Teaching no tech

Digital lessons missing in schools

PRIMARY school teachers are lacking the digital knowledge to teach kids the tech skills of the future, a new research report has found.

A University of Queensland study found that previous “specialist” digital teachers have largely been removed from schools, with classroom teachers increasingly expected to pick up the slack.

Author Professor Petrea Redmond said while teachers were “aware that they are preparing students for 21st century workplaces, they don’t necessarily have the skills to embed digital technologies in deep and meaningful ways at present”.

“It’s not for want of trying – there are a number of factors up against them,” she said.

The research, published in scholarly journal Educational Technology Research and Development, also found that while the Australian Curriculum assumes kids are coming to school with a “basic level of digital proficiency”, this was not the case for the bulk of primary school kids.

Some students might be working with their parents from an early age with setting up the family drone, or sitting down with mum or dad to prepare Powerpoint presentations in Year 1,” Professor Redmond said.

“But for a lot of kids, access to and therefore knowledge of tech from an early age isn’t part of their experience.

“Teachers do not have time to teach the foundation knowledge that is missing in addition to the expected curriculum.”

The study also found teachers felt school and leaders could be a “barrier” to implementing better digital learning among students.

One teacher was quoted as telling researchers “if administration does not prioritise implementation … then it’s not going to happen”, while a second teacher said their school’s leadership team “does not prioritise anything but English and Maths”.

Teachers also lamented a lack of time to include digital technology into the classroom, with one telling researchers “there is “not enough time in a day – there are far more important subjects to deliver”, and “there is not enough time to create meaningful and context-rich lessons”.

“It was clearly articulated by the teachers we received feedback from was that the curriculum is crowded, which fits with general feedback from teachers on the curriculum overall,” said Professor Redmond.

“If technology isn’t being prioritised by leadership, it makes it doubly-hard for teachers to ensure it’s being properly taught.”