How Many Decisions Do Teachers Make In A Day?

Teaching has been compared to rocket science but usually in jest, as in it’s not rocket science.

But any teacher worth their salt–and thus aware of the incredible demands of instructional design, personalizing learning, classroom management, the always-on demand of student and collegial relationships, grading, and so on

Teaching isn’t rocket science; it’s harder.

Which is what the following infographic from busyteacher.org is getting at–focusing on the concept of multitasking. Increasingly, research shows that multitasking is bad news for your brain, your habits, and your overall productivity. In the infographic, busyteacher.org says that a teacher makes over 1500 educational decisions every school day, a constant juggle of manager, content holder, master communicator, and support system.

While it’s exactly this kind of extraordinary burden that underscores the need for new learning models that decenter the teacher, the fact remains–if you really are meeting the needs of all of your students, teaching is crushingly difficult to do well on a consistent basis.

While the graphic focuses mostly on multitasking, the big takeaway for us really is that complexity.

1500 educational decisions a day.

Not sure where the data comes from exactly, but it’s a number that makes sense–and maybe even higher. (It works out to about four decisions per minute assuming six hours of ‘instruction.’) We’d be curious to see what the number is when you factor in the decisions that go into the curriculum and instructional design, grading, feedback, and revision of planned instruction.

And then spacing out on pinterest because you just can’t.

A Teacher Makes 1500 Educational Decisions A Day

Find more education infographics on e-Learning Infographics; image attribution busyteacher.org and flickr user chemistry; A Teacher Makes 1500 Educational Decisions A Day