking about edtech. Yet Ballard’s main focus is not the tools themselves, but rather, how to support teachers leveraging edtech to help improve student learning.

“I worked as an administrator for 10 years, so I think about edtech from both sides — both how an administrator makes decisions about edtech tools, but also how we can support our teachers,” Ballard shared in a focus group that was part of a larger project designed to better understand the gap between teaching practices and technology use. This project was supported by Google for Education and involved a number of partners, including our organization, WestEd.

As the research leads on the project, we drew on literature and educator focus groups to investigate how technology could be leveraged most effectively in instruction, the barriers to adoption, and the strategies that could best support teachers in adopting effective instructional practices.

We selected Ballard and her peers for our series of focus groups because of their leadership in supporting the effective use of technology in their schools. Even though Ballard is a self-described “early adopter,” she is careful not to recommend the latest, shiniest tools to her teachers outright. She recognizes that tools must align to teachers’ instructional goals and must be accompanied by professional development that covers not just how individual tools function, but also how they fit into effective teaching practice.

“I need to reiterate with my teachers that the tech tool itself isn't the be all, end all,” Ballard said. Instead, she added that it is important to center edtech around the educator; ultimately it is how teachers use that technology to advance their instructional goals that matters.

A Shift to Technology-Enabled Instruction

Ballard, along with other teachers who participated in our focus groups, is helping to cultivate “technology-enabled instruction,” a concept coined by education researchers Peggy A. Ertmer and Anne Ottenbreit-Leftwich that refers not just to whether technology is used in the classroom but also when and how teachers use technology to improve learning outcomes.

For a school to shift from simply adding tech tools to encouraging teachers to use them effectively, a few elements must be in place, including informed decision-making by leadership, continual training and support for teachers and buy-in from staff. After all, there are a lot of reasons why a teacher might be reluctant to embrace edtech, and not all of these obstacles hinge on whether a teacher knows how to integrate technology in the classroom.

Ballard understands that better than most. For example, in one of our focus groups, we asked teachers to examine the prototype for a tool they could use to evaluate whether and how to use edtech. Ballard believed that the tool required too much time for teachers to parse and leverage effectively in their teaching. She said, “When I think about my teachers, I think they would just shut down if they saw this.” Ballard illustrated that sometimes it’s not about knowing how to use a tool — it’s about not having the time.

There are good reasons for that, Ballard said. Teachers are already stressed, overwhelmed by technology and reluctant to invest their limited time in a potentially unproven tool or approach. Many have seen this show before: a faddish flavor of the month that was quickly replaced by the next big thing or that was shown to be ineffective in the long term.

For a school to shift from simply adding tech tools to encouraging teachers to use them effectively, a few elements must be in place, including informed decision-making by leadership, continual training and support for teachers and buy-in from staff.

Barriers to Embracing Technology in the Classroom

Teachers in our focus groups explained that beyond time and experience-backed cynicism, there are a host of other reasons why teachers might not want to adopt technology-enabled instructional practices.

Some participants reflected that they have colleagues who express a lack of confidence in their technological abilities or who say they have adopted non-technological approaches that they feel are more effective. Others shared that they or their colleagues fear being reprimanded by school leaders for trying something new, don’t feel adequately trained, or lack access to the tools they need to implement edtech effectively.

These explanations for educator reticence about embracing edtech are backed up by a quarter-century of research, dating back to before the term “technology-enabled instruction” was first introduced. Ertmer first distinguished between “first- and second-order barriers” to the effective use of technology in the classroom in 1999, referring to categories of challenges that are sometimes called “external and internal barriers.”

External barriers are factors outside of a teacher’s control — access to technology, support from leadership and opportunities to participate in high-quality professional development, among others. Internal barriers are intrinsic to the teacher — for example, their beliefs and attitudes about the usefulness of technology, and their real and perceived knowledge.

Examples of External BarriersExamples of Internal BarriersLack of access to technologyReal and perceived knowledge and skillsLack of professional developmentBeliefs about technology-enabled teaching and learningLack of a school or district vision for technology integrationPedagogical values and beliefsPoor or unsupportive leadership

This distinction between external and internal barriers was intuitive for the teachers in our focus groups. If a classroom has spotty Wi-Fi or a teacher has inadequate access to devices for students, it’s awfully hard to make the most of edtech. If a teacher has had negative prior experiences with edtech tools or considers themself a technophobe, it’s difficult to convince them that learning to use tech tools is a good use of time.

