Do more with less: That’s the mindset teachers want to apply to their jobs with the help of artificial intelligence. If you’re an administrator, you might want to look into ways to give educators the knowledge and tools to harness the technology’s capabilities to streamline their workload.
Why? For starters, you’re likely to alleviate workload pressures and increase employee satisfaction, a new survey from Canva suggests. Teachers who report using AI report notable reductions in burnout and increased work efficiency.
Meeting educators where they’re at
Having a firm grasp of the mood of your teachers is important when considering how technology like AI can help. When your teachers are not feeling 100%, students are the ones who suffer.
Among the 1,000 K12 teachers surveyed, 55% say they miss school due to burnout. Another 53% report feeling overwhelmed by their responsibilities.
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Most notably, a staggering 34% say they’ve lost interest in their job and the quality of instruction has decreased as a result.
”Many factors contribute to burnout, but the most common contributing factors cited by teachers were classroom management, lack of support and work-life balance, as teachers need to balance content creation, lesson planning, reviewing classwork and engaging with parents,” the report reads.
How AI can help
All hope isn’t lost, the report contends. The 2023-24 school year marked the first complete year teachers were equipped with generative AI, and many found new ways to collaborate with the tool so they could spend more time doing what matters most: educating students.
Some 92% of educators find AI helpful in addressing “pain points,” the data suggests. In fact, there’s a correlation between AI use and job satisfaction. Nearly half of “satisfied” teachers say they’re leveraging AI compared to 26% of unsatisfied teachers.
Here’s how teachers report using the technology for work:
- To create and supplement classroom materials (51%)
- To spark students’ imagination and creativity (38%)
- To improve the visual elements of their work (37%)
“It’s encouraging that AI is offering a way to ease workloads on tasks such as lesson planning and template creation as simple ways to add valuable time back into a teacher’s day, leaving them more time for meaningful student engagement,” the survey concludes.
