share:
Seven studies funded to explore how artificial intelligence is transforming the design, delivery, and implementation of professional learning for educators.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — The Research Partnership for Professional Learning (RPPL) today announced a newly funded research portfolio exploring how artificial intelligence is transforming the design, delivery, and implementation of professional learning for educators. The portfolio, which is part of the organization’s growing field-initiated research, was selected from 26 proposals submitted in response to a recent RFP on AI-enabled professional learning, underscoring the depth of commitment from researchers and practitioners across RPPL’s network to advancing this work. Funding for the research grants is generously supported by Overdeck Family Foundation.
Rather than evaluating AI tools in isolation, the funded studies prioritize understanding the design features of AI-enabled professional learning: how and why it works, for whom, and under what conditions. Proposals spanned a broad range of approaches — from building new AI tools to refining and extending existing platforms — with a clear emphasis on teacher-facing applications.
The seven funded studies center on how AI is reshaping the design, delivery, and enactment of professional learning, rather than focusing solely on tool adoption. Several studies investigate AI-enabled coaching—examining how AI influences coaching moves, feedback cycles, and teacher practice, as well as how automated feedback can support more equitable instruction and strengthen student engagement. Others explore teacher learning processes, including how generative AI-supported planning and scaffolds shape instructional decision-making and expand multilingual learners’ access to grade-level content, and how generative AI functions as a co-design partner to better align professional learning with teachers’ needs and contexts.
In addition, two studies examine collaborative learning and implementation, exploring how AI-enabled supports strengthen PLC routines and shift the enactment of evidence-based professional learning models. The portfolio also includes a study focused on instructional leadership using widely available AI tools to help leadership teams improve the coherence and effectiveness of instructional supports by generating transferable insights on leadership, coherence, and measurement.
Taken together, this coordinated portfolio moves the field beyond isolated examples toward a coherent, practice-embedded evidence base—clarifying not just whether AI works in professional learning, but how, for whom, and under what conditions it meaningfully improves teaching and learning
This coordinated portfolio moves the field beyond isolated examples toward a coherent, practice-embedded evidence base,”
CAMEA DAVIS, PhD
RPPL’S DIRECTOR OF EQUITABLE RESEARCH-PRACTICE PARTNERSHIPS
Coaching & Feedback
- “Coaching with AI: An RPP Study of AI-Enabled Coaching Design and Implementation” (Maia Elkana, Washington University in St. Louis)
- “Accelerating Multilingual Youth Achievement: Can GenAI Tools Accelerate the Impact of Teacher PL by Supporting Teachers to Plan and Students to Access Grade-Level Content” (Ariana Audisio and Rebecca Taylor-Perryman, Leading Educators)
- “Precision, Not Prescription: AI as a Design Partner in Teacher Professional Learning” (Jamaal Sharif Matthews, University of Michigan)
- “Improving Teachers’ Equitable Mathematics Instruction Through Automated Feedback and Coaching on Student Engagement: A Randomized Controlled Trial” (Heather Hill, Harvard University)
PLCs & Collaborative Professional Learning
- “Investigating How AI Augments Evidence-Based Professional Learning” (Malika Ali, Throughline Learning)
- “AI-Powered Professional Learning Communities” (Lisa Schmitt, New Teacher Center)
Leadership & Instructional Coherence
- “AI Augmented Professional Learning Systems: Building Coherent, Effective Supports for Teacher Learning and Instructional Leadership” (Jenn Russell, Vanderbilt University)
###
About The Research Partnership for Professional Learning (RPPL)
The Research Partnership for Professional Learning (RPPL) is a one-of-a-kind collaborative uniting professional learning organizations, researchers, school system leaders, funders, and those impacted by PL to develop research-backed professional learning that improves student outcomes. As a network, they are elevating the PL field by studying which practices support teacher learning to ultimately create a shared understanding that allows every teacher to meet the needs of every student. To learn more, visit https://www.rpplpartnership.org.