The concern I have is that “academic integration” is mostly open to interpretation, and there’s not a lot of guidance for how to do it well across the16 different trades
Academic integration, especially as it relates to AI, seems like an expensive fool's errand! How on earth can we ensure everyone enjoys the same opportunities to engage in this technology long-term. We can't possibly put computers in the hands of every family/household.
contemporary CTE focuses on equipping high school and community college students with technical skills that are closely tethered to specific workforce applications
This is evolving constantly. What CTE means today is completely different than what it will mean next year. Just imagine how much more quickly it will evolve with AI influencing it's next steps.
These skills include things like two-way communication, critical thinking, creativity, planning, management, and problem-solving. These are transferable skills, not technical skills. Career and technical education courses and programs need to equip students with both.
Truer words have never been spoken! The absence of either makes the human who possesses only one far less valuable to themselves, their trade, and society as a whole. As educators, we need to find ways to integrate both categories of skills into our teachings and ensure our students have, at the very least, a fundamental comfort with both.
And the “special populations” set-aside now within federal CTE legislation that requires providers to allocate funds toward recruiting low-income, disabled, and racially marginalized students into CTE should help diversify cluster pipelines and mitigate tracking.
I'm grateful for the legislation being added to ensure CTE programs are made more accessible and available to marginalized demographics, but why or how does this mitigate tracking?
Modern-day CTE advocates would argue the similarities to former vocational education models end there, however, and would likely (and rightly) assert that making the “academic” versus “vocational” education distinction is a bit anachronistic given the college- and career-readiness movement, and material changes to federal CTE legislation have, over time, successfully blurred the lines between the two
Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Do we want the lines to be blurred, or should both categories have the right to stand on their own legs without being compared to one another?
but a quick CTE primer is a useful starting point
Make sure it's an unbiased primer! It's easy to be influenced by the speaker when you get into the topic of trades-based education.
Is AI going to gut the kinds of jobs that CTE will prepare students for, or is CTE a key to preparing students for an AI-infused future?
This is exactly the question we should be asking! How can we use an inevitable, albeit scary, evolution of technology to our greatest benefit?
Community College Career and Technical Education and Labor Market Projections: A National Study of Alignment.
I'm very interested in reading this article, specifically investigating the data sources used to form their projections.
carving out space in every CTE classroom in every CTE career cluster for the development of transferable, nontechnical skills becomes especially salient when you analyze automation risks across the different CTE career clusters
If carving out space for these skills relies on automation risks, why not also analyze the benefits of having automation complete the mundane and allow humans to focus on the more high-skill elements of these trades?
Consequently, states, districts, schools, and teachers take different approaches to academic integration, and some approaches are more successful than others.
This will be the ongoing challenge we find ourselves responsible for tackling as future educators and influencers in the academic space. How do we approach it, and why?
To what degree can automation affect the career outcomes of graduates of CTE programs?
Here's an even better question... To what degree can automation effect the desire for young students to get into CTE programs in the first place? This is open-ended. Meaning, it may drastically increase or decrease interest. We just don't know yet...
this demonstration led to some inevitable—and now ubiquitous—hand-wringing about automation and the implications for society.
Should we not be equally as focused on the benefits as the implications? Why are we always judgemental or apprehensive instead of curious and eager to learn?
At a recent social gathering, one of my colleagues demonstrated that—if given a fictional research question—the generative artificial intelligence behind ChatGPT can write nearly flawless computer code
I would be interested to see what leading computer engineers' opinions would be on the stated "nearly flawless computer code".
some CTE career-cluster areas have average automation risks that are low: Education & Training, Health Sciences, Information Technology, and Science, Technology, Engineering and Math
The creative element of all technology education subject matter should mean that we can lower the risk in our broad-based technologies, respectively. It's up to us to find ways to do this.
existing research indicates CTE participation can be stratified by race, gender, income, and rurality. Consequently, some student groups may be overrepresented in at-risk clusters. In other words, exposure to automation risk can be correlated with student characteristics.
This presents a lot of amazing challenges to tech teachers moving forward. How do you ensure all your students have the same access to education, and the opportunities to find interest in these subject matters that could have a huge influence in their futures?
CTE’s “dark history” becomes its future.
Whoa... mind blown!