Technology is supposed to decrease teacher burnout – but we found it can sometimes make it worse
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COMMENTARY | Asking teachers to adopt new tools without removing old requirements is a recipe for burnout.
This article was originally published by The Conversation.
When we set out to study pandemic-related changes in schools, we thought we’d find that learning management systems that rely on technology to improve teaching would make educators’ jobs easier. Instead, we found that teachers whose schools were using learning management systems had higher rates of burnout.
Our findings were based on a survey of 779 U.S. teachers conducted in May 2022, along with subsequent focus groups that took place in the fall of that year. Our study was peer-reviewed and published in April 2024.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, when schools across the country were under lockdown orders, schools adopted new technologies to facilitate remote learning during the crisis. These technologies included learning management systems, which are online platforms that help educators organize and keep track of their coursework.
We were puzzled to find that teachers who used a learning management system such as Canvas or Schoology reported higher levels of burnout. Ideally, these tools should have simplified their jobs. We also thought these systems would improve teachers’ ability to organize documents and assignments, mainly because they would house everything digitally, and thus, reduce the need to print documents or bring piles of student work home to grade.
But in the follow-up focus groups we conducted, the data told a different story. Instead of being used to replace old ways of completing tasks, the learning management systems were simply another thing on teachers’ plates.
A telling example was seen in lesson planning. Before the pandemic, teachers typically submitted hard copies of lesson plans to administrators. However, once school systems introduced learning management systems, some teachers were expected to not only continue submitting paper plans but to also upload digital versions to the learning management system using a completely different format.
Asking teachers to adopt new tools without removing old requirements is a recipe for burnout.
Teachers who taught early elementary grades had the most complaints about learning management systems because the systems did not align with where their students were at. A kindergarten teacher from Las Vegas shared, “Now granted my kids cannot really count to 10 when they first come in, but they have to learn a six digit student number” to access Canvas. “I definitely agree that … it does lead to burnout.”
In addition to technology-related concerns, teachers identified other factors such as administrative support, teacher autonomy and mental health as predictors of burnout.
Why it matters
Teacher burnout has been a persistent issue in education, and one that became especially pronounced during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
If new technology is being adopted to help teachers do their jobs, then school leaders need to make sure it will not add extra work for them. If it adds to or increases teachers’ workloads, then adding technology increases the likelihood that a teacher will burn out. This likely compels more teachers to leave the field.
Schools that implement new technologies should make sure that they are streamlining the job of being a teacher by offsetting other tasks, and not simply adding more work to their load.
The broader lesson from this study is that teacher well-being should be a primary focus with the implementation of schoolwide changes.
What’s next
We believe our research is relevant for not only learning management systems but for other new technologies, including emerging artificial intelligence tools. We believe future research should identify schools and districts that effectively integrate new technologies and learn from their successes.
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