Understanding the Relationship Between Barriers

The significance of these barriers has changed over time. Over the past two decades, there has been significant progress on breaking down external barriers such as Wi-Fi and device access, even as the challenges are far from solved. According to a 2019-20 survey administered by the National Center for Education Statistics, nine out of 10 schools reported that their computers met the school’s teaching and learning needs to a moderate or large extent. Internet access has also improved substantially. A 2021 survey by EdWeek Research Center found that more than 75 percent of teachers said that at least three-quarters of their students have adequate internet access at home to support learning. Digital divides persist, but schools have made some progress in addressing these barriers.

When looking at how teachers use technology, their school and district context matters a great deal too. A teacher in one school might work with administrators who’ve clearly articulated a plan for how teachers can use edtech and who have provided the support necessary for teachers to implement that vision. That support might include peer-teacher models, relevant professional development opportunities and professional learning communities that elevate teacher voices. A teacher in another school with less support might be less effective in using edtech.

When considering how to address these context-specific barriers, it’s important to understand how internal and external barriers are related. In a landmark study of barriers to using edtech effectively published in 2007, researchers Khe Foon Hew and Thomas Brush argued that internal and external barriers must be addressed together. As Hew and Brush put it, these barriers “are so inextricably linked together that it is very difficult to address them separately.”

Several participants in our focus groups told us that they were excited to embrace new edtech tools but encountered resistance from leaders who claimed that the work did not fit into the vision for the school or who did not support additional teacher training. In these cases, teachers faced no internal barriers when it came to beliefs and attitudes, but they were still hampered by using edtech effectively in instruction.

Other teachers told us that they had colleagues who had access to a variety of tools but who viewed technology negatively, and opted not to use technology in ways that could have benefited student learning.

Those internal barriers are especially tough to address. The good news is that research shows that teachers' beliefs, values and attitudes are not static, and that school and district leaders can play an important role in changing their perceptions, paving the way for technology-enabled instruction to take place.

How School and District Leaders Can Address Barriers Holistically

A number of researchers, including Ertmer, Windschitl, Hew and Brush, have shown that teachers’ beliefs — the underlying ideas and assumptions they hold about technology and pedagogy — influence whether and how they use technology.

Yet, these researchers have also shown that these beliefs are malleable. Ertmer and others have shown that teachers’ beliefs about edtech can shift when presented with evidence that a practice improves student learning. When school and district leaders help teachers see how tech can help with a particular teaching goal such as scaffolding or accommodation of individual student needs, teachers are more likely to be open to using technology in instruction.

Studies also reveal that teachers’ beliefs and practices can also change in response to direct, positive experiences using edtech. Opportunities to experiment with tech in small and incremental ways can help teachers improve their self-confidence, self-efficacy and perceived technical knowledge, resulting in teachers’ willingness to use tech where it can benefit instruction and learning. There’s also evidence that teachers can experience a similar shift in attitude when schools support them with ongoing and relevant professional learning opportunities, professional learning communities and opportunities to contribute to decision-making.

Of course, instituting these approaches to shift teachers’ beliefs and attitudes to foster technology-enabled practices isn’t easy. It requires substantial time, effort, respect for educators and a clear understanding of how internal and external barriers relate. But, as we heard from the teachers in our focus groups, it is a process that will ultimately benefit everyone, students most especially.

© cybermagician / Shutterstock

Beata Mirecka-Jakubowska, M.A.
Founder & CEO, Intercultural Education Consulting

The metaverse, a virtual, interconnected, and immersive digital space where users can interact with each other and digital environments, holds tremendous potential to transform education. It can facilitate immersive learning environments, allowing educators to craft virtual classrooms or historical settings so that students engage in interactive and captivating lessons. Collaborative learning thrives in the metaverse, fostering teamwork and cross-cultural communication as students from different locations collaborate on projects. Experiential learning is enhanced, offering a safe platform for hands-on activities like science experiments. AI-driven avatars and virtual tutors enable personalized learning experiences, catering to individual learning styles. Geographical barriers are dissolved, granting global access to high-quality education for students from diverse backgrounds.

