Canada’s AI strategy needs educators who feel prepared, not just trained

The Canadian government recently introduced AI for All, a national artificial intelligence strategy that has two focuses: building trust and creating opportunity .

As Canada invests in AI literacy and adoption, schools and post-secondary institutions can play a central role in ensuring that future generations are prepared to discern appropriate, effective and ethical uses of the technology.

Over the past year and a half, as doctoral students in education, we have worked with more than 800 educators from schools, universities and professional learning settings to explore how they understand, discuss and respond to generative AI.

Our experience with educators led to the development of the GenAI-dentity Survey and Workshop project , designed to help educators reflect on: Their comfort with genAI in day-to-day use; Assessment and educational practices; Their fears and challenges.

A survey was designed for participants to consider where they locate themselves on a comfort spectrum with genAI. (@lockedlaundromat) , CC BY-SA So far, more than 800 educators have filled out our survey — whether through our guided workshop or on their own through by completing the module on our website.

Our forthcoming research describes the development of this survey and workshop in more detail, and reports on what we’ve learned so far from surveys and in workshops we conduct.

This book chapter, “The Generative Artificial Intelligence (genAI) Comfort Spectrum: Navigating the Role of genAI Through Self-Assessment to Support Educator Growth,” is part of the Handbook of Theory and Research in Digital Media and Education .

As students leading this project, we’re grateful that it’s been supported by our academic mentors and professors: Saad Chahine and Pamela Beach here at Queen’s University.

Educators feel unprepared, unsupported We work with educators to engage early adopters and also to engage those who look the other way in discussions about the changing educational landscape.

We seek to build trust and create opportunities for discussions on AI use in educational settings.

This matters because educators are on the front lines, from elementary schools to post-secondary institutions.

They are encountering genAI as both an opportunity and a disruption.

While genAI has shown to support efficiency and open up new possibilities for education, it raises questions about academic integrity, equity, privacy, bias, environmental impact , dependence on large technology companies and the nature of education itself .

Read more: Cyberattack affecting school boards spotlights the need for better EdTech regulation in Ontario and beyond This tension sits at the centre of our research on AI comfort in educational settings.