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Artificial Intelligence (AI), and generative AI in particular, has rapidly become part of the everyday lives of children and young people, where AI services such as ChatGPT and My AI are replacing search engines for knowledge acquisition and are used as study companions. At the same time, Swedish digitalisation policy is introducing restrictions on the use of digital learning resources, while demands for AI literacy are emphasised in national AI strategies, international policy documents, and forthcoming PISA assessments. This places significant demands on teachers’ AI literacy. In this project, we define AI literacy as a set of profession-specific competencies required to both teach about and teach with generative AI.

Developing capacity to address generative AI in schools

The aim of this research project is to develop the capacity of compulsory schools to address generative AI, with a focus on teachers’ AI literacy and professional judgement. Although the project primarily engages teachers and school leaders, student benefit is central: strengthened professional AI literacy and shared guidelines influence teaching, feedback, and assessment practices in the classroom. In the longer term, this creates better conditions for student learning, equity, and fairness as generative AI becomes part of everyday school practice. More specifically, the project will address the following research questions:

1. What knowledge and insights about AI do teachers identify as central to strengthening their own AI literacy?
2. What do teachers believe students need to understand about AI, and how should this knowledge be taught?
3. How can teachers’ practical experiences and reasoning be translated into locally grounded recommendations and guidelines to support teachers and school leaders in the municipality of Norrköping?

The project is led by Karin Stolpe, with Katarina Sperling as a contributing researcher. Both researchers are affiliated with Linköping University’s AIST Lab initiative. The project is conducted in close collaboration with the Education Department of the municipality of Norrköping.

Teachers’ lived experiences as a foundation for didactic strategies

The project is funded by the Norrköping Research and Development Fund and involves lower and upper secondary school teachers as well as school leaders in the municipality of Norrköping. The design is based on a well-established model for collegial learning and didactic development, which we have developed through our work with teacher educators.

Through a series of structured workshops with teachers and school leaders, the project will identify concrete challenges that teachers face as AI becomes part of students’ everyday lives. In addition, possible ways of addressing these challenges will be discussed and tested.

The importance of a profession-defined concept of AI literacy

There is currently no scientific consensus on what AI literacy entails specifically for the teaching profession. Much of the existing research has been developed from computer science perspectives and emphasises technical components. One scientific challenge lies in specifying a profession-specific competence that integrates technical understanding with didactic judgement and the ability to navigate legal and ethical tensions.

Another challenge is that students’ use of AI often occurs outside lesson time or through channels not visible to teachers. As a result, teachers’ considerations regarding authenticity, fair assessment, equity, integrity, and student responsibility often emerge in informal conversations but are rarely captured systematically. In this project, we aim to make these professional deliberations visible and analyse the norms and values that shape legitimate practice.

Dissemination of results

The results will benefit practice through a digital handbook in which the profession’s lived experiences form the basis for concrete approaches, didactic strategies, and local guidelines for teaching about and with AI. In this way, the project contributes to the objectives of the Norrköping Fund by raising the level of education at the local level, developing municipal activities, and strengthening education and research at Linköping University, Campus Norrköping. Ultimately, the project helps schools fulfil their democratic mission in a time of rapid technological change.