Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Bryan C. Hassel and Emily Ayscue Hassel are Co-Directors of Public Impact, a
national education policy and management consulting firm.
distinguisher of learning outcomes among schools and performances and methods widely through video
nations. and smart software that personalizes learning.
Even among excellent teachers, people will thrive
In order to achieve this potential in the U.S., myriad poli- in various roles.
cies affecting teachers—from professional development Attracting and retaining more of these excel-
to compensation—will need to be revamped. This paper lent teachers. As excellent teachers reach more
outlines how. students, they will be able to earn more out of
regular per-pupil funds. The combination of
The digital revolution needs excellent teachers. Even higher pay and career opportunities made possi-
as the content of digital instruction improves, accounta- ble by digital learning will, in turn, help teaching
ble adults will remain critical to student outcomes. Digital attract and keep the best performers.
fare will eventually replace much of the diagnosis of Boosting effectiveness and job options for
learning levels and provision of matching instruction, average teachers.5 Average teachers will benefit
particularly in core knowledge and skills, that today dis- as digital technology and the extended reach of
tinguish excellent teachers from peers. But successful their excellent peers take complex tasks off their
teaching is much more than delivery of core instruction, to-do lists, enabling them to focus on the parts of
no matter how effective. It also requires: teaching at which they can excel. Through tech-
nology, they can also obtain real-time data and
Motivating students to take on next challenges advice about how to help each of their students
and persist despite barriers; succeed, saving time and improving perfor-
Helping students with time and task manage- mance. Digital learning can enable average
ment and other habits critical to success; teachers to personalize instruction, which many
Building children’s social and emotional skills and average teachers find difficult or impossible to
fortitude; achieve with whole classrooms of students with a
Mentoring and modeling life skills; wide array of needs. Some new roles will pay less
Addressing personal and family situations that than today, but many will also require hours far
may impede learning; shorter than today’s typical fifty-hour teacher
Helping students dig deeper into material and workweek.
develop higher-order thinking skills (analytical,
conceptual, and creative); and To be sure, not all of today’s teachers will benefit from
Taking responsibility for ensuring learning out- these transformations. In all likelihood, these changes
comes, making changes when a student’s learn- will mean that the nation needs fewer teachers as we
ing growth stalls—below or above standards. now know them—fully and solely accountable for whole
classrooms of children. Today’s ineffective teachers can
These distinguishing aspects of teachers who produce be replaced by more effective ones in this new
outstanding learning results with more students are not digital-learning world, either through remote instruction
ones that technology can fully replace. or the extended reach of more effective teachers to more
students. Those ineffective teachers who still wish to re-
Teaching needs the digital revolution. At the same main in education may find new roles available. But the
time, in order to become a true profession in which excel- new roles that are instructional, such as tutoring small
lent teachers are rewarded and may reach more students groups, will be better filled by today’s average teachers,
over time, the teaching profession needs the rather than the least effective ones. Some new roles,
digital-learning revolution. Digital learning has the such as online-learning lab monitors who do not provide
potential to transform teaching in three primary ways, instructional support, may be appropriate for today’s less
detailed in the pages that follow: effective teachers. But in many cases, new sector en-
trants who have digital hardware and software knowhow
Enabling excellent teachers to reach more will fill these roles.
students.4 Great teachers will increasingly be
able to: teach more students in-person as digital The net effect is likely to be a smaller, but much stronger
learning replaces portions of instruction in a and more highly paid, teaching force coupled with new,
personalized fashion and provides time-saving lower-paid roles—many with appealing, shorter hours—
student data; reach students remotely via tech- that support these fully accountable teachers. This
nology; and capture and share their differentiated structure is similar to that which has
We know the quality of instruction a student receives But time is a critical constraint for this type of educator.
makes a huge difference. Having teachers in the top 25 With only so many hours in the day, even the best face
percent of effectiveness versus the bottom 25 percent severe limits on the number of students they can reach.
