Digital learning leaves teachers exhausted: survey

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This article was published 24/06/2020 (2047 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

SUMMER vacation will soon give teachers a reprieve after a chaotic school year, but if a second COVID-19 wave disrupts education in the fall, beating burnout could be as simple as equipping teachers with fewer e-learning tools.

A new University of Winnipeg study on teaching during the pandemic has found educators are anxious about their students’ well-being and maintaining high engagement while working online. Being flooded with online resources has further overwhelmed them.

“Some things that you’d think would help people, like giving them instruction on technology or giving them new methods or giving them tons of sources off the internet, actually increased their exhaustion,” said Laura Sokal, a professor of education at U of W, who led the spring survey.

Sokal and her co-researcher, Lesley Trudel, surveyed 1,330 teachers across the country about their mid-pandemic teaching methods and coping strategies, from late April to early May. Respondents were asked questions in the first of three surveys Sokal and Trudel are organizing this year. The intent is to pinpoint how best to support teachers as they conduct distance learning.

The first study’s results indicate administrator and parent support lessened stress on teachers; Sokal said everything from principals reminding teachers they were allowed to log off for the day after school hours, to parents getting in touch, helped.

Sarah Melo, a Grade 5 teacher at École Julie-Riel, said Wednesday she had filled out the survey. It was during a time when she felt so overwhelmed with work — as a teacher and impromptu tech support for families — and parenting duties, that she was crying on a regular basis.

“I worked more in the month of April than I ever have in my life,” Melo said.

It took about seven weeks to get into a rhythm, which now consists of pre-recorded YouTube lessons and daily videocalls with students. To overcome burnout, Melo said she had to limit teaching her own kids, a duty she will pick up in the summer.

Next year, she said she hopes teaching students how to use Microsoft Teams early, should a transition to distance learning be required.

Wendell Head, president of the Hanover Teachers’ Association, wrote a blog post in May — which has since made the rounds in education circles — that likened teaching to the camel in the expression, “the straw that broke the camel’s back.”

“Even an incredibly strong and tough animal like (a camel) has limits, and if you just keep adding straws without taking any off, at some point that camel will collapse under that immense weight,” Head wrote.

He argues increasing class sizes and student needs, cuts to student services and a wage freeze were already “straws” on teachers’ backs, before pandemic-related concerns began.

“I’ve never seen or experienced the level of burnout amongst our members that I’m seeing right now,” he said in an interview this week.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @macintoshmaggie