The world of work is changing fast, and GBDA students are learning to meet it with confidence. Through PD14: Responsible Digital Innovation in the Workplace, students are applying ethical AI practices during co-op and helping shape how their teams use emerging tools.
During their co-op terms, GBDA students Jasmine Hu and Alita Thomas encountered a challenge facing workplaces everywhere: how to use rapidly evolving AI tools responsibly. With frameworks and strategies from PD14, both students were able to move beyond experimentation and help bring structure, accountability and clear communication to AI use within their organizations.
In the winter 2026 offering, 82.8% of students often connected their learning to their co-op or EDGE experience, and 78.6% felt ready to apply those skills at work. Hu and Thomas experienced that readiness firsthand, as they vetted new tools for ethical use and communicated clearly about them within the first few weeks of working. Employers noticed too, giving students' workplace assignments a 97% impact score, a sign of just how valuable co-op students with responsible AI skills already are to the organization they join.
This fall, the Centre for Work-Integrated Learning and Co-operative and Experiential Education will launch PD15: Cultivating Inclusive and Healthy Workplaces, built on the same application-first model.
This story was originally published by the Centre for Work-Integrated Learning, and has been adapted for the Stratford School of Interaction Design and Business.
I used the tech implementation form provided in the course to actually think through whether those tools were using data ethically and if we could bring them into our everyday process.