Has technology changed what we mean by ‘good teaching’?

Ben Knight, Head of Language Content, Research, and Pedagogy in our English Language Teaching (ELT) division, discusses the key takeaways of our recently published paper on digital pedagogy and the impact of technology on teaching and learning.

Which side of the debate are you on?

On one side, teaching and learning are fundamentally human activities, happening in the human brain, motivated and guided through human interactions and relationships. Technology offers new tools for doing things, but the rules of the game remain the same.

On the other side, technology is changing the nature of teaching and learning itself. Learning can become more personalized, learners have more options for accessing information, guidance, and feedback, and AI-generated simulations can bridge classroom and real-life experiences. Teaching becomes less about managing learning directly and more about guiding students to use technology effectively.

In the ELT division at OUP, we’ve been exploring this question through our Digital Pedagogy position paper, published earlier this year. While we focus on the role of teachers, we also consider what digital transformation means for publishers or suppliers of digital tools and content.

Rather than taking sides, the paper brings together insights from across the debate. Here are five key reflections for educators:

1. Digital pedagogy is more than just mastering the use of new tools

Digital tools are not neutral. They infer a view of what needs to be learned, and how it is best learned. Teachers need to combine their understanding of their students and context to evaluate when specific tools are going to help them with what matters most at that time. An understanding of traditional pedagogy, or the knowledge of how to teach well, including appropriate challenge and support, combines with an understanding of how different tools work. Providers of digital tools need to provide more guidance on how their tools fit within the pedagogical landscape.

2. Technology reshapes teacher-learner relationships

Technology allows learners to take more control of their learning. They can control the pace of learning, access information and feedback when they need it, collaborate quietly with others, engage with Socratic tutoring systems, and customize their learning programme.

Learner agency can be a powerful driver of learning, but students still need guidance from their teachers. Publishers also need to be giving more support to learners and their teachers to make the most of these new opportunities.

3. Critical thinking is essential

In a world without technological development, it might be possible to imagine teachers developing a portfolio of pedagogical skills and knowledge which they can apply year after year. But the recent pace of technological change requires teachers to step outside of familiar approaches and constantly evaluate new opportunities.

How does this new digital tool relate to the principles of effective learning? Do the claims made by suppliers match the actual experience in our context?

Generative AI has further accelerated these questions. Language teachers, in particular, have to think carefully about what their students really need to learn and how they can best learn it.

For example, an app may claim to be based on the findings of learning psychology, referring to the importance of ‘spaced repetition’. In practice, it is mainly just repeating questions after periods of time. Without tracking each student’s mastery of items and adjusting the repetition accordingly, it is unlikely to deliver the benefits associated with genuine spaced repetition approaches.

4. Support teachers with digital pedagogical literacy

An important component of digital pedagogy must be making decisions about when and how to integrate technology into the learning programme.

Apps or platforms with gamification features, such as leaderboards, look very attractive in terms of boosting engagement. However, educators have known of the negative effects of public displays of ‘scores’ for many years: increased anxiety, reduced motivation for those who are not leading, and a focus on point-scoring rather than deep learning.

It is too easy to overlook what we already know about learning in the face of the impressive capabilities of new digital tools. Dynamic dashboards showing how each student is performing on particular activities can look fantastic. But as language teachers, we know their value will be limited if they do not align with what we really care about: communicative effectiveness, confidence building, fluency development, and intelligibility versus accuracy.

At OUP, our professional development programmes now aim to go beyond training teachers in effective pedagogical skills. We also seek to equip teachers with the critical capabilities they need to evaluate new developments for their own students. This is becoming an important part of our ‘digital pedagogical literacy’ programme. 

However, support needs to extend beyond the teacher. Increasingly, decisions about technological adoptions are made by senior leadership who may be further removed from day-to-day teaching and learning. This is why we are also working more closely with educational leaders, principals and managers who play a key role in shaping technology adoptions.

5. Pedagogy should lead technology

This may sound like a platitude; who would disagree? It’s true that it’s not really a profound insight. The challenge is that we don’t always follow it.

It might be better to think of it like this: start with the learning problem, not the tool. We need to define the problem that needs solving first. Students may not be engaging with the activities in the classroom, an activity that is challenging for some is too difficult for others. Students may be reluctant to speak in class. Or students may be using AI to complete assignments.

For each of these problems, there needs to be in-depth examination of what is behind them. What are the different reasons students won’t speak in class? Only after this stage has been completed should schools think about how technology might help them.

Thinking about pedagogy is difficult because it has so many different dimensions. Should we be thinking about what motivates learners, or about the cognitive processes of remembering things? This is one of the reasons behind our work to communicate more clearly the pedagogical principles that have already been shown to support learning.

The Oxford Ten Principles of Language Learning are built around ten main principles of effective teaching. They link the principles back to the research that supports them, and forward to teaching practices that illustrate their application.

Shaping the future of digital learning

Digital pedagogy does not provide simple answers but it does encourage us to think more carefully about the relationship between teaching, learning, and technology.

The central message of the position paper is clear: technology should support learning goals, not drive them. By starting with pedagogy rather than digital tools, educators can make informed decisions about how technology is used in their classrooms.

To explore these ideas in more detail, read the Digital Pedagogy position paper and listen to the accompanying Talking ELT podcast discussion, featuring members of the expert panel behind the publication.