Embodied Practices Toward the Future: Encounters Between AI and Early Childhood Student Teachers’ Bodies

• In Event: Research in Progress Roundtable Session 2
  In Invited Roundtable: Artificial Intelligence in Teacher Education, Faculty Development, and Instructional Practice (Table 10)

Abstract

This study explores how future early childhood teacher embodied practices are reshaped in the AI age. Early childhood practice relies heavily on bodily engagement to build relational connections with children. In the digital age, technology integration raises concerns about the "invisibility" of teachers' embodied practices. AI further influences this dynamic. 43 student teachers were invited to participate in using AI and qualitative data collection. Findings reveal that AI transforms embodied practices by triggering past body experience, reflections, and the imagination of AI integration. They reconfigure AI as a collaborator that complements, rather than replaces, their embodied presence. This dynamic negotiation emphasizes the centrality of the teacher’s body in relational practice, challenging instrumentalist narratives of educational technology’s role.

Authors

• Shuoqi Song, University at Buffalo - SUNY

• Linyan Ruan, Beijing Union University

• Shengzhi Zhu, Capital Normal University