Date of Award

August 2026

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Educational Leadership

First Advisor

Anthony Perry

Abstract

Postsecondary Career and Technical Education (CTE) instructors bring valuable industry experience to the classroom. However, they often lack formal pedagogical training which can create challenges in curriculum and instructional design. New instructors often struggle in their first few years, and this frustration may lead them to burnout and possibly attrition. This dissertation in practice explored whether a professional development on Generative AI (GenAI), specifically MagicSchool.ai, can bridge this pedagogical gap. The goal was to equip postsecondary CTE instructors with timesaving, on-demand curriculum development support through an online, asynchronous professional development (PD). The PD addressed how GenAI has the ability to be used as an educational support tool, how to design prompts, and how to use MagicSchool.ai tools as an effective way to support postsecondary CTE curriculum and instruction. The PD used a revised version of Bloom’s Taxonomy Framework, AI-Bloom Framework Revised, to develop the course objectives and guide the lessons. Each of the lessons had a goal to design unique curriculum for students to achieve to each level of Bloom’s using three of the AI tools in MagicSchool. Quantitative and qualitative evidence was collected through a pre- and post-survey which applied the newly evolved AI-Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (AI-TPACK) framework. The primary measure was to determine if the PD could statistically increase postsecondary CTE instructors’ AI-TPACK. Findings revealed this targeted PD made a statistically, positive impact on participants’ AI-integrated domains and the qualitative themes supported the quantitative evidence. MagicSchool.ai can be used as a straightforward entry point into GenAI tools that streamline lesson planning, provide instructional support, and reduce the time-intensive demands of curriculum and instructional design without extensive technology training. In addition to these insights, this study also illustrates that a prompt library could also be designed to generate equivalent output and allow an LLM to serve as the GenAI tool if there is resistance to MagicSchool or other institutional requirements exist. A Logic Model is provided to serve as a roadmap to the strategies of inputs, activities, outputs, and outcomes that would uniquely support postsecondary institutions integration of GenAI as a pedagogical partner to postsecondary CTE instructors. A self-study notebook portrays the design of a 10-week cohort model to support implementation of GenAI tools for postsecondary CTE instructors for institutional collaboration.

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