Empowering Teachers in Low-Resource Classrooms to Co-Design EdTech for Student-Centered Learning

Event Description

As technological change accelerates, education systems globally face critical questions: How do we ensure every child thrives in an evolving future, and how can AI be leveraged effectively and equitably to support that goal?

Too often, edtech development focuses on standard, top-down use cases that miss the reality of low-resource contexts, don’t respond to teachers’ real-world needs and priorities, and fail to foster deeper learning. True innovation requires shifting the narrative: moving beyond the hype to prioritize what teachers and learners actually need most.

This interactive session brings together members of the International Task Force on Teachers for Education 2030 (TTF) alongside a global coalition of edtech builders, funders, and implementers—including Learning Equality, Asante Africa Foundation, Digital Promise, EdTech Hub, Rising Academies, Transcend, and the Jacobs Foundation. Together, we explore how promoting teachers’ agency and placing practitioners and learners at the center of edtech design can unlock transformative pedagogy.

We will showcase practical, impactful use cases, including how teachers have driven the development of curriculum-aligned, AI-powered lesson planning tools in Rwanda and how edtech has been used to support collaborative, project-based learning in the middle grades in East Africa.

Grounded in these real-world examples, as well as insights from the Teacher Task Force’s resources on promoting and protecting teacher agency in the age of AI and EdTech Hub’s "teachers-in-the-lead" sandbox methodology, this session demonstrates that co-designing technology with educators is not only essential—it is practical, scalable, and key to making student-centered learning achievable.

What to expect? Participants will move beyond high-level theory into tangible methods, interactive exercises, and real-world spotlights:

Framing the Challenge: Reflect on the drawbacks and risks of current approaches to AI adoption—such as narrow use cases, top-down tools that ignore low-resource classroom realities, and eroded human agency—and explore principles for shifting toward teacher-led and student-centered innovation.

Educator Insights: Hear directly from teachers working with Asante Africa Foundation and Learning Equality on what it means to co-design edtech for collaborative learning and to ensure that AI strengthens—not replaces—the human dynamics of learning. And learn from Rising Academies’ experience co-designing AI lesson planning tools with teachers to reduce their workload and strengthen instructional quality.

Interactive Breakouts: Work directly with emerging toolkits and practical prompts to explore how teacher agency, co-creation, and student feedback loops can be used to address the most pressing and promising real-world applications for edtech and AI.

Systems Change Reflections: Discuss actionable strategies for funders, builders, and practitioners to shift investment toward teacher-led innovation and move past standard AI use cases toward transformative, student-centered learning.

Whether you are an edtech developer, funder, or practitioner, this session offers hands-on methodologies, fresh evidence, and practical tools to ensure AI directly serves—and is driven by—teachers, empowers learners, and fosters a more equitable educational continuum.