5 Tasks Educators Shouldn’t Be Worrying About Anymore in 2023

January 10, 2023 4 min
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Introduction

Teachers haven't had it easy over the years. Between managing a classroom full of unruly students and dealing with school administration, they've got a lot on their plate. The good news is that many of these tasks are becoming easier thanks to technology. Here are five things teachers shouldn't have to worry about anymore in 2023: 

1. Explaining concepts repeatedly to students  

It’s a familiar scene: you have a class of students, and they are all asking the same questions. Whether they are emailing you or asking in person, it can feel like each student has to hear the same information over and over again. There is no doubt that this is frustrating for teachers to deal with, but there might be more going on here than meets the eye. 

Explaining concepts is important because different students may have different levels of understanding based on their background, interests or learning style (e.g., visual vs verbal). When we see someone struggling with a concept we often think it means we need to explain it again so that this student can learn better than before; however, as teachers know all too well: most learners will use any excuse not to understand something once! And if understanding something seems impossible at first instance, why not try changing how you present materials or utilise an AI tutor that can answer repeated questions for you? 

2. Manually creating lesson plans for a class or cohort. (Or even manually tracking and managing other educators’ lesson plans) 

As educators, we know the value of lesson plans. They help us focus our time and energy on teaching, while making sure that students get what they need from class. But manually creating your own lesson plans can be both time-consuming and challenging—especially if you’re sourcing lots of teaching materials yourself. 

When I started out as a teacher, I chose to make my own materials wherever possible. It took up a lot of my working hours, but I felt it was important for me to have control over how my students learned content. However, with increasing pressure on teachers’ time (and finances), many are choosing to buy ready-made materials instead of creating them themselves—which means there’s even less time available for planning lessons! 

As subject heads or department heads in schools or colleges/universities this means not only having responsibility over their own classes but also managing other educators' lessons too. This can create additional stress for those who feel limited by their responsibilities elsewhere within the institution or trust network; especially when it comes down decision making about what should be taught in different modules across programmes (or where resources will come from). 

3. Manual tracking of student or class performance and learning progress 

The third thing that educators shouldn’t be worrying about anymore in 2023 is manual tracking of student or class performance and learning progress. For decades, teachers have been manually tracking their students’ performance on tests, quizzes and homework assignments by using an excel spreadsheet or an online tool such as Google Sheets. While these tools work well for some purposes (such as grading), they are not able to give you a complete picture of your students' learning progress. 

The problem with this method is that it takes hours each week away from actually teaching your students the material. It also means that you have no way to quickly see where each student is struggling or what areas need more attention than others. In short: it's time-consuming and ineffective! 

4. Not being able to provide personalised learning to each student 

In a lot of cases, personalisation can be provided through tutoring. However, there are simply too many students per teacher to allow for a better focus on each student's needs and strengths in order to provide them with the right kind of support. Teachers currently spend their time covering curriculum and managing the classroom more than they would like—the average is 25 hours per week! This leaves little time for individual instruction or mentorship with students needing extra help, which is exactly why teachers want more time for such activities. 

The solution? Focus on what works best for you! If your schedule allows it then by all means go ahead and use some of your free time as an educator (because we know how much you love spending it grading). But if not then perhaps think about other ways you could incorporate the same level of support into your daily routine at school; if having an assistant teacher to help out with extra workload is out of the question, maybe consider using an AI teaching assistant so that way everyone wins! 

5. Rushing through manual grading of assessments and quizzes so students can receive timely feedback on their papers papers 

So you're an educator, and you want your students to succeed. You've already done the work of preparing a quality curriculum, designing thought-provoking assessments and quizzes, and creating engaging lessons. 

But when it comes time for feedback--that is, when you have to manually grade each student paper or quiz--the task can be daunting. From conversations with some the educators we work with, some had at least 40 students per class (some of our lecturers also had a class of more than 100 students on her own!). That's a lot of papers! 

In this type of situation with such a large number of students--especially in subjects like Business, History and Sciences --it makes sense that educators would want to get through those piles as quickly as possible so they aren't wasting their own time while their students are waiting for feedback on their work. 

Teachers should worry about teaching, not logistics. 

Imagine if you could focus on what you do best when you're at school: teaching. When teachers can focus on what they do best, they can make learning fun and engaging for their students. 

A good teacher is one who has mastered their craft, but an exceptional teacher goes above and beyond to create an environment where the student is engaged in learning new concepts and skills; an exceptional teacher takes the time to get to know each of their students personally so that they know how best to engage them in learning activities; such teachers are focused primarily on creating a positive learning experience for all students in their classroom—not just those who excel academically but also those with disabilities or other challenges that may limit their ability to learn effectively from traditional classroom methods. 

If we want educators who are truly exceptional at what they do, then we need systems that will enable them so that they can spend most of their time doing what only humans can do: connecting with people and building relationships with them through conversation. 

Conclusion

We hope this post has proved useful to you and that it has helped organize your thoughts on what educators shouldn't be worrying about anymore in 2023. We know there are other tasks out there that we haven't mentioned, but we encourage you to think of them as well!