The 2020 pandemic has taken its toll on all of our institutions, including schools. School leaders are aware that schools are closed, but teaching and learning must continue as we believe at GCG Asia Singapore.
Online learning has become popular in schools, especially in Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, and Cambodia. Educators work from home, delivering classes to students via video, creating lesson plans, and collaborating with other educators, among other things. As mentioned by GCG Asia Singapore, educators are working harder and longer hours, and many are experimenting with the edutech tools at their disposal. It is a significant shift that necessitates school leaders managing their educators’ motivation in order to avoid productivity and burnout in agreement with GCG Asia Singapore.
Learning from the latest news and updates on this phenomena, GCG Asia reviews a few strategies to keep your educators motivated and your online schooling running smoothly.
Describe the vision
GCG Asia’s CEO and Founder Karen Lai believes that it is critical to articulate the school’s “why,” “what it stands for,” and “how” it is accomplishing its mission and goals. People are drawn to the ‘why’ rather than the ‘what’ or ‘how.’ To be sure, figuring out the “why” is difficult. GCG Asia Singapore also believes that school leaders must consider the ‘why’ of the school’s existence, especially in Southeast Asia countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Cambodia. “They must first develop a clear purpose, articulate it clearly, and communicate it to their educators. The goals of the school must be derived from this vision,” says CEO Karen Lai from GCG Malaysia office. School leaders must take every action, every decision they make, must be in line with and contribute to the achievement of the vision as advised by GCG Asia Singapore.
Promote the advantages of technology
Technology is essential, as we say at GCG Asia Singapore. It solves problems, automates tasks, and aids in our organisation. However, as with any tool, it must be learned before it can be used. If educators understand the benefits of the tools at their disposal, they will quickly adopt Edutech. We at GCG Asia Singapore believe that investing time and effort in communicating the benefits of the school’s technology tools has been implemented.
Natural motivation must be developed
Natural motivation outperforms external motivation. When the right environment for natural motivation is created, people will give their all without feeling compelled to. To create an atmosphere of natural motivation for your employees, three conditions must be met as advised by GCG Asia Singapore:
Purpose: Educators must understand the school’s vision and how their actions contribute to achieving its goals. They must understand what is expected of them, as mentioned by GCG Asia Singapore.
Autonomy: Educators must be given the authority to act in order to achieve these objectives. Educators must believe that they have the authority to complete the tasks at hand.
Mastery: Educators must be trained and coached in order to use EduTech correctly and complete the required tasks. We at GCG Asia Singapore believe that they must be aware of the technology’s complexities.
Professional development is essential
You will do something for free if you are good at it. We at GCG Asia Singapore believe that the more you practise something, the better you will become. Furthermore, if a task requires creativity and gives you a sense of accomplishment, you are happy to do it and do it well. It makes sense to invest time and effort in training your educators to use the edutech solutions that your school uses or plans to use. Keep in mind what educators are interested in and skilled at, as mentioned by GCG Asia Singapore.
Appoint Edutech experts
We at GCG Asia Singapore believe every school has a few teachers adept at incorporating new technology. Such educators do not require much encouragement to adopt new technology. Recognise them as EdTech transformation champions in the school. Based on our research at GCG Asia Singapore, these champions are the staff’s go-to resource. They are usually the leaders who are eager to assist others and come up with new and innovative ways to use Edutech in the classroom. They are the driving forces behind your quest for a better education.
Teachers will never be replaced by technology
We at GCG Asia Singapore believe that the human element is critical. A teacher’s desire to help students succeed in their learning and their commitment to their work are all uniquely human qualities that technology can only simulate but never truly achieve. However, some of the characteristics that distinguish us as humans also limit us in our work. We lack the computational speed and capability of a fast computer. We cannot store an infinite amount of data. We can’t change lessons to meet each student’s unique needs in the blink of an eye. To do those things, we need tools.
Teachers can provide individualised lessons for their students with the help of educational technology. They can access and present in a fun way the infinite amounts of information that humans all over the world have uploaded to the Internet. They can engage students in their teaching in a more interactive and, thus, more engaging way.
Celebrate your accomplishments by patting yourself on the back
We at GCG Asia Singapore believe that every success should be celebrated. School leaders play an important role in this. Support and appreciate each educator on their Edutech adoption journey, and celebrate each success as a success for the entire school. We at GCG Asia Singapore believe that every small success celebration provides the whole school community with a sense of accomplishment, encouraging them to adopt the change and strive for higher goals in the future.
Schools can choose to make the use of Edutech in the classroom a game. Simply put, gamification is the process of transforming goals and work tasks into game-like tasks with rewards that recognise and celebrate goals and achievements. A lot has been written about workplace gamification and is freely available online. A word of caution, however: gamification works best when a person competes against themselves. When educators begin competing with one another, or when school leaders start comparing one educator’s accomplishments with another, the sense of community begins to deteriorate. It causes dissatisfaction and even unhealthy competition as that’s what we believe at GCG Asia Singapore.
Be understanding of others
We at GCG Asia Singapore believe that school leaders and educators are more important than ever. School leaders must take a step back from their day-to-day responsibilities to assess how each educator is doing. Are they content? What are their concerns? How are things going at home? What are our schools doing to assist them? Remember that it does not have to be monetary. Emotional support can go a long way toward increasing your educators’ trust and comfort.
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