Are new technologies making teachers irrelevant? Our space is increasingly encroached upon by MOOCs, gamification, online classrooms, competency based curriculum, iPads in the classroom, virtually unlimited online information, and other threats to the traditional teacher-student paradigm. Teachers will have a place in this new world only if we advocate for the value we bring to the party.

We are much more than babysitters for unruly, unmotivated, and disorganized youth. Faculty model adult behavior and interaction for students. We demonstrate the fine balance between talking and listening. Teachers provide a venue for professional teamwork and standards. We give individual attention to students’ psychological needs, pushing them to be their best and giving them a hand up out of the pits of despair that inevitably punctuate their climb towards mastery of the canon of their chosen fields.

Higher education presents hurdles to be cleared that are more than mere bureaucratic busy work. Showing up for class, doing the assignments on time, turning them in (!), and staying until “the bell rings” are all part of being an adult in an interdependent society. In the “real world” that follows graduation, they will be better prepared to make the hard decisions and execute the steps that pave a successful career. We coax and guide the emergence of fully formed, emotionally intelligent adults from the soft clay of adolescence. We are able to transmit human truths and values in a manner that no machine can replicate, due to their essential lack of humanity.

Educators should not be content with being relegated to mere game design. We should resist standing somewhere in the background, separated from our charges by distance and time, reduced to predicting what might emerge if we tweak this step or that, if we amp up the students’ dopamine or adrenaline with a graphic or game, or if the lessons are enhanced with a new bell and whistle or alternative progression. Lightboards are great, but we will rue the day when we lecture only to cameras rather than human beings. If we take educators out of the loop, education will be reduced to reports and charts, disembodied metrics about faceless multitudes of learners, bell curves, standard deviations, and, to the detriment of society, ROI.

Faculty cannot ignore new technologies. We do so at the peril of hastening our own irrelevance. Professional educators must be part of the conversation about the appropriate and inappropriate uses of new technologies. Educators must be outspoken about where traditional teacher-student interaction is superior to anything a machine can provide.

Let us recognize what types of learning are enhanced by machines but, at the same time, identify elements that are left out in the cold when the machine is turned on. Instructors must know when the computers should be shut off and the human communication should take over. We must recognize the value of face time as a component of a college degree, insist upon the labeling of degrees that include faculty-student interaction in collegiate transcripts, and learn to articulate and advocate for the value imparted by these elements.

Let us not be blind to how new technologies can supplement our efforts and improve our results as teachers. But let us not go blindly into the night, trusting that stakeholders will recognize the value that traditional teaching brings to the table without us actively advocating for the appropriate mix of technology with the human touch.