Recently when I was day-dreaming (the time when I think of solving big problems of the world 😊) this question popped, “In this fast-changing world influenced by rapid technological advances vis a vis Artificial Intelligence, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality and so on, what is the role of a teacher?”
If you are an aspiring teacher, please read on for words of experience from someone who has been in the time and space of Education where rapid invasion of technology threatens to replace the teacher.
The first thing to recognise is that the world is heading towards smarter technologies that will enable customised, rapid and independent learning. In this scenario, the teacher is expected to facilitate the process of learning rather than to instruct. In other words, a teacher will have to focus on the skills of effective learning rather than content.
Consider this scenario – all conceptual content covered in grades 1 to 12 is available as a set of video recordings of lectures and associated activities. What is there to teach? Also, at the click of a key, Google can answer every single question that a school student can think of. What is the role of the teacher?
Here, the teacher’s role is to guide learners how to make sense of all the available content. Allow them to consume content on their own and be present and available to assist when they need it.
Secondly, keep yourself updated with growing technology so that you could contribute to its development rather than being only an end user. Children (learners) of the current generation are more adept at using technology than their teachers and parents. So, it is better to educate oneself about designing curricula and learning programmes, in addition to teaching a set curriculum.
Third point to ponder over is that the concept of schooling itself might change in the near future into something we have never imagined. Are we ready to embrace such un-imaginable change?
Imagine this – the current jail-like schools with walls and bells are replaced with holographic classes that students can engage with as and when they need, and competitive exams for professional courses no longer require a specific minimum age to enter.
Thoughts like these have always baffled me and kept me on my toes to upgrade and update myself with latest achievements in the field of education technology.
Though learning as a process is still exploratory and hands-on, the manner of exploration and the tools available to getting our hands dirty have evolved with technology and will continue to evolve. The future is a better place to be, so it is advisable to keep oneself hungry for learning and eager to innovate. This has kept me and the team at NumberNagar® on our toes to improve teaching and learning methodology and techniques, to innovate necessary tools for effective learning and making learning an enjoyable and effective process for learners.
As long as we consider ourselves life-long learners, we can keep ourselves relevant with time and will not become obsolete.
Sriraghavan S M
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This era of unlimited content availability all the more requires good teachers. No longer are the days where 1 or 2 books are considered “bible” and cover that for syllabus. Teachers will have to be equipped to weed out the bad content in this endless content thrown at us. We all remember the good teachers and the bad ones. They influenced our lives, they will continue to do so.
Raghavan – Agree with most of your thoughts. It is true that we are stuck between the invasion of robots into our lives, suffocate within the environment of corrupted educational systems and true hunger for learning. It is an irony that movies like ‘3 idiots’ which has globally acclaimed could not teach us lessons to implement in our lives. We live a scared and routine life !!! It’s time to change and influence the environment around us for better learning and foundation.
Well said Sir….I wish this letter reach many teachers to get inspired…
Interesting and thought provoking article. Change is inevitable and is a constant.
Very nice thoughts sir. Certain things that even I am working on. The mindset of this generation educators and parents of this generation students towards various changes in teaching learning environments is something that even I keep pondering about 🙂 please do visit by blog inspiring learners (link given in the ‘website’ section below and leave your comments there too 🙂
so true…very relevant…agree totally especially being a mommy and watching the role of teachers metamorphose into all this.
The truth put forward in a simple manner… & Teachers will always be indispensable
Very true.. The education sector is heading in this direction….& Teachers will always be indispensable, – A learning process for both the teachers & students.
Rightly said.