Strengthening Basic Teaching Skills through Artificial Intelligence among Preservice Teachers

Abstrak

Preservice teachers’ readiness to conduct teaching practice still needs to be strengthened, particularly in mastering basic teaching skills and using 21st-century learning technologies. This condition indicates the need for innovation in strengthening pedagogical competence that does not only focus on conventional micro teaching, but also integrates Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a supporting technology for lesson planning, simulation, and learning reflection. This community service program aimed to strengthen preservice teachers’ basic teaching skills through the use of AI in online learning. The participants were 30 sixth-semester students from the English Education and Physics Education Study Programs at UIN Palangka Raya in the 2025/2026 academic year. The activity was conducted online through four sessions: strengthening the concept of basic teaching skills, AI-based lesson planning, micro teaching simulation, and reflection and evaluation. Data were collected through pretests, posttests, observation sheets, and student reflections. The results showed an increase in the average score from 60.93 in the pretest to 83.60 in the posttest, with an N-Gain score of 0.58, which falls into the moderate category. Improvements were also observed in opening and closing lessons, explaining material, questioning skills, providing reinforcement, using variation, guiding discussions, managing the classroom, and teaching small groups and individuals. These findings indicate that the AI-based basic teaching skills strengthening program was moderately effective in improving the pedagogical competence of preservice teachers, particularly in lesson planning, material development, question construction, and reflection on teaching practice. However, AI should still be positioned as a pedagogical support tool, not as a substitute for interpersonal sensitivity, classroom improvisation, and direct teacher-student interaction. This program is recommended to be integrated sustainably into micro teaching courses through structured training, guided practice, and reflective evaluation.