When the answer arrives before the question: pedagogical decision-making, teacher agency and artificial intelligence in Portuguese education
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.34620/eduser.v18i2.519Keywords:
Teacher digital competence, Generative artificial intelligence, Teacher agency, Pedagogical decision-making, LearningAbstract
Digital schooling has entered a phase in which the decisive question is no longer whether technology is present, but what happens to learning when an answer can arrive before the question is fully formed. Drawing on Portugal’s trajectory of teacher digital competence development and the rapid diffusion of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), this article examines the interval between technological proficiency and pedagogical decision-making. It adopts a critical narrative review combined with documentary analysis of fifteen sources published between 2017 and 2026, bringing together international frameworks, studies of teacher digital competence in Portugal and recent GenAI research. National evidence shows measurable progress following structured professional development, yet it does not support an automatic inference from higher proficiency to better learning. GenAI makes this discontinuity more visible because it can produce texts, explanations, images and feedback without ensuring that the corresponding cognitive work was carried out by the learner. As an analytical contribution, the article proposes a lens of pedagogical-digital discernment organised around four axes: educational purpose, cognitive authorship, evidence of learning and responsibility. Teacher agency cuts across all four. The article concludes that the next stage of Portuguese digital education requires less attention to the speed of tools and greater capacity to make the decisions governing their presence visible, justifiable and open to revision.Downloads
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