Four states have passed legislation to pilot AI curriculum, while seven states provide guidance on AI use in the classroom.
People-focused skills, more than technical, are increasingly sought-after by employers in all industries.
Programs exist to teach schoolchildren about peer-to-peer relationships and teamwork, and to encourage creativity and problem-solving.
Seventeen states and territories have passed legislation related to AI use in education (NCSL 2024). CA, LA, NY, PR , VA, and WV have created task forces to study the effect and implementation of AI in education, while IA, MD, MI, NY, and WY allocate funding for institutions of higher education to develop programs or data centers related to AI. TN is the only state that has instructed districts to promulgate rules related to the use of AI by educators and students, while CT, SC, FL, and NE have allocated funds to develop and test programs for high school students relating to AI.
Education and innovation departments in CA, OH, OR, NC, VA, WA, and WV have released guidance relating to AI in the classroom, however these vary widely in their focus and audience (Roschelle et al 2024). The Department of Education developed a federal AI toolkit in response to Executive Order 14110, which has since been removed (U.S. Department of Education 2024). Despite these resources, instruction on AI largely depends on districts, schools, and individual teachers, and teacher training programs are largely not addressing AI instruction and use by teachers or students (Dusseaul & Lee 2023, Weiner et al 2024).
Relatively few teachers use AI in their own work. In the fall of 2023, 18% of teachers reported using AI (Diliberti et al 2024). Similarly, school administrators focus more on increasing teachers’ use of AI for grading and lesson plans, rather than teaching students about AI or developing policies for student use (Court et al 2024). Despite this, 51% of teens and young adults report using generative AI, with 46% using it for help with schoolwork and 55% using it to obtain information generally (Green et al 2024). However, only 4% report being daily users.
As tasks are increasingly automated, even before the implementation of current Large Language Model (LLM) and generative AI technologies, employers are focusing on workers' ability to navigate human interactions on the job (Leopold et al 2018, Lyu & Liu 2021). Surveys of employers noted that while technical AI skills are useful, the value of “soft skills” has increased, as they are harder or impossible to automate (America Succeeds 2021, Cardon et al 2023). Employees who can communicate, manage conflict, work in teams, and who are punctual, creative, problem-solving self-starters are in high demand across industries (Figure 1). In MO, the top 5 soft skills were 3.4 times more likely to be requested in job postings than the top 5 hard skills, with 1.2 million jobs demanding soft skills (America Succeeds 2021). Communication skills were the top requested soft skill for MO jobs in 2021.
Recent studies have highlighted how reliance on AI can reduce workers’ creativity and problem-solving capabilities (Lee HP et al 2025). Students who used AI were identified as lacking time, curiosity, and interest in a topic (Al Afnan et al 2024). However, these outcomes can be mitigated by targeted use of AI in classrooms combined with a focus on soft skill development.
Schools are equipped to teach both people-focused and technical skills.
Behavioral management tools are used to teach conflict management and resolution (for more information see Classroom Management Strategies). Project based learning (PBL) systems encourage students to work together to solve problems, which fosters the development of soft skills (Buck Institute for Education 2024). PBL has been shown to be effective particularly in science and social studies classrooms, and has been used to teach about AI and digital literacy (Condliffe et al 2017, Owens & Hite 2020, Yue Yim & Su 2024).
The social emotional learning (SEL) and related frameworks address people-focused skill development, including maintaining relationships, managing emotions, communication, and empathy (Committee for Children 2019, Niu et al 2022, Gimbert et al 2023). These frameworks are already i to teach technical and people-focused skills simultaneously (Yue Yim & Su 2024). As with any educational framework, success depends on teacher training and program adherence (Bailey et al 2019, Gimbert et al 2021)
Figure 1. Frequency of durable skill requirements in MO and US job postings. Figure from America Succeeds 2021. 92 million national and 2.3 million MO job postings were analyzed from 2019-2020 to assess key skills requested by employers. Durable skills were found in more than half of all MO job postings, with communication as the top required skill.
References
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