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Welcome to EdTech Adventures. Join us as we explore the role of technology, STEM, and creative play in education. With expert guests, we’ll discover how learning is always an adventure.
EdTech Adventures: Teacher Burnout with Francie Alexander
[00:00:00] Charlotte Cheng: Welcome to EdTech Adventures. Join us as we explore the role of technology, STEM, and creative play in education. With expert guests, we'll discover how learning is always an adventure. With a lack of resources and support, teachers are continuing to burn out and leave jobs that they once loved. How can we work together and create an environment where teachers and their students can thrive?
[00:00:26] Charlotte Cheng: Today, our guest Francie Alexander, will share discoveries from this year's Educator Confidence Report. We'll then explore how we can leverage these discoveries to help our educator community through the power of EdTech. Francie Alexander is the Chief Research Officer at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, also known as HMH, where she works closely with districts across the country to lead HMH efficacy efforts and provide inspirational and informative leadership on topics from early and adolescent learning to brain development and its influence on childhood and teenage learning.
[00:00:59] Charlotte Cheng: Prior to her time at HMH, Francie served as Chief Academic Officer at Scholastic, member of the National Assessment Governing Board, which oversees what's widely known as the Nation's Report Card, and in key positions in both state and federal education agencies. Francie's work is grounded in the classroom, having taught students from kindergarten to college.
[00:01:20] Charlotte Cheng: Thanks so much for coming back to our podcast, Francie.
[00:01:22] Francie Alexander: It's great to be back, and I can't believe a whole year has passed, and it's been an eventful one in education, and particularly in EdTech.
[00:01:33] Charlotte Cheng: I totally agree, and so I wanted to kick off by asking you, how are you doing, and what is keeping you excited in the world of EdTech right now?
[00:01:42] Francie Alexander: It seems to me that I'm busier than ever. As you know, everyone talks about all these great new tools we have. And that's true. And it just makes me want to do more and more and more. And so I'm working on. Just like our teachers are, it was revealed in our report, finding that balance. Also, the world seems to be changing at a pace beyond anything I remember at any other time.
[00:02:13] Francie Alexander: And when I work with teachers and I talk about classrooms, I think the world is in the classroom. More than it has been at any other time. So that causes me great joy in terms of the fact that kids can experience and read the world, but also concern because of some of the things that intrude in their thoughts and experiences.
[00:02:39] Francie Alexander: So looking at both, and I'm a person who generally looks at the full part of the glass, but I don't ignore what we still need to do better for our children and our future.
[00:02:52] Charlotte Cheng: That's a great perspective, the full part of the glass instead of half empty, because I, I think, you know, that's a very binary thinking of half empty, half full.
[00:03:01] Charlotte Cheng: Well, looking at that, I know I'm also excited about how the world is getting closer to the kids, but I also agree that kids now, Are taking on that burden of thinking about the world as a whole. So on the flip side, what is keeping you up at night when it comes to ed tech and the world of education in general?
[00:03:21] Francie Alexander: When we look at education in general, and we all know, because this is the one time we all participated in the same difficult event, the recent pandemic. In the past, there might be a natural disaster in a school system. We put our focus on that we'd be there to help. But now, in our country, and in our world, everyone has experienced the same thing.
[00:03:47] Francie Alexander: And the consequences of that for education are, we know and it's well documented, and now NWEA is also part of HMH and we released another study that showed it would take another four months of school in literacy, in math for our children to catch up so that there's the big academic part. And then the other part, of course, that's worrisome.
[00:04:19] Francie Alexander: And when we talked about how the world is being brought into the classroom is the day to day concerns. Many of our children have and in our survey, the teachers are very focused on the mental health status of their students, of their colleagues, and of themselves. So those are the things that I worry about.
[00:04:41] Charlotte Cheng: Oh, I have a four year old, so I worry about that so incredibly much, and I agree that the recovery from the pandemic is an ongoing thing that even we see at CodeCombat, so I'm glad you're bringing voice to that. And speaking of the report, I know last year, during the interview, we talked about results from last year's report. Now that you've seen the results of this year's report, what have been the biggest changes in our educator community?
[00:05:08] Francie Alexander: Some of the biggest changes have to be we hit an all time low last year in what we call the educators confidence index. I like to think of that like a Dow Jones of education, several factors go in and you come up with a score, and it's on a hundred point scale, and we've gone down to 40.
