Recommended Practices for Educators
The following recommended practices emerged from the work on this project. These practices are specifically for educators in higher education who are considering where GenAI may be impacting the workforce and workforce education. These are general recommendations that are intended to be applicable to most higher ed organizations and contexts. These certainly aren’t the only recommendations, but stand out as important ways to take action and lead the change locally around GenAI and workforce education.
Start Conversations
If you are reading this and this is your first time thinking about how GenAI might be impacting workforce education, you may be in need of conversations. Amidst all of the chaos, around information, published ideas, and so on, conversations may be the most lacking element out of everything. Conversations should be happening with educators, employers, and students, to get a sense of the local (and greater) workforce needs. Starting conversations can lead to unlocking paths to all the other recommended practices on this list.
Identify Focus Areas and Commit
Exploring the evolving workforce is immense. Exploring the evolving GenAI technologies is also immense. Consider starting conversations and planning with identifying key focus areas. These may include staying on top of employers’ changing job descriptions and requirements. This may be inspiring playful looks at hypothetical applications of GenAI in various fields. This may include staying on top of published research. The options are endless, but our capacity to explore and investigate is not. Roles to support these focus areas are important. When the completing the work within a community (as explored in “Build Coalitions” below) a more robust, holistic approach can be achieved.
Listen to Employers and Industry Leaders
Whenever possible, educators should put effort into reaching out to and listening to employers and industry leaders. There is always a gap between the educator and the workforce, of course, but with emerging technology and proprietary solutions that vary from employer to employer, that gap may be widening. Individuals within the industry spaces our students will inevitably find themselves in can be helpful. Consider additional voices from program advisory boards and local stakeholders.
Build Coalitions
Collective action can be incredibly powerful in reducing isolation and removing some levels of uncertainty and confusion with GenAI. Coalitions and communities can take many forms, but emphasizing diverse perspectives is key. Consider working with educators from multiple disciplines who have the same charge and curiosity in developing skills. Consider working with industry connections mentioned in the previous recommendation. Consider working with recent graduates to get first-hand experience from the field. Most importantly, identify structures and formal ways to bring groups together, once and over time.
Respect Transitions
Higher education suffers from being slow to change in many ways, but in some ways this can be helpful in waiting for dust to settle with major cultural shifts. The transitions of evolving technology are rapid and have many small and large waves. Consider respecting the time it takes for technology shifts to become normalized. Use the periods of uncertainty to explore the other recommended practices on this list.
Innovate from Within
The pressure to bring external tools and resources from outside to create change goes hand in hand with technology shifts and disruptions, but ask how innovation can happen with what educators already have. This will retain comfort and familiarity while also maintaining connections to institutional / personal experience, goals, and resources.
Consider Fears and Courage
The world of GenAI, and discussing it, will lead to fear. There is a lot on the line with how GenAI may (and is) impacting jobs and the workforce as a whole. Fear is healthy as it responds to real problems, but it also may be exacerbated when it goes unaddressed. How can we practically respond to technologies like GenAI? How can we promote healthy awareness and stay, as educators, in control of our teaching and learning? Lean into the other recommended practices above and consider how they may boost morale and create courage to face the mounting changes as a collective. There is much to be concerned about, but change is not always completely negative. Where might change take us in good ways as we move forward?
What other practices can you think of?
As you explore this guide and read some of the resources in the bibliography, ask what other thought leaders and researchers have consider as they directly face GenAI. The practices above may or may not be useful, but they are fairly general. What might be missing here that applies to your educational context?