AI Changes the Game for CTE

As Tasharah Wilson watches her students use augmented and virtual reality tools to manipulate 3D objects, the principal of the Atlanta College and Career Academy finds it difficult to contain her excitement about the future of artificial intelligence (AI) in classrooms.

“AI makes abstract concepts tangible,” Wilson says. “It allows students to visualize, manipulate, and develop their skills in a safe, repeatable way. And because AI is already transforming virtually every career sector, especially in career and technical education, it is helping them to graduate with skills that are not just workforce ready, but future ready.”

The enthusiasm — amid some lingering wariness — around the use of AI in K-12 schools comes at an inflection point for career and technical education (CTE), which has seen renewed interest in programs that do not require two- or four-year degrees.

Michelle Conner, who worked as a teacher and administrator for 22 years before joining the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE), says she’s “never seen this kind of momentum” around CTE programs.

“CTE has always been a back-burner thing, but now it is front and center on the national stage when it comes to education,” says Conner, senior manager of professional learning and content for ACTE. “AI is a great opportunity for CTE educators to get ahead of the game and show how our programs and our classes are using this technology in a relevant way that allows students to develop skills that make them employable when they walk out of high school.”

Cameron Sublett, an associate professor in educational leadership and policy studies at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, says CTE is “more rigorous, diverse, and workforce-aligned than it’s ever been.” But he is concerned that AI “could undo all of these positive changes if it’s not implemented thoughtfully and correctly.”

“AI is going to put a premium on the transferrable skills that allow students to think creatively and critically, and not necessarily a premium on technical skills,” Sublett says. “If we’re not having conversations around how AI is upending labor markets and how it is changing the skills demands associated with CTE pathways, then we’re truly going to revert to a system where CTE students are falling backwards because they’re not learning direct applicable use cases for the jobs that they’re supposedly being trained for.”

AI is changing CTE

Although the Atlanta College and Career Academy (ACCA) opened in the fall of 2020, prior to the release of ChatGPT, Open AI, and other “game-changing” technology, Wilson says the school’s design set CTE students up for success and allows for the natural integration of AI programs.

ACCA is a one-year program that serves about 700 juniors and seniors who spend a half day at their current high school and a half day at the academy. Located in a renovated middle school in Atlanta’s Pittsburg neighborhood, the school has 14 CTE pathways designed to help students graduate with credentials aligned to high-demand technical careers.

The pathways range from traditional CTE programs such as automotive technology, carpentry, and HVAC/
refrigeration to medical and dental science, culinary arts and hospitality, criminal investigation and cybersecurity, and graphic design.

Like most administrators, Wilson faced questions about infusing AI into the curriculum at her high school, but the principal had no hesitations about embracing the technology.

“Not at all,” says Wilson, who has been principal since the school opened. “Technology and careers are forever changing, and AI is a large part of that change.”

In their programs, the students use zSpace, a “mixed reality platform” that allows them to virtually “lift” different objects off the screen and manipulate them as if they were physically there, simulating environments like auto repair shops and medical laboratories. AI is used to prompt students within an immersive environment based on how they interact with it.

“What’s amazing to me is to see how excited they are during the learning process, how they are engaging and helping one another,” Wilson says about the zSpace machines, which look like desktop computers but allow students to use a stylus and special glasses to work in a virtual space. “This technology is really a game changer.”

Conner says programs like ACCA are using AI in the way that it is intended, not to “replace jobs but to enhance” student learning.

“It’s not that jobs are going to be replaced by AI. It’s that jobs are going to go to those who understand how to use AI as a tool very well,” Conner says. “We’ve seen it evolve, even in such a short time. Now folks are looking at AI and saying, ‘What is this really for? What are we doing with it? How are teachers going to use this to improve their instruction and make their lives a little bit easier?’”

Industrial Revolution at light speed

Amanda Bickerstaff co-founded AI for Education, an organization that started by providing free resources to educators and now has helped hundreds of districts develop policies and staff development around implementing the technology. She believes AI will have “the impact of the Industrial Revolution,” but at light speed.

“Instead of taking decades to permeate society, it will happen in less than a decade in terms of changing how we study, how we interact, how we communicate, and the future of work. And the majority of schools and systems do not have a firm organization-wide approach yet.”

