Teacher-education experts discuss how AI plays a key role in reshaping teacher identity, challenging traditional ways of teaching, and exploring possibilities for a human-AI partnership in the classroom.

In photo: Delegates at ACE2025

AI tools are increasingly reshaping and transforming the professional landscapes of teacher education. AI is quickly taking over traditional teaching, leaving teachers with an existential crisis regarding their identity and role in the future. In the online panel presentation titled ‘Human-AI Partnership in Teacher Education: Rethinking the Hybrid Teacher of the Future’ moderated by Susie Kung of the Manukau Institute of Technology, New Zealand, Nabila Nindya Alifia Putri of Universitas Islam Internasional Indonesia, Indonesia; Dr Danny Liu of the University of Sydney, Australia; and Dr Jason Lodge of The University of Queensland, Australia, explored how student-teacher identities are evolving in AI-rich contexts, how cultural and societal factors shape our responses, and if the future teacher or educator might be a human-AI hybrid, what that could mean for the profession. 

‘The integration of AI into educational spaces is not just a technological shift, it’s a profound cultural and pedagogical transformation’, Ms Kung remarked in her opening statement. Dr Lodge agreed that we are witnessing a different kind of human-machine relationship with AI; not necessarily one where AI is conscious or has deliberate agency, but ‘a technology that to many people feels like a collaborator and less like a tool’. Dr Liu added that recently, students tend to ask fewer questions in class, preferring to ask a chatbot instead of asking each other or a teacher. ‘I think that’s a great threat to what we feel that we are, and who we are as a teacher’, he stated, urging the audience to ask themselves ‘what we need to reclaim that we lost through the machine that is education’. 

In photo: Delegate at ACE2025

Ms Kung went on to ask the panellists ‘How are emerging teacher identities shaped in digital, AI-rich environments? Is there a difference between an AI-rich environment and those that sit in traditional settings?’. To this, Dr Lodge responded that ‘currently, all of the evidence that we have suggests that humans learn better from and with other humans. So, there’s something about teaching and learning that I think is really human and social’. According to him, it would be great if AI were developed in a way that frees up teachers’ time from administrative tasks, so that teachers can spend more time socialising with their students and focus on this human relationship. However, Dr Liu warned that a lot of administrators take this too far, thinking that AI is just an administrative and efficiency tool. Instead, he stated that there is a lot AI can help teachers with besides administrative tasks, as long as teachers can be in control of how they use AI. 

Ms Kung raised the issue around the emotional and professional tensions that may arise from using AI in the classroom, particularly as it challenges established beliefs about teaching and learning, and considered whether AI-mediated contexts exacerbate identity tensions or are a catalyst for positive transformation. ‘I think the tensions already existed before AI came around, and it is just exacerbating and illuminating the problems that we already had in formal education’, Dr Liu stated. Assessment is one area in which this is visible, Dr Liu explained. There are a lot of students who use AI to complete their homework because they don’t care about it. And so, they don’t care if using AI for their homework is bad or unethical. ‘So, maybe it is time to rethink our curriculum and to actually think about what students would value more’, he concluded. 

In photo: Delegate at ACE2025

Will the future educator inevitably be a human-AI hybrid? And if so, should this be embraced, critiqued, or reimagined? Ms Nabila Nindya Alifia Putri expressed her conviction that AI will be unable to transfer human values like spirituality or morality. Her research highlighted cultural factors influencing AI adoption, including Indonesia’s emphasis on morality, discipline, and honesty. According to her, teachers demand localised AI that reflects Indonesian cultural contexts, and so, AI will never be able to reach this standard. ‘I want to encourage an avoidance of that kind of framing’ Dr Liu countered, ‘because there will be a time when AI could probably do those things, or rather be perceived by students to be able to do those things. And so if we keep saying to ourselves, “AI can’t”, or “This is a uniquely human thing”, then we are going to be very upset when we find out that AI can actually do those things’. 

The panel concluded that while AI presents challenges and intensifies existing tensions, it also offers opportunities for positive transformation. Rather than viewing this as an antagonistic relationship between humans and machines, we should redefine the teacher profession and education in a way that allows both to flourish and play a meaningful role. ‘I think the discussion around academic integrity is distracting us from larger questions we need to ask about the future of AI in education’, Dr Liu concluded. 

Watch the full panel presentation at ACE2025 in the video below.

Banner image: Laurens Derks, Unsplash