[00:05:27] Francie Alexander: So, you know, obviously nothing to rave about, but something to worry about this year. It's not huge, but we came up to 42. And I do believe in looking at other responses on the survey, that that does show that there's a cautious optimism settling in. And I also see that when talking to teachers and we have a huge Facebook community of teachers.
[00:05:56] Francie Alexander: And we also have something we call teachers. Corner and talking to teachers. The creativity is to me unprecedented. The social networking among them is unprecedented. The conversations, the way they're leading these discussions. So to me, that justifies my cautious optimism of the two point increase.
[00:06:22] Charlotte Cheng: That's great to hear. I love that they are embracing their confidence because they are so skilled and they have so much to offer and give. But I also heard on the flip side, there might be some teacher burnout. What's going on over there?
[00:06:36] Francie Alexander: Well, I think in this world of these opportunities provided by new things and just think of what's happened in education and you know, better than most of us.
[00:06:47] Francie Alexander: What the trajectory has been, and I think myself starting from the no computer classroom to the one computer classroom to the computer lab. And do you remember the cows, the computer on wheels, and it gets to be there. Well, well, the computers came into our classroom. It's our time to have a deck. And then we saw as a goal.
[00:07:12] Francie Alexander: And we work toward this one on one computing. One of the positive outcomes you could say of our recent experience, we have that. We don't have the every I dotted and T cross. We don't have the complete infrastructure, but we're there. So now we can take advantage of it. But what has that brought into education?
[00:07:35] Francie Alexander: It's 24/7. Well, human beings can't function 24/7. We need rest. We need to eat. We need to socialize. We need to between our work and our family do those things that bring us joy. So there are opportunities, of course, but there are some obstacles to managing it in a way that EdTech fulfills its potential.
[00:08:03] Francie Alexander: We harness its power. It makes a difference in the so many ways you see and I've seen in our work, the changes. But we also have to be sure that we know our teachers aren't bots. They cannot be available 24/7. What's so special about them is their charisma. They all bring something unique to the teaching and they're caring about our kids.
[00:08:31] Francie Alexander: So we have to do all that we can to keep them going. And also in addition, I think they are internalizing these mental health issues that their children have or their colleagues have. They're thinking "Is there something I can do or what can I do?" And I think that keeps them up nights.
[00:08:53] Charlotte Cheng: I agree. I'm sure teachers are losing sleep and really great point. I have an issue. It's like with great power comes great responsibility when it comes to technology. I have an issue of putting a work away because it's. Always at our phone. It's always at our side. And I feel like teachers have it even more. And how do we balance between the two, that power of technology and the dangers of technology so that we can help prevent teacher burnout to help bring that balance into their lives.
[00:09:23] Francie Alexander: We've been asking teachers that, to get their tips. How are you managing this incredible responsibility? This incredible workflow? Something teachers are declaring office hours. And by the way, our teachers are so committed and caring. And one teacher said, but I also have these codes. If it's a green or a yellow or an orange kind of comment, fine.
[00:09:48] Francie Alexander: If something happened. At home, something terrible or something concern, then you can call me out of hours. But you know, otherwise not. So those are the kinds of things that teachers are doing. And all professionals have a schedule. And that scheduling has become a powerful tool. Another thing that teachers are telling us that they're doing, they are using things like AI to Do some of the tasks that are, I'll say the thankless ones, you know, generate some math problems using double digits and, you know, a worksheet or score the worksheet or things like that.
[00:10:30] Francie Alexander: And one teacher was telling us, one of our literacy teachers, you know, we've all read Charlotte's Web, and then it's time in your third grade classroom and you're setting up, and you're trying to remember what were the words on the web. Oh. Radiant. Some pig. I think there was something else. That's the kind of question you can ask quickly.
[00:10:52] Francie Alexander: You don't have to go through your copy of the book. So teachers are finding. And I think that's exciting and I think we have to support them through professional learning to have the time to see what are the best applications that will help me do what I do best because what teachers do best is interact with their students, respond to the sticky questions, know when somebody's hurting or somebody's happy, developing those relationships over a school year, That a child or a young person never forgets.
