Model Essay 1: Technology and Teachers

The claim that technology will shortly make teachers redundant has been made in some form since the arrival of educational television, and it has never yet come true. I disagree with it, although I think one part of the prediction is correct and deserves to be taken seriously.

The part that is correct concerns the delivery of information. A recorded explanation by an outstanding teacher can be paused, repeated and watched by millions, and it is almost always better than an average explanation delivered live to thirty people. Software can also mark, drill and adapt the difficulty of practice questions faster and more patiently than any person. If teaching consisted of transmitting content and setting exercises, the prediction would be sound.

But that is not what most of the work is. The difficult part of teaching is diagnosis: working out which particular misunderstanding is preventing this specific student from progressing, when the student usually cannot say what it is and often does not know. A good teacher infers it from a wrong answer, a hesitation, or a question that reveals a gap three topics further back. Adaptive software can identify which question was failed; it is much weaker at identifying why. The second irreplaceable element is motivation. Most students work because someone they do not want to disappoint is expecting the work, and no amount of technology has yet produced that relationship.

It is also worth noting the evidence of the last twenty years. Very large sums have been invested in educational technology, and the effect on the number of teachers employed has been negligible.

In my view, therefore, technology will continue to take over the parts of teaching that can be standardised, and this will change what teachers spend their days doing. It will not remove the need for them.