"Listen to the Teachers": Research-Based Personas for Translating Classroom Realities into Actionable HCI Design

The Human Computer Interaction community is well positioned to address socio-technical issues in post-digital education. However, relevant research has not fully captured how learning with and about emerging technologies is transforming the teaching profession and associated practices. This oversight hinders the implementation of Computational Empowerment, i.e. the critical deconstruction and creative construction of technology, in classrooms. Thus, this paper builds an empirically-grounded bridge between educational practice and HCI research. Analyzing semi-structured interviews and creative design tasks with 16 teachers, we uncover unarticulated needs and diverse teaching realities and manifest them in several teacher personas. These personas move beyond generic “teacher” concepts and provide actionable requirements to ensure relevant and sustainable HCI research and practice in educational contexts. Our work allows HCI research to anticipate diverse challenges and to develop targeted technological and educational solutions that empower teachers and harness the transformative potential of CE in the classroom.