[00:11:29] Charlotte Cheng: Agreed. And I heard you mention AI, so I figured we'd dig a little deeper. We're starting to integrate AI into a lot of our tools and platforms. And what we've learned is there's like a hundred different AI tools out there. So what are your thoughts about AI and education? Where can we go with it? How can we use it to support teachers as well?
[00:11:51] Francie Alexander: And as you well know, it's going to happen with or without us. So people like us, you through this forum that you have and getting these ideas out and this conversation. And then people like us at HMH who have instructional resources. So we need to work together. We need to have a strategic plan on this where we come together on.
[00:12:17] Francie Alexander: What's the potential? What are the pitfalls? And right now, we have a patchwork of policies. So at the policy level, as you well know, we're in some school systems where the students are not to have access to AI, but the teachers are. And others, There's a lot of question about what applications of AI for security reasons.
[00:12:41] Francie Alexander: So I think it's time for us to get organized. And I see my responsibility in research at HMH is to see that what we do Is evidence based and trustworthy so that they know a lot of the pitfall parts we've addressed, that we've addressed security, we've addressed ethics, and that also that in our work, we have brought in in our professional development, good strategies for using a particular tool or using AI in general, and there are so many tools and we have one ourselves that we're working on very carefully, and it's called Writable, and as a former teacher, why do we not assign as much writing as we possibly could? Because you have to provide feedback. We also know that in the providing feedback, it should be quick. And that was always the hardest part for me.
[00:13:44] Francie Alexander: You get all of those pages and papers. You want the feedback, of course, to be so thoughtful to the writing. And now, Writable helps to provide that feedback and quickly. I also say what's important in writing is you've got to give them feedback right away or the mistakes become fossilized because the kid thinks, I did that yesterday.
[00:14:05] Francie Alexander: Nobody said anything about it. I'm going to do it the same way tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and then by then and the weekend's over and the papers come back and that child stud that same misspelled that word like 10 times that you know practice makes permanent. And so those are the kinds of things, getting some help in real time.
[00:14:27] Francie Alexander: So, I think that's exciting. Our teachers tell us that that's exciting. And again, it helps them to do this important work. I know another thing when I was first using technology, the greatest part about it was knowing what my kids were doing. When I was doing small group work, and again, that's what teachers do best.
[00:14:50] Francie Alexander: Nobody's better than a teacher with the right group of kids doing this important work. But it's like 10 o'clock in the morning during ELA. And do you know what the other kids are doing? Kind of, sorta more papers to correct that you assigned, or maybe they were reading, but. With technology, I can get a report at the end of the day, I can know who put in the effort, who did well, and who was rather asleep at the wheel because there wasn't much output.
[00:15:20] Francie Alexander: And then the kids learn right away that you're the TOS - the Teacher Over Shoulder, they think you're over there with that other group, sometimes when they think they're getting away with it, they learn early in the school year, they're not.
[00:15:34] Charlotte Cheng: Teacher over the shoulder. I know there's like eyes on the back of your head. Now you have many pairs of eyes because of AI.
[00:15:42] Francie Alexander: That's right. This is more real than that because they can see it. That teacher knows.
[00:15:48] Charlotte Cheng: Yeah, exactly. It's so key about that feedback is what we've discovered with what we're adding is a more personalized learning experience because we can sort of more quickly, like you say, Assess and give feedback to the student at where they are and also have that knowledge and create content or deliver content that's at their level.
[00:16:09] Charlotte Cheng: So I agree. Now, AI is changing every day. I mean, every day we have our own Slack channel where we give each other updates about the AI tools out there. And I can imagine I feel intimidated sometimes grasping everything that's available. How can we help teachers increase their confidence in using AI? I'm so glad to hear that it's gone up a little since last year. How do we help them stay confident using these tools?
[00:16:37] Francie Alexander: Well, it's interesting because in the study, usage of AI was very low, but predicted usage for the next school year after this was very high. So I think what teachers are looking at from all of us to. If we incorporate it into our instructional resources like we do in Writable, if we incorporate it into our professional learning, as we do in our professional learning and our coaching of teachers, then we are helping them to navigate.
[00:17:16] Francie Alexander: Best use cases and again being trusted, having them know we've tested these things, having them know in your system, you think you won't erupt. Yeah, something won't happen because you logged into this so I think those are the ways, and again through professional learning and most of us who became teachers.
