The impact of digital economy development on the profession of teachers

Teaching is one of the oldest and universal professions in human society. In the slave society period, lay teachers have appeared. As a student, many years of personal learning experience have given me a deep understanding of the changes in the profession of teachers.

With the development and integration of biological, physical and digital technologies in the 21st century, the fourth industrial revolution was launched. For teachers, in order to cope with the changes and challenges brought about by the new technological revolution, transformation is necessary (Ally, 2019). For example, teachers need to adapt to changes in the curriculum content, teaching methods, and teaching tools of schools, what’s more, the qualities and abilities that teachers should possess are also different from those in the past.

The traditional classroom teaching mode is a teacher-centered, book-centered and classroom-centered teaching mode. Students need to take classes at a specific time and place. Teaching tools are usually only books, blackboards and chalk or markers. The teaching process is often one-way indoctrination and passive acceptance by students.

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In the era of the digital economy, the education industry in various countries around the world has begun to relax the traditional model and shift to the digital education model, which is particularly significant in developed countries. Multimedia teaching, online classroom and virtual simulation have become the main methods of classroom teaching. At the same time, new developments in modern learning theories such as connectivity, ubiquitous learning, and blended learning are also widely used in teaching practice, such as flipped classrooms, mobile learning, MOOCs (massive open online courses) , and micro-lectures. The teaching tools mainly rely on electronic equipment and networks. Students can also allocate time for autonomous learning according to their own conditions, no longer limited by time and place. These changes are coming from the impact of digitalization, informationization and automation on education.

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In a recent case, due to the severe situation of coronavirus in Wuhan,China, in order to ensure the safety of teachers and students in primary and secondary schools and universities, the Ministry of Education has notified that provinces and cities across the country need to delay the start of spring school. In response to this measure, tens of thousands of schools across the country have implemented online teaching to ensure non-stop classes. Interact with students through the functions of group live broadcast, recording and broadcasting, in addition to class, there are also homework assignments, examinations and other methods to assess the student’s learning. This was impossible in the past.

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In addition, for teaching content, due to digital technology, the content of some disciplines has also become enriched and colorful, such as using virtual reality technology to enable students to perform specific experiments in biology or chemistry classes. Or using augmented reality technology to provide students with a virtual experience of some historical events or observe and study historical relics in history classes.

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Due to the development of digital technology, whether the machine will replace teachers in the future is one of the problems that many teachers pay most attention to. According to forecasts (McKinsey & Company, 2020), by 2030, the percentage increase or decrease of the teacher position in some countries is shown in the picture.

Even though many areas of education have been replaced by technology, there are still some that cannot be replaced. For example, interactive communication between teachers and students. If you want to improve your performance, it is very important to solve individual problems of students through personalized teaching. In the future, in order to stabilize the position of teachers, teachers should make changes in their abilities. The following points are required (Cekić-Jovanović, O., Đorđević, M. and Đorđević, M. ,2019) :

• Ability to implement digital teaching
• Socio-emotional competence, humanitarianism
• Solve the problems, analysis
• Critical thinking
• creativity, artistry, curiosity, imagination, innovation
• Ability to learn with the times and open spirit
• Good communication skills, personal expression
• Perseverance, self-direction, planning, self-discipline, adaptability, initiative
• Leadership, teamwork
• Information and communication technology (ICT) literacy, media and internet literacy, computer programming

Future teaching may rely on front-projected holographic display to fully combine and utilize real and virtual resources to make online courses more realistic. The classrooms of the future will be more humane, and the movements and state of teachers and students can be monitored in real time, making classrooms easier to manage and more efficient (Zhang, A. and Zhou, T. , 2017).

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From the current point of view, even though the digital economy is developing rapidly, the profession of teachers is still difficult to be replaced by artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence can do some heavy repetitive analytical work for teachers, but it is difficult to do some creative work for teachers. For example, teaching innovation, experience transfer, emotional care, training of students’ quality and emotional intelligence, and stimulating students’ enthusiasm for learning. After all, in addition to impart knowledge, the teacher’s role is to educate people.

References
Ally, M. (2019). Competency Profile of the Digital and Online Teacher in Future Education. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 20(2).

Cekić-Jovanović, O., Đorđević, M., & Đorđević, M. M. (2019). The influence of the flipped classroom model on the development of key competences of future teachers. Stanisław Juszczyk, 271.

McKinsey & Company. (2020). Jobs lost, jobs gained: What the future of work will mean for jobs, skills, and wages. [online] Available at: https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/future-of-work/jobs-lost-jobs-gained-what-the-future-of-work-will-mean-for-jobs-skills-and-wages [Accessed 9 Feb. 2020].

Zhang, A., & Zhou, T. (2017, December). Future classroom design of teaching from the perspective of educational technology. In 2017 International Conference of Educational Innovation through Technology (EITT) (pp. 203-206). IEEE.