When I launched iTeachAI Academy in 2024, I had a clear mission and a modest goal: help teachers navigate AI with confidence, and maybe reach a few hundred educators in the first year. What I did not expect was how quickly the need would outpace my plans.
This fall, iTeachAI Academy crossed 1,000 course enrollments. That number represents teachers from across the country - veterans and newcomers, elementary specialists and high school department chairs, tech coaches and reluctant technologists. Every one of those enrollments represents someone who decided that understanding AI was worth their time. And every one of them taught me something about what educators actually need right now.
What Worked
Meeting Teachers Where They Are
The single most important design decision I made was to build iTeachAI Academy for the teacher who has 20 minutes between dismissal and bus duty. Not the early adopter who spends weekends at hackathons. Not the tech coach with dedicated innovation time. The everyday teacher with a full plate and a genuine desire to learn.
This meant self-paced courses that can be completed in short sessions. It meant practical, immediately applicable content rather than theoretical overviews. It meant writing in a voice that respects teachers' intelligence without assuming technical background.
The feedback has been consistent: teachers appreciate that the courses feel like they were designed by someone who understands their reality. That is because they were. My 28 years in classrooms are not just a credential line in my bio. They are the lens through which every course is developed.
Specificity Over Generality
Early on, I offered a general "Introduction to AI for Educators" course. It was fine. Teachers completed it and gave positive feedback. But the courses that really took off were the specific ones - AI for ELA teachers, AI-enhanced assessment design, prompt engineering for classroom use.
Teachers do not want to learn about AI in the abstract. They want to learn how AI applies to their grade level, their subject, their specific challenges. A science teacher and a music teacher and a special education teacher face completely different questions when it comes to AI integration. Treating them as a monolithic group serves none of them well.
This lesson shaped my course development strategy. Every new course starts with a specific educator audience and a specific problem. "What does a third-grade teacher need to know about AI that is different from what a tenth-grade teacher needs to know?" That question drives better content than "What should teachers know about AI?"
Building Community
The courses themselves are valuable, but something unexpected happened as enrollment grew: teachers started connecting with each other. Through course discussions, social media conversations, and the occasional email chain, a community of practice emerged.
A high school English teacher in Ohio adapted a strategy she learned from a middle school science teacher in Arizona. A technology coach in Georgia shared a modified version of a prompt template with an elementary teacher in Minnesota. These cross-pollinations were not something I planned, but they have become one of the most valuable aspects of the iTeachAI ecosystem.
What I Got Wrong
I would be dishonest if I suggested the growth has been seamless. Scaling any educational initiative comes with mistakes, and I want to be transparent about mine.
Underestimating the Support Need
I initially assumed that self-paced courses would be sufficient for most teachers. They are not. Many educators - especially those with limited technology comfort - need more scaffolding than a course alone provides. They need someone to answer questions, troubleshoot problems, and provide encouragement when they feel stuck.
I have been working to address this through additional support resources, but it remains a tension. The same self-paced flexibility that makes the Academy accessible also means teachers can feel isolated. Balancing scalability with personalized support is an ongoing challenge.
Moving Too Fast on Content
When demand spiked, my instinct was to produce more courses quickly. That was a mistake. The courses I am most proud of are the ones I developed carefully, with input from practicing teachers, multiple rounds of revision, and genuine attention to quality. The ones I rushed are adequate but not excellent. Teachers deserve excellent.
I have since slowed my development cycle. Fewer courses, higher quality, more teacher input during development. The enrollment numbers took care of themselves. Chasing quantity was unnecessary and counterproductive.
Not Prioritizing District Partnerships Sooner
Individual teacher enrollments are great, but the real scale comes from district partnerships. A single district agreement can bring in dozens or hundreds of teachers at once, with institutional support that makes completion rates much higher.
I spent my first year focused almost entirely on individual educators and did not invest enough in building relationships with district professional development directors and curriculum coordinators. That has changed. Some of my most impactful work this year has come through district partnerships where iTeachAI Academy courses are embedded in the official PD catalog.
What Teachers Are Telling Me
The most valuable data I have is not enrollment numbers. It is the feedback from teachers about what has changed in their practice.
Teachers consistently report that the courses reduce their anxiety about AI. The single most common piece of feedback is some variation of "I feel so much better now." That might sound modest, but anxiety is one of the biggest barriers to effective AI integration. A teacher who is afraid of AI cannot teach students to use it well.
Teachers also report that the practical focus translates to classroom action. The prompt engineering modules, in particular, have been transformative for many educators. Learning to write effective prompts is a skill that immediately improves every interaction with AI tools. Teachers who complete those modules often describe an "aha moment" when they realize that the quality of AI output depends almost entirely on the quality of human input.
Perhaps most importantly, teachers report feeling more confident in their professional judgment about AI. They are no longer outsourcing their thinking to policy documents or vendor claims. They are making informed decisions about when and how to use AI in their classrooms, based on their own understanding of the technology and their own expertise as educators.
Looking to 2026
As I look ahead, I see three priorities for iTeachAI Academy.
First, expanding the course catalog to address emerging needs. AI agents, multimodal AI, and AI-powered assessment are all areas where teachers will need guidance in the coming year.
Second, deepening district partnerships. The greatest impact comes when AI professional development is systemic, not individual. I want to work with more districts to embed iTeachAI Academy into their long-term PD strategies.
Third, advocating for policy change. My work with teachers has given me a clear view of the policy barriers that make AI integration harder than it needs to be. I intend to bring that practitioner perspective to state and national policy conversations.
One thousand enrollments is a milestone worth marking. But it is also a reminder of how much work remains. There are millions of teachers in the United States alone, and the vast majority have not received adequate AI professional development. The need is enormous. The opportunity is greater.
Thank you to every educator who has trusted iTeachAI Academy with their professional learning. You are the reason this work matters.
Janette Camacho, Ed.D., is the Founder and Chief Learning Architect at iTeachAI Academy (classes.iteachai.co). She is a Google for Education Certified Trainer and Coach, FETC 2024 and 2025 Featured Presenter, Adobe Creative Educator, Apple Teacher, and upcoming EdTech Digest State of EdTech 2026 Honoree with 28+ years of K-12 classroom experience.