[00:17:41] Francie Alexander: One of the reasons we became teachers and when I talked to colleagues all the time is because. It was our job to go on learning. And you explained how in your community of colleagues, you're doing that. And I was so happy to say, I'm doing it and it's my job. And so the expectation is you will continue to learn and grow.
[00:18:03] Francie Alexander: We've also been helping teachers with it by sorting out what they do. And we did a teacher ethnography and they pointed out the four largest ways they used technology. One of those is productivity. And that I think is the easiest, if you would, to see the benefits of, to some of the tasks that aren't as high level, that aren't as high thinking, like give me a summary of this book, give me a writing prompt, those things making me more productive, helping me with grading.
[00:18:37] Francie Alexander: The second thing teachers told us they use tech for is social. So again, the socialization of how they're using some of these tools. And by the way, the social during the pandemic became huge. And so many things teachers tell us in terms of equity. And I just want to pass this on that many of us have just been through back to school night.
[00:19:02] Francie Alexander: And it used to be It can your class get everybody there? Well, no, they can't. Some people are working. Some people are taking care of other children. Teachers tell us to a person they record their presentation at the end. Everybody can be there. So that's another way that are great teaching forces. It's doing so much for our children.
[00:19:26] Francie Alexander: The next thing is data. And again, it gives them data and we try to be sure our data, we say, we don't want our teachers to be experienced the drip data, rich insight for, we try to give them the most compelling, helpful, useful data, not everything you could possibly get or collect. And then lastly, as of course, instruction, and just as we've been talking about.
[00:19:52] Francie Alexander: In writing in math in all of these areas, how we can open up more of a world of learning for students and ourselves.
[00:20:02] Charlotte Cheng: That makes me so excited that we can explore those avenues to support them. Funnily enough, I'm attending a district meeting. on zoom today about equity. And so that never would have happened, I would say a couple years ago.
[00:20:18] Charlotte Cheng: So that's really exciting that you're hearing that even back to school nights are offering that opportunity.
[00:20:24] Francie Alexander: It really is, isn't it? It's a new world that way. And, and it's not like, you know, I was that kid or those kids who they didn't come when everybody says who came, I think that's just so important and so cool.
[00:20:38] Charlotte Cheng: Yeah, it definitely helps. Some parents like me, who both parents are working, so we're just like, oh, we can't make that time, but yeah, there's another way to stay involved. Now, turning on the flip side, we have all these tools, we have all these possible ways to help support our teachers, but in many ways, sometimes that falls through the cracks.
[00:20:58] Charlotte Cheng: You know, we're always student first in many ways with policy. So, what's going to happen if we don't? leverage these tools to help teachers increase their confidence and to also help them and keep them from burnout.
[00:21:11] Francie Alexander: I think if we don't leverage this tool, I think you hit on one, the most important one right there at the end, the burnout.
[00:21:18] Francie Alexander: If we don't help teachers. manage this extraordinary workload, manage this increased demand on them to make up, in many cases, for lost time academically and to be sure they are there and very present for their students in terms of their social emotional. So we want to give them the tools that assist with the productivity and that are easy to use.
[00:21:48] Francie Alexander: And I think almost that has to be the first thing. One of my favorite commercials ever was the easy button. And I think all of us who work in providing ed tech, we need to think of that easy button. How are we making certain things more easeful? Because when you make things more easeful, You're letting teachers do what they do best.
[00:22:12] Francie Alexander: I think another thing that we have to look at, I kind of think of the ease on this engagement. How can we use it to help engage our students more? Like, you know, the kids now knowing they have the TOS. Okay, I better do this. That's one way, but also we want to do it in such a compelling way that kids want to be there and that they get something if they're working on screen or in that small group with teacher, they're getting something really good.
[00:22:44] Francie Alexander: And then we do want to maintain the equity point. We want to be sure that resources are made in a way that they can. Be equitably access that that's really an important part of our goal. And then one of the things that my job is, is after we fulfill those three E's is to test what we're doing at HMH and be sure it's efficacious.
[00:23:08] Francie Alexander: And then of course, to tell people, here's how this works best and to listen to how it can work better.
