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What it takes to be a teacher

teacher-appreciation-infographic

New Teacher Appreciation Week infographics visually represent the career of the 21st Century educator

My Parisian mother was a teacher for a year, as a favor to my private school when its French teacher unexpectedly quit one summer. “Sure, I could teach,” was her casual answer.

Little did she, or I, know what was entailed in a teaching job. From late nights grading homework and designing fun, meaningful projects, to emptying the grocery store of Nutella and baguettes for ‘Fun Fridays,’ I had a hard time figuring out why all of a sudden my socks hadn’t been washed for a week and the once Julia Child-worthy dinners quickly became Lean Cuisines with a side of “there should be stuff in the fridge.” (Did I mention I’m an only child?)

Jokes aside, being a teacher is one of the most difficult, and one of the most under-appreciated, jobs in the U.S.

But outside of teachers saying it’s difficult, and kids being able to do complex math problems, it’s not always easy quantifying the work that goes into teaching…until now.

Thanks to the influx of global and national data, as well as the availability of infographic software, many organizations are creating visual representations of just how much work goes into teaching.

For example, based on data from the Wall Street Journal, the OECD, The Atlantic, and more, Knewton [1], an adaptive learning solutions provider, released a new infographic, “What does it take to be a teacher?” The infographic breaks down how much a teacher works in a year in different countries around the world.

Here’s a hint: It’s a lot.

The infographic also details how the hours are broken down into a teacher’s daily tasks, such as classroom prep, parent communication and administration.

Getting Smart [2], a blogging, consulting, and publishing community aimed at innovations—especially digital—in learning also released an infographic, “Competency-Based Teacher Prep & PD,” which delves into how new professional development learning models are creating the potential for personalized preparation pathways for teachers.

The infographic outlines how the role of teachers is changing amid broader shifts to personalized, blended and ‘Deeper Learning.’ It also previews the topics that are covered in the paper  “Preparing Teachers for Deeper Learning: Competency-Based Teacher Preparation and Development [3]”  that Digital Promise [4] and Getting Smart released May 1, 2014.

Know of a great visual representation of how hard teachers work or the current struggles they face? How are you celebrating Teacher Appreciation Week? Leave your comments in the section provided below, email me at mstansbury@ecampusnews.com [5], or find me @eSN_Meris [6] on Twitter.

(Next page: Infographic on what it takes to be a teacher)

In order to open up the idea for conversation, Knewton also created a survey [7] that lets educators weigh in on their own experiences. Take the survey [7].

For the full-sized image of the infographic, view the image [8].

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(Next page: Competency-based PD infographic)