Future Ready Educators Summit charts responsible use of AI in Jamaican schools

One Academy, developed by One on One Educational Services, recently held its Future Ready Educators Summit 2.0 to equip teachers with practical strategies for working with artificial intelligence in schools. Ricardo Allen, president and chief executive officer of the company, said the event addressed how educators can seize AI's benefits while managing the risks it brings to teaching and learning.

Allen described artificial intelligence as a major technological shift already reshaping classrooms. Teachers are using it to plan lessons, prepare notes, design assignments, and grade submissions, while students often turn to the same tools to complete homework. Parents and administrators are also adopting AI for study support and data analysis. Allen cautioned that unless schools act deliberately, entire workflows could become dependent on the technology at the expense of independent thought.

A central concern, he said, is preserving critical thinking. Allen, who recently completed a fellowship at Cambridge University, argued that valid assessment depends on whether a pupil can explain and defend their reasoning—not simply on whether an answer is correct. Assignments completed with AI but not understood by the student, he said, do not constitute valid evidence of learning. One approach he highlighted is asking learners to argue against AI on a fixed position and return with supporting evidence.

Allen urged teachers to remain architects of thinking rather than mere providers of information. He linked heavy reliance on instant AI answers to cognitive atrophy, warning that shortcuts can weaken the mental effort reading and problem-solving require. The summit also examined dialogic assessment, in which students must explain their logic in depth. Allen said research on this model is underway with Cambridge University and with the government of the Bahamas, with plans to extend it to Jamaica. AI could conduct structured conversations with pupils and give teachers dashboards showing who reasons well and who needs support.

Allen pointed to the National Virtual School, a partnership with Jamaica's Ministry of Education linking 101 schools through classroom screens and central instruction from Kingston. Subjects scarce in rural areas, such as game design, can be streamed islandwide, with skills-gap tests helping facilitators tailor follow-up support. He said Jamaica must move beyond short-term exam performance toward teaching and assessment that build long-term memory, creativity, and capacity for industry.