Teaching in Two Classrooms... at Once

Why EdTech Causes Teacher Burnout

I started at my current school in the Fall of 2020…I taught almost my entire first school year fully online. 

We all remember how overnight, everything changed. My usual ways of teaching; paper handouts, printed project guides, written instructions, gather-around demos all suddenly didn’t work in this new situation.

We were trying to keep school going under impossible circumstances, and I adapted. Like many teachers, I learned new platforms, recorded lessons, organized digital classrooms, uploaded resources, and communicated everything online.

Then we returned to the classroom, but for my classroom… a lot of those systems stayed in place.

I’m not fully sure how I got to this place but I think it was a combination of the distance learning and a broader push toward being paperless and fully integrated with educational technology. 

Gradually, I got used to teaching this way. Slides replaced printed project guides. Written instructions became Google Docs with embedded links and reflections became digital forms. More and more of the classroom experience moved onto screens.

At the same time, the digital side of my teaching expanded far beyond instruction. Admin emailed links to surveys to complete, and PD days revolved around new platforms to navigate that were meant to save us time but have only added to digital documentation avalanche. 

​Information living in so many different places that I struggle to keep track of it all. 

All of this has made me stop and think: if I feel overwhelmed by the number of systems I’m expected to navigate as a teacher, how do my students feel?

Students move through six or seven classes a day, and every teacher organizes things a little differently. 

​Students are not just learning anymore. They are learning while also documenting, uploading, navigating, checking calendars, submitting, photographing, and monitoring notifications. 

​Teachers are not just teaching. We are also posting assignments, formatting, organizing, responding, documenting, and managing digital and physical systems simultaneously.

Both teachers and students are now teaching/learning in two classrooms at once: the physical classroom and the digital one running in the background. 

Everything happens twice...and we wonder why we feel burned out?

Less Screens, More Making

Lately, I’ve been slowly returning to the way I used to teach. Some of these practices disappeared so gradually during online learning and following years that I honestly forgot about them. 

I’ve started bringing back printed project guides. Somewhere along the way, these became long digital documents full of links, slides, and tabs. But reading on a screen often encourages skimming, and students miss important information.

A physical guide is simpler. Students can annotate it, and glance at it while they work without opening a device and getting distracted. 

The guides themselves are not complicated. I include a project description, learning goals/ indicators, materials, steps, a timeline, and the key techniques or skills students will be practicing. I've found that having everything clearly organized on a physical sheet of paper not only helps students be more focused, but more independent during projects.

I’ve even returned to the practice of popcorn reading project guides together at the start of a new project. At first, students seemed annoyed with the slow pace of this, and honestly, I think I was uncomfortable with that too. We’ve all become so used to constant stimulation and moving quickly from one thing to the next. But over time, students adjusted, and I’ve had to remind myself that it’s okay to be a little bored sometimes. Not every part of learning needs to be entertaining. 

​Ironically, I still make my project guides in Canva (another platform, I know!). If it's helpful, I’m also sharing the template I use here: Project Guide Template.

De-digitizing my classroom

​I’ve also returned to writing on the whiteboard while I teach. Even though I have access to a smartboard and document camera, there’s something effective about slowing down and physically writing ideas, instructions, and sketches in real time while students watch and listen.

My dad actually got me thinking about this. Before working in tech sales in the 90s, he was an English teacher, and even after moving into the tech field he still relied heavily on the whiteboard during presentations. While many other salespeople used polished slides, charts, and snazzy graphics, he preferred to stand at a whiteboard and build ideas in front of people as he spoke. He was a top seller, and he used to tell me that writing while you talk helps people remember what you are saying because they can see the thinking unfold in real time.
I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately in my own classroom.

​At the start of class, I now write as I speak when I go over agenda items, instructions, and reminders. Even if something is simple, I try to physically write, underline, annotate, sketch, or make some kind of visible mark to reinforce the idea.
​During demos, I keep a small whiteboard on an easel nearby and write key techniques, reminders, or vocabulary as I teach. Then I leave the whiteboard out near the materials for the unit so students can continue referring back to it while they work.

The (Lost) Art of Handwriting

I’ve been doing more handwritten reflections and notes again too. For years, students wrote letters to me by hand at the beginning of the year, and I’m returning to that practice. Writing by hand changes the pace of thinking. 

Remember when we used to recognize one another’s handwriting?

When I taught IB Art years ago and spent hours reading through students’ physical investigation workbooks, I could often tell whose work I was looking at immediately just from the handwriting on the page. It feels strange now to realize how rarely I see my students’ handwriting at all.

At the start of each semester, I ask students to write me a letter introducing themselves. Since I teach semester-long classes, it’s one of the first ways I get to know them. During distance learning, I shifted this assignment to a digital format, and after we returned to the classroom I never fully switched it back. Last year I made handwriting optional, and only a handful of students chose to write by hand. This year I required handwritten letters again, in an actual letter format with “Dear” and “Sincerely,” and honestly, many students struggled with it. Writing by hand no longer feels natural to a lot of them.

At the same time, reading those letters in their own handwriting felt much more personal. I noticed the effort students put into them, even when the writing itself was messy or hesitant. It helped me get to know them in a different way than a typed response ever could.

I’ve noticed something similar with handwritten notes during class. When students physically write down new concepts, techniques, vocabulary, or reminders as we learn them, the information seems to stay with students longer. The process is slower and requires coordination of mind and hand. 

​If it’s helpful, here’s the handwritten student letter template I use at the start of each semester: Letter to Teacher Template (this is a Google Doc so make a copy to be able to edit to suit your needs)

Going Phone-Free

Phones have been part of the environment since I started teaching. In my state, our governor has now banned phones in K–12 classrooms, and my school is strict about adhering to this policy, so students rarely have their phones out. Instead, laptops have become the default screen.

I have started being much firmer about keeping laptops put away during studio time unless they are actively required. It takes frequent reminders, but I have noticed a real difference in focus when screens are not competing for attention in the background of the room.

​I am also trying to be more intentional about documentation. Not every moment needs to be photographed, uploaded, or shared immediately. I have been setting aside specific times to take photos of student work instead of constantly having my phone out during class. Sometimes I even go weeks without documenting progress, which feels like a big change after years of consistently capturing student work.

​This has probably been the hardest adjustment for me. There are still moments where I feel like I am missing something important or letting those beautiful in-between stages slip away without recording them. But I also know I do not actually have the time to go back through thousands of photos I have taken over the years. It has started to feel like a kind of digital accumulation that I do not need to keep holding onto, and I am learning that it is okay to let some of that go and just stay present with what is happening in front of me.​

Avoiding Tech Fatigue as a Teacher

For me, this change is coming at a crucial moment, both for myself and my students. This year I really felt teacher burnout setting in, and I realized a lot of what was driving it was tech fatigue. Ask any teacher and they will tell you the best part of the job is the teaching, the learning, and the students.

So the question becomes how do we organize our classrooms to have more of that, and less of everything else around it?

​We do have directives from leadership at the school and district level, and those shape a lot of what we do. But this is also something many of us are becoming more aware of. I am choosing to focus on what I can control, continuing to reflect on my reliance on technology, and being more intentional about where it actually supports learning and where it is just adding to the noise.