Beata Mirecka-Jakubowska, the founder and CEO of Intercultural Education Consulting Group, has 36 years of international classroom experience. She turned to ViewSonic’s 3D immersive platform UNIVERSE with her online graduate students in Indonesia and later tried it with the Connected Learning project team in Iceland. Mirecka-Jakubowska has a contagious passion for learning and urges educators to embrace this new technology. EdSurge had the opportunity to speak with Mirecka-Jakubowska about her exploration of UNIVERSE, its impact on student engagement, the need for open-mindedness among educators and the exciting potential of the metaverse in education.

---

Watch this video to see what teaching and learning in UNIVERSE looks like!

---

EdSurge: How did your teaching journey lead you to try UNIVERSE with your college students?

Mirecka-Jakubowska: That’s a very long story that goes back to the 1970s when I attended the United Nations International School in New York. [Laughs]. I learned early to be open to change. I had very good training as a substitute teacher in my first year at TASIS Hellenic International School in Greece. I went to school every morning, and whoever was absent, I replaced that person. So I taught Greek, Arabic, PE, first grade, 12th grade, IB, middle school — anything! How did I teach Arabic when I had no clue what the individual letters even looked like? I tried to be creative, use the resources around me and empower my students. I gave the reins to my students, and they loved it! That got me thinking about student-centered learning — something not well known back then. With that knowledge, when I moved to Jakarta International School in Indonesia, and with the help of several dear colleagues, we began creating student-centered programs.

Recommended Links

• 6 Benefits of Immersive Learning with the Metaverse
• How To Teach Tech-Savvy Students Using Metaverse Avatars

When technology evolved in the late 1990s, first with email and then websites, the school’s IT head said, “Trust me, you want to learn all of this.” So, that’s what I did. I trusted him, and I even learned to code. As technology continued to develop, I often thought, Oh, that’s something my students need to know for their future. Who’s going to teach them? And I realized I’m the one who is going to teach them these skills. I integrated project-based learning and technology in all kinds of ways. I asked my English language learners to create films. I asked them to create websites. I asked them to create blogs to interact through blended learning. Did we have failures? Absolutely. There was always something to improve, something that went wrong. But I would tell my students, We will learn from this. What can we do better next time?

In 2018, I attended a workshop where I talked with a game-app developer. We started talking about gamification and how we could use games in a different way, a more developmental way. I envisioned a classroom with avatars who work on interactive projects together, and students could log in from anywhere. Then, in 2022, I was at the Singapore EDUtech Asia conference, and as I was walking by the booths, I saw my vision had become a reality. I thought, How is it possible that somebody else made my dream come true? I tried UNIVERSE there, and it blew me away. I could walk between student groups and hear all the conversations. I could stop and talk but still hear other groups in the background. It was totally different from [video conferencing]. And I knew I had to use it with students.

How did UNIVERSE help increase student engagement and interactions for learning in a virtual setting?

I noticed during the class that everyone wanted to say something. Even those students who were not usually talkers were super engaged. Those who were normally reluctant to speak seemed to speak up, perhaps because of their fascination with the technology or because they could be avatars. Their shyness was detached; they could try on a different persona and change their interactions in the classroom. They seemed to feel safe speaking among the cacophony of other voices in the background.

The adaptability, flexibility and creativity of the teacher will play a huge role in designing and implementing a lesson in the metaverse to have learning outcomes that surpass those of the traditional classroom.

— Beata Mirecka-Jakubowska

One exercise that worked very well was the interactive Collaboration Board. I placed an image with a question on the board, and all the students responded either with sticky notes or text. That is a great writing and thinking tool. And then there is that fantastic button that the teacher can press, and all of the avatars are seated and muted. I think UNIVERSE has great potential.

---

Students are circled around the Collaboration Board to share their thoughts on a discussion topic using sticky notes and texts.

---

What challenges did you work through during the implementation process?

The preparation involves designing the classroom. Teachers need to think about how to set up the flow of the room for the best experience. It takes time to navigate everything and learn the technology. It takes time to teach the technology to students. A teacher probably won’t get everything done on the first try. The adaptability, flexibility and creativity of the teacher will play a huge role in designing and implementing a lesson in the metaverse to have learning outcomes that surpass those of the traditional classroom.

For students who logged in from different islands around Indonesia, sometimes their Wi-Fi wasn’t strong enough to carry their voices without breakage. But the drawbacks of the experience were mainly technical. Once we worked through what we could, students completed several tasks and activities in UNIVERSE for about 50 minutes and didn’t want to leave.

Technology is on a course of its own. We must embrace new technology and improve upon it to enhance learning. This is history in the making, and it is exciting to be a part of it!

