From awareness to transformation: tracing teacher growth in AI-supported interactive learning

The rapid expansion of generative AI in education has shifted attention from tool adoption to teachers’ learning interactions, reflection, and professional growth. This study examines teachers’ development in an AI-supported interactive learning context, focusing on how awareness, integration, and instructional transformation relate to reflective and collaborative learning. A three-module professional learning program engaged teachers across three measurement waves, involving AI-mediated task design, peer discussion, and classroom enactment. Quantitative analyses using latent growth curve modeling indicated positive trajectories in teachers’ innovative mindset and AI literacy, while structural modeling showed that these developments were linked to TPACK enactment and satisfaction of basic psychological needs. Qualitative data, including reflective journals, AI interaction records, and classroom observations, provided insight into these patterns. The evidence suggested that instructional transformation was more evident among teachers who moved beyond efficiency-oriented AI use and engaged in reflective dialogue, collaborative sense-making, and task redesign. Rather than positioning AI as a competence enhancer, this study frames AI as an interactional resource for teacher learning. The findings describe a three-phase progression–Awareness, Integration, and Transformation–supported by reflective engagement with AI outputs, trace-informed redesign, and shared instructional negotiation. Together, the results offer insights into teacher development in AI-supported interactive learning environments.