Covid-19 and beyond: teachers’ work, digital labour and learning

The challenge

The COVID-19 pandemic caused an unprecedented disruption to schooling. While prior research focused on disruptions to student learning during lockdown periods, there was little understanding of the ways in which digital technology impacts teachers’ digital labour and how it can be used to enhance teachers’ capacity to work effectively. This study aimed to investigate the changing nature of teachers’ labour in the post-COVID environment.

Solution 

To explore how these emerging and intersecting conditions affected teachers’ work and student outcomes, the research team conducted a pilot study involving interviews with teachers and school leaders across NSW. These interviews provided contextual qualitative perspectives on teachers’ experiences regarding digital technology within schools and implications for their work.

Outcome and impact

While schools converted to a 'new normal' post-COVID, this project found sustained changes to teachers' digital labour and their engagement with technology. While pedagogically, most teachers returned to 'pre-pandemic' ways of teaching and learning in their classrooms and rejected ongoing remote learning, there were significant implications for the "work" of teachers in relation to how they engaged with technology in other ways. Many felt pressured to stay connected, facilitated by technology, particularly with the mainstreaming of online platforms and videoconferencing. These insights in the post-COVID world are particularly important given existing pressures on the teaching profession including workload burdens and shortages among the teaching workforce.