A student who was having problems in Chemistry class created her own daily study system to review the concepts that were most difficult for her to master the class. A first grade student’s teacher records him reading a story aloud and gets recommendations on the next text he can read to address his lags. Another teacher prepares, in minutes, an interactive assignment for her students, based on the exact standards and skills required by her classroom curriculum.
The use of tools artificial intelligence (AI) for education is increasingly gaining popularity and, although there are concerns, it can no longer be an option to ignore these technologies in teaching, three educators agreed.
If the goal is to prepare students to be professionals, to be successful after school, technology must be an essential part of their preparation, he said. Lisvette Flores Quiñoneseducational technology teaching facilitator at the Regional Educational Office (ORE) of Caguas del Department of Education.
“I have seen the entire transformation of technology, how it has evolved, and I believe that Artificial intelligence is an additional strategy that teachers have to make our students have a new way of thinking… You use it in your favor or you use it against you, and we need to teach students to use it in their favor,” said Flores Quiñones, who has 25 years of experience in the agency.
The key is how to teach students to use the available tools responsibly and ethically, he said. Tania Reyes Mirandateacher of the Technological Information workshop of the Business Administration program at the Juan Ponce de León school, in Florida.
“As I tell them (the students), artificial intelligence is like a trash can. All people throw there, throw there, we don’t know what things are useful and what things are not useful until you ask it and you can evaluate if what it is saying is real,” said Reyes Miranda.
Given the emergence of services based on language models – such as ChatGPT or Claude – concerns have increased among teachers about the possibility of students committing academic dishonesty and submitting assignments created by technology.
Both Reyes Miranda and Flores Quiñones pointed out that new technologies force, in turn, the creation of new ways of teaching and evaluating.
Instead of seeing artificial intelligence as an enemy, it should be seen as support, said Flores Quiñones. For example, Reyes Miranda highlighted that he informs his students that spelling errors will not be accepted in their work, since they have access to tools that correct writing.
“If I ask for an essay, it means that the student can stimulate his critical thinking because the artificial intelligence will help him to write a better essay. I can make a draft of my essay and I can tell the artificial intelligence, ‘well, I’m going to give you this document, verify to me at what point you think I should take it to the investigation, at what point I should improve’. Afterwards, the student is taught to review it, to validate it,” Flores Quiñones explained.
Education approved, in December of last year, its “Guide for the use of artificial intelligence in student learning”which establishes the basic guidelines for the use of this technology in classrooms. Previously, in 2024, the manual had been published “Artificial intelligence in the educational system”.
The Undersecretary of Academic Affairs of Education, Beverly Morro Vegaexplained that the use of artificial intelligence tools in the public school system will depend on the grade, but will always be focused on the educational needs of students and on being a complement, not a substitution, for the work of human beings.
“The challenge of every educational system is going to be to create balance. We must create balance between stimulating the students’ perceptive apparatus, which is directly related to their cognitive development, versus the use and integration of technology,” he argued.
The guide approved last year establishes what content is appropriate for students ages 13 and older, teaching concepts of academic integrity and cybersecurity, among others. Introduces teachers to the SENSE model, created by Education, which establishes that artificial intelligence must be used in classrooms with safety, ethics, narrative, synergy and evaluation.
Morro Vega emphasized that access to generative artificial intelligence tools in schools only occurs within the Microsoft ecosystem, with whom Education maintains contracts and which has security elements for educational environments.
The youngest children, up to sixth grade, will not have access to generative artificial intelligence tools. Your classroom exposure to AI technology is limited to “learning accelerators” that help, for example, strengthen reading skills or mathematics, indicated the undersecretary.
The Technology teacher at El Coquí Elementary School, in Salinas, Karlalizbeth Cruzuses programs – such as Reading Progress and Minecraft – with its first through third grade students to support literacy learning.
“The same artificial intelligence helps them do the work. For example, right now they are making algorithms in English, as if they were programmers. They write a word and (the tool) gives them the idea of how to write it (correctly),” Cruz explained.
One of the programs, for example, suggests the readings you can give to a student depending on their grade and the skills they already master. “If the child has five words that he didn’t read correctly, then he goes back and repeats them. He gives them exercises. I no longer spend any time doing them, I tell him ‘give me five multiple choice exercises’, and he gives them to him,” said the elementary-level teacher, emphasizing the time she saves on administrative tasks.
Morro Vega highlighted that, in Puerto Rico, it has not been decided to eliminate the use of technology in primary grade education, as has happened in other countries, but to limit its use so that minors do not skip stages of development.
“What we want is to ensure that from approximately 5 to 12 years old, our children are focused on developing cognitive skills that are based, above all, on the stimulation of the perceptual apparatus, which occurs when the child plays with plasticine, which occurs when they play with blocks, which occurs when they practice calligraphy,” explained Morro Vega.