Photo by Ivan Aleksic

Today’s teachers find themselves thrust into a difficult position with generative AI. New tools are coming online at a blistering pace and being adopted just as quickly, whether they’re personalized tutors and study buddies for students or lesson plan generators and assignment graders for teachers. Schools are traditionally slow to adapt to change, which makes such rapid-fire developments especially destabilizing.

The uncertainties accompanying the artificial intelligence onslaught come amid existing challenges the teaching profession has faced for years. Teachers have been working with increasingly scarce resources – and even scarcer time – while facing mounting expectations not only for their students’ academic performance, but also their social-emotional development. Many teachers are burned out, and they’re leaving the profession in record numbers.

All of this matters because teacher quality is the single most important factor in school influencing student achievement. And the impact of teachers is greatest for students who are most disadvantaged. How teachers end up using, or not using, AI to support their teaching – and their students’ learning – may be the most crucial determinant of whether AI’s use in schools narrows or widens existing equity gaps.

We have been conducting research on how public school teachers feel about generative AI........

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