Danah Henriksen and I have a chapter in the Third International Handbook of Educational Change (2026), edited by A. Lin Goodwin, Andy Hargreaves, Victoria Showunmi, Corrie Stone-Johnson, and Jennie Weiner. In our chapter, “The Classroom and Beyond: Teacher Education in a GenAI World,” we explore what it means to prepare educators for a technology that changes how students relate to knowledge and authority? To complicate matters further, most of the engagement with this technology happens before they ever walk into a classroom.

The handbook itself comes at an important moment, which the editors frame as a “generational tipping point.” As many of the founding figures in educational change move into emeritus status, this collection makes a deliberate effort to bridge established canons with newer scholarship, particularly from regions and perspectives that have been historically underrepresented. It’s a serious piece of work, and I’m glad our chapter found a home in it.

You should of course read the chapter in full, but broadly what Danah and I argue that GenAI is a cultural and epistemological shift, one that reaches well beyond the question of how to use the tools effectively in classrooms and schools. We draw on historical parallels (the way television reshaped civic life, the way social media altered the psychological landscape of adolescence) to make the case that the most consequential changes in education often originate outside schools. GenAI fits that pattern. It generates, it mimics, it reflects back whatever biases live in its training data, and it does all of this in ways that remain opaque even to the people building these systems. The result is a technology that functions simultaneously as a creative collaborator and as a mirror… one that has the potential to personalize learning while also amplifying the very inequities it purports to address.

The framework we propose asks teacher education to move beyond functionalism (here’s how to use the tool) toward something closer to critical agency: helping educators understand the political, economic, ethical, and social dimensions of what these technologies are doing in the world. We write about the risks of digital colonialism, about the erosion of epistemic trust that happens when statistical probability gets mistaken for understanding, and about the need for what we call “human wisdom” as a counterweight. The goal, as we see it, is to help teachers become the kind of thoughtful, ethical agents who can shape how these technologies serve human flourishing… or at least ask the right questions when they don’t.

I am also sensitive to the temporal irony in writing a handbook chapter about a technology that won’t hold still long enough to be handbookified. By the time the peer review was done and the revisions were in, the ground had shifted again… which, if you think about it, is a pretty good illustration of the instability we describe in the chapter itself.

That said, these are ideas I have been developing for a while now, across several publications and many conversations. The chapter gave Danah and me the chance to pull them together in a way that felt comprehensive without feeling encyclopedic. If you’re interested in the longer argument, the chapter is the place to go.

Citation, abstract and a link to the chapter is given below:

Mishra, P., & Henriksen, D. (2026). The classroom and beyond: Teacher education in a GenAI world. In A. L. Goodwin, A. Hargreaves, V. Showunmi, C. Stone-Johnson, & J. Weiner (Eds.), Third international handbook of educational change. Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-88898-4

Abstract: We argue that Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) represents more than a new educational tool; it constitutes a cultural and epistemological shift that fundamentally alters the context of teaching and learning. Our central thesis is that teacher education globally must prepare educators not merely to use GenAI effectively, but to critically engage with its systemic impacts across technological, political, economic, ethical, cognitive, environmental, and social dimensions. Our analysis examines GenAI’s distinctive attributes, or its protean, opaque, unstable, generative, and social qualities, which differentiate it from previous technologies and create unprecedented opportunities and challenges. While GenAI offers transformative potential through personalized learning, creative collaboration, and adaptive instruction, it also poses significant risks, including the potential for digital colonialism, the erosion of epistemic trust, and the amplification of systemic biases. We propose a framework for teacher education that prioritizes human wisdom, critical agency, and a nuanced understanding of GenAI’s broader ecological impact. Ultimately, we advocate for a shift from technological determinism to a more relational, ethical approach that empowers teachers to shape an AI-mediated future that supports human flourishing and social justice.