J.J. Ayres is the CTE director for Little Elm Independent School District, which serves about 8,000 students in Denton County, Texas, north of Dallas. He sees how AI can help his instructors — many of whom come straight from local industry — with lesson plans and other traditional teaching tasks. He focuses staff development on prompt engineering, the process of crafting instructions that guide AI software to effective outcomes.

Ayres also is working with the district’s technology department, the instructional technology coordinator, and each of his departments to develop a written curriculum that outlines how AI will be used in CTE programs.

“I’ve told them I don’t care what we approve, but we have to do something, and we have to do it now, because my teachers are going to start using it with our students because that is where the industry is going,” he says.

For school boards, Conner says the top priority is to ensure CTE staff as well as industry partners are involved in creating policies around responsible AI use and guidelines on data and privacy issues. Visiting classrooms and getting teacher feedback are also important, she says, because “They’re the ones on the front lines who are hitting those bumps and struggling.”

“No matter what we do, there are still going to be some bumps and some gaps, but we need to look at what can be done to ensure we minimize those through our policy and procurement procedures,” she says. “And I think the first step is to make sure CTE and industry are at the table as the policy is being written.”

Sublett suggests districts should meet with their workforce advisory groups to hear from local employers about ways they are using AI and what their plans and needs are for the future. Those conversations, he says, will leave you in a better position to make curriculum changes and provide relevant staff development.

“What people are doing wrong is they’re doing it the opposite and saying, ‘ChatGPT is popular, so let’s run a professional development class on how to use it.’ They’re not looking at how it’s aligned to the workplace, and it’s not based in context, so that’s not going to help anyone.”

Conner says AI gives districts “an opportunity to really enhance industry alignment within their CTE programs.”

“One of the selling points of CTE is that we have these industry partnerships that bring relevant practice into the classroom. Because AI is rapidly transforming nearly every single sector that a CTE program covers, we need to work with our industry partners to understand how it is being used locally and build that into the curriculum.”

AI literacy

Taylor Pratt, an assistant professor at the University of Louisville, provides staff development to CTE teachers on ways to integrate AI tools into their classrooms. She says teachers are excited about the technology’s potential but need more support to “keep on top of all of the new tools that are coming out.”

“Mindset is important,” she says. “School leaders need to encourage innovation and exploration and invest in the time for teachers to learn this technology instead of being fearful of it. There are a lot of free or low-cost tools out there, but they need those opportunities so they can feel more comfortable and grow in their confidence about teaching with it.”

Pratt says districts also need to ensure CTE teachers are kept in the loop and given a voice about AI purchases, noting that industry-specific tools are often different than those used in the core curriculum.

“There’s great variability when you bring in the tools that are used by specific industries,” Pratt says. “What might be used in an engineering and manufacturing context may not be used for something like hospitality, so that presents challenges for schools in terms of staying on top of what’s cutting edge.”

Sublett says schools should create AI “acceleration teams” of teachers who can look more deeply at how the workforce is using the technology. The teams would then oversee creating a professional development series for the rest of the staff.

“If everybody’s doing it, then everyone is going in different directions and there’s no streamlined, efficient kind of process. And that is just so essential if we’re going to wrap our arms around this.”

Bickerstaff cautions against thinking that digital natives — aka, today’s students — “are more literate by osmosis.”

“We see this idea that kids are so far ahead of us. They’re ahead of us in usage, but not necessarily ahead in their ability to effectively use it,” she says. “This technology does not work like any technology that has ever come before. There are people who will pick it up through trial and error and reading and research, but to really understand how to use these tools meaningfully and responsibly, you have to have intentional AI literacy training.”

Sublett says AI’s reach ultimately will be far greater than another once controversial tool in education — the calculator — because it has more “applications and uses.”

“AI is not going to just touch computation and mathematical reasoning,” he says. “It’s going to touch so much more. The AI tool should not substitute human capacities for critical reasoning, executive function, and decision-making, but they can certainly supplement it, and they certainly should be supplementing it.”

Wilson agrees. She says her teachers are reminded that AI tools such as zSpace must be used “with purpose.”

“AI is a powerful tool, but without a clear purpose, it becomes noise,” she says. “Any technology that is used without purpose won’t lead to deep learning.”