“Teaching is hard.” Everyone believes this…it has been proven more so with the recent pandemic. The National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reports that teaching has an annual turnover of 16% due to two factors: 8% leave early and 8% switch school districts. What does this mean for schools? The average school will lose 3 of every 20 teachers each year. 

Recent studies have shown that 41.3% of new teachers leave within the first five years. Of the remaining teachers, 36.4% are likely to quit at any time. I am part of the former statistic as a former teacher. It is difficult to remain in a profession with changing standards, varying levels of support and dissatisfaction with career and working conditions. Why?

Well…think about these facts for teachers.

1. Bathroom breaks only happen when students can be supervised by another adult
2. Break times are used for grading, bathroom, lunch, copying, etc.
3. ‘Summer break’ is half-filled with professional development
4. Most teachers take home stacks of papers each night and weekend for grading and planning

The Beginning

Where do we begin with finding a solution? In 2013, Christopher Edmin gave a TedTalk about educating future teachers on how to ‘Create Magic’. We focus so much time on the ‘basics’ of theory, assessment and methods. We forget about engagement. Unfortunately, when we forget about engagement, we lose the students and lead the new teacher down a path of potential classroom management issues.

Technology Solution

Before the current and future teachers panic about some new gadget that will require their time, relax this technology requires no time other than your usual daily activities. Consider for a moment home streaming accounts. These provide recommendations based on previous choices. This is based on AI programming.

The same principle can be used with data gathered from existing teacher information (i.e. surveys, subjects teaching/taught, experience, ratings, student performance, professional development, etc.) to compare historical school data to discover teacher insights and support needs. 

By reviewing data from past to present with AI, bias can be virtually eliminated. Our interactive solution searches for identified themes in the verbal syntax while allowing for the fusing of data to non-verbal for comparisons. More interesting, schools can view from the district, school or individual level which allows for more easily identified needs and setting of goals based on the data.

In the beginning, I listed a few considerations for teachers. These and classroom management may be an underlying issue for new teachers that a school district can solve to reduce burnout and turnover. Or it could be something specific to that area / district. We have an example dashboard, Learner Analytics – Professor Comparison, available for exploration on the open Tableau site. Although not all our capabilities and customization possibilities are displayed, it will provide you with an opportunity to explore.

More Questions or Need More Details?

After reviewing the dashboard, feel free to contact us if you have any questions, would like more information or would like to schedule a demo for your organization. 

If you would like to read a different perspective, read our partners’ blog How to Use AI to Become a Better Teacher (bintel.io) .