Will teachers be replaced by technology?

Teachers play an important role in education, it is a performance, and this is something that technology cannot accomplish. This is recognized by Purewal (2016) as he states that “teaching is a performance, its reading the room and working it” which is something technology is unable to do, as he also says, “empathy is a key area of difficulty for technology and automation”. Technology is a good resource to find information and to use as a learning tool, although, they cannot form emotions. Emotions is what helps us to properly education and help children. Purewal (2016) also supports this by saying “Technology can’t detect emotional states, let alone adapt its behaviour to cater accordingly” and this ability to detect others’ emotions enables practitioners to relate to and understand the children, meaning that they’re more capable of meeting the needs of and educating the students. They’re also able to create a bond with them, forming a relationship means it is more likely students will tur to their practitioner and disclose to them.

In the life as a practitioner, things don’t always plan out as they’re meant to; meaning that a member off staff may not be in, or activities can’t go ahead and practitioners are required to think ahead and have a ‘plan B’ or sometimes thinking on their feet, which is something technology is unable to do. In agreement with this, Purewal (2016) states that it is one of the key skills a practitioner has. Opposing to this idea that teachers cannot be replaced is Kalia (2018) who believes that there is a high chance that teachers will be replaced as she states that “the 2017 Oxford University's study estimated that 47% of all U.S. jobs could be replaced by AI-Bots within 20 years”. Although this may be the situation, technology at the moment is used more as a tool in education, to help aid practitioners.  The reason for this may be because technology provides wide range of information and introducing new technologies will, in some ways replace what practitioner do,  as It can “aid data-gathering significantly, freeing up teachers’ time and allowing them to focus on more important aspects of their work” (Purewal, H., 2016).

Technology has advanced greatly over the years and we are able to connect with the world. In agreement to this, Purewal (2016) states that “technology has the potential to reach those who don’t have access to a classroom”, for example, some practitioners contact external agencies, celebrities or other schools around the world as part of their approach to learning and engaging students. The effectiveness of technology in education is dependent on the practitioners’ ability to integrate it into their teaching (Kent, T. W., & McNergney, R. F., 1999). As technology is advancing and integrating in businesses, teachers’ jobs could be a risk as Michael Trucano (2015) states that “Teachers who don't use technology will be replaced by teachers who do.”

As mentioned by Hooper and Rieber (1995), schoolwork focusses more on remembering, organisation of lessons and ensuring that curriculum is followed, rather than making the information they are providing meaningful. This is a video showing us the future of education and what happens with the help of practitioners educating students to be life long learners rather than teaching them to be good test takers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQ-tjdMnHlA

References

Hooper, S., & Rieber, L. P. (1995). Teaching with technology. Teaching: Theory into practice, 2013, 154-170.

Kalia, T. (2018), Cost-Benefit Analysis of Artificial Intelligence (AI) Fired Robots (AI-Bots) Replacing Educators, St. Louis: Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis.

Kent, T. W., & McNergney, R. F. (1999). Will Technology Really Change Education? From Blackboard to Web. Corwin Press, Inc., A Sage Publications Company, 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320.

Purewal, H. (2016). Can technology replace teachers? You asked Google – here’s the answer | Harpreet Purewal. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/dec/07/can-technology-replace-teachers-google [Accessed 5 May 2019].

YouTube (2016). This Is the Future of Education. [video] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQ-tjdMnHlA [Accessed 6 May 2019].