Lethbridge Polytechnic has joined the inaugural consortium for the Artificial Intelligence Workforce Readiness (AIWR) program. The national initiative, led by the Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute (Amii), aims to close the AI skills gap and prepare the next generation of workers. Twenty-nine polytechnics, colleges and universities in the country are using the program, which benefits more than 125,000 students. The resources will focus on giving students the AI competencies they need, including reading and discussion materials, real-world use cases, videos and lab assessments. “It has radically changed in the way—in terms of how—we teach, what we teach, and how we assess,” said Brad Donaldson, Lethbridge Polytechnic CEO and president. “I’ve often heard stories of students writing essays through AI, so what does that mean for us in terms of how we change our assessments? We change our methodologies. “Students are now looking toward criticizing, from a critique perspective, the content rather than creating the content, so it helps to learn how to do content development.” The program also allows faculty the opportunity to develop AI resources for their classes and integrate AI into existing programs and courses.
