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Image via Getty
Education Week
Here's What Gen Z Teachers Around the World Want in Their Jobs
By Madeline Will
January 16, 2020
Young teachers want to use technology to make a difference in the
classroom, but they don't feel like their preparation programs have
adequately equipped them to use do so. They expect to work in diverse
classrooms, but they don't feel properly trained. And they are worried
about stress and burnout.
These are some of the findings from Microsoft Education, which, in
partnership with the Economist Intelligence Unit, surveyed 1,034
student-teachers and early-career teachers around the world. Most of
those teachers are part of Generation Z, which covers people born from
1995 to 2015.
"The younger generation of teachers are digital, global, social,
mobile, and visual," said Mark Sparvell, an education leader at
Microsoft. "They prioritize social-emotional learning, ... they
prioritize global issues. This is a very values-oriented
generation—they seek to work with purpose and passion, and without
that, they'll leave."
The survey found that more than half of incoming teachers chose the
profession because they enjoy working with children, and 46 percent
said they want to make an impact on future generations. When asked what
factors deterred young people from going into the teaching profession,
45 percent said salary and 45 percent said stress and burnout.
(In the United States, where the national average salary for public
school teachers is $61,730 and where teachers have been protesting en
masse for higher wages, nearly 70 percent of respondents chose salary
as the top factor preventing young people from becoming teachers.)
The top investment priorities of early-career teachers are: improving
physical learning spaces, increasing the size of the workforce, and
having more technology in the classroom.
Young teachers "see technology as a tool to expand and amplify their
capacity to solve problems that are relevant and meaningful," Sparvell
said. "These preservice and early-career teachers have high aspirations
to use technology for higher-order tasks. ... They have this high
expectation, [but] the reality is a lot more challenging."
Only 38 percent said they felt like their training had equipped them to
use digital technology for instruction. Teachers also said the top
barriers to achieving positive outcomes with technology included a lack
of sufficient technology tools and inadequate technical support.
According to survey data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development, which was released last summer, just about 45 percent
of U.S. teachers said they felt "well prepared" or "very well prepared"
for the use of information and communication technology for teaching.
Yet only 10 percent said they felt a high need for professional
development in that area.
The Microsoft survey also found that nearly all early-career and
preservice teachers expect classroom diversity to increase by 2030, but
only 38 percent said they felt like they were adequately trained to
teach in a multicultural classroom. (OECD data found that nearly 48
percent of U.S. teachers felt prepared to teach in a multicultural or
multilingual setting, and only 6 percent said they felt a high need for
professional development in that area.)
Half of respondents in the Microsoft survey said they think new
teachers will focus more on teaching about inclusion and diversity.
Early-career and preservice teachers also said they wanted to increase
the focus on social and emotional learning and devote more teaching
time to global issues like climate change.
Getting Younger
Right now in schools, there are teachers who are Boomers (born between
1946-1964), Generation X (born between 1965 and 1976), Millennials
(born between 1977 and 1999), and Generation Z. That creates an
interesting dynamic for school leaders, as they try to meet the needs
of the different groups, Sparvell said.
But as the older teachers near retirement, the overall profession is
getting younger. According to research done by University of
Pennsylvania professor Richard Ingersoll, the most common age of a
public school teacher now ranges from the mid-30s to the mid-40s. In
2007-08, the most common age was 55. In 2015-16, about 60 percent of
newly hired teachers in public schools were younger than age 29.
Young teachers tend to want ongoing support and professional
development, Sparvell said. They value coaching and mentoring, as well
as feedback and face-to-face conversations. Still, he said, virtual
communities where young teachers can get support from other educators
might be a cost-effective solution for school leaders.
There are plenty of online support groups for new teachers, including
Twitter chats, Reddit, and private social media groups. Roxanna Elden,
a former teacher and a writer who provides resources for beginning
teachers, told Education Week in 2016 that new teachers want advice,
but they are often intimidated to admit that they are struggling or
don't know everything. Online communities can give them concrete,
nonjudgmental advice, she said.
"This generation of teachers, they grew up as students who had voice,
choice, and agency," Sparvell said. "They want opportunities to lead
straightaway—not because they want the leadership for ego; they want
the leadership for a chance to drive change. And when they don't have
the leadership, they essentially leave the profession."
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