📲 Teachers in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Technology is no longer a distant horizon; it has become the neighbour of the classroom. It forces teachers to rethink their role, to negotiate between the virtual and the human, and to acknowledge that the twenty-first-century classroom can be a mined and, at times, ungovernable terrain.

In Chile, this shift has been abrupt. Rural schools still lack basic connectivity, territorial gaps in access persist, and teacher training in digital technologies remains marginal. Recent figures reveal that over the past fifteen years only 219 teachers have graduated with a specialisation in Technological Education nationwide—a number that exposes the system’s structural lag.

Opportunity: personalisation and relief from teaching overload

Artificial intelligence opens up promising scenarios: adapting content to students’ strengths, automating repetitive tasks, and freeing teachers’ time for meaningful conversation, tutoring and reflection.

At the University of Chile, initiatives are underway to promote AI literacy among teaching staff, enabling them to adjust pedagogical strategies through predictive data. This forms part of an institutional culture that prioritises professional development in these areas, reshaping current possibilities towards more creative and efficient classrooms and, in the long term, towards a more dynamic relationship with the rapid emergence of intelligent technologies.

Classrooms that accompany learners, that foster creativity, debate and reflection, thus emerge as a tangible horizon.

Classrooms that foster creativity, debate, and reflection

Risk: teacher alienation and the erosion of relationships

When technology is imposed without pedagogical mediation, teachers risk becoming screen operators rather than mediators of meaning. Among the most pressing dangers are:

• Students relying on algorithms to think, rather than to question.

• Automated assessment displacing pedagogical judgement.

• The widening of gaps between those with access to technological resources and those without. UNICEF has warned that digitalisation without closing access gaps only reinforces inequality.

• Teachers perceiving their role as dispensable: studies already show that many experience AI as a threat rather than an ally.

Strategies for navigating technology in the classroom

Continuous professional development and digital literacy

Providing devices is not enough. Teachers must be trained not merely as users, but as critical interpreters of technology. In Chile, postgraduate programmes and diplomas on AI integration in teaching are beginning to emerge, though still on a limited scale.

A gradual and reflective adoption model

The RAT model (Replacement, Amplification, Transformation) proposes progressive levels of technological integration. Transformation should not be the starting point; the essential question is when and how technology truly adds pedagogical value.

School leadership as a driver of change

Leadership teams need digital vision, pedagogical competence and an innovative mindset. Research consistently shows that schools successful in ICT integration share committed and integrative leadership.

Public policies with real support

Sustained investment in connectivity, equipment, maintenance and technical support is essential, alongside incentives that prevent schools in isolated areas from falling further behind.

Chile, screen forward: what can be transformed

Methodologies such as the flipped classroom allow face-to-face time to be devoted to debate, experimentation and tutoring, while theoretical content is explored at home through digital platforms.

Formative assessment can be enriched by data generated through systems that monitor student progress—provided that professional judgement is not sidelined.

In the near future, regulating the use of large language models—such as ChatGPT and other LLMs—in assessment will be unavoidable: how to integrate them without dependency, how to ensure ethics, originality and transparency. Recent studies warn of risks related to bias, opacity and data privacy in their educational use.

The classroom has become a symbolic battleground: between those who believe technology will save education and those who fear it will turn learning into a simulacrum. This is not a matter of technophobia or technophilia, but of exercising a profoundly human criterion.

Teachers cannot be pushed aside passively. They must reclaim their place as mediators of meaning. If Chile seeks an education system with a soul, it must recognise that technology is not neutral—and that integrating it demands ethical, formative and cultural decisions.

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