First I was an elementary teacher and specialist, so reading the list I assume this is what high school teachers are faced with. It made me exceedingly tired and wondering who would enter this profession if they were faced with this list prior to deciding to do a fifth year in education? Keeping in mind the terrible pay most teachers receive.
For me, in the elementary, I found two things immensely helpful. The first is both a reading and math specialist at the school that each spend 92% of their time working with teachers both in their classrooms doing demonstration teaching and providing curriculum assistance and the second is a FULL time aid in the classroom who is hired by the classroom teacher and able to assist with teaching, lesson planning and all the other mundane tasks we are expected to do including writing weekly newsletters.
I know, as a math specialist, that my teachers really appreciated my working with them in the classroom. They could watch and see how I planned and executed a lesson. They could see what I did when a lesson failed. When they were overextended I planned the lessons for the next few weeks. I was able to do this because I worked in their classrooms and knew their students. As a specialist I rarely sat in my office. There is a whole lot more but I hope you get the idea.
As a classroom teacher having a full time aid was a gift. I looked for people who were creative and willing to put in time knowing that both of us are not paid adequately for time spent. My assistants have remained my life long friends. Their talents have enriched me, my classroom teaching, and my students. There is no way AI could come close to either my job as a Specialist or as a classroom teacher with a special assistant.
I would add on that not only paperwork produces a problem, but also non-intuitive and cumbersome learning management systems do. I have been using Schoology and PowerSchool for the past 15 years. I have also taught the same three courses for the past several years, and I keep things very structured and organized from year to year. This structure and organization helps students see what is expected of them so that they can see when assignments are due, when tests are given, and when projects need to be completed by.
There are an inordinate number of buttons that a user has to click on some learning management systems to simply set up the same exact same schedule from the previous year. Of course small adjustments need to be made each year, but simply anticipating how to set up something that you have already done before is an avenue for AI to explore in learning management systems.
Here's an opportunity for some machine learning: Of the thousand or so clickable items in the average LMS, what are the dozen that I, personally, actually click on over the course of a school year? And could you put those at the top and bury the rest in the submenus?
You and John Warner have sustained me in Audrey Watters absence, but it is nice to have her back. We need all the skeptics policing the hype we can get. I can't pass up the opportunity to plug her book, Teaching Machines (MIT Press, 2020), which traces the history of the dreams of personalized learning and the way those dreams have failed again and again. It is the essential book for understanding the contexts of the current moment in AI and Education.
The task of collecting paper work and money needs to be taken away from teachers now! There are plenty of tools to collect information and money. Things like lesson plans, worksheets, and creating other resources should all be part of a sound resource/curriculum. If we want education to improve, we need to give teachers more time to improve instruction by being creative, working together, honing their craft, and honestly...resting.
Agreed. I felt like I was tasked with working as a bank in addition to teaching while working as a class advisor, processing class dues deposits students would bring by while I was in the middle of teaching a class.
"But their solutions would require coordinated action at the local, state, and federal level. Their solutions would require a re-investment in our schools."
We actually have been funding education quite robustly over the past few decades (historically speaking), unfortunately, the investments that have gone in have been almost exclusively at the administrative level--probably in all the ways that pile on the paperwork. Though this graph is getting dated, it left me incredulous: https://x.com/glafree/status/1599089537279414272
I agree with Mr. Riley, we should probably just get rid of the bureaucracy--but who would work to cut their own position?
We are also educating in the last few decades kids who weren't in our classrooms - kids with a rage of IEP's, English language learners, SLIFE - students with limited or interrupted formal education - all this is expensive and the feds have never lived up to their financial promises.
At the college where I work, the greatest growth has been in the area of student services: Counseling (including mental health services) advising, services for students with disabilities including special testing facilities. The people who do this work aren't classroom teachers, would they fall under "administration"? Because they're all worthwhile, and deserve the money we spend on them, however you classify them.
That's a good question. I'll see if I can find the answer. I do agree those services are worthwhile. Also notice this graph is from 2019 (pre-pandemic), so take that into consideration, too.
The only thing I'll say is that, by their very nature, LLMs are great at producing bureaucratic output, the sort of stuff that no one wants to read but is so often necessary to produce. While the idealist in me thinks we could and should just get rid of the bureaucracy, the pragmatist very much hopes AI can be useful to educators here at least.
I also thought that was an interesting point to write, though it was under the category of paperwork that teachers hate. I think his use of "hate" was an over exaggeration as his source for that list was from two teachers where he asked what kind of paperwork take up their time.
First I was an elementary teacher and specialist, so reading the list I assume this is what high school teachers are faced with. It made me exceedingly tired and wondering who would enter this profession if they were faced with this list prior to deciding to do a fifth year in education? Keeping in mind the terrible pay most teachers receive.
