(So Far...) We Aren't Preparing Teachers to Teach in the Age of AI

Part III on Technology & Education

Over the past two posts, I’ve argued that every major technology revolution—from personal computers to the Internet to AI—has followed a familiar pattern. Schools acquire new technology quickly, but meaningful classroom transformation takes much longer.

The obvious question is Why?

Many people assume the answer is that teachers resist change. My conversations with educators around the world on my “journey of gratitude” suggests something quite different.

The issue may not be teacher resistance at all. It could be teacher PREPARATION.

Most colleges of education today do a good job helping future teachers become digitally literate. By the time they graduate, new teachers typically know how to use learning-management systems, presentation software, online resources, digital assessments, and communication platforms.

Those are important skills. But I’m thinking that they are not enough.

It seems many teachers enter the classroom “technically” prepared and competent but pedagogically under-prepared for teaching in an ever-increasing digital world.

Using tools like Google Classroom, Powerpoint, Youtube video, or ChatGPT for preparing or presenting lessons is different from knowing how to redesign a lesson so students collaborate more deeply.

Knowing how to create an online quiz is different from knowing when technology genuinely improves learning—and when a classroom discussion might be the better choice. In the AI age, this means instructing students on how to ethically use AI as a collaborative companion.

Technology skills are necessary….Technology-rich teaching is something else entirely.

Many college and accrediting programs still devote relatively little time to authentic classroom practice using technology. Future teachers often learn about educational technology, but have fewer opportunities to design lessons, teach them with real students, reflect on the results, receive coaching, and try again.

The quality of student-teaching experiences also varies enormously. A future teacher placed with an innovative mentor may graduate with confidence using technology to support inquiry, collaboration, and creativity. Another graduate from the same university may have a very different experience simply because technology played a smaller role in the placement classroom.

Perhaps the most important insight is this:

Teacher preparation succeeds when technology is woven throughout the entire process of learning to teach—not when it is confined to a single educational technology course.

That means integrating technology into subject methods, classroom practice, assessment, mentoring, and ongoing reflection—not treating it as one more software class to complete before graduation.

The encouraging news is that this challenge is addressable - and it’s likely that AI is now caused many teacher training institutions to change the way they teach. While researching and traveling, I discovered universities, school systems, nonprofits, and technology companies that are already approaching teacher development differently. Their focus isn’t simply helping educators learn new tools. It’s helping them rethink how students learn.

A few weeks ago, I shared a video on one of these organizations, Meghshala (which means “school in the cloud”) which you can find here:

Megshala did start off years ago as a platform for teachers to grab content from the cloud and tools for their classroom work. But it has graduated from that role - and it is now also focused on how teachers can use these tools, including AI, for an integrated experience the changes the way students learn.

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In a future post, I plan to highlight several of these organizations from around the world and explore what they have in common. Their work offers a glimpse of what teacher preparation could look like if we designed it for the next forty years instead of the last forty.

But I know some of you reading this, particularly if you are a teacher, are wondering why I haven’t mentioned another very obvious MAJOR DETTERANT to teachers embedding technology into the learning process — systems that they work within.

Even the most innovative educators work within school systems shaped by curriculum requirements, standardized testing, district policies, and administrative priorities. Those systems can either encourage innovation—or unintentionally slow it down.

Stay tuned for that topic next in my posts.