— Mirecka-Jakubowska

What guidance can you offer educators who are considering incorporating metaverse experiences into their teaching environments?

My advice is to be open-minded. Embrace the changes and embrace the challenges. Some teachers worry about students using Chat GPT, so they say it is forbidden in their classes. That is similar to 10 or 15 years ago when teachers said phones are forbidden in class; put them on the side. And I said, no, bring the phones in. That's your dictionary. That's your resource. Learn to use it wisely and manage distractions. Learning how to use the metaverse wisely is something to bring to the table with that open-mindedness because we are never going to stop technology. Technology is on a course of its own. We must embrace new technology and improve upon it to enhance learning. This is history in the making, and it is exciting to be a part of it!

---

To learn more about UNIVERSE by ViewSonic and how it can help support your teaching and learning needs, you can schedule a demo with a solution expert here.

Plato once quoted Socrates lamenting that, “If men learn this, it will implant forgetfulness in their souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written.”1 The ancient philosopher was speaking, of course, of the latest technology in the B.C. era: hand-written scrolls.

As humans, we’ve always had a somewhat complicated history with invention. On the one hand, we are driven to create tools that make our lives more efficient, but we also can’t help but feel a little uncertain of these new steps even as we are compelled to take them. With all new technology comes a great deal of trepidation that our previous ways of knowing are being lost. It goes with the territory, so to speak, whether we are living in ancient times or here in the 21st century.

With all new technology comes a great deal of trepidation that our previous ways of knowing are being lost.

Last spring, my university held an emergency faculty meeting about identifying papers written using artificial intelligence. Upon the release of ChatGPT in the fall of 2022, we noticed that some of our students had suddenly become “experts” at synthesizing research and organizing their term papers, often resulting in perfect scores on their written assignments. It was a bit of a dizzying experience trying to get ahead of the technology as we scrambled to find ways to cope with this impressive new platform, so seemingly well-equipped to help our students effortlessly complete their assignments.

We had been here before in the ’90s when we were all but certain that internet search engines had entirely ruined higher education. Despite those first days of insecurity, we decided to teach ourselves to lean in to technology rather than distance ourselves from it. Teachers and librarians began to integrate online formats into the learning experience, with great success and often with highly desired outcomes. It worked out perfectly!

But just as we were relaxing into a smug sense of mastery, AI happened, and it unexpectedly upended the whole deal.

With our lessons on leaning in not far behind us, we knew we had to embrace this new technology. We also knew that the detection software was not far behind, and in fact, it was released by the next term. The best way to harness a monster, after all, is to create a more powerful one.

Yet in our rush to control the technology, we may have initially overlooked the gifts that had been given to us via AI. In truth, this new invention can take us to next-level learning, and we are just now unlocking the full potential of this in our classrooms.

Ways that students and educators may benefit from using AI include:

• Creating an opportunity to rethink gender equality in technology
• Offering support for people learning English as a second language
• Enabling alternative instruction techniques for atypical learning
• Teaching students to share and sharpen their thoughts

An Opportunity to Rethink Gender Equality in Technology

Gender inequality in technology development and user design is a well-known challenge; expanding technology use is part of the solution. Melinda Gates has recently given a series of interviews sounding the alarm over the inherent male-centered bias of AI, among other concerns.

To shift AI toward being a more neutral, individual-oriented tool, educators can commit to teaching and supporting the use of gender decoders, which are algorithms that detect a lack of gender inclusivity, and other modalities aimed at achieving design balance.

On a grand scale, the United Nations is working on an agenda to address this and other concerns at the Global Digital Compact session in fall of 2024, which aims to “outline shared principles for an open, free and secure digital future for all.” At the individual level, though, we can each encourage and inspire the students in our classrooms to consider how to address such complex issues as gender bias in their own use (and design) of technology tools. The STEM gender gap remains an area of much-needed attention that we, as educators, can actively work on improving in our daily lessons.

Support for People Learning English as a Second Language

AI offers people who are learning English new and improved avenues for more effective communication. Language AI modeling tools can assist learners with pronunciation, grammar and translation, responding receptively in real time through simulated chats and quizzing techniques.

Some formats even allow learners to generate 3D images based on their written instructions, creating an instant multi-sensory experience as they work on their language skills. The benefit to our classrooms is immeasurable here as it can engage students at their proficiency level, helping students keep up with their peers and the flow of class material.

