Teacher Talk
Teacher Workload and AI: Creating More Time for Students
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Douglas Fisher
With AI reshaping the educational landscape, it's time to make AI work better for educators! In this study, we consider the essential job functions that teachers must accomplish each day and then analyze which of these can be turned over to AI. These include content creation, assessment development, feedback, intervention, and professional learning. We focus on the "human in the loop" as educators use AI, learning to critically analyze the output before using it in their classrooms. In addition, we focus on quality prompts and input that educators can use to improve their output.
Teachers’ Perceived Parental Involvement and Its Influence on Teachers’ Self-efficacy and Retention: Work, Roles, and Responsibilities View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Limor Carasso
Teachers have a vital role in meeting parents' expectations, leading to parents' active participation in their children's education within the school environment. The quality of school leadership and parents' involvement has significant implications for teachers' self-efficacy and retention. Sometimes, the outcome of parental involvement may negatively impact a teacher's efficacy if the participation does not empower teachers to make improvements that will ensure student success. Teachers might express frustration toward parents because of their over-involvement in interactions and perceived power. This dissatisfaction can lead to other issues impacting students' academic and social success due to teachers' lack of self-efficacy and perceived administrative support for teacher autonomy (Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2010, 2014, 2016). The goal of this study is to understand why teacher self-efficacy is an important factor and how schools' leadership and parental involvement can be enhanced to prevent teachers' early attrition and decrease the high occupational turnover in schools. This potential for improvement is essential for maintaining a stable school staff and fostering a positive outlook for the future of education.
Featured Teaching Against the Clock: Temporal Dissonance, AI and Ethics in Teacher Education
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Delecia Davids
The rise of generative AI in education introduces temporal frictions that challenge traditional notions of learning, reflection, and ethical judgment in teacher education. This paper examines how preservice teachers navigate the ethical and pedagogical tensions AI introduces into their professional formation. Drawing on Barnett’s (2007) concept of "a will to learn", this paper explores the contradictions between the uncertainty, struggle, and becoming essential to pedagogical engagement and meaningful learning in preservice teacher education, and AI’s predictive logic, which offers instant lesson plans, assessments, and instructional support. Through a sociomaterial perspective on digital agency, this paper analyses data from a 10-month multi-site, multimodal ethnography with preservice teachers who have grappled with the temporal demands of AI use in lesson planning, assessment, and classroom practice. Classroom observations, interviews, and multimodal journals reveal that while AI alleviates cognitive load and time pressures it also generates temporal dissonance—moments where ethical reasoning, agency, and pedagogical reflection are disrupted. By foregrounding time as a contested space in teacher education assemblages, this paper reconsiders the role of time in learning, ethics and becoming. In doing so, the paper contributes to conversations on AI’s role in teacher education, proposing strategies for integrating AI without eroding the essential struggle of learning. Ultimately, the study challenges deterministic narratives of AI as either a shortcut to competence or a threat to authenticity, advocating instead for a nuanced understanding of how future teachers can sustain a will to learn and learn to teach in an era of technological acceleration.
