Fostering Teacher Professionalism Through AI: A Canadian-German Collaboration

Cooperation project with Dr. Soroush Sabbaghan from the Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary

Project members of the Mathematics Education – Primary School working group at UHH:
Prof. Dr. Marcus Schütte
Dr. Mia Viermann
Peter Ludes-Adamy

The project Fostering Teacher Professionalism Through AI represents the first phase of a long-term international, cooperative research initiative of the Werklund School of Education, University of Calgary, represented by Dr. Soroush Sabbaghan, and the Mathematics Education – Primary School working group of the Faculty of Education at Universität Hamburg. It aims to support the professionalisation of teachers in initial and continuing teacher education through a participatory approach. By actively co-developing an AI tool for lesson planning, teachers should not only improve the quality of their lesson planning, but above all also build up AI literacy in order to better assess the meaningfulness of using AI tools and to critically reflect on possible results for their lesson planning.

In the first phase of the project, AI-supported tools for lesson planning are being further developed in cooperative collaboration between teachers and researchers from both locations. The initial focus is on the further development of an AI-supported lesson planner ‚Ally', which was developed by Dr. Soroush Sabbaghan in collaboration with Canadian teachers and is currently being used in Canadian schools. The aim of the current project phase is to adapt and improve the AI-supported lesson planning tool ‚Ally' for use in German schools. In the second, empirical phase of the project, the impact of the development and use of ‚Ally' by the participating teachers on their teacher professionalisation in the area of AI literacy will be examined. The study will follow a mixed-methods approach. Within this approach, quantitative data on teachers' usage behaviour on the AI platform as well as collective orientations regarding attitudes towards AI will be analysed through qualitative-reconstructive analyses of group discussions with the participating teachers.

Current project funding

Funded by	Funding amount
International Partnership Funding (IPF) of the University of Gießen (approved)	1,335 €
SSHRC Partnership Grant (Canadian federal grant)	planned for 11/25