This technology can be reversed too, assisting English-speaking students in foreign language acquisition. Such tools set the foundation for meeting the needs of a 21st century economy, where global communication skills are essential for students and teachers alike.

Alternative Instruction for Atypical Learning

This is a game-changer for neurodivergent students or those with specialized educational needs. Visual or auditory challenges can effectively be addressed via AI, as programs can be coded to communicate via sign language or translate written words into speech. AI configurations can also provide students with audio, pictures, or project-driven materials according to personalized feedback.

One of the strengths of the software is that it can be prompted to explain the same concept in several different ways. This allows students the ability to repetitively work through difficult subjects until they locate an explanation of the material that resonates with them.

Additionally, researchers have found that some learners with autism or ADHD, for example, respond more positively to lessons provided by robots than other approaches that have been used. One of the key findings is that mechanized bots don’t demonstrate facial feedback that could be construed as unsupportive or judgmental. Broader research is currently underway, indicating that this is an area of growth investment for our schools.

Teaching Students to Share and Sharpen Their Thoughts

I’m learning to accept the setbacks that might come with such giant leaps forward, hopeful that AI will provide us with innovative tools to help every student reach their highest potential.

Students shouldn’t use AI to write their papers, but it can help them get started with the hardest part: organization. In my classrooms, I encourage some students to use ChatGPT for expediency in brainstorming paper topics. This includes using AI for designing outlines, learning about core foundational designs (like how to build a thesis), or integrating appropriate stylized citations. In this way, it is the starting point for research, and the heavy lifting comes on the other end of the information garnered from the software.

For example, since AI is hugely prone to internal factual flaws, students must fact-check and cross-reference every statement generated by the tool. Critical thinking comes into play as students must locate, read and determine the legitimacy of each original source. The next step is to formulate and express their own ideas on the subject matter. In this way, we encourage a healthy dose of skepticism in our learners, motivating them to take control of tech-generated content rather than be passive consumers of it.

While the future of AI is unclear, I am taking a lean in approach as we journey toward this frontier. As with all new inventions (from hand-written scrolls to talking robots), I’m learning to accept the setbacks that might come with such giant leaps forward, hopeful that AI will provide us with innovative tools to help every student reach their highest potential.

---

1 Plato (1952) [c. 360 B.C.E.]. Phaedrus. Translated by Reginald Hackfort. pp. 274c-275 b.

© Moor Studio / Shutterstock

This past spring, I overheard one of my fifth graders boast that he would start using ChatGPT to do his homework. I chuckled because I knew him well enough that he wouldn’t follow through. Frankly, I would have been thrilled that he did any homework, even with assistance. I’d already read many stories about ChatGPT in the news, and initially, I wasn’t concerned that the emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) would impact my teaching. I assumed we’d work around it, or better yet, incorporate it in meaningful ways.

However, after listening to a TED Talk featuring Sal Khan, the founder of Khan Academy, demonstrating the use of AI tutors in his school, I realized that my days of teaching traditional math content and language arts skills are numbered. It won’t be long before there’s an AI that can teach students how to compare fractions better than I can, or one that can listen to students read and identify the specific decoding skills or vocabulary they need to improve their comprehension. That should scare me, but it doesn’t.

The reality is, as much as I love teaching my content, I don’t have the capacity to do the individualized planning to support every child’s learning. There isn’t time in the day to give them immediate feedback on their work or sit with each student and guide them through it. Could Khanmigo do it? Perhaps.

I could worry about losing my job, but I also see an upside. The arrival of AI gives us an opportunity to talk about what teachers do that goes beyond learning content and practicing skills. Specifically, we can focus on our roles as human and social engineers, helping to develop young people and creating the world of the future in collaboration with them.

What Matters in My Classroom

Embracing the identity of every student is central to what I do as a teacher. Allowing them to be who they are and helping them to blossom into who they want to be happens when academic goals aren’t the only important thing. This can be as simple as when I cheered on the Ghanaian national soccer team during the World Cup to connect with a student whose father immigrated from there or provided time and space for a student fascinated by seashells to draw and categorize her collection, fostering a lifelong passion for science and nature that’s allowed her to study marine biology abroad. By teaching students how to find their voice and explore their passions, we’re setting them up for a future in which their identities are valued and they feel empowered to pursue their dreams.