[00:23:15] Charlotte Cheng: Agreed more and more we're doing pilot. Programs where we can meet with teachers. We form cohorts now in our professional learning program, so we can check in with them throughout the year to just hear how they're doing, how are they using the tools and how can we shift and adapt and with AI, especially, I feel like, I don't know about you, we are constantly trying to keep pace and so it's no longer an annual thing that we check in, but it almost feels like it has to be more frequent in some ways, right?
[00:23:48] Francie Alexander: I agree because we have to keep pace so that we're giving the teachers. All the support that they need because the teachers are there in real time and that teacher is there and I remembered from my first job as a first grade teacher, I would be the only first grade teacher they ever had. This was it, and all over our school system, kids are having their only first grade teacher they're only Spanish one teacher there only can teacher.
[00:24:14] Francie Alexander: That person is fulfilling this huge role and paying attention to them socially and academically. So they have to have trustworthy tools and a certain level of work that's been done, clearing the way for them so that they can maintain their focus on what's central to teaching.
[00:24:35] Charlotte Cheng: Gotcha. Now, again, I'm just like you. I'm looking at the whole glass and it does sound exciting with all these tools with all that increased confidence. How do you think the needs of teachers are going to change in the future as we look forward when it comes to EdTech solutions?
[00:24:50] Francie Alexander: The pace of change is so rapid that we're going to have to be just as quick in terms of responding.
[00:24:57] Francie Alexander: And so we have to, like they say, put the pedal to the metal, metal to the pedal, whichever way that goes, we've got to do it. But we also have to do it in a way that's careful. And we have to do it in a way that. We don't make mistakes and set things back. And we have to protect education from people who might do things for the wrong purposes.
[00:25:22] Francie Alexander: We have to be very solid with each other and who we partner with. And again, back to that trust issue. Educators have to know that they can trust you and they can trust me and that they can trust the work that we're doing.
[00:25:37] Charlotte Cheng: Right. And we're seeing that a little bit with AI, where some responses are not trustworthy, like you said.
[00:25:44] Charlotte Cheng: Right? And we've gotten things where we have to have extra securities and checks before kids see an AI response, so that we can sort of inform them about, Hey, this is why AI isn't responding accurately, or telling the teachers, Hey, it's not responding accurately, because those mistakes that AI creates.
[00:26:04] Charlotte Cheng: Are actually fundamentally shifting what kids think of as truth or fact. So what are some other mistakes that we sort of need to be careful even outside of AI?
[00:26:16] Francie Alexander: Well, we have taken media literacy for granted and we think because you can. That you're using things effectively because a five year old can sweep because a 15 year old is constructing things some of us can't imagine in Minecraft that they entirely know what they're doing in the tech environment and one of the things we're learning with AI to your point some of the responses aren't correct.
[00:26:47] Francie Alexander: So we have to know and ourselves how to check for understanding and how to be sure as digital citizens, our students are checking for understanding, starting with knowing that it's a reliable source, starting with a fact check and how to fact check. We work with our teachers and others always start with ask Chat GPT, for example, who you are.
[00:27:15] Francie Alexander: Because you are an expert on that. So, in my case, they had me working still at the company I, yeah, you mentioned I was at Scholastic. They had me still there, even though I've been at HMH a very long time now. And, they also had me the author of 30 education books. Like, I've written 60 children's books. And, by the way, I'd take that any day as a credential.
[00:27:43] Francie Alexander: But again, that inaccuracy. Yeah. And if somehow I put that out, not checking it, well, I would be putting out something incorrect. Cause if I had so much confidence, this must be right. I'll send that for somebody who wants 50 words about me today, rather than having to do it. No, you better fact check. Even if it's about you.
[00:28:06] Francie Alexander: So again, we need to do more in general with our students with media literacy. We have to help them be smarter about the time they spend, where they spend their time. And it isn't, as you know, the American Academy of Pediatrics and others, they're not talking about screen time anymore. They're talking about the quality of the experiences.
[00:28:27] Francie Alexander: So we have to reinforce that message about it's the quality. So again, what did teachers do best and where can text support it. What are the real advantages of how we harness the power of technology, we have to be very smart and strategic about that. And while we talk about our children as digital natives because now.
