Education in the Age of AI: Insights from Teach For All
Educators around the world are navigating rapid changes in technology, and Teach For All is helping them rise to the challenge. Teach For America founder Wendy Kopp co-founded Teach For All after fielding numerous requests from social entrepreneurs around the world who wanted to create similar organizations that would expand educational opportunity in their own countries. Since its launch in September 2007, Teach For All has grown to include more than 60 partners on six continents that are pursuing a similar approach towards developing collective leadership to ensure all children have the education, support, and opportunity to fulfill their potential.
In this conversation, Stephen Jull, the new Global Head of AI and Education Technology at Teach For All, shares how the Teach For All network is supporting teachers and students to stay ahead of the curve by using digital tools such as AI and game-making to enhance creativity, build agency, and collaborate across the globe to shape the future of learning.
“When students create things, their sense of autonomy, agency, and confidence increases.”
- Stephen Jull
Global Head of AI and Education Technology
For readers who may not be familiar with Teach For All and your Education Technology Initiative, can you share a bit about your organization and what you're hoping to accomplish through this work?
Stephen: Teach For All is a global network made up of more than 60 independent, locally led organizations, united by a commitment to developing collective leadership to ensure all children can fulfill their potential. Although the partner organizations all operate in very different locations and approach the big questions in teaching and learning from unique contexts, we know there are similarities in the nature of the challenges facing children across the world, and that means the solutions are often shareable. The network enables this cross-border exchange of learning, and a big part of the work is focusing on how we can achieve our shared mission through developing collective leadership.
I, myself, started as a classroom teacher, then moved into research, and a PhD at Cambridge University, where I built my first EdTech product to enable learners to track and reflect upon their personal learning habits and journey. I now lead the AI and Education Technology initiative at Teach For All. The reality is, AI is everywhere now. Teachers and young people are already experimenting with it, pushing its limits, and being creative with it. Our job is to make sure our network of teachers, alumni, and staff not only have access to leading-edge AI models and tools, but also the confidence that comes through communities of collaboration, in order that they can explore these technologies in thoughtful, responsible ways.
Can you share a moment from the past year when you saw technology meaningfully change a student's or teacher's experience in the classroom?
Stephen: One of the biggest shifts has been how quickly the free AI models have been adopted by teachers and students worldwide. I emphasize 'free' primarily because it's the non-subscription models that are the most widely accessible–meeting our internal ESSI Test, a filter for equity, scale, sustainability, and impact that ensures our work aligns to our vision as a network committed to educational equity rather than just technological advancement.
A teacher, student or parent with a smartphone or laptop suddenly has access to the most powerful teaching and learning tools ever created. Where connectivity exists, anyone can source curriculum, create lesson plans, adapt learning materials, and provide personalized learning support. Students are exploring unfamiliar concepts and complex ideas more independently. They're asking deeper questions, trying new ideas, and creating.
Inequities in access to a high-quality education haven't disappeared, but the starting point has definitely been improved by the availability of the foundation model AI chatbots worldwide. If we can also ensure universal access, then we will be much closer than we have ever been to achieving the vision of education for all.
From your conversations across the network, what are teachers, fellows, and students most drawn to (or in need of) right now when it comes to technology and connectivity? Have you seen a shift in demand for new tools?
Stephen: Across the network, there is overwhelming interest in exploring the boundaries of what's possible and responsible in terms of the use of AI models like ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini. It goes without saying, these tools are powerful now, and becoming more accessible and powerful every day. The distinction and boundary between the teacher and learner is shifting such that the gap between wondering and knowing can be bridged by AI, removing the barriers to learning and creating. It presents a real opportunity for a complete shift to real, meaningful agency in one's own learning journey.
What hasn't changed (and I would suggest will never change) is that teachers are focused on creating conditions where all students thrive as unique learners. That might be through game design, storytelling, coding, or building an experience with AI. When students create things, their sense of autonomy, agency, and confidence increases. So if anything, the introduction of AI within education will likely see a demand toward a kind of learning that encourages and enables creation, giving young people ownership over their learning journey.
Over the past couple of years your team has been building communities of practice around Education Technology. Is there an example you can share of a practice, project, or collaboration that has spread across countries and gained real traction?
Stephen: What's really spreading across our network and through education worldwide isn't one specific product, practice or curriculum. It’s a recognition that there is a sea-change happening through universal access to not only knowledge, but intelligence. At the same time, we're seeing teachers recognizing that unique knowledge holds currency and that these same general purpose technologies, the AI foundation models, can be used to design and deliver curriculum and teaching methodologies that are deeply rooted in their own context.
This mindset, agency through technology, is sparking a sense of possibility and it's spreading incredibly fast.
We hear a lot about how game design can be a valuable tool for teaching multidisciplinary skills due to its project-based format and the emphasis it places on both hard and soft skill development. Do you have any examples of teachers using game design in their classroom?
Stephen: I'm a big fan of drawing on the principles of game design as a way of combining storytelling with sequential learning. Kids are naturally drawn to play and if-then logic; it's how they explore, test ideas, and make sense of the world. And honestly, that cycle of wonder, exploration, creativity, iteration, and delight is exactly what the cycle of effective learning looks like.
Teachers inherently understand the power of play and games in learning. It's just that it's incredibly difficult to do within a lock-step system of learning. With AI, it's easier than ever to create little ‘game moments’ in a lesson: small challenges, rewards, or story-based tasks. The AI foundation models are inherently inquisitive by design and draw us into the exploration of ideas. Students respond really well to this form of interaction because learning through play is natural.
What are the biggest barriers teachers face when trying to integrate technology?
Stephen: This definitely depends on where you are in the world. Infrastructure remains a major issue. There are billions of people who don't have access to reliable, affordable internet connections. But honestly, the biggest global barrier I see is professional development.
Teachers need support to use new tools well. You can introduce a new curriculum, teaching approach or EdTech product, but if educators don't feel confident, the introduction of something new will struggle to show an impact. But here's the problem with traditional professional development. The kind of half-day chalk'n'talk facilitated workshop that education systems around the world have been doing for years simply can't keep pace with AI. By the time a training session is designed, delivered, and rolled out across a system, the technology has already evolved. The old model of periodic, top-down professional development is fundamentally mismatched to this moment.
What's different now is that AI itself changes the equation. The same tools that are transforming teaching and learning can transform professional development. Teachers can engage in continuous, self-directed learning. They can ask questions, explore new approaches, iterate on their practice, and learn simply by their continuous interaction with the AI models and each other and at a time of their choosing.
I’m not just saying we need to abandon professional development as we know it. It's more about recognizing that in this new age of AI, professional development needs to be as dynamic and responsive as the learning experiences we want to create for students.
Looking ahead, what are your top priorities for strengthening digital tool access and technical fluency for your global network?
Stephen: Our number one priority is making sure we listen, learn, and pay attention to things that matter for every educator in our network. I believe in teachers' creativity and rely on their resilience to take on the challenge of a new future that includes AI in whatever shape or form. As the AI and Education Technology team, we will work to co-create the conditions that support our network’s teachers, alumni, and staff to take on the big questions and uncertainties ahead.
To learn more, visit https://teachforall.org