# With AI in the classroom, a teacher's role is being redefined

> When explanation and marking can be partly handled by software, a teacher's value shifts toward judgement, motivation and relationships.

- Source: Times of China (Times of China)
- Canonical URL: https://timesofchina.cn.com/en/article/ai-jinru-ketang-jiaoshi-juese
- Chinese edition: https://timesofchina.cn.com/article/ai-jinru-ketang-jiaoshi-juese
- Author: 中国时报编辑部
- Section: Education
- Published: 2026-07-14T09:40:00+08:00
- Updated: 2026-07-14T09:40:00+08:00
- Tags: 教育科技, 课堂教学, 教师发展

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When teaching tools arrive in a classroom, repetitive work changes first. Marking, explaining individual concepts and generating practice can all be handed over to some degree.

That raises an immediate question: what should the time freed up be used for. If it simply absorbs more classes or more administration, the space the technology created fills up straight away, and teaching quality does not necessarily improve.

## Diagnosis is scarcer than explanation

A system can identify which questions a student got wrong. It is far less able to tell whether the cause was a shaky concept, a misread question or insufficient practice. That kind of diagnosis draws on a teacher's knowledge of the student over time.

Data generated by a tool therefore only means something when a teacher can interpret it. This shifts the focus of teacher training from operating software toward reading data and making instructional decisions.

## Relationships remain the core

Motivation to learn comes largely from connection between people. A student willing to put extra hours into a subject is often responding to encouragement from a particular teacher, and that part resists substitution.

Treating the technology as support for teachers rather than a replacement for them is the consensus most schools reach in practice. Tools take the standardisable part, teachers concentrate on the parts requiring judgement and care.

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Originally published by Times of China. Free to cite with attribution and a link to https://timesofchina.cn.com/en/article/ai-jinru-ketang-jiaoshi-juese.