James Symons on bridging the gap between teachers’ time and teaching

It’s no surprise to anyone who has ever worked in a school environment that teachers are short of time. However, this is a factor often overlooked by parents – and by many in general.
An article by Business Insider – which looked at a study on the most common teaching misconceptions and surveyed over 50 teachers – found that one misconception of the is that teachers only work from 8am to 3pm. In fact, often this could not be further from the truth.
But despite working longer hours than expected, what is even more surprising is that on average across countries, teachers spend half their working time in non-teaching activities including planning lessons, marking and collaborating with other teachers.

Teachers need to find ways to channel their resources.

Research undertaken by OECD in February 2015, “Education Indicators in Focus”, (www.oecd-ilibrary.org) found that teachers spend an average of 38 hours in total working but actually an average of only 19 hours per week teaching, ranging from 15 hours in Norway to 27 hours in Chile. In Japan the figure is just 18, meaning they spend substantially more time on other tasks than they do teaching children.
It’s clear that when a seemingly simple task such as keeping order in the classroom generally accounts for 13% of all teachers’ time, teachers need to find ways to channel their resources. It was recognised that giving teachers the opportunity to participate in activities that could focus on using class time effectively could promote a positive school climate and improve the overall performance of schools.

You can save up to a staggering 70 hours of class time each year just by choosing a suitable device management system for iPads or other mobile devices

Many teachers are already disciplined in their roles, and try and maximise teaching time whenever possible. They already set lesson plans and mark work outside of class time. However, faced with a class of 30 young children for example, it can be hard to micro manage each student. It can be difficult to see what else can be done.
There are many products out there that can help have a profound impact on class time. A recent video case study that LocknCharge produced, found that you can save up to a staggering 70 hours of class time each year just by choosing a suitable device management system for iPads or other mobile devices.

Watch a video of the case study.

The video, which shows in real time a class of school children both handing out and collecting mobile devices, demonstrates the difference a product can make not just to teaching time, but to class concentration, general management of class devices or materials, and space issues.

There are many challenges within a school day to overcome, but the use of a teachers’ time should not be one of them

The video was taken at the beginning of each lesson with a traditional style cabinet tablet storage cart. The traditional cart took 10 minutes and three seconds to complete deployment of 30 units. This was then repeated with a LocknCharge storage device, which took just four minutes and 50 seconds – saving a huge five minutes and 13 seconds out of just one lesson in teaching time, just by using their unique basket systems.
There are many challenges within a school day to overcome, but the use of a teachers’ time should not be one of them. I for one would want my child to be learning rather than spending time on unnecessary admin tasks, and the aim with our products and many products out there is to minimise class disruption whilst making a teachers life easier.
This is just one example of how resource can have a positive effect and schools can benefit from developing ways to use teachers’ time more efficiently so they can devote more time to professional development, teaching related work and learning.