Move Me On 201: trainee is using AI indiscriminately to try to save time

Teaching History feature

Published: 17th December 2025

Move Me On is designed to build critical, informed debate about the character of teacher training, teacher education and professional development. It is also designed to offer practical help to all involved in training new history teachers. Each issue presents a situation in initial teacher education/training with an emphasis upon a particular history-specific issue. 
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Ramun is nearing the end of the first term of his teacher education programme. His degree was in archaeology, and while he feels well equipped in relation to ancient and medieval history, he is aware that his knowledge of modern history is quite limited. This makes him somewhat anxious about planning. The school in which he has started his training has shared schemes of work, with suggested lesson plans. While there is a central repository for resources, the head of department encourages teachers to use materials flexibly in tailoring lessons to their own classes. Initially, Ramun stuck very closely to the existing plans and resources, but he frequently struggled to make the purpose of tasks clear to the students. His mentor, Bianca, therefore began to encourage him to take more responsibility for designing activities or adapting the existing materials, hoping that this would give him a greater sense of ownership and enable him to communicate the purpose of tasks more effectively. Unfortunately, when faced with more responsibility for the content and direction of his lessons, Ramun has felt somewhat overwhelmed and has tried to find quick solutions. Because he needs to work part-time in order to meet his living costs, his time for preparation is quite limited, and use of Generative AI struck him as a sensible time-saving strategy...

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