THE TEACHER IN TRANSFORMATION: CHALLENGES OF TEACHER EDUCATION IN THE FACE OF CHANGES IN CONTEMPORARY EDUCATION

Abstract

Contemporary transformations in education have generated new demands for teacher education and professional practice, particularly in the context of the expansion of digital technologies and artificial intelligence. In this context, this study aims to analyze, based on scientific literature, the main challenges that these transformations pose to teacher education and teaching practice in basic education. This is a bibliographic study with a qualitative approach, based on academic publications retrieved from SciELO, the CAPES Journal Portal, and Google Scholar, considering publications from 2016 to 2026 and, exceptionally, classical works published before this period. The analysis was guided by four combinations of descriptors related to teacher education, teacher professional development, digital technologies, and artificial intelligence. The studies analyzed highlight the importance of continuing teacher education as an ongoing process of professional development, articulated with the concrete conditions of teaching and transformations in pedagogical practices. The findings also indicate that the use of digital technologies requires more than technical knowledge, involving pedagogical appropriation, critical reflection, and adequate institutional conditions. More recently, artificial intelligence has expanded this scenario by introducing new issues related to ethics, authorship, information reliability, and pedagogical decision-making. It is concluded that contemporary challenges in teacher education require continuous and contextualized formative processes capable of strengthening teachers’ autonomy, reflection, and critical capacity in the face of changes affecting education.