Essay Competition

Topic: Digital Era- Changing Roles of teachers

By: Khushi Joshi

IIMS, Pune Batch 2021-23

Synopsys: This chapter is devoted to the issues of changing the

structure of the competence of teachers in the transformation of
the school of the twenty-first century—the school of digital
civilization. With this in mind, this chapter takes a fresh look at
the advanced competencies of teachers of the near future in the
context of these real school changes, the structure of which can
be represented as the “triangle of digital competencies”: life,
social, and professional. As shown by analytical studies and
experimental experience of teacher training, the results of which
are presented in this chapter, this triangle of competences will
allow children to be included in the digital school environment
and form their further activity in the smart education system in
the profession throughout their lives. It is also important to note
that new competencies have become the basis of a new
profession in the school—a digital curator, which is also
discussed in this chapter.

With the coming of the digital age and fast-growing technologies

in all spheres of life, the role of a teacher has been questioned
and debated upon many-a-time. People often wonder if having a
teacher is relevant anymore. Can advances in technology, the
Essay Competition
Topic: Digital Era- Changing Roles of teachers

By: Khushi Joshi

IIMS, Pune Batch 2021-23
wide prevalence of the internet, and smart learning apps replace
human teachers altogether?
The answer to these questions is a clear, resounding no.
The importance of a teacher in a student’s life has actually
grown in today’s digital era, albeit with a few changes in the
style of teaching.
It is now even more crucial to have teachers guiding students in
the right direction when there is so much extraneous influence
available at their fingertips. Teachers need to present to children,
teenagers, and young adults a correct representation of facts and
enable them to distinguish between right and wrong.
Internet, no doubt, is the storehouse of tomes of knowledge.
However, it is also the source of evil influences and corrupt
practices. The role of the internet in educating students always
needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. Internet can always be
used as a helpful complement to our existing education system
but never take on the role of a teacher.
That said, we should not rule out the usefulness of technology in
education today. Technology helps teachers become more
effective knowledge dissipaters. This motivates them to
become teachers of the future.
With technology, teachers can make learning more fun and
absorbing. Various scenarios can be created to accurately
represent what is being taught in class. Students can easily get a
holistic picture of how their lessons are used in daily life through
the use of technology. This improves engagement and
knowledge retention in classrooms.
Essay Competition
Topic: Digital Era- Changing Roles of teachers

By: Khushi Joshi

IIMS, Pune Batch 2021-23
Teachers can reach far-off places and educate students that are
unable to travel by using advances in technology. Online tools
can be used to finish assignments and generate group
discussions. This fosters collaboration and cooperation among
students and teachers in a virtual learning environment.
Further, technology empowers teachers with a plethora of online
apps, tools, and techniques. Recent advances in all subjects are
readily available on the internet. Simulated online classroom
sessions help teachers hone their micro-teaching skills thus,
enabling them to perform better in regular classes.
The style of teaching has definitely changed. However, what has
remained constant is the need for a good teacher, someone who
can give students a strong foundation and infallible character.
The internet can only give us bits and pieces of information. A
teacher can take this information, make a coherent piece out of
it, and present it in a way that the child will understand.
And that is why the importance of a teacher in a student’s
life will never diminish. It can only become better with the aid of
technology. Technology can never replace the role of a
meaningful teacher in class, according to a recent study by
IATED Digital Library. After all, it is a teacher that teaches you
how to use technology in the first place!
Historically, teaching has always been about ‘presenteeism’ in
the classroom, but advances in digital learning platforms mean
a teacher no longer needs to be physically ‘present’ for the
Essay Competition
Topic: Digital Era- Changing Roles of teachers

By: Khushi Joshi

IIMS, Pune Batch 2021-23
delivery of every aspect of a lesson, and the future role of
teaching will need to adapt in line with this.  
The potential of online learning is vast. It is likely that future
classroom-based teaching time will adopt a more blended
approach to delivery – an element of face-to-face combined with
digital learning – thereby freeing-up teaching time and resource
to allow for more focused mentoring. Teachers will,
increasingly, need to hone their skills to become focused
motivators, engaging in deeper, one-to-one feedback, as well as
meeting the complex social and emotional demands of a diverse
pupil population. That said, many of the more traditional, core
teaching skills – such as a passion for education, and retaining
the ability to inspire and enthuse children – will remain at the
heart of teaching.
Personalised learning provision
Freeing-up teaching resource, improving efficiency, and
reducing the paperwork that has always gone hand-in-hand with
traditional schooling, will also allow teachers to spend more
quality time with pupils who are struggling, or require more
regular intervention. Essentially, online platforms will help to
shape more tailored, individual, learning provision in schools.
Performance and attainment can also be tracked effectively
online. In the future, teachers will benefit from monitoring how
their pupils work online and will be able to spot potential issues
and provide the right support at the right time. Many
Essay Competition
Topic: Digital Era- Changing Roles of teachers

