Technology Makes Teaching More Human

a Guest Post by Robert Barnett

What can machines do better than humans? And what can humans do better than machines?

In the world of AI, this is a question on many people’s minds. And for those of us in education, it feels particularly relevant. Teaching has always been a fundamentally human endeavor, and the reason that most of us pursue teaching in the first place is to form relationships with the young people we serve. 

But teaching also feels harder now than ever before. Learning gaps have grown after COVID, teacher burnout is on the rise, and fewer college graduates pursue teaching every year. Might there be ways that technology can lighten our load, without compromising what we love about the profession?

Teaching feels harder now than ever before…Might there be ways that technology can lighten our load?

Robert Barnett

Any technology can be used to enhance or impede human connection. Smartphones let us speak by video with friends and family around the world, but they also suck us into hours of mindless scrolling. This is true of online videos, AI, and anything else.

As a former teacher and the co-founder of an organization that helps teachers worldwide to use technology more effectively, I’ve seen classroom technology used in many different ways. I believe there are several ways in which the purposeful use of technology makes instruction more human.

#1: Digitizing Direct Instruction

When I was trained as a teacher, I learned to explain things to my students from the front of the room – and control their behavior while I did so. But this never really worked: my lectures were always too easy for some students, too hard for others, and inaccessible to students who missed class. Managing student behavior took a lot of time and effort too. My lectures dragged on, which just made the process worse.

Eventually, however, I learned how to record my explanations with simple videos. I simply started Zoom calls with myself, hit the record button, and explained something. Then I put the recording link in my Learning Management System and told students to watch it at their own paces, in school or at home.

This simple shift transformed my entire classroom. Once I made this switch, instead of lecturing and policing behavior from my whiteboard, I spent almost all of my time in class working closely with my students. Because they didn’t have to sit quietly and listen to me – and because my videos were usually only 5-8 minutes long – my students spent most of class working together to apply the skills they had gathered from the video. We all spent class simply helping each other learn. And it was magical.

This simple shift [i.e., recording lectures instead of delivering them live] transformed my entire classroom…We all spent class simply helping each other learn. And it was magical.”

Robert Barnett

#2: Efficient Data Analysis

Teachers are constantly collecting data. This data – attendance, completion of assignments, mastery of standards, student reflections, etc. – is helpful, but it can be hard to organize and analyze efficiently. There’s just so much of it! So we often end up making decisions based on our judgment or instincts, which can be subjective and therefore biased.

With tools like R.E.A.L ® Discussion’s Teacher Dashboard or the Modern Classrooms Project’s progress trackers, however, teachers can both collect data easily and analyze it to identify the supports that each individual student – and the class as a whole – may need on any given day. Then, teachers can act to provide those supports efficiently and effectively.

By providing accurate pictures of what students really need, without taking too much of a teacher’s time to create, data-analysis tools facilitate high-quality human connection.

#3: Immediate Differentiation

Say you’ve digitized direct instruction to free yourself up in class, then collected data that helps you identify what individual students actually need. What do you do then?

Finding activities that appropriately challenge and/or support students at different levels of understanding is easier said than done. Fortunately, there are a variety of tools – many leveraging AI – that help teachers create differentiated instructional resources with the click of a button. Tools like TeachFlows can help you create complete, fully editable, student-facing lessons on any topic in seconds. 

Once you can generate resources that are well-suited to individual learners’ needs, you can ensure that every student in your classroom is appropriately challenged – and supported – every day. All you need to do is encourage them! 

At the end of the day, tools like videos and data dashboards and TeachFlows are just that: tools. They can be used for good or for bad: to foster dynamic classrooms where students and teachers spend class working closely together face-to-face, or to create lifeless and siloed classrooms where students spend all day staring at screens. 

The choice, ultimately, is yours to make. But if you make it carefully, I’m confident that you can create a classroom that feels more lively, more personal, and ultimately more human than ever before.

I can’t wait to hear about it!

Robert Barnett is the co-founder of the Modern Classrooms Project and the author of Meet Every Learner’s Needs: Redesigning Instruction So All Students Can Succeed.