NW 01: The Human Side of Future Professional Learning: Mentoring, Relationships and Learning Communities in the Age of AI

Network
NW 01. Professional Learning and Development 

Title
The Human Side of Future Professional Learning: Mentoring, Relationships and Learning Communities in the Age of AI

Abstract
This special call welcomes contributions on mentoring, relationships and learning communities, including but not limited to the ways artificial intelligence and other technological developments may shape professional learning.

This call is organized by the European network Ecologies of Teacher Induction and Mentoring in Europe (TIME), which has been part of EERA's Network 1 “Professional Learning and Development” since 2021. The network brings together scholars interested in teacher induction, mentoring and professional learning within supportive professional ecologies.

The Call
Artificial intelligence is changing how knowledge is accessed, produced and shared, and is beginning to reshape professional learning in education. AI-supported environments offer new possibilities for accessing knowledge, analysing practice, assessment, feedback and reflection. At the same time, they raise a fundamental question: what does professional learning require from human relationships and communities when increasing parts of learning can be technologically supported? If technological tools risk compromising the social dimensions of professional learning, how can these dimensions be strengthened?

Mentoring provides a particularly fruitful context for exploring these questions. It is more than the transfer of professional knowledge from an experienced teacher to a less experienced colleague. Mentoring is a relational practice involving dialogue, trust, shared experience, recognition, reflection, vulnerability and meaning-making. It can create spaces in which uncertainty can be expressed, experiences interpreted and professional identities developed. From this perspective, mentoring can be understood as a human space for professional learning.

This understanding moves beyond an exclusively dyadic view of mentoring. Professional learning takes place within social ecologies involving mentors, mentees, colleagues, school leaders, teacher educators and professional networks. Mentoring can therefore connect individual development with broader professional learning communities in which knowledge, experience and responsibility are shared. New and early-career teachers should not be understood merely as recipients of expertise but as professionals who contribute new perspectives and experiences, making mentoring potentially reciprocal and transformative.

Such communities may become particularly important in the age of AI. Technological innovation need not reduce the importance of human interaction; rather, it may bring questions of relationships, professional judgement, trust, ethical responsibility and collective learning into sharper focus. At the same time, human and artificial intelligence need not be understood as opposites. AI may become part of mentoring and professional learning ecologies, raising questions about how technological and human forms of support can complement each other.

This special call invites theoretical, philosophical and empirical contributions, as well as research-informed development projects, addressing questions such as:

• How can mentoring keep professional learning relational and human in AI-supported environments?

• Which dimensions of mentoring foster trust, dialogue, recognition, empathy, critical thinking and shared experience?

• How can mentoring move beyond one-to-one relationships towards professional learning communities and reciprocal, intergenerational learning?

• How may AI complement, challenge or transform mentoring, professional relationships and professional judgement?

• How can mentoring ecologies connect individual, collaborative and organisational learning?

• How can narratives, shared meaning-making and professional identities contribute to human-centred professional learning in the age of AI?

An ecological perspective highlights the relationships, practices, institutional conditions and networks through which professional learning becomes possible. The future of mentoring may therefore lie not only in supporting individual teachers but in cultivating communities in which professionals learn with, from and through one another, with or without technological assistance. Ultimately, the call asks: In an age of artificial intelligence, what does it mean to learn professionally with and from other human beings?

Contact Person(s)
Hannu L. T. Heikkinen, hannu.l.t.heikkinen@jyu.fi

References
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Helms-Lorenz, M., Heikkinen, H., Plauborg, H. & Bjerkholt, E. (2026). Making Sense of European Teacher Induction and Mentoring Practices. Leiden: Brill.

Geeraerts, K., Tynjälä, P., & Heikkinen, H. L. T. (2018). Inter-generational learning of teachers: What and how do teachers learn from older and younger colleagues? European Journal of Teacher Education, 41(4), 479–495. https://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2018.1448781

Miao, F., & Cukurova, M. (2024). AI competency framework for teachers. UNESCO.
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Wiesner, C., Dammerer, J., Zeilinger, H., & Ziegler, V. (2024). Exploring Mentoring through Ecoliteracies: Insights from Ecological Structures. R&E-SOURCE, 11(3), 150–192. doi.org/10.53349/resource.2024.i3.a1340