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Some people I know claim that with the advent of online courses, machine learning and artificial intelligence, there will come a day where teachers will be phased out. The people who will replace the role of teachers would be software engineers to maintain these systems, curriculum writers and administrators.
My opinion however is that while it is not impossible for technology to replace teachers, there is only one thing standing in the way of a complete skynet/machine takeover. That is the students themselves.
Students
Technology does a lot to help us solve the problems that are, objective. The problems that only has one form of solution. For example, if you face problems in needing a document scanned quickly, there are many apps that can be used to solve that problem. The students however are a more complex.
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A conventional education system consists of teaching, learning and assessing. While an online platform can be used to teach and assess the students, the learning bit can be a bit tricky. To explain this, try imagining yourself as a student. You are sitting in a classroom and your teacher is teaching you and many of your other friends. As the teacher is teaching, imagine if you are given total freedom to do whatever you want. What would you do? Would you choose to pay attention to the teacher or would you choose to 'multi-task'? Perhaps you could listen to the teacher teaching and watch a movie simultaneously. An online course is like that. You can teach content and test the students, but to motivate and to inspire the students want to learn, that is the role of a teacher. At times, even some form of reprimanding from the teachers does help in getting the students engaged, you can't do that through any online courses.
Online courses are great but without the presence of a teacher encouraging the students to learn, the students could easily walk out of the classroom and nothing can be done. That is an option with online courses, you could learn whenever you want and if you choose not to learn, that's fine. A teacher however would advice and try to encourage full participation and engagement from the students.
Thus, if any platform is able to encourage the students to persist in their learning, inspire the students to learn and possibly reprimand bad behavior, then that is the time where we teachers are in trouble.
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Teachers
It is my opinion that teachers in this time and age are blessed and cursed at the same time. We have the internet that makes teaching and learning easier. We have ample resources online at our disposal and programs such as online management systems to manage our classrooms. We have so many tools to make our jobs easier.
However, as these systems become increasingly integrated and smarter, we find our roles slowly taken over by machines. I don't know about you, but I'm going to John Connor (terminator reference) my way through this. Of course, instead of assault rifles and rocket launchers, I will have to settle for inspiring and creativity. For now, many platforms rely on a more lecture style approach. As teachers, we could personalize the teaching and learning, enabling our students to learn quicker. Machines could do the same through machine learning as well, but that takes data and time. Furthermore, every student is unique and data fed through machine learning may not be enough to make it more effective than a teacher's guidance and advice.
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Conclusion
While I support the notion that teachers are still very much relevant in education, like all jobs, we may be phased out eventually. We have to stay relevant through stepping out of the metaphorical classroom that we confine ourselves to. That includes incorporating new perspectives and methods instead of the usual ways prescribed in our textbook. We have to keep our content relevant to the current popular culture. No one wants to write a letter to a pen pal as a school project when most of us are Tweeting and Instagramming.
We also have to be creators, innovators and researchers as we are the role model to the students, we need to display the highest level of professionalism and drive to learn. After all, how can you inspire your own students to do better and to want to learn if you are not even doing it in your own life?
Continue to improve, to learn and to be bold in trying new methods. If that's done, teachers will remain essential while online course platforms, supplementary.
These are my thoughts on online learning platforms and a traditional teacher. Do let me know if you agree or disagree in the comments below.