By: Khushi Joshi

IIMS, Pune Batch 2021-23
sophisticated learning platforms will also ensure that a pupil
cannot move on to the next topic or lesson until they have
completed the current task sufficiently, and in line with
the teacher’s requirements, for example. Teachers can also
benefit from additional proficiency testing features via online
platforms for an additional layer of certainty.
In a sense, the role of the teacher is simply evolving to become
more specific and more honed to each child.  Although it is
likely that teachers will have to relinquish a greater element of
physical control than previously, they will be able to use this to
their advantage in providing deeper, more focused, learning
direction. 
Evolving teaching skills
The pandemic forced schools, teachers, parents and pupils to
become Google Classroom and Zoom literate overnight, but it is
the extensions, the add-ons and the additional digital resources,
available to deliver effective lessons, that teachers will need
more training on. Traditional schools would never have used
cloud software to run their learning operations had it not been
for the pandemic so, from this perspective, the pandemic has
fast-tracked the education sector by about 10 years. This
undoubtedly means that the skills teachers need today around
digital learning will continue to grow.
Teachers will, inevitably, continue to build on their level of tech
literacy simply via hands-on, day-to-day learning.  Teachers will
become used to accessing homework, learning content,
Essay Competition
Topic: Digital Era- Changing Roles of teachers

By: Khushi Joshi

IIMS, Pune Batch 2021-23
correspondence and test results via the cloud, centralised in one
place.  This is particularly relevant as we head towards another
summer of teacher assessed grades, and an ongoing requirement
to build a robust evidence trail of assessments – cloud
computing will play a significant role here, and teachers will be
building new digital skills, on the job, as part of this
requirement. 
Teachers will also have new responsibilities as digital learning
evolves – for instance, understanding who has accessed or
downloaded data, in what location, and even onto what device,
will become part of a teacher’s responsibility in the future,
supported by technology. 

The internet has impacted on the roles of teachers, it is no longer

the role of the teacher to provide information only, today
teachers are tasked to maintain curriculum standards whilst also
enhancing creativity, curiosity, and motivation . Teachers are
faced with challenges as a result of digital technologies that
make information widely and instantly available... Digital
immigrants are disappearing and being replaced by digital
natives as the students of 2001 are now teachers of 2018 makes
a case that today's students have very different profiles in terms
of motivation, emotions and that engagement is more important.
Teachers must cater to these new needs of today's students.
Essay Competition
Topic: Digital Era- Changing Roles of teachers

By: Khushi Joshi

IIMS, Pune Batch 2021-23
In this digital era, a teacher working in higher education institute
has to understand difference between “learning about” and
“learning to be” and implement the later for the effective
learning outcome among the learners. Proper involvement of the
learner ought to be ensured in the discipline which is meant for
learning to be—i.e. if a learner is enrolled in teacher education
programme he should have direct exposure of teaching skills.
The digital periphery can be accommodating to learner for the
content exploration to work out lessons in a digital form and
teacher’s role from technical to teaching point will be crucial.
Teachers have to make the available support structures and
systems for them to develop skills like interactive learning,
collaborative learning and independent learning among the
students. The teachers’ role expands to nurture critical thinking,
creativity and scientific temper among the students to transform
them into life-long learners and innovators. Teachers working in
Indian higher education system have to manage the technologies
and facilities available for effective teaching—Virtual
laboratories, e-learning resources from National Programme on
Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) and National Mission
on Education through Information and Communication
Technology (NME-ICT), open educational resources, mobile
education, etc. A teacher equipped with digital command can
nurture critical thinking, creativity and scientific temper among
the students to transform them into life-long learners and
innovators. It’s teacher’s role to expose the learner to advanced
level of knowledge and skills (blended learning, expert lectures,
seminars, workshops etc. Teacher can play a pivotal role in
Essay Competition
Topic: Digital Era- Changing Roles of teachers

By: Khushi Joshi

IIMS, Pune Batch 2021-23
preparing a complete repository comprising the details on the
academic, personal and psycho-social support and guidance
services (professional counselling/mentoring/academic advice)
provided to students. Teacher ought to use e-library resources to
augment the teaching-learning process.

It’s a vital function of techno-savvy teachers to empower and

enable themselves as well as their learners for the use of various
tools and technology for improved teaching-learning process.
They should sharpen their skills in teaching learning
methods/approaches compatible with digital technology.
Content and knowledge management is a key knack for teacher
to survive in digital environment. They have to select, develop,
and enrich teaching-learning material in digital structure and
with any-time anywhere mode. Now the teacher’s role has
changed with the advancement of technology, the assessment of
the students’ learning has transcended the four wall of class-
room. As the learner gets information and knowledge through
digital window; hence their assessment will have to be designed
in that fashion only. Here teacher’s role is to collaborate with
students as well as other mentor and teachers of the world. In
this digital era, teachers’ role has shifted from mere preacher to
the manager of students social and emotions behaviours; mentor
for their learning and over-all development as a balanced
citizen; motivator for slow learner and a fast learner in digital
environment. He has to keep watch on the time spent by learners
for their proper time management which make certain that the
Essay Competition
Topic: Digital Era- Changing Roles of teachers

By: Khushi Joshi

IIMS, Pune Batch 2021-23
learner utilize optimum e-recourse. He has to address social and
emotional issues that affect learners’ learning, and be ready to
make changes when their learning stalls.