would enable the average low-income child to make up The promise of digital technology in this context is its
the typical achievement gap in just three to four years.6 ability to free excellent in-person teachers’ time using what
Consecutive excellent teachers also can help middling we call “time-technology swaps.”10 In this model, digital
students leap ahead. Yet, we know that the ways schools instruction takes over a portion of great in-person
generally work today, with one teacher assigned to each teachers’ instructional duties, such as delivering lectures
classroom, only about 25 percent of classes will have one and assessing students’ mastery of standards. This frees
of these top-tier teachers at a given time. The other 75 teachers’ time—allowing fewer (and better) in-person
percent will not. teachers to reach more students with the personalized,
enriched portions of their instruction.11
As we have argued elsewhere, one promising strategy to
change those numbers is to “extend the reach” of excel- These swaps involve fundamental restructuring of the
lent teachers to more students, paying these teachers school day: using digital instruction specifically for the
more, and attracting and keeping more of them—while purpose of freeing enough hours of great teachers’ time
still remaining within budget.7 States, districts, and to work with significant numbers of additional students—
schools are beginning to deploy more comprehensive not just layering available technology atop current
systems to determine teacher effectiveness. As those education-delivery models. Students spend 25 percent or
systems improve, education leaders will know with more more time with digital instruction, most likely focused on
certainty and in more subjects and grades which teachers knowledge and skill acquisition. Adults still supervise
are achieving the strongest results. Schools can move to students during this time, but they do not need to be
identify the best teachers more rapidly, rather than wait- teachers as we know them. Indeed, many will not be.
ing for systems legally defensible for dismissals.8 With
better evaluation, the opportunity to leverage great Numerous schools have begun using digital instruction
teachers to help more students will grow significantly.9 for time-technology swaps, many of them described in
Innosight Institute’s Rise of Blended Learning profiles.
Some ways of extending excellent teachers’ reach do not Here are two examples:
require technology. For example, schools could shift a
few more students into better teachers’ classrooms or Rocketship Education. In this California-based
put teacher-leaders in charge of multiple classrooms. But charter-school network’s elementary schools,
the digital revolution can extend great teachers’ reach students spend 25 percent of their time in a
much further, in three ways: replacing a portion of in- “learning lab,” receiving self-paced digital
structional work with digital tools, interacting with more instruction and live tutoring monitored by para-
students remotely by removing some non-instructional professionals. Because this frees teachers’ time,
tasks, and instructing students “boundlessly” via video three teachers are able to reach a total of 100
and smart software that personalizes learning.
Remote instruction comes in two flavors: “synchronous” Personalizing instruction modes and levels of work.
and “asynchronous.” In synchronous instruction, the For example, School of One provides the math
teacher and the students are interacting at the same time program at three New York City middle schools.
via videoconference, video-chat, shared online School of One’s “learning algorithm” recom-
“whiteboards,” audio-conference, online text chat, or mends to teachers a daily schedule (“playlist”) of
even just simple telephone calls. Cameras placed in class- learning activities tailored for each student, re-
rooms can give remote teachers visual access to whole ducing teachers’ lesson-planning load.16
classes, allowing these educators to monitor their effects
on students. As technology improves, this kind of inter- Finding or creating lesson plans and materials.
action is likely to feel increasingly like natural, in-person BetterLesson, for example, is a free website that
interaction—especially as video conferencing becomes invites teachers to “Find lesson plans, classroom
smoother and as three-dimensional holograms of materials and instructional resources from
teachers or “immersive” online environments, like those high-performing teachers.”17 Taking a different
experienced in games, are used more frequently.12 tack is TeachersPayTeachers, an “open market-
place where teachers buy and sell original
In asynchronous instruction, teachers still interact with teaching materials” launched by a former NYC
students, but not in real time. Instead, they provide writ- teacher. Subscription-based netTrekker enables
ten online feedback on assignments, answer students’ teachers (and students) to search 300,000 “digital
questions via email, or post a response to an online dis- resources” that it says have been “vetted by
cussion board for many students to see. high-performing teachers.”18 Since the quality of
materials posted to such sites is likely to vary
Remote instruction opens up numerous professional op- widely, one key to their success will be enabling
portunities for teachers that are less likely or impossible the best to rise to the top based on user ratings
in an all-in-person environment: or, better yet, efficacy with students.
