The 4E Teacher in Nootechnological Ecologies: Agency, Empowerment, and Professional Reflexivity
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.21454561Keywords:
4E cognition, teacher agency, capability approach, reflective practice, artificial intelligence, nootechnological ecologies.Abstract
The spread of artificial intelligence, digital platforms and datafication systems is transforming educational contexts into nootechnological ecologies – that is, socio-material environments in which the production, mediation and evaluation of knowledge are co-configured by human agents, institutional practices, data and algorithmic infrastructures. In this scenario, the teaching profession risks being interpreted according to a technical-adaptive logic, centered on upskilling and performativity. This paper develops a theoretical model based on 4E cognition – embodied, embedded, enacted and extended – integrated with teacher agency, the capability approach and reflective practice. Through a critical and integrative review of the literature, the construct of the ‘4E teacher in nootechnological ecologies’ is defined as a professional capable of critically shaping, inhabiting and regulating highly technology-dense educational environments. The model highlights that technologies can function both as enabling extensions of professional cognition and as devices that constrain autonomy, depending on the institutional, ethical and pedagogical conditions that guide their design, adoption and use.
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