Future-Ready Teaching: How IBM SkillsBuild is Empowering Educators in the Age of AI
- AI is rapidly reshaping education. Free resources like IBM SkillsBuild are crucial for educators and students to learn how to integrate this technology effectively and responsibly.
- From curriculum directors to school librarians, educators are using SkillsBuild to personalize their professional development and prepare their students for an AI-driven future.
- SkillsBuild enables flexible, self-driven learning through hundreds of free modules, allowing both teachers and students to learn alongside each other at their own pace, and earn valuable badges for mastering technical and workplace skills.
The rapid evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping every industry, and education is no exception. It’s no longer a matter of if AI will be in the classroom, but how we integrate it responsibly and effectively. Educators and school leaders need resources to help them better understand AI and how it can be used to create powerful learning experiences in the classroom.
IBM SkillsBuild is one such resource—a free platform where both teachers and students can learn alongside each other and earn badges for exploring technical and workplace skills. Keep reading to hear how three educators are using SkillsBuild to get themselves and their students future-ready.
Building the Skills to Integrate AI
Carol-Ann Winans, the executive director of curriculum and instruction at Wantagh Union Free School District (New York), is leading the charge in her district to integrate AI literacy into their educational framework. To help her district be future-ready, Carol-Ann and her team are using IBM SkillsBuild to deepen their knowledge around AI and technology.
“Myself, the humanities director, and an English teacher have leveraged IBM SkillsBuild to better understand machine learning to better articulate the use of this technology to our faculty and students. This understanding is crucial for demonstrating how AI platforms collect, organize, and generate information, enabling us to emphasize the vital role of detailed prompt crafting and rigorous editing of AI outputs.”
With the knowledge gained from learning on SkillsBuild, Carol-Ann and her team are actively incorporating various AI tools—chatbots, co-editors, conversational spaces, and lesson planning generators—to optimize student learning and enhance teacher efficiency.
“By understanding the underlying principles of machine learning, we can effectively guide students in utilizing AI to maximize their learning experiences and empower teachers to deliver meaningful instruction more efficiently. Ultimately, we recognize that the most effective AI integration stems from a collaborative partnership between human ingenuity and machine capabilities.”
Understanding the Impact of AI
Ethical and practical adoption of AI in education requires a well-prepared and well-informed human network, including educators, district staff, and crucial support teams. Librarians are an essential part of this support structure; they are the frontline experts in finding reliable resources, a task that has become significantly more complex with the rise of AI.
Ashley Holtmeyer, a library media specialist at the Jefferson City School District (Missouri), understood the critical need for a foundational AI understanding, both to answer students’ and teachers’ questions and to curate reliable resources. To meet this need, Ashley turned to SkillsBuild to expand her knowledge and put time toward her professional learning hours.
"I’ve learned so much so far and am only on module four. I’ve bookmarked some of the sites I’ve learned about and practiced using [them] to create lesson plans for my students to use during our library lessons to help them gain an understanding of AI.”
Personalizing Professional Development
Great teachers are always on the lookout for reliable resources to help their students, whether to improve their pedagogy, deepen their content knowledge, or uncover strategies that move them beyond traditional methods. On SkillsBuild, students and educators can earn badges for exploring everything from technical skills like AI literacy and UX design, to workplace skills like communication and design thinking.
Choosing from hundreds of free modules, Chantal Edmonds from Phenix City Schools (Alabama) used SkillsBuild to personalize her professional development journey and model lifelong learning for her students.
“As a teacher, using IBM SkillsBuild for my own professional development was a game-changer. I explored courses on AI foundations and digital design, which deepened my understanding and gave me fresh ideas to bring into the classroom. The resources were clear, relevant, and aligned perfectly with my goals for inclusive, future-ready instruction. It felt empowering to learn alongside my students and model lifelong learning.”