Live where you want to live. One of the biggest Performing administrative tasks. Numerous
challenges in providing great instruction to all electronic “gradebooks” have emerged to track
students is that many children live in places with student attendance, keep calendars, and share
a limited supply of good, or great, in-person assignments and grades with students and
teachers—with rural areas as the prime example. parents. Examples include engrade and
Remote instruction makes it possible for teachers LearnBoost.19
Digital learning has the potential to create new career In addition to giving dramatically more students access
opportunities for excellent teachers. As they reach more to excellent teachers, digital learning also has the poten-
students, they should be able to earn more—out of tial to boost the effectiveness of average teachers—those
the per-pupil funding attached to a larger number of who keep their students on track, but who struggle to
students. The chance of enhanced advancement and pay close achievement gaps or help middling students leap
will, in turn, make the profession a more attractive ahead. We see several ways that digital learning could
long-term career for high performers. As a result, U.S. help these teachers achieve better outcomes. We keep
public education should have an easier time attracting this analysis brief, as this topic has been well-examined
and retaining top talent in teaching, ultimately making by other commentators31:
the profession a more welcoming place for
high-achieving graduates to spend full careers. The U.S. Delivering initial knowledge and skill instruction.
won’t need as many teachers; as in other industries, The more students are learning through the
technology will do increasing portions of the work and “smart software” described above, the more time
enable other, lower-paid staff members to support teachers will have to help students overcome
students and the excellent teachers in charge of their learning barriers and teach higher-order skills.
instruction. Meanwhile, schools can ensure the accuracy and
consistency of basic knowledge and skill instruc-
tion delivered digitally.
Not There Yet Generating real-time student data and lesson-plan
advice. Today’s best teachers excel at diagnosing
To realize the changes in the teaching profession dis- each student’s needs and planning instruction
cussed here, the digital landscape itself will need to im- accordingly. Digital technology holds the
prove in at least three ways. First, as the Digital Learning promise of providing other teachers with similar
Now! signatories and others have said, providing univer- insight, by analyzing results and recommending
sal low-cost access to broadband Internet for all K-12 next steps personalized to the student’s needs.
teachers and students—during and beyond “school Enhancing professional development. Digital tech-
hours”—would greatly accelerate the nation’s ability to nology makes it possible for teachers to learn
start implementing these ideas.28 from videos of great teachers, obtain critical and
timely feedback on their own video-recorded les-
Second, digital users do not yet have platforms that help sons, and connect with other teachers as men-
them find and deploy the best and best-fit among the tors or peer-helpers. Some portion of excellent
explosion of digital resources. The lack of platforms that teachers’ time freed in time-technology swaps
connect digital resources to varying curricula and individ- also can be used to coach or manage peers.
ual child needs is a major barrier to personalizing learn- Enabling specialization. As digital learning does
ing. In all likelihood, the marketplace will increasingly more of the work of teaching, teachers can
provide multiple versions of such an integrative platform, increasingly specialize in their teaching
but for now it remains an item on the “Technology Wish strengths—such as particular subjects or parts of
List” of the schools featured in The Rise of Blended Learn- the teaching process. Some teachers who are
ing.29 average overall may be excellent specialists.
Introducing time-saving, productivity-enhancing
Finally, digital learning must become significantly better tools. Such tools can free teachers’ time for un-
than some aspects of in-person instruction, ultimately derstanding student data, planning their teach-
matching excellent teachers. Measurement of digital ing, or personalizing instruction. (See the
learning effects on student outcomes is nascent, but re- sidebar, “Time-saving, Productivity-enhancing
search indicates only a small edge over average instruc- Tools.”)
tion for now.30 Without significant improvements, the
major educational benefit of digital learning will be allow- Re-sculpting Policy and Management Systems
ing successful time-technology swaps to extend the
reach of excellent live instructors. Instead, the two in The changes described above won’t happen automatical-
tandem—excellent digital tools and excellent live teach- ly. Digital learning will have to improve significantly (see
ers for all children—should be the goal of policy changes. the sidebar “Not There Yet”). In addition, policies and