Improve the K-12 Teaching Experience with Mitel Unified Communications Solutions

This is the second blog in a series about the communications challenges in K-12 school districts and Mitel’s unified communications solutions to those challenges. The first blog focused on enabling efficient communications and staff agility across a school district. This blog will focus on how that investment can improve the teaching and learning experience.

For many K-12 faculty, teaching is not just a job — it’s a calling. Teachers thrive on their ability to engage with students and help them achieve their goals. When the pandemic mandated distance learning in 2020, it drove a wedge between teachers and their students, leaving them frustrated, isolated, and powerless to fulfill their mission.

When students returned to the classroom, many teachers did not. In 2021, there were 36,500 teacher vacancies in US schools alone. The teachers who did return discovered there needed to be a quick fix to solve the significant learning loss. Today, teachers, students, and parents all continue to feel pressure.

In spring 2022, teacher morale hit an all-time low after almost three years of instability. Students' confidence and mental health have suffered as they struggle with learning gaps. More than 75% of schools surveyed said their teachers and staff had voiced concerns about student depression, anxiety, and trauma. While six-in-ten parents (61%) said the first year of the pandemic hurt their children’s education, more than four in ten (44%) say it is still the case today.

K-12 school districts worldwide continue to grapple with helping students recover from learning gaps and restoring school communities, and school administrators see the link between teacher morale and low student engagement. Restoring teacher satisfaction and retaining faculty are top priorities. Teachers have been clear about what they need. Beyond pay and respect for their experience, they want:

1. Meaningful professional support so they can dedicate more time to teaching.
2. Support for work-life balance.
3. The ability to collaborate with colleagues.

School districts are pursuing a multi-pronged approach to improve the teaching experience. Technology will play an important role. The same unified communications investments school districts are making to improve the staff working experience also address the list of ‘wants’ teachers have been asking for.

Mitel's unified communications solutions can help school staffing challenges >

Empowering Teachers with Mitel UCC Solutions

Mitel’s MiVoice Business platform supports the range of collaboration and communications applications K-12 teachers need to spend more time doing what they do best: teaching.

Empowered to Reduce Time Spent on Administrative Tasks

Mitel allows every teacher to personalize communications workflows to fit their workstyle so they can make quick work of administrative tasks. For instance, instead of listening to a series of voicemail messages, teachers can obtain their voicemail in the form of email messages. This helps them scan messages and follow up more efficiently.

Teachers can structure their day to avoid interruptions by setting contact hours when they can be reached by parents, administrators, and co-workers, helping them protect the time they need to teach, finalize lesson plans, and track student progress.

Free To Do Non-classroom Work Remotely

The days when teachers were anchored to their classroom after students left for the day were over. Instead, Mitel mobile applications and support for a wide range of mobile devices allow teachers to perform non-classroom tasks from anywhere, improving their work-life balance.

To address learning gaps, many districts invest in learning management systems that allow students to blend their classroom learning experience with remote learning tools and activities. Mitel solutions complement learning management solutions by making teacher/parent communications fast and easy. Instead of waiting months for parent-teacher conferences, teachers can make shorter, timely phone calls from their laptops or mobile phones to inform parents of student progress and suggest the next steps. Parents feel informed, students know teachers care, and the teacher successfully engages with both.

Belonging to a Collaborative Teaching Community

Teaching can be a team sport. Mitel collaboration tools like MiCollab and MiTeam Meetings allow any teacher to text, chat, or conduct an instant video meeting with a fellow teacher — down the hall or across town — to share ideas about how to apply new tools and techniques.

Feeling Valued and Recognized

When people feel valued and connected to something bigger, it gives them a sense of purpose. Mitel unified communications solutions provide school administrators and principals with an easy and powerful way to recognize achievements and convey teachers’ pivotal role, like during district-wide video staff meetings or by taking the time to communicate with individual teachers via phone, text, or chat.

The Empowerment Domino Effect

The teaching experience and learning experience are inextricably linked. When teachers feel empowered and recharged, that energy creates a domino effect translating into higher student and parent confidence and satisfaction. Everyone wins.

If your school district is looking for communications and collaboration technology to help faculty increase teaching time, improve work-life balance, collaborate freely with their peer community, and communicate better with students and parents, contact a Mitel partner today.