The Frisco ISD Career and Technical Education Center offers a wide variety of career-oriented classes to give students a glimpse into their future. Whether you’re in Architecture and Construction, or Law and Public Service, these courses offer a hands-on experience for students to explore different career paths and develop vocational skills. However, as technology becomes more integrated into these classrooms, the growing use of artificial intelligence raises both opportunity and concern for students at the CTE Center: blurring the line between genuine learning and reliance on technology. Is AI furthering students’ education, or is it making it easier to take shortcuts?

Many classes at the CTE Center already use various forms of artificial intelligence and technology, but not all of them carry the name ChatGPT. Computer Science, Graphic Design, and Engineering are all specifialized fields of AI usage. Teachers at the CTE Center with AI focused courses have to adjust their approach to handling this technology, ensuring that students are using it to adhance their learning. In Kyla Heffernan’s engineering class, students are learning to use AI to draft blueprints and create codes.

“When information becomes readily available, the need to know things becomes less and less. I use quite a bit of AI in my classroom, and I teach my students to use it as well because I want them to use it correctly,” Heffernan said. “We have to teach students its benefits, instead of having the goal of ‘its going to do the work for me.’”

While AI can be a powerful tool in technical fields like engineering, its role becomes more complicated in classes that rely on critical thinking. Using ChatGPT and Google Gemini for its judgement rather than tools for research can be incredibly dangerous. Imagine if we had to live under the jurisdiction and laws of AI? Mock Trial Teacher, Mark Bryant, has enforced strict policies limiting the use of AI in his classroom.

“I think when students use AI to critically think for them, as opposed to evaluating the case on their own, it usually leads students badly astray,” Bryant said.

The difference in tolerance for AI between these classes highlights a growing challenge at the CTE Center: where do we draw the line for AI usage? While AI has made multiple contributions to STEM education, it also risks weakening the critical thinking skills established in career-focused classes. The challenges introduced by AI are actively lingering, and becoming hard to avoid. Teachers at the CTE Center are finding ways to set clearer boundaries to ensure its support in learning rather than replacing it.

“AI is not going to go away, and I think we have to adapt to that and learn to move with it,” Heffernan said. “Just how computers and iphones changed everything, this is just the next step.” 

Artificial intelligence isn’t going away anytime soon. It is rapidly growing and changing, and with it, education is evolving too. As classrooms at the CTE Center continue to integrate AI into learning, it is up to teachers and students to appropriately navigate how AI is used. Ultimately, the question isn’t whether AI belongs in classrooms, but how we can maintain a sense of academic honesty, and adequately prepare students for the future.