It also means knowing and understanding that kids experiencing life changes, traumatic events or mental health struggles need space to express their feelings and the safety of knowing they can escape their challenges for a little while. Imagine if the purpose of my job was to deeply know and support each child in my care, instead of it being something I’m supposed to squeeze in between academic goals? The AI could focus on how they are doing in math and I could focus on who they are becoming as people.

At an end-of-the-year picnic, I ran into a former student on the playground who returned to visit friends. She seemed like a different kid who was more positive and open than I knew her to be. She told me that she felt like she learned to care more about others in my class and believes she’s a better person now because of her experience. One routine that made a difference for her was our weekly appreciation circles where students share something positive they saw another student doing during the week. She learned to pay attention to others and practiced kindness, empathy and gratitude. The community we built during that year influenced the value she placed on others. We need human connection to develop, and schools are integral to growing those abilities in every child. I could pour even more energy into helping kids learn how to build community if AI helped them build their academic skills.

Adaptive Educators

By constantly adapting our curriculum, we have the ability to critically examine the culture we’re sharing and work to change the beliefs and messages schools transmit.

Last year, I had two students come back to visit me. During their visit, we reminisced over the map-making project about explorers that we did when they were in my fifth grade class. The district set the curriculum, but the medium of creating maps to share what they learned was a decision I made based on my observations of the students in the class. My class loved to doodle, so I decided that if they were going to be drawing all the time, they should do it for a purpose. We researched explorers, took trips to practice mapping and investigated a local collection of historical maps. My former students didn’t remember the specific facts they included, but they remembered doing draft after draft of their maps – they persevered, grew their skills and had fun along the way.

My classroom is centered on rich content and integrated projects that allow students to collaborate, be creative and experience growth. I have a scope and sequence to follow, but I adapt my teaching to the students in front of me each year and what they need. As exhausting as it is, I rarely teach the same unit in the same way; I’m constantly re-examining it through my students’ eyes and what they need. This requires an understanding of the students in the class, something we can’t ask AI for. This past year, when we studied the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Americas and the genocide that followed, I considered the experience of a student in my class, who is Taíno, the first peoples of the Caribbean who encountered Columbus. It made no sense to continue reading textbooks and articles saying the Taíno were gone when that was plainly false. Instead, we talked about how those stories came to be and whose interests they served. She felt seen, and the whole class understood how history can be incomplete and why the stories we tell matter.

This is another way that human teachers are essential. By constantly adapting our curriculum, we have the ability to critically examine the culture we’re sharing and work to change the beliefs and messages schools transmit. I wouldn’t rely on AI to unearth new understandings and find hidden stories. Large language models that drive AI are built on the past and the beliefs and biases that have shaped us are baked into the texts that those models use to learn. Robot teachers are more likely to recycle and reinforce the status quo than change it. Our ability to critique the past and evolve from it is why human teachers are vital.

Becoming a Different Kind of Social Engineer

If my only function is teaching academic skills, I should worry about becoming obsolete. We need to claim responsibility for developing young people, building community and shaping the world our students will live in.

I know there are myriad concerns about bringing AI into our schools. Those concerns are another reason we must recognize teachers’ role in shaping society. In the absence of ethics and values to drive the deployment of AI, its arrival in schools is a risk. We know that technology may negatively impact children’s mental health and social relationships, and AI could make this worse. Teachers are on the front lines of helping students navigate new technologies and the messages that bombard them. My class discussions regularly include conversations about pop culture, videos, song lyrics and memes to try and unpack and process the ideas they spread. The stream is so constant that teachers need to be there to help kids make sense of it all.

I believe AI has the potential to help students grow their academic knowledge and skills and give teachers time to do more of the human development and social engineering that is an essential, if not under-recognized, part of our work. If social engineering sounds controversial, it shouldn’t be – at least not in the context that we are most familiar with the term. Schools and educators have always played a role in shaping society, and while technology and media have too, educators are publicly accountable. Doing the work of developing people and community should happen out in the open, through the public and democratic forum of schools and the guidance of human teachers.

Sitting on the sidelines and claiming that we only teach content isn’t going to be enough in the future. If my only function is teaching academic skills, I should worry about becoming obsolete. We need to claim responsibility for developing young people, building community and shaping the world our students will live in.

My student who wanted to use ChatGPT for his homework struggled academically in my class. I wasn’t successful in teaching him much content, but I was one of the few adults in the building he trusted. He knew I believed in him and wanted him to be his best self. I gave him experiences that stretched and helped him build community with others. It was hard but necessary work, and I wish I could have done more to help him grow socially and academically.

