Australian teachers have long felt undervalued as a profession however, since remote learning has become part of our educational landscape the true impact and appreciation for good teachers has bloomed. The advancement of technology has given rise to a renewed sense of appreciation for non- technological endeavours. Lockdowns and remote learning have reminded us to celebrate the humanity of teaching. Teachers play a crucial role in motivating and engaging students, supporting their wellbeing and nurturing their growth in academic and personal goals. No matter how good technology is, strong student teacher relationships remain key in education and effective teaching.
Embracing technology for technology’s sake benefits no one. We all have a new app or content delivery system for our subject area that we have embraced with enthusiasm, learnt through trial and error and implemented into our curriculum only to have it increase our workload. The key advancement of using technology in our classrooms should be to speed up manual processes, freeing up precious time for teachers to spend with their students. Embracing technology as part of our teaching practice should harness the ideal of working smarter. No matter how good a teacher is they simply cannot provide the same detailed data and analysis that a computer can. A product such as Neap Digital, removes a large component of teacher administration in a reliable and accurate way. Year 11 and 12 teachers are heavily weighed down by many hours marking tests often negatively contributing to wellbeing, their love of the profession and their subject area. Using a tool that can crunch powerful data and provide insights to inform personalised learning plans can effectively close the attainment gap without increasing teacher workload. Giving a teacher the “space” to target their teaching, develop differentiated learning plans and time to plan subject specific scaffolding enhances student learning and engagement. Technology can transform teaching but it cannot transcend the teacher. With this recent celebration of the humanity of teaching our professionalism can shine above all machines.
