Addressing Educational Leadership Preparation: The Case for Integrating Artificial Intelligence as an Essential Component of the Program Content Design Process

• In Event: Exploring AI’s Role in Educational Leadership, Teacher Preparation and Program Development

Proposal

As the world continues to recover from an unprecedented global pandemic (World Economic Forum, 2024), recent, rapid technological advancements have shown that we have entered an era for which most are unprepared. This rapid technological change is a factor that has impacted the way we communicate and learn, to the point of overwhelming even the savviest user (Author, 2023; Coulson, 2000). These changes have altered the way people understand one another, shaping culture and society in unimaginable ways, even for those born just a few generations ago (Straus & Howe, 1991).

Educational leadership, similar to its neighboring disciplines, has not been immune to the swift evolution of technology (World Bank, n.d.). Consequently, even though school leaders are expected to deal with these technological advancements, most leadership preparation programs are not equipping future leaders with the technological skills needed for today's rapidly changing world. To date, such programs do not include content areas such as machine learning, large language models, prompt engineering, data science, or neurotechnology. Instead, most leadership preparation programs focus on the essentials—facilities, organizational management, cafeterias, buses, discipline, classroom management, and grading—lacking a provision for the integration of AI as part of their leadership development initiatives. This will thus necessitate leader preparation programs to provide guidance over what it means to be AI literate and to provide parameters for using AI ethically (Fullan, Azorín, Harris, & Jones, 2023) while simultaneously teaching how to use protect data integrity.

Leadership preparation programs must therefore integrate and build a strong foundation in AI to positively impact program curriculum, its diverse learners, and the constantly evolving educational plane. If programs do not do this now, then not only will the educational leadership landscape be at a disadvantage, but so will the students such leadership preparation programs are meant to reach. Thus, any undertaking of the program redesign process needs to promote AI as part of its student-focused learning outcomes and experiences to make it a substantial component of the entire program. In doing so, educational leaders and institutions alike will be future proofing their programs for decades to come (Hoyle, 2007).

Authors

• Lina Marie De La Garza, Texas A&M International University

• Ricardo Lozano, Texas A&M International University