AI gives us an opportunity to reinvent the role of teachers to focus more on the human development and social engineering we constantly do. I’m shaping society and creating the future every day in my classroom. We can’t ask a computer to teach kids how to be human, but if AI can allow me to make sure that my students flourish as people, then I can get on board.

© Andrey_Popov / Shutterstock

Picture it: Thirty students in your classroom, each at different levels, with varying needs and interests. Yet, there is just one set of learning standards, one big state exam and one of you. The predicament arises when learners struggle to keep pace with a mandatory curriculum, raising questions about the effectiveness of a one-size-fits-all, grade-level approach to education.

Imagine now if technology could help us change this narrative. Imagine it could be a catalyst for good in restoring our foundational principles to get us back to the heart of education. What if, with the right tools, we could truly reach every student?

How did we get here?

Until the late 19th century, American students of differing ages and abilities were all taught in one room by one teacher. The “one-room school house” might ring a bell. With such a diverse group of learners, early teachers had no choice but to put differentiation at the heart of education.

Recommended Resources

• ReadTheory for Educators: Create a free account and access thousands of activities
• Watch How to Get Started with ReadTheory
• Download Free Worksheets to Build Comprehension Skills
• Download Free Lesson Plans to Boost Reading Skills
• Join the Waitlist to experience ReadTheory's new AI passage builder
• Read interviews with ReadTheory teachers

As time passed, larger schools were built, standards were set, curriculum development was the priority and the focus shifted from individual goals to grade-level expectations. Yet, all along, teachers voiced their concerns, acknowledging that students learn best when they feel seen, set their own goals and move at their own pace.

More standardization, less progress

Recent findings from The Nation's Report Card, a longstanding assessment in math and reading, have heightened concerns. Although the assessment has been consistent since its inception in the 1970s, the scores from the last school year for teenagers were the lowest seen in over a decade.

With the ongoing teacher shortage, compounding impact of the pandemic and increasing growth in class sizes, teachers are faced with even larger learning gaps among students. Given the limited hours in a school day, it is nearly impossible for a single teacher to provide personalized instruction to all students. While some students might not get the specific help or clarification they need, others might be held back, waiting for the rest to catch up.

As we strive for effective assessment methods, are we neglecting the fundamental strategies that played a role in our previous achievements? Along the way, have we veered off course from the primary goals of education?

Getting back to the heart of education

Technology enables us to go back to our roots by alleviating teachers of mundane, time-consuming tasks, emphasizing individual student focus and delivering tailored practice. At the same time, these tools should preserve the intrinsic aspects of teaching, empowering educators with the insights needed to quickly gain a good understanding of students and intervene when needed.

Those were the guiding principles behind ReadTheory, an adaptive reading comprehension platform that helps educators move beyond grade-level expectations and get back to the heart of education.

By deeply understanding each student and leveraging modern tools, we can offer individualized instruction that propels every student along their distinct journey.

“ReadTheory helps me to hit the needs of every single student in my class without creating more work for myself to differentiate assignments,” shares Caitlyn Herron, a middle school educator and ReadTheory user.

Establishing itself at the forefront of innovation, ReadTheory was ahead of its time and embraced artificial intelligence (AI) within its framework in 2018. Its advanced algorithm has an unmatched capability to adapt continually to each student’s unique level while delivering real-time feedback to the student.

In parallel, it provides educators with actionable insights through comprehensive yet easy-to-understand reporting. Since Herron’s classroom is Harry Potter-themed, she refers to ReadTheory time as “wizard time” and establishes station rotations to hold small group interventions. During small groups, she focuses on specific skills and standards and can give all students what they need in a unique, engaging way.

---

Screenshot of ReadTheory’s ELA Standards Class Report

---

Most of all, each student’s level is kept private between her and the student. All students practice at their own pace and continually achieve more, getting the right level of both challenge and support. Herron allows students to set their own goals in addition to having classroom goals. As students win badges and progress on their own paths, they gain confidence, self-reflection and life skills essential to whole-child development.

As we embark on the 2023-2024 academic year, there presents a moment for recalibration: a new year, a fresh start and perhaps a renewed commitment to every student. By deeply understanding each student and leveraging modern tools, we can offer individualized instruction that propels every student along their distinct journey. In doing so, we aim not merely for standard benchmarks but for the holistic development and success of every child.

© Image Credit: Ground Picture / Shutterstock