AI4T Ireland — Guided MOOC-and-Online-Sessions Pathway for 21 Secondary Teachers, Evaluated by Dublin City University

Ireland was one of five countries in the Erasmus+ AI4T project (Artificial Intelligence for and by Teachers), coordinated by France Éducation international. Irish teachers followed a professional learning pathway built on the common AI4T MOOC (Inria) and the open textbook 'AI for Teachers', with a guided pace: periods of MOOC self-study followed by group sessions, mixing online and face-to-face elements. The textbook was used by facilitators and promoted to learners only after the intervention. Tools shown included ChatGPT, Duolingo and Photomath.
The pilot recruited 21 teachers (12 maths, 9 modern languages) from 21 schools in November 2022. Schools were randomised to intervention or delayed-access control, stratified by DEIS status (Irish indicator of socio-economic disadvantage), school size and subject. The sample was too small for an impact analysis, so the evaluation by the DCU-led team is descriptive: 14 teachers answered the survey and all intervention teachers were invited to interview.
Reported results: 100% completed the MOOC partially or fully and 100% attended the face-to-face sessions; 8 of 9 teachers rated their AI knowledge good or rather good afterwards, versus 4 before; all recognised machine translators as AI at the end versus 4 of 9 at baseline. Social engagement scored 5.81 of 7 (highest of the five countries) and perceived usefulness 5.76 of 7.
Caveats: volunteer teachers, very small sample, self-reported outcomes, and across the whole project no significant change in perceptions of AI or in classroom use. Mentoring or supervision was judged important to the pathway's effect.

Read the full analysis: https://hal-cnam.archives-ouvertes.fr/FAP/hal-04557981v1