During ACTE's recent CareerTech VISION event for career and technical education (CTE) professionals, panelists presented overwhelming evidence that educators must embrace ai in education, particularly career and technical education. The tone of the panel was urgent and unequivocal: if CTE educators have not yet tried and used generative ai, they are long behind.
Any CTE program should focus on preparing students for the workforce in which ai will be essential. This is the biggest technological change since the creation of the Internet, and educators must participate meaningfully. It is the responsibility of CTE educators to ensure that students have the tools and ethics to use ai responsibly, which can be accomplished by guiding their exploration of ai tools and platforms, showing them the discrepancies, and helping them be prepared for manage ai competencies. .
According to the panel, banning the use of ai in schools is a short-sighted measure. ai is already integrated into the workplace, and by not teaching students how to use it, CTE educators are taking away the opportunity to be prepared for work and careers.
<h2 id="10-best-practices-for-ai-and-cte-xa0″>Ten Best Practices for ai and CTE
- Embrace ai and use it first on simple tasks to drive efficiencies. Then use it to individualize instruction and for standards-aligned formative assessment tools.
- Be creative and aware of internal biases and ethics. Focus on DEI and access.
- Encourage students to use apps and tools to begin moving toward an integrated curriculum using ai.
- Prepare students for the jobs of the future by partnering with industry to solve real problems.
- Invest in rapid engineering: automate when you can and reserve human intelligence for complex challenges.
- Remember that ai cannot replicate human emotions. Use it to help students learn fundamental ai skills. In assessments, ask reflective questions so students can analyze the situation. If the task can simply be completed by ai, it is the wrong task. Teachers must use their own creativity and critical thinking to evaluate the use of ai.
- Given how quickly ChatGPT and Jasper are improving their tools, help students develop their own unique voice with these tools. Have students document how they use ai, so they understand responsibility while demonstrating authentic writing.
- Be aware of ethics and data sharing.
- Think of ChatGPT as an assistant for both teachers and students. May undertake projects outside of teachers' core competencies to enrich students' learning experiences.
- Looking five years ahead to try to determine what professional skills ai will NOT replace? Emphasize developing those skills.
If used correctly, ai will not replace anyone. It is a tool that will provide opportunities to dedicate human creativity to more complex tasks.
ACTE panelists included: Katelyn Boudreau, Director of technology, Assabet Valley Regional Technical High School, Massachusetts; Rachael Mann, CEO of EdFuture.org; Cory Ortiz, Dean of the School of Professional Education at Alaska Southeastern University; Gabriella Rosu, Chandler-Gilbert Community College in Arizona; and Angel Piñeiro, Jr., vice president of Strategic Academic Relations, CompTIA.
