CTRL ALT DEVELOP AI: as a Professional Learning Partner
- Last updated: 17th August, 2026
This blog is based on insights shared by Laura Knight at her keynote for The Professional Development in the Age of AI: Reducing Workload, Growing Agency event.
The Challenges
Doing More with Less
Educators today face growing expectations with fewer resources. With time, budgets and capacity stretched, professional development often feels like a luxury rather than a necessity. Laura called this out as one of the sector’s biggest challenges, ensuring PD remains meaningful and purpose-driven despite systemic pressure to simply “get through the next thing.”
The Missing Rehearsal Space
Unlike many professions that build in time for rehearsal, musicians, athletes and even actors, teachers often perform without the benefit of practice. PD is frequently reactive, and opportunities for reflective review are scarce. AI, Laura suggested, could offer a route to more accessible rehearsal and reflection, giving teachers space to hone their craft before stepping into the classroom or leadership situations.
“Teachers and leaders are often effectively on stage all the time, with very little time to go through the motions or rehearse the tricky bits.”
This points to a powerful opportunity: using AI to carve out reflective, low-risk spaces for practice and feedback.
The Risks
Navigating Ethics and Hierarchy
AI can bring significant disruption to school systems if its use is not well aligned with existing values and structures. Laura highlighted the risk of AI unintentionally undermining authority, relationships or cultural coherence in schools.
“If we allow core values to be eroded by AI-generated content that isn’t aligned with our context or hierarchy, that could be really disruptive.”
This calls for a cautious, policy-informed approach to integration, rooted in ethics, clear boundaries and collective understanding.
The Dilemma of Personalisation and Data Protection
One of the central tensions in using AI effectively for PD is the need for personalisation versus the need to protect data. Without contextual input, AI can only return generic outputs. But what, Laura asked, should we safely feed into these systems to reap the benefits of tailored professional learning?
“If we never put anything back into generative AI models, we’ll always get the generic back.”
IRIS Connect’s approach to secure, in-context video-based and AI-assisted coaching begins to answer this challenge, offering teachers personalised insights within a safe, closed ecosystem.
The Importance of Mentorship and Human Connection
Mentorship and human interaction are irreplaceable in professional growth. AI must not disrupt this dynamic by devaluing those essential relationships. Rather, it should enhance the human connections that fuel deep learning.
The Opportunity
Prompting Metacognition and Micro-Reflection
AI has real potential to nudge teachers into powerful habits of reflection. Micro-prompts before, during or after practice can support metacognitive awareness and continuous improvement.
“If metacognition works for our students, why not for us too?”
These just-in-time reflections can become part of a teacher’s daily routine, embedded within platforms like IRIS Connect, to encourage sustainable habit formation.
A Catalyst for Positive Disruption
Laura encouraged the audience to embrace a little “troublemaking” through AI, challenging outdated practices and opening up new pathways for growth.
Scenario-based learning and simulated rehearsals, often difficult to orchestrate in traditional PD, can now be explored through AI-enhanced environments, allowing teachers to engage with complex situations in safe, repeatable ways.
Growing a New Professional Vision
Ultimately, AI can help educators refine their judgement and decision-making. By augmenting, not replacing, our insights, it supports the development of a new professional vision grounded in clarity, precision and wisdom.
“If AI can deepen our professional vision, we should see it as a powerful partner.”
Questions to Reflect On
Laura closed her keynote with four questions to help schools reflect more deeply on how AI and PD can evolve together.
Challenges
What are the recruitment and retention implications of teachers being in survival mode?
How could AI help to alleviate this?
Risks
What does professionalism and judgement look like in a school using AI well for PD?
Opportunities
If every teacher had a thinking partner, a rehearsal space and access to their school’s collective wisdom, what kind of learning culture could we build?
Conclusion: Choosing with Care and Intention
AI is neither a silver bullet nor a threat to be feared. As Laura powerfully reminded us, the key is intentionality. Choosing what to delegate and what to hold on to. Designing policies that align with principles. Supporting teachers with tools that deepen, not dilute, their professionalism.
At IRIS Connect, we believe in AI-powered PD that keeps teachers at the centre. By combining the power of video reflection, instructional coaching and ethical AI, we are helping schools build the kind of learning cultures that raise outcomes for everyone.
About the Author
Laura is one of the UK’s leading voices on AI in education, advising schools, trusts, universities, governments and edtechs on ethical, human-centred use of technology. Founder and CEO of Sapio Ltd, she brings over 20 years’ experience as a teacher and leader across both maintained and independent sectors. Her keynote explores how AI can act as a partner in professional learning, offering practical support, while strengthening reflective practice. It outlines how teachers and leaders can use AI to deepen insight, extend capability and personalise their own development. Participants will gain a clear view of what responsible, high quality AI enabled professional growth can look like in everyday school life.
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