Overview
Authentic, real-world challenges engage students in meaningful learning by connecting classroom skills to industry needs. Doing projects in a real-world setting is a purposeful experience for students to develop skills that will be valuable in the workforce. Partnerships with industry create opportunities to co-design projects that mirror the challenges professionals face; when students work on these types of problems, they practice collaboration, critical thinking, and communication while building professional habits.
Just like generative AI is impacting schools, the technology is rapidly affecting how work is done across other sectors. As students work alongside industry leaders, they apply classroom skills and strengthen their ability to use AI in real time, gaining experience with the same tools and approaches shaping the modern workplace.
Example from the School Teams AI Collaborative
Ulster BOCES in New York partners with local school districts to provide shared educational, administrative, and technical services and is committed to offering educational programs that enable all students to prepare for employment and/or post-secondary education. Through partnerships with local businesses, students gain opportunities for hands-on experience through real-world projects. The organization recognized the importance of preparing students to use AI effectively and embedded opportunities in their offerings. To put this in practice, Ulster BOCES implemented real-world, AI-enhanced projects by:
Building on trusted partnerships to explore AI: Ulster BOCES drew on an existing, strong relationship to ensure alignment, checking in with Ellenville Regional Hospital to confirm their openness to the use of AI in student work. In their New Visions Health Program, about 75 students then participated in an Industry-Based Workplace Learning Challenge designed in collaboration with Keith Edwards, the hospital’s Director of Human Resources and Marketing. This intentional approach ensured students could explore authentic industry problems while also considering how emerging technologies are shaping the workplace.
Focusing on a real-world outcome: Instead of leading with AI, the challenge asked students to design a campaign raising awareness among teens about the hospital’s preventive services. This was an engaging challenge that ensured the learning and impact were the focus, not the technology.
Providing students with examples of how to use AI: Educators encouraged students to use ChatGPT as a tool when working on the challenge by providing examples of ways students could use AI that kept the cognitive lift on the students. Students then had the opportunity to apply these strategies as they worked on their project. Examples included:
Empathizing and Defining: Students used AI to research and analyze industry-specific data, enabling a more thorough understanding of the partner's needs. For instance, they used AI to summarize complex industry reports and analyze social media trends related to the challenge.
Ideation and Prototyping: ChatGPT helped students brainstorm campaign ideas, explore alternative approaches, and refine their prototypes by suggesting refinements and potential challenges. From there, students were able to take what they learned about partner needs and identify the idea that best matched it, or use the AI-generated ideas as a springboard to generate their own idea.
Presentation and Reflection: Students improved their final presentations by using AI for feedback on structure, language, and visual aids. AI also facilitated a more robust reflection process by analyzing student work and offering personalized feedback on areas for improvement.
This integration helped students stay engaged and build confidence as they tackled authentic industry problems. One teacher reflected, “AI didn’t replace student work; it helped them explore more ideas and deepen their understanding of professional workflows.” Hear from students, staff members, and community partners in the recap of the project.
Apply This Strategy in Your Context
Students can better prepare to use generative AI in the workforce by having opportunities to utilize it in real-world partnerships. Here are ways to integrate AI into these types of projects:
Form connections with local businesses. Start by identifying organizations your school or district already partners with; the Career and Technical Education department is a great place to begin. If no formal partnerships exist, look to nearby businesses, family-owned shops connected to your school community, or even workplaces where staff, friends, and families are employed. Take the time to learn about the challenges these businesses are facing and explore opportunities for students to provide meaningful services in response. (Read about more examples of real-world learning experiences).
Center the learning and outcomes, not the technology. Emphasize to students that they need to ultimately provide what the partner organization asked for and achieve their learning goals. Students should use AI as a tool to help them accomplish these outcomes.
- Provide concrete ways students can use AI that ensure value to partners and students. Provide guidance to or brainstorm with students around ways they can use AI to support them in completing their project. For example, students can use AI to:
- Build their capacity of complex information quickly by summarizing reports, analyzing trends, and identifying key issues related to the real-world challenge
- Brainstorm different solutions and get feedback on ideas students come up with
- Help build and polish outputs like presentations and reports
By thoughtfully integrating AI into hands-on project learning with partners, educators can amplify students’ creativity and problem-solving in real-world learning experiences.
This AI-enabled strategy was developed by a member of the School Teams AI Collaborative—a partnership between Leading Educators and The Learning Accelerator (TLA). The Collaborative was developed to bring together innovative educators from schools across the country to share ideas and discover effective ways to use AI in the classroom.
