Transforming teacher training with AI at Epworth Community Services

Epworth Literacy by Epworth Community Services runs various intervention programmes and services to help children with learning challenges and impairments.

One of the key problems the agency faced was having senior teachers to train new teachers and ensuring their readiness to help special needs students overcome learning challenges. While necessary, this had proved labour-intensive for many senior teachers at Epworth. It also took away time that they could otherwise have been investing in the children’s learning.

In their search for a solution, they found InteractAI.

The agency leveraged its capabilities to train new teachers with the tool’s fleet of role-play scenarios and functions. This allowed new hires to practise in simulated classroom environments, enabling them to build their confidence and competencies in preparation for a real-life intervention situation.

With the advent of these technologies, Epworth Literacy shared that the teachers were “better prepared, more confident, adaptable, and effective in the classroom”. Being better equipped, teachers then delivered more engaging sessions, leading to improved learning environments and connection with students.

Since the tool was adopted in 2022, the agency has saved about four hundred hours of its senior teachers’ time, allowing them to channel those hours into intervention sessions with the children, programme evaluation, curriculum planning, and other forms of training.

Of course, this would not have been possible without having staff overcome initial teething issues and reservations.

“Our advice to other social service agencies looking to adopt new digital tools or technologies is to recognise that change and outcomes take time,” shares the Epworth Literacy representative.

Learn more about how digitalisation can transform your agency.