TikTok and AI grading test who teaches

TikTok and – Two educators grapple with a classroom reality that’s arriving faster than policy: future teachers are absorbing professional cues from TikTok, and an engineering teacher built an AI grading tool so automated it delivered feedback without him ever seeing it. T

On one side. a teacher looks at her students and sees them quietly building professional knowledge on TikTok. pulled in by routines. advice. and examples—some from people who’ve already left the profession. On the other. a high school engineering teacher discovers that an AI tool can send feedback to students without him reading a line of it. In both stories. the uncomfortable question lands the same way: if technology is shaping what students learn and how teachers do their work. who is actually in charge—software. or the human judgment meant to guide a classroom?.

The first educator’s pivot comes from a choice not to fight the platform, but to lean toward it. The students are not simply scrolling. They are forming ideas about teaching and professional identity through social media reels. including content from former teachers who left the profession. That’s what pushes this teacher to treat TikTok as part of the learning ecosystem rather than a distraction to be shut down.

That practical shift connects directly to a wider concern about teacher preparation. Evi Wusk argues that the information gleaned from social media is already shaping how future teachers think. Her argument isn’t to ignore these platforms. but to meet them with something more deliberate—helping pre-service teachers engage critically instead of dismissing or ignoring what they’re encountering.

In a second classroom, the challenge looks less like a social media feed and more like a workflow. Steven Swanson built a fully automated AI grading tool designed to be efficient—so efficient that it sent feedback to students without his review. He only understood what that automation meant for his role after a student thanked him for words he never wrote.

That moment forces a reckoning with accountability. If feedback is generated and delivered without the teacher reading it. then even well-intended systems can quietly transfer authority away from the person responsible for instruction. Swanson didn’t stop at noticing the problem; he rebuilt the tool so he could be back in the loop.

His experience also breaks the conversation open on where AI grading helps—and where it misses what teaching is supposed to do. Swanson describes specific assignment types where AI grading adds value, while also pointing to where it falls short. The risk. he says. is that automation can miss opportunities to learn who students actually are as people—something that can’t be captured cleanly by speed or by a system returning written feedback.

Between the TikTok classrooms and the AI grading tool, the common thread is not just new technology in education. It’s the movement of judgment—who decides what students need, and who is accountable for the impact of that decision.

When you line up these facts. a clear tension emerges: future teachers are absorbing professional cues from platforms like TikTok. while a teacher’s own system—built to save time—can bypass the teacher’s presence entirely. Both stories land on the same question from different directions: critical thinking and human review aren’t optional add-ons when technology starts shaping classroom outcomes.

By the end of the episode, the issues feel urgent precisely because they are practical. Teacher prep programs face the reality that social media is already influencing professional identity. Teachers building or adopting AI face the reality that automation can deliver feedback without meaningful oversight. In both cases. the stakes sit with students. and with the teachers who remain responsible for what learning is—and how it’s guided.

TikTok in education teacher preparation social media learning AI grading classroom accountability EdSurge podcast pre-service teachers education technology