Empowering Teachers Can Fuel Innovation in Digital Education
A multi-year study across primary schools in South Africa proved that a single teacher conducting virtual classes could deliver education that equaled three on-site teachers. Plus, it was equally effective yet more economical. Over the years, technology and digital pedagogy have evolved dramatically. The question is no longer whether structured educational transformation should be applied. It is about how to do it most effectively and promptly to offset the learning years lost amid the pandemic and global teacher shortage. This blog takes a deep dive into the benefits of empowering educators to leverage virtual teaching and how it can impact innovation in digital education.
The Benefits of Empowering Teachers
An online learning management solution offers multiple benefits:
- It allows educators to customize learning paths for students according to their distinct learning goals.
- Automated tracking of student activities and continued assessments takes some burden off their shoulders.
- Micro-credentialing helps identify specific learning gaps for reinforcement and improvisation.
- Automated assessment creation and evaluation frees up teachers’ time for other purposes, such as lesson planning, individualized feedback, and time for themselves to keep their mental and physical health in check.
How Digital Learning is Empowering Educators
Online content simplifies collaboration among teachers across states and countries. During teacher shortages, educators worldwide can reach students across regions and borders. Leveraging collaborative tools can also help educators align their skills with the students’ cultural, demographic, and learning requirements.
Content Reuse
Online learning allows the repurposing of content. Modularity in lessons and assessments enables teachers to customize and reuse the content as and when required. They can repurpose their own and other teachers’ content to improve learning outcomes.
Simplified Student Management
Online rostering systems have greatly simplified student record management and report generation. Automated and visually descriptive reports help parents and teachers gain insights into student performance quickly and easily. Additionally, artificial intelligence suggests areas of improvement, modules, and even assessment formats to enhance academic achievement.
Educator Education
The most crucial impact of digital transformation in education for teachers is that they can now learn and grow at the pace at which learners’ requirements are expanding. In addition, digital tools allow self-assessment and suggest improvement strategies to enhance pedagogical and interpersonal skills.
Innovation in Teaching
Digital transformation has enabled the analysis of learning outcome achievement levels. It has also eased the comparison of individual achievements with class, school, or even state levels to assess learning gaps. Key innovations shaping the future of education are:
- Application of novel methodologies, such as learning buddies, peer assessments, gamification, etc., have transformed classrooms. Teachers can now include animation, virtual experiments, and even link podcasts as learning aids. Additionally, they can train students in soft skills, such as public speaking, collaborative problem solving, design thinking, and conducting surveys and research.
- Flipped classrooms, where students go through the content (by reading or watching videos/animations) and application activities and problem-solving in the classroom, have proved useful. These have also made way for interactive lessons, such as solving jigsaw puzzles, virtual laboratories, and augmented reality-based experiential learning.
- The rise of blended learning is another innovative teaching methodology. With the added flexibility of anytime/anywhere education, some students can choose traditional classes while others can use distance learning modes.
- Applying DEI-based learning has been simplified with the availability of lessons and assessments that can dynamically adapt to student needs. In addition, personalized goal setting and instruction delivery has eased learning for students with special teaching needs, bringing them at par with their peers.
These methodologies result in higher student engagement and improved retention.
Challenges in Empowering Teachers via Digital Learning
Empowering teachers to leverage technology to improve lesson delivery, student outreach, and personal growth has its challenges as well:
- Digital literacy among teachers is critical to help them leverage technology in the best interest of students.
- Access to and education via digital tools for teaching is a significant problem, especially in states and nations with unreliable internet access and lower income levels.
- There needs to be more tools for teachers to develop customized lessons and assessments for students with challenges. Of the few available, teachers are not adept at using most of them.
- Ironically, overburdened teachers do not have enough time to learn to use EdTech tools that can eventually reduce their burden.
Final Thoughts
Teachers are the most critical resource in the education ecosystem, and empowering them is crucial to building the future generation of leaders and innovators. However, the lack of access to and awareness of EdTech resources is hindering that growth. EdTech companies have the responsibility to incorporate the needs of teachers in their daily rosters to enable them to learn and then include innovative technology solutions in teaching.
MagicBox is a transformational leader in the EdTech domain. It offers a comprehensive learning management solution with API-based, plug-and-play tools to transform the experience of an LMS without any downtime. Contact us now to learn how innovative solutions can help you empower teachers to seamlessly integrate technology in their teaching processes.
