From mixed-reality labs to prompt engineering: CTE instructors are becoming AI’s earliest adopters
When Tasharah Wilson watches students at Atlanta College and Career Academy (ACCA) use zSpace mixed-reality platforms to virtually disassemble car engines and practice dental procedures, she sees something that traditional classroom educators often miss: AI isn’t replacing hands-on learning — it’s amplifying it. “AI makes abstract concepts tangible,” says Wilson, the school’s principal and CEO. “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.”
That perspective sits at the center of a shift happening in CTE labs, shops, and clinical sites across the country. While much of the K-12 education world remains conflicted about AI — debating bans, policies, and plagiarism detection — CTE instructors are emerging as some of the technology’s earliest practical adopters. They have to be. The industries their students are training to enter — automotive, healthcare, manufacturing, construction, hospitality — are already integrating AI into their workflows. If CTE programs don’t follow suit, they risk training students for yesterday’s jobs.
The CTE AI Advantage
Michelle Conner, senior manager of professional learning and content for 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. 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.”
The advantage CTE has over traditional academic programs is structural: CTE instructors already work with industry partners who are deploying AI in real workplaces. When a CTE instructor in an automotive program talks to a local dealership about how AI-assisted diagnostics are changing the service bay, that conversation directly informs what happens in the lab the next day. Academic teachers rarely have that kind of real-time industry feedback loop.
At ACCA, which serves 700 juniors and seniors across 14 CTE pathways ranging from automotive technology and HVAC to medical science and cybersecurity, AI integration happened naturally. The school’s design — built around industry-aligned credentials and employer partnerships — meant that adopting AI tools was simply an extension of its existing approach. Students use zSpace machines that look like desktop computers but allow them to use a stylus and special glasses to work in a virtual space, simulating environments like auto repair shops and medical laboratories. AI prompts students within the 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. “This technology is really a game changer.”
The Workforce Alignment Question
Cameron Sublett, an associate professor in educational leadership and policy studies at the University of Tennessee Knoxville, offers a more cautious perspective. CTE, he says, is “more rigorous, diverse, and workforce-aligned than it’s ever been.” But 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 warns. “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.”
The warning is worth heeding in Pennsylvania, where CTE programs in over 40 occupational areas are training students for careers that AI will likely transform within the next decade. A welding student who learns only the physical technique — without understanding how AI-assisted welding inspection systems work — may find themselves competing against workers who can do both. The solution isn’t to abandon hands-on training; it’s to layer AI literacy on top of technical competency, so completers enter the workforce with stackable skills.
AI as a Tool for CTE Teachers
One of the most practical applications of AI in CTE has nothing to do with students at all — it’s about teacher support. Many CTE instructors come straight from industry, entering the classroom through alternative certification programs. They bring deep technical expertise but often need help with pedagogy: lesson planning, assessment design, differentiation.
J.J. Ayres, CTE director for Little Elm Independent School District in Texas, says AI has dramatically shortened the learning curve for new CTE teachers. In one case this school year, a newly hired CTE teacher made the same kind of professional progress in four months that would typically take a year and a half. Ayres focuses staff development on prompt engineering — the process of crafting instructions that guide AI software to effective outcomes — and encourages teachers to experiment with different AI tools to find what works.
Lavyne Rada, associate director of teacher recruitment and retention for the Lakes Country Service Cooperative in Minnesota, sees similar patterns. Her organization’s CTE teacher induction program encourages new teachers to take what they know about a topic and use AI to plan backwards from there. “I saw a lot of CTE teachers in their districts taking the lead on using these tools so students are ready for the workforce,” she says.
This matters for Philadelphia, where the School District offers CTE programs in over 40 occupational areas and actively recruits experienced industry professionals to teach. The district requires candidates to have four years of industry-related work experience or a bachelor’s degree plus two years of related work experience. For these career-changers, AI tools that streamline lesson planning and assessment design can make the difference between thriving and burning out in their first year.
Building Policy That Includes CTE
Amanda Bickerstaff, co-founder of AI for Education, 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.”
Conner argues that school boards must ensure CTE staff and industry partners are involved in creating AI policies. “One of the selling points of CTE is that we have these industry partnerships that bring relevant practice into the classroom,” she says. “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.”
Taylor Pratt, an assistant professor at the University of Louisville who provides AI staff development to CTE teachers, emphasizes that 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.” She also warns that industry-specific AI tools vary widely — what’s used in engineering and manufacturing differs from what’s used in hospitality — creating challenges for schools trying to stay current.
What CTE Programs Should Do Now
Sublett recommends districts create AI “acceleration teams” of teachers who can examine how local employers use the technology, then oversee professional development 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,” he says.
For Pennsylvania CTE programs, the Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) and local workforce boards should be part of that conversation. When CTE instructors in Philadelphia’s health science academies meet with employer partners like Jefferson Health, they should be asking how AI is changing clinical workflows — and what skills their completers will need to work alongside AI-assisted diagnostic tools.
Bickerstaff cautions against assuming that students who grow up with technology (“digital natives”) will naturally understand how to use AI effectively. “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. “To really understand how to use these tools meaningfully and responsibly, you have to have intentional AI literacy training.”
The Philadelphia Angle
For Philadelphia’s CTE ecosystem, the AI conversation has particular urgency. The School District of Philadelphia offers CTE programs in over 40 occupational areas, from construction and healthcare to IT and hospitality. Each of these sectors is being reshaped by AI in different ways. The district’s CTE instructors — many recruited directly from industry — are uniquely positioned to bridge the gap between what employers need and what students learn, but only if they have the tools, time, and policy support to integrate AI meaningfully.
Wilson’s advice to CTE administrators is straightforward: “AI is a powerful tool, but without a clear purpose, it becomes noise. Any technology that is used without purpose won’t lead to deep learning.” That’s a CTE philosophy applied to AI — the same competency-based, industry-aligned thinking that makes CTE programs work in the first place.
The schools that get this right will produce completers who don’t just tolerate AI in the workplace — they lead it. The schools that don’t will find their graduates competing for jobs that no longer exist.
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Originally reported by the National School Boards Association (NSBA) | PhillyCTE