For me, in the elementary, I found two things immensely helpful. The first is both a reading and math specialist at the school that each spend 92% of their time working with teachers both in their classrooms doing demonstration teaching and providing curriculum assistance and the second is a FULL time aid in the classroom who is hired by the classroom teacher and able to assist with teaching, lesson planning and all the other mundane tasks we are expected to do including writing weekly newsletters.
I know, as a math specialist, that my teachers really appreciated my working with them in the classroom. They could watch and see how I planned and executed a lesson. They could see what I did when a lesson failed. When they were overextended I planned the lessons for the next few weeks. I was able to do this because I worked in their classrooms and knew their students. As a specialist I rarely sat in my office. There is a whole lot more but I hope you get the idea.
As a classroom teacher having a full time aid was a gift. I looked for people who were creative and willing to put in time knowing that both of us are not paid adequately for time spent. My assistants have remained my life long friends. Their talents have enriched me, my classroom teaching, and my students. There is no way AI could come close to either my job as a Specialist or as a classroom teacher with a special assistant.
I would add on that not only paperwork produces a problem, but also non-intuitive and cumbersome learning management systems do. I have been using Schoology and PowerSchool for the past 15 years. I have also taught the same three courses for the past several years, and I keep things very structured and organized from year to year. This structure and organization helps students see what is expected of them so that they can see when assignments are due, when tests are given, and when projects need to be completed by.
There are an inordinate number of buttons that a user has to click on some learning management systems to simply set up the same exact same schedule from the previous year. Of course small adjustments need to be made each year, but simply anticipating how to set up something that you have already done before is an avenue for AI to explore in learning management systems.
Here's an opportunity for some machine learning: Of the thousand or so clickable items in the average LMS, what are the dozen that I, personally, actually click on over the course of a school year? And could you put those at the top and bury the rest in the submenus?
Yes. This exactly. The current usability of some of these learning management systems is atrocious.
You and John Warner have sustained me in Audrey Watters absence, but it is nice to have her back. We need all the skeptics policing the hype we can get. I can't pass up the opportunity to plug her book, Teaching Machines (MIT Press, 2020), which traces the history of the dreams of personalized learning and the way those dreams have failed again and again. It is the essential book for understanding the contexts of the current moment in AI and Education.
I am honored to have served as a discount Audrey Watters for certain people in her absence, and we're all better off for having her back.
The task of collecting paper work and money needs to be taken away from teachers now! There are plenty of tools to collect information and money. Things like lesson plans, worksheets, and creating other resources should all be part of a sound resource/curriculum. If we want education to improve, we need to give teachers more time to improve instruction by being creative, working together, honing their craft, and honestly...resting.
Agreed. I felt like I was tasked with working as a bank in addition to teaching while working as a class advisor, processing class dues deposits students would bring by while I was in the middle of teaching a class.
"But their solutions would require coordinated action at the local, state, and federal level. Their solutions would require a re-investment in our schools."
We actually have been funding education quite robustly over the past few decades (historically speaking), unfortunately, the investments that have gone in have been almost exclusively at the administrative level--probably in all the ways that pile on the paperwork. Though this graph is getting dated, it left me incredulous: https://x.com/glafree/status/1599089537279414272
I agree with Mr. Riley, we should probably just get rid of the bureaucracy--but who would work to cut their own position?
We are also educating in the last few decades kids who weren't in our classrooms - kids with a rage of IEP's, English language learners, SLIFE - students with limited or interrupted formal education - all this is expensive and the feds have never lived up to their financial promises.
At the college where I work, the greatest growth has been in the area of student services: Counseling (including mental health services) advising, services for students with disabilities including special testing facilities. The people who do this work aren't classroom teachers, would they fall under "administration"? Because they're all worthwhile, and deserve the money we spend on them, however you classify them.
That's a good question. I'll see if I can find the answer. I do agree those services are worthwhile. Also notice this graph is from 2019 (pre-pandemic), so take that into consideration, too.
Excellent news about Audrey Watters. I looked to her voice first, when my AI curiosity turned to skepticism. Absolutely thrilled about her *return.*
The only thing I'll say is that, by their very nature, LLMs are great at producing bureaucratic output, the sort of stuff that no one wants to read but is so often necessary to produce. While the idealist in me thinks we could and should just get rid of the bureaucracy, the pragmatist very much hopes AI can be useful to educators here at least.
"... bureaucratic output, the sort of stuff that no one wants to read but is so often necessary to produce."
How many of the categories of paperwork above fit that description?
"Writing lesson plans. Creating presentation slide decks. Compiling practice sets. Handouts. Notes."
These are not "administrative" tasks -- they are core responsibilities of a teacher.
Also, this is contrary to your first diagram, which indicates that teachers want to be able to devote more time to planning and preparation.
I also thought that was an interesting point to write, though it was under the category of paperwork that teachers hate. I think his use of "hate" was an over exaggeration as his source for that list was from two teachers where he asked what kind of paperwork take up their time.