At University of Florida, faculty are harnessing AI to deliver instant feedback to teacher candidates that increases reflection, improves practice, and drives more growth and confidence.
When the University of Florida’s College of Education moved its early childhood program online, faculty needed a new way and the right support to be successful. They needed a way to prepare teacher candidates to reflect, adapt, and grow with the same intensity as in a live classroom. That challenge led them to GoReact, powered by Echo360, an AI-enabled video assessment solutions chosen by 1 in 5 teacher ed programs.
What began as a solution for online practicum quickly grew into a model for how AI can support teacher preparation at scale. The University of Florida has made a deliberate commitment to harnessing AI responsibly, always as a way to enhance programs, never to replace people.
Preparing future teachers has always depended on classroom experience. But ensuring that every candidate is observed, coached, and supported in real time is one of the toughest challenges in higher education. For faculty, it often means long hours traveling to school placements, observing lessons, and writing detailed reports. For programs with hundreds of candidates spread across multiple districts, the logistics and costs can become overwhelming.
At the same time, faculty are being asked to do more with less. Alongside teaching, research, and service, supervisors are expected to provide individualized feedback to every candidate. That kind of personalized coaching is the gold standard in teacher prep, but it’s challenging when each observation requires hours of travel, note-taking, and follow-up.
The problem isn’t just workload, it’s also timing. Candidates often wait days before receiving feedback, and by then the learning moment may have passed. Instead of connecting feedback directly to their teaching decisions, students reflect after the fact, making it harder to grow from the experience.
Add to this the increasing accountability pressures from accrediting bodies, which require programs to show evidence of candidate progress, and the gap becomes clear. Teacher education programs need innovation not just to keep up, but to ensure their candidates enter classrooms prepared, reflective, and confident.
University of Florida’s College of Education faced all of these pressures when it moved its early childhood program online. Faculty knew they couldn’t simply replicate in-person supervision; instead, they needed a model that would keep candidates engaged in reflection and still meet the state’s expectations for teacher preparation.
Additionally, teacher candidates in Florida must demonstrate mastery of the Florida Educator Accomplished Practices (FEAPs), a set of standards that form the backbone of accreditation. Meeting those expectations requires both rich evidence of teaching and consistent, high-quality feedback. Dr. Lori Dasa, Director of Clinical Experiences and Partnerships at UF, explained during this webinar, that their program turned to GoReact with its AI Assistant to reinforce coaching, support the feedback process, and create “a triad loop of supervisor, the AI, and students.”
Faculty wanted to ensure their students could see themselves teach, reflect in real time, and arrive at debriefs ready to discuss their growth. But traditional methods left too many gaps: supervisors could only observe a limited number of lessons, feedback often arrived too late, and candidates sometimes missed the chance to connect reflection to their actions.
Using the AI Assistant in GoReact not only supported UF’s transition to an online program, they found an impactful and efficient way to deliver feedback to candidates Using GoReact, candidates record themselves teaching and within moments, GoReact generates timestamped comments aligned to established teaching practices like “think time,” “listening and praise,” or “engagement.”
What makes this feedback powerful is its immediacy. Instead of waiting days for a supervisor’s notes, students can rewatch their lesson almost instantly, with AI insights guiding their reflection.
Student impressions of the AI Asssistant in GoReact.
AI feedback in GoReact is not only immediate, it also enables better reflection. Candidates aren’t just told what to improve, but with video, they can see and hear themselves in action, alongside specific, meaningful feedback delivered by AI and instructors.
For supervisors at UF, the AI Assistant in GoReact helps manage heavy workloads without compromising the quality of coaching. Instead of spending hours documenting every detail of a lesson, supervisors can start with the AI Assistant’s first layer of analysis. Markers and time-stamped comments were already in place, giving faculty a clear picture of what had happened before they even began their review.
This efficiency doesn’t reduce the depth of coaching. In fact, supervisors found that AI often surfaced details they might have overlooked; for example, tracking how often a candidate provided “think time” or identifying opportunities for more active engagement.
Faculty at UF also emphasize that the AI feedback complemented, rather than replaced, their own expertise. About 85% of AI comments aligned with what supervisors would have said themselves, reinforcing their coaching and giving them more space to dive deeper in conversations with candidates.
By using the AI Assistant, UF supervisors gained back time to focus on guiding deeper reflection and more meaningful coaching conversations.
Candidates also saw immediate benefits using the AI Asssistant in GoReact. Instead of waiting days for feedback, they can upload a video and receive AI-powered comments within minutes. It eliminates the delay in receiving feedback so they can reflect on their teaching immediately.
Natalie, a student using GoReact said: “Being able to rewatch and reflect using GoReact was really helpful. I noticed things I missed in the moment.”
Crystal pointed out how the feedback helped her with pacing: “I could see if I was pausing too long or talking too fast.”
Supervisors at UF’s College of Education have also seen significant benefits. With GoReact providing a first layer of analysis, faculty can focus their time on deeper coaching rather than repetitive documentation. The AI-generated markers and comments act as a second set of eyes, often catching details that instructors might have missed.
One supervisor explained how powerful the data became during debrief sessions: “I can show a student a graph of how many times they used each teaching practice. It’s concrete evidence they can reflect on before we even meet.” Others noted that the platform made their coaching conversations more focused, since both they and their candidates could reference the same feedback in real time.
For the University of Florida College of Education, this combination of speed and depth means that faculty didn’t have to choose between quality and efficiency.
One of the clearest lessons from the University of Florida’s experience is that AI in education for teachers works best when paired with human guidance. UF instructors and candidates don’t view the AI Assistant in GoReact as a replacement for supervisors. Instead, they see it as a partner that provides timely, accurate insights while leaving room for instructors to shape the deeper learning conversations.
The second lesson is about scale. Faculty at UF were working with candidates across nearly 50 school districts. Traditional observation models simply could not keep pace with that level of demand. By using Goreact, UF’s College of Education is able to prepare more candidates without sacrificing the quality of supervision or reflection.
The University of Florida College of Education shows what’s possible when technology is aligned with mission. By embedding AI feedback for teacher candidates into practicum experiences, they’ve created a model where reflection is immediate, coaching is more impactful, and preparation is more rigorous than ever before. Candidates gain confidence faster, supervisors save time without losing quality, and the entire program benefits from stronger evidence of learning.
Most importantly, UF’s story proves that AI in education for teachers doesn’t replace human connection, it amplifies it. Faculty remain at the heart of teacher preparation, but with the AI insights in GoReact, they can focus more of their time on the deeper coaching that shapes great educators.
Ready to see how GoReact can help your faculty and candidates? Explore it on your own and sign up for a free trial.