[00:28:52] Francie Alexander: They probably will never experience the cows in their classroom. They will never experience. You have to go to the lab to see technology, but that doesn't mean that they don't have to be taught how to use it. They're also natives to transportation by air and sea and land. We don't give them the keys to the car when they're four.
[00:29:15] Francie Alexander: We provide lessons over time understandings over time. And that's the same thing here. We need to have pathways to using technology as educators. as podcasters, as readers and writers and whatever we do, we have to have our own learning plan. And then in our work, how we share that with others, how we share knowledge.
[00:29:42] Charlotte Cheng: Thanks for that advice. I'm going to keep that in mind as an educator. I'm also an author, things like that. I agree. There's like that you forget that you're still learning and that you still need that. Literacy to understand how to properly use these tools. Now, I think people are going to hear this and be excited on different ways that they can support their educators.
[00:30:05] Charlotte Cheng: Do you have any more advice that you would give to someone who's interested in supporting teacher retention or is interested in preventing burnout and increasing confidence in teachers as well? Well, imagine that you're a parent out there or you're someone in the school district, or you're someone who's developing the latest and greatest EdTech products.
[00:30:23] Charlotte Cheng: What advice would you give them?
[00:30:25] Francie Alexander: Well, by your role. So first of all, as a parent, you know, a simple thank you goes a long way. I can tell you from firsthand experience with that, and a compliment those signs of respect and also as a parent and a community member. Being sure that the teachers in your kids schools have the resources they need.
[00:30:48] Francie Alexander: Teachers in our survey talked about salaries. We know there's a wide salary gap among teachers in this country. Looking at those issues I think is really important. Recently I was out in a, one of the coffee chains and there's a sign in there. Teachers in our community need the pencils, markers, and they're And I'm like, well, maybe at the school board and other level, we should have teachers should have accounts where they get those things, you know, markers, pencils, paper.
[00:31:26] Francie Alexander: Nobody uses those things for anything, but they're intended. purpose. And one teacher said to me how challenging it can be because she only has so many markers or whatever. And some kids could bring them in extra. Some kids can't. She has to say no one can bring in anything other than what we make available.
[00:31:49] Francie Alexander: And that's a big, important lesson. And so let, let's just work on some of those basics. Let's get ourselves together on that. Then In our roles where, and I love the name of your enterprise adventures, because I think adventures might be the most fun word about learning in general. It is an adventure.
[00:32:09] Francie Alexander: Living is an adventure. It's such a cool word and it has venture in it. So if it's a business venture or another venture, we have the responsibility to do things. With in mind, we are going to provide you with tools that are only going to make things better, not worse. We're going to test it before we ask you to use it, unless we ask you to be a tester.
[00:32:35] Francie Alexander: But we're not going to put something out there that isn't ready for prime time. Prime time is your classroom every minute you're with students. And we're going to test and retest to be sure that The promises of what we say we're putting in your classrooms, like our Writable, we will be studying it over time.
[00:32:56] Francie Alexander: Is it working as intended? What have we learned? What are the most efficacious uses of our programs and services? So I think we all have a responsibility to test, test, retest, and when you're ready to go. Kids always say, I don't like taking tests or whatever. I say, I take tests every day. So, you know, it's just part of it. We have to test that what we're doing is right.
[00:33:21] Charlotte Cheng: Thank you so much for that valuable advice. I agree. I say, I learned something new every day still, and that I agree. If you treat it as an adventure, both an adventure and a venture, you're going to be more thoughtful about how you move forward and support.
[00:33:37] Charlotte Cheng: Francie, thank you so much for being part of our podcast again. I always look forward to our chats and check out the episode description. Cause we'll send links about the resources that Francie has shared. And thank you so much for coming and I'll, I think I'm going to see you next year, right?
[00:33:53] Francie Alexander: I hope so, because it's the 10th anniversary and it wouldn't be right if you and I didn't talk about it.
[00:33:58] Charlotte Cheng: That's right. Agreed. Well, until then, have a wonderful time and I'll see you next year.
[00:34:03] Francie Alexander: Thank you. Until then. Goodbye.
[00:34:08] Charlotte Cheng: Thanks for listening to EdTech Adventures. Please subscribe to catch more of our episodes and leave a review to support the show. For more resources and info, visit us at CodeCombat.com/podcast. I'm your host, Charlotte Cheng. We'll see you on our next learning adventure.