The teacher shortage brings to mind the saying “necessity is the mother of invention”

This article originally appeared on the Clayton Christensen Institute blog and is republished here with permission.

Key points:

“Fueled by the shortage of teachers,” they tell us in a recent article in The74“Zoom-in-a-Room” is coming back.

If this is the case, while better than the alternative (no teachers), it is also a missed opportunity for deeper innovation.

As journalist Linda Jacobson noted in the article, online learning has long been used in schools for subjects they could not otherwise offer. She cited AP Calculus and Latin as examples. But even courses we consider foundational (physics, for example) have long been glaring areas where schools have lacked qualified teachers. like me wrote almost a decade ago, “less than two-thirds of high schools (63%) offer physics. Only about half of high schools offer calculus. Among high schools that serve a large percentage of African American and Latino students, one in four does not offer Algebra II and one in three does not offer chemistry.”

According to Jacobsen, “as districts struggle to fill teaching vacancies, they are increasingly turning to companies like Proximity to teach core subjects.” The practice is that the official teacher delivers virtual learning to the entire class, and an in-person monitor, often a substitute teacher, tracks behavior and ensures students are doing their work.

In a way, this use of online learning could be a classic case of disruptive innovation, which begins as a primitive innovation. As a result, disruptive innovations often begin by addressing non-consumption areas, where the alternative is nothing at all. By outperforming this alternative, disruptive innovations can take hold and improve over time until they take over.

In 2008, when we published Disruptive classWe suggest that teacher shortages could represent a significant non-consumer area where online learning could make its mark and begin to transform classrooms from monolithic, one-size-fits-all environments to student-centered, customized-to-need environments. individual of each one. and each student.

But for this to happen, using online learning shouldn’t simply be about bringing in a virtual teacher to provide more one-size-fits-all instruction for the entire group. It would seem that there is not much room for improvement in that model.

Instead, schools should take advantage of these opportunities to do what Heather Staker and I describe in Mixed—offering on-demand online courses with an excellent digital curriculum combined with elements of blended learning Flex or Individual Rotation models that match the path and pace of each individual student’s learning needs.

Just as Teach to One uses a combination of in-person and online teachers to offer a personalized learning path for every high school math student, so too could schools begin to create blended learning options that take advantage of virtual teachers but not in formats that go beyond standardized instruction and incorporate a variety of engaging learning modalities; ranging from direct instruction tailored to the level of a beginning student to rich, real-world projects that allow a student to apply their learning of knowledge and skills in real performances, and from in-person and solo learning experiences with software, offline work or virtual. tutors for small group conversations and explorations.

These types of models would take advantage of the online format by providing a personalized learning experience for each student instead of sending a remote teacher into classes to do the same old thing which has not worked and, as we saw with “Zoom-in- a-room” during COVID was probably even less effective.

As Mallory Dwinal wrote in 2015 When exploring the opportunity to innovate where there are teacher shortages, states could also help by allowing these experiences to move from sitting-time requirements to mastery- or competency-based learning and giving districts some resources to evaluate and select models. of appropriate learning. .

So here’s my challenge to districts: the next time you see a teacher shortage, don’t just substitute a virtual teacher and fill the position. Instead, be creative with a clear and elegant objective of promoting the learning of each child. Spend a little time thinking about how this could be an opportunity and not a threat. And use virtual talent to design a much stronger learning experience for everyone. It would be something worth talking about.