There is a global concern that our educational systems are

obsolete and failing to promote the necessary skills that can
adequately prepare our children for the future. The earlier
generations’ drive to study was robustly rooted in
conscientiousness. The new generations have different
motivational profiles: in their lives interest, emotions, and
engagement matter much more. Teachers' role in the 21st
century has become more complex in the present changing
world; here knowledge is almost unlimited. Teachers are
expected to become technologically oriented and responsible not
only for their teaching but also for their students' learning. They
have to cater for particular needs of individual students in
heterogeneous classes, and create a student-centered learning
environment which endeavors for excellence, and offers
opportunities for enquiry and dynamic learning. Teachers need
to meet the standards of the curriculum while enhancing
students' creativity, curiosity and motivation.

The world has become more complicated, competitive and

intertwined. In order for individuals to survive and thrive in the
era of globalization and digitalization, people should equip with
problem-solving skills, creative mindset and information
literacy. Conventional teaching is not able to educate adequate
citizen to live in the 21st century. Therefore, a person needs to
Essay Competition
Topic: Digital Era- Changing Roles of teachers

By: Khushi Joshi

IIMS, Pune Batch 2021-23
develop his/her skills and knowledge constantly due to persistent
change in every aspects of the society. However, the beliefs and
practices of teaching have to transform from old-way thinking
first before teachers can influence students’ thinking and
learning critically. With a simple click to access countless
information and resources, the role of teachers as authoritative
single provider of knowledge and skills has been challenged by
readily available information technology. If information and
resources are easily findable and accessible, we may wonder the
necessity of teachers’ existence in the coming future. However,
the arguable question is not if teachers will be replaced but what
role teachers should play in helping themselves and students
adjust to social changes. Undoubtedly, the one and only job of
teachers to instil factual knowledge into students is not feasible
anymore and is questionable in the current society. The society
has developed a variety of roles for teachers to function and
practice in the connected age. Everyone’s expectation toward
teaching and learning shifted dramatically to emphasize the
impact of social and technological network on education. Earlier
on, I was uncertain on if teachers are not content experts or
subject experts to provide students with ultimate knowledge,
will students continue to respect teachers or why would they
listen to a person if they can find what they need by Redefining
the Role of Teachers in the Digital Era © The International
Journal of Indian Psychology, googling?

Ultimately, we have to keep in mind that it is unnecessary and

impossible to keep up all information in everyday life but
Essay Competition
Topic: Digital Era- Changing Roles of teachers

By: Khushi Joshi

IIMS, Pune Batch 2021-23
always be ready to share and participate. Shah (2014) rightly
stated that as the teacher and the textbook get replaced by these
digital recourses of learning, there are many attempts that try
and expand the information scope and repertoire of the teacher,
firmly believing that installing smart boards and digitally
connecting the classrooms is the solution. However, it is obvious
to anybody with their ear on the ground that we will need to
reevaluate the role of teacher, and construct our education
systems, not so be pale imitations of older classrooms, as we see
in the rise of the massively open online courseware. We don’t
need apps and hacks for learning, or gamified platforms, though
they do help, what we need is an introspection into role of
teacher, not competing with internet but helping students learn,
think, reflect, and implement their knowledge, as they
collaborate and contribute, while “learning on the internet”. A
teacher is the centre of any teaching learning process. In this
digital era, a teacher has got a no. of responsibilities in addition
to his/her prior role to keep pace with the changing technologies
and changing teaching learning environments. A teacher is
accountable to the society which trust him/her for shaping its
coming generations for better civilizations and to the nation
which trust him/her for making its future more bright and
progressive. To deal with this accountability, a teacher need to
use ICT effectively with its traditional techniques of teaching to
facilitate critical and innovative thinking in his/her classrooms
and it is only then one can dream of a knowledge society and a
better digitalized education World around us.
Essay Competition
Topic: Digital Era- Changing Roles of teachers

By: Khushi Joshi

IIMS, Pune Batch 2021-23
Relationships teachers have with their learners, curriculum, and
pedagogy are changing rapidly in this time of digital
enlightenment. Early educational theorists such as Dewey and
Montessori understood the needs of learners and the constraints
of curriculum. Digital technologies have allowed teachers to
realize the dreams of early educational theorists. Educators no
longer need to work in isolation. They have the knowledge and
resources to facilitate learning by exploring curriculum with
their learners. When teachers revisit their relationships with
learners, curriculum, and pedagogy in the 21st Century, they
create innovative change to the education system and encourage
children to thrive in a dynamic and rapidly evolving world. They
accept that students must be at the centre of a more personalized
approach to learning and must be given the freedom to pursue
their individual interests and passions in the classroom.

Disclaimer: Hereby, I acclaim to be the writer of this article.

Any word, sentence, thought process and opinion is my own and
none has the right to claim it other than me.