Current Practice

This action research study explored the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in four teacher education courses (graduate and undergraduate) within a college of education. The article reviews current literature on AI in education and discusses results from both instructors’ and students’ perspectives. The findings highlight the benefits and challenges of AI integration, including its impact on students’ learning experiences and perceptions. Undergraduate students found AI tools helpful for improving writing and grammar, while graduate students used AI to support research and curriculum development. The study emphasized the importance of ethical AI use, clear guidance from instructors, and the creation of a supportive culture of inquiry. By modeling AI tools and encouraging reflective practice, educators can enhance the learning experience and prepare future teachers to navigate the evolving landscape of AI in education.

Supplemental teaching materials from online sources such as Teachers Pay Teachers proliferate the educational landscape. Understanding how teachers use these tools is key to improving teacher education. This paper reports on an exploratory qualitative study that captured the perspectives of six early career elementary teachers on the supplemental teaching materials available on Teachers Pay Teachers. Semistructured think-aloud interviews illuminate tensions related to teachers’ landscapes of practice, institutional mistrust, perceived authoritativeness of sellers, curriculum marketplaces as altruistic platforms, and managing finite resources. Findings suggest that professionals who work with preservice and in-service elementary teachers must reframe their discussion of curriculum marketplaces toward developing teachers’ critical curriculum cultivation practices. Such reframing has the potential to influence the ways educators at all levels make use of online curriculum marketplaces, what resources they download, and how those resources are employed.

While educational technologies are often considered a panacea for improving K-12 teaching and learning, they frequently produce unintended or problematic effects. Consequently, preservice teachers (PSTs) must be prepared to think critically, or “technoskeptically,” when making decisions about the technologies they use in their future classrooms. The study described in this article implemented a series of learning activities during educational technology courses at two institutions, in which PSTs (n = 65) critically examined common classroom technologies, including Class Dojo and Teachers Pay Teachers. The researchers supported PSTs’ inquiries using the “Technoskepticism Iceberg” as a conceptual scaffold, which directs PSTs to examine the technical, psychosocial, and political dimensions of technology. They analyzed PSTs’ written appraisals of the technologies using qualitative content analysis, focusing on the types of arguments they made about the technologies and the extent to which their responses reflected critical thinking. They found that PSTs presented more deeply critical analyses of Class Dojo than of Teachers Pay Teachers, and results suggest that certain types of technologies are easier for PSTs to critique than others. Ways are discussed that teacher educators might further foster technoskeptical ways of thinking when working with PSTs.

Increasingly, social media spaces have become places for teachers to exchange ideas and acquire new information in support of their professional learning. The popular app, TikTok, has become one of the social media spaces that teachers are using for that purpose. Teachers’ use of online social media spaces to support their learning may have important implications for professional development and for classroom teaching practices. To gain an understanding of how K-12 teachers are using TikTok, this mixed-methods study was designed to investigate their professional use through an online survey and interviews. A total of 101 participants completed the survey, and 14 survey participants completed follow-up interviews. The teachers in this study were found to use TikTok to attain and share ideas with other teachers and to build and maintain connections with students. With the rise in popularity of social media spaces, including TikTok, these findings have implications for teachers, school leaders, teacher educators, and policymakers. Further, the findings also suggest exploring some larger questions related to social media use by teachers, in general. Policy implications based on the findings are explored.