The onslaught of generative artificial intelligence, GenAI, is going to be even more confusing for educators, administrators and learners this September because they will be bombarded with contradictory messages. Social media, mainstream news, influencers, commercial, institutional, academic sources and AI feedback itself are wavering between exploiting through trialling GenAI and pausing its use in education to protect learners from denigrating their critical thinking, creativity, problem-solving skills and promoting surface understanding of concepts. Your institution should have policies on GenAI usage with your instructional practices. This document and your policies should be elements in conversations in your departments on how GenAI should be treated next term.
The Guide
The guide is posted and available on the Government of Canada website, https://www.canada.ca. It is not a technical manual; it was written for federal public servants to assist them in making responsible choices when using GenAI in professional, policy or service delivery contexts. Key issues in this guide include:
- identifying high risk and low risk uses of GenAI
- identifying acceptable and unacceptable GenAI uses
- setting expectations for legal, ethical and safe use of GenAI in government operations
- highlighting risks and potential mitigation strategies
- ensuring compliance with Canadian values, law and policies when considering and using GenAI
- providing decision-making guidance on how and when GenAI should or should not be used
Concise Guide Summary
If you want the quick read with the FASTER principles in table format and bulleted lists of possible and forbidden uses of GenAI, read the Generative AI in your daily work document to start comprehending the Government of Canada’s Guide on the use of generative artificial intelligence.
FASTER Principles
Developed by the Treasury Board of Canada, the FASTER principles, are designed to provide an ethical framework when using generative AI tools. This mnemonic is a possible way to introduce good GenAI practices to your staff. These principles appear as they were published in the guide below.
- Fair: ensure that content from these tools does not include or amplify biases and that it complies with human rights, accessibility, and procedural and substantive fairness obligations; engage with affected stakeholders before deployment.
- Accountable: take responsibility for the content generated by these tools and the impacts of their use. Ensure that generated content is accurate, legal, ethical, and compliant with the terms of use; establish monitoring and oversight mechanisms.
- Secure: ensure that the infrastructure and tools are appropriate for the security classification of the information and that privacy and personal information are protected; assess and manage cybersecurity risks and robustness when deploying a system.
- Transparent: identify content that has been produced using generative AI; notify users that they are interacting with an AI tool; provide information on institutional policies, appropriate use, training data and the model when deploying these tools; document decisions with the ability to provide explanations if tools are used to support decision-making.
- Educated: learn about the strengths, limitations and responsible use of the tools; learn how to create effective prompts and to identify potential weaknesses in the outputs.
- Relevant: ensure the use of generative AI tools supports user and organizational needs; contribute to better outcomes for clients; consider the environmental impacts when choosing to use a tool; identify appropriate tools for the task, recognizing that AI tools aren’t the best choice in every situation.
More information
Recently, I facilitated a Tutela webinar on this guide. The link to the recorded session is available in the resources section below. The Tutela event page offers a more in-depth exploration of the guide, including considerations for the language teaching and settlement section. These are thoughts that may be useful for your GenAI undertakings moving forward. Ideas shared included:
- Locate and read institutional policies
- Start small by evaluating, then piloting approved GenAI technologies
- Gather feedback from learners
- Collaborate with your peers (share experiences)
- Reflect by attending PD events and sharing insights
- Report GenAI issues to management and IT support
- Explain what GenAI is and how it’s used to learners
- Label AI-generated content
- Avoid collecting identifiable student data with GenAI tools
- Request informed consent
- Teach students to question AI outputs
- Discuss ethical topics as language content
- Model ethical use in lesson design
- Avoid using GenAI to grade subjective work
- Stay informed and cautious
- Offer alternative activities for learners with low digital literacy
- Use AI to supplement, not replace, the teacher
This is not an extensive list. I am hoping to work with educators, students and administrators this year to refine our understanding of what is ethical, safe and effective for learning when GenAI is used in our centuries in the future. I hope to discuss and learn from you this year.
Resources
Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat. (2024, February 12). Guide on the use of generative artificial intelligence. https://www.canada.ca/en/government/system/digital-government/digital-government-innovations/responsible-use-ai/guide-use-generative-ai.html
Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat. (2024, February 12). Generative AI in your daily work or Concise Guide summary, https://www.canada.ca/en/government/system/digital-government/digital-government-innovations/responsible-use-ai/generative-ai-your-daily-work.html
Considering the Government of Canada’s Guide on the Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence before moving forward with GenAI. Tutela Webinar. (June 2025). https://tutela.ca/Event_64938
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