I had the good fortune of being joined recently by Dr. Stacey Ludwig Johnson, former senior vice president and executive dean of the WGU School of Education, and Dr. Elizabeth Allison, program director of portfolio innovation at WGU, for an in-depth discussion on national trends in educator preparation. Our panel during a webinar hosted by WGU’s School of Education and Education Week explored how teacher preparation must evolve to meet urgent needs in K-12 classrooms and in higher education. 

Ludwig Johnson opened the conversation by emphasizing that, “At WGU, it’s all about how we ensure our teacher candidates progress and complete their programs. We’re looking at trends like educator wellness and AI integration, and how to meet the continued teacher shortage crisis,” she said.

Allison shared how WGU has reimagined its curriculum to better prepare future teachers. 

“We want to develop competent, compassionate and committed educators because that’s what children across the country need and deserve,” Allison explained. She highlighted the curriculum’s focus on four pillars: learner and learning, content, instructional practices, and professional responsibilities. These changes reflect post-pandemic shifts, including the need for student-centered and differentiated instruction to address learning gaps.

I shared how we are using data and decision intelligence to ensure students persist to graduation. With a great program, we also need really great support, and the best support is personalized. But how do you do that at scale? 

WGU’s momentum model identifies students experiencing friction in their progress, and our decision intelligence system uses that information and other data to prompt faculty outreach and provide data-informed options. Our faculty then chooses how to approach the outreach and further personalize it to the students' needs to ensure timely, effective support for each student. We want students to beat the odds, not just meet predictions.

Our conversation also explored the synergy between AI and human faculty support. AI is not about replacing humans; it enhances insights that allow faculty to provide better support and maintain the social aspect of education. As Ludwig Johnson noted, “Using this kind of technology, faculty can spend more time working one-on-one with students, which is critical to success.” 

Looking ahead, we agreed that the future of teacher preparation is deeply personalized, tech-enabled and rooted in human connection. As Allison summarized, “Personalization is not going away. It’s about meeting everybody where they are and helping them get to where they need to be.”