The Future Teacher

I think a lot about the role of the teacher and how it really doesn't match up well to the needs of students or the structure of the ideal school. Teachers are asked to do so many different things with such diverse skill requirements that every teacher is weak in at least one critical area, even if he or she is amazing in other areas.

Think about it---if a teacher is a great lecturer, we expect her to also be great at data tracking. If he's great at lesson plan writing, he also has be great at one-to-one tutoring. If she's amazing with building fair and accurate assessments, she also has to be great at talking to parents.

Is this really realistic, let alone ideal?

With technology, regulations and school practices changing, I see the role of the teacher shifting. For this change to benefit teacher and students, we, as teachers, need to know what we want our profession to look like. What should a teacher's job be? I would argue that in the future school a teacher has 3 primary responsibilities:

·      Learning resource curator

·      Class captain

·      Student (and parent) advisor

I arrive here by asking the question: what can the teacher, and only the teacher, do?

Answer: The teacher is the interface between students and their learning objectives.

Not the answer: build resources from scratch, hands on skill building or information delivery, write and grade assessments or design and manage data trackers.

Why?

Because books, videos, adaptive learning software, experts and classmates can all be the source of information.

Because only the student himself can do practice required to increase skills.

Because professional designers, scientists, developers, and writers can create lesson plans, games, assessments and curricula that are standards-aligned and proven to improve educational outcomes.

However:

ONLY the teacher can modify, curate and adapt resources to the unique needs of her specific school environment, especially on the fly.

ONLY the teacher can communicate to a class the importance of a learning objective and can coordinate a group's efforts to all achieve that objective.

Finally, ONLY the teacher can reliably intervene and support a student who is struggling emotionally when the adaptive software fails.

If my predictions are true, then the most important skills of the future educator will be the ability to curate and utilize a variety of learning resources, manage a class of self-paced learners, and personalize coaching to the individual student.

The teacher will never be obsolete, because these are the critical, human functions that only a teacher can provide, and a trained, professional teacher will always do it better than any other person.

Do you agree with my assessment? If you are a teacher, how much does your current role resemble that of my "future teacher"? Are you advocating for the necessary support and resources so that you can do these 3 jobs of the future teacher as well as possible? 

The Next Step for Edtech

A disruptive product has such a strong impact on an industry that it renders obsolete the current market offerings.  For example, the invention of the telephone disrupted the communications market and more recently the iPad disrupted the market for personal computers.  Introducing innovations like these represents the pinnacle of success for startup businesses. For social entrepreneurs, disruptive innovation typically involves disrupting cycles of poverty, disease, ignorance or violence.

I have been knee deep in the start-up “space” now for close to a year, and I’ve increasingly wondered why venture capital and media attention seem to flow so steadily to startups offering products that are so… pointless. Clearly investors see a potential handsome return in a neat 3-5 year time frame. Nevertheless, the long-term viability (more than ten years) of a company offering a digital product with limited social impact presents neither an opportunity for social impact nor economic sustainability.  The social entrepreneur, who focuses on these long term goals, has a particularly hard time gaining attention or capital because a disruptive innovation for profit is easier to find than disruptive innovation that advance the double (or triple) bottom line. 

There are countless companies in the education space, and many of them are very exciting. Friends of mine at Kickboard and Jumprope have created management systems that really do meet an important need. Companies like BetterLesson offer a revolutionary platform for teachers to share resources. However, there are far more companies that merely work around the edges. Whether or not an edtech startup is developing a disruptive innovation or not, the education market typically presents difficult challenges to the startup entrepreneur.

Despite regulatory and cultural obstacles to systemic change, some school systems have ushered in new frameworks for experimentation. The city of New Orleans has provided a unique testing ground for many new startups due to the large number of charter schools that sprung up in the aftermath of Katrina.  Charter schools have the independent authority to choose their own curricula and teaching methodologies, allowing startups to enter the market there with new teaching products that otherwise might not have had a chance to reach the classroom. The changes taking place in New Orleans may or may not ultimately prove better for that community, but the increased level of innovation is undeniable. 

In my last post I discussed the increasing importance of technology in our society.  Social entrepreneurs have recognized this trend and are leveraging technology to improve education.  My own venture, LLESS, aims to introduce a new model of learning that draws from lessons in game design.  While technology is a critical component of our approach, we also recognize the importance of a sophisticated pedagogy involving discussion, debate, deep literacy, research and critical analysis. That’s why we have written an original curriculum guide for using our products, so that technology and gamification, two hot trends in education, serve as a facilitator or catalyst, not a replacement, for learning.

The next generation of Edtech, if good teachers are empowered to drive the market, will feature innovations that enhance curriculum and praxis, not simply classroom management or data collection.