Shanghai Normal University releases China's first AI training platform for teachers' psychological nurturing

When you notice a student is feeling down, how should you begin the conversation? When faced with silence, should you press further, offer comfort, give a gentle prompt, or simply wait? What kind of response counts as "catching" the student, and in what situations should you be on alert? These fleeting everyday moments, with no fixed script, often leave frontline teachers at a loss. This afternoon (October 22), the School of Psychology at Shanghai Normal University released the "Nurturing Heart Competency AI Training Platform," the first AI training platform in China focused on cultivating teachers' ability to nurture students' psychological well-being. At the same time, the Shanghai Normal University Moral Education Psychology Research Center was established. The Nurturing Heart Competency AI Psychological Resilience Training Platform is released. Photo: Tao Lei (same below). The platform is aimed at student teachers and in-service teachers, using AI digital humans to simulate conversations with students and parents, training teachers' communication and support skills in real educational situations. Centered on psychological resilience, the platform focuses on two high-frequency scenarios—heart-to-heart talks with students and home-school communication—and combines professional micro-courses, targeted exercises, and AI digital human simulation training. Reporters learned that the platform includes modules such as "Student Psychological Counseling Simulation Exercise" and "Problem Type Identification Simulation Exercise." In the simulation exercises, teachers can practice communication skills such as empathic expression, nonviolent communication, responding to resistance, questioning and guidance, emotion labeling, and cognitive reappraisal; the problem identification module covers 18 typical problem categories, including academic pressure, test anxiety, school weariness, parent-child conflict, adolescent rebellion, internet addiction, school bullying, and early identification of adolescent suicide. Teachers can also choose training content as needed, watch analysis videos, download professional lesson plans, and then engage in dialogue with simulated students or parents on the screen. After the practice ends, the platform provides feedback and records the training process, allowing teachers to review what they said and then conduct targeted practice after reflection. The Shanghai Normal University Moral Education Psychology Research Center, established the same day, is led by the School of Psychology and integrates research forces in psychology, education, ideological and political education, and brain science. It focuses on three directions: moral development and moral education mechanisms, emotional development and values education, and teachers' emotions and moral education capabilities. The center will study issues such as how moral cognition is transformed into actual behavior, how adolescents form value judgments amid multiple social narratives, and how teachers' emotional states affect the educational process. Li Ye, vice president of Shanghai Normal University, said that teacher-training universities should both conduct cutting-edge research on moral education psychology and promote the translation of research results into basic education practice. In his congratulatory message, psychologist Lin Chongde expressed the hope that the center will integrate multidisciplinary forces and promote the combination of basic research and educational practice.