Teaching and learning in the age of AI: Guam rewriting its education system

By Ron Rocky Coloma

When Arleen Suplido teaches her eighth graders about personal finance, she doesn’t just hand them a worksheet. She walks them through real-world scenarios: budgeting salaries, weighing student loan debt and comparing education levels to lifetime earnings.

It’s part of a unit she calls the Budget Project, and it has taken on new urgency in the age of artificial intelligence. The students compare college degrees with alternatives like Google certificates and coding boot camps—conversations sparked by real economic shifts and emerging workforce trends.

“I think the role and value of a traditional college degree will change, and is most likely already changing,” said Suplido, assistant principal for curriculum and grants at Santa Barbara Catholic School. “Many employers are prioritizing practical skills rather than a college degree.”

She noted that although Pew Research data still shows higher average earnings for people with bachelor’s degrees, wages for those without them have been rising, too. She makes sure her students understand this fact.

That moment in class reveals a much bigger story: how schools, teachers and families are navigating an education system in transition, as artificial intelligence reshapes what it means to be prepared for the future.

“AI is being used by students as a tool for accomplishing assignments, sometimes with the teacher's knowledge and blessing,” said Suplido, who also teaches Honors Math 7 and 8. “And unfortunately, sometimes to cheat.”

She has been at the school for 20 years and has watched the steady integration of AI into education. Students now use AI-powered platforms like Duolingo and Khan Academy’s Khanmigo for personalized learning. Teachers rely on AI for lesson planning, creating assessments, generating images for instruction and analyzing student performance data.

“Schools have started implementing or setting up AI policies—how it should be used, rules for safety,” she said. “Schools have also devoted time and resources for teacher professional development on this issue.”

Still, Suplido believes most schools aren’t doing enough to prepare students.

“At this point, I don't think we are adequately preparing students for a future with AI, although there are efforts to do so,” she said. “AI is relatively new, and very few understand how to properly utilize it, and therefore cannot fully prepare students for it.”

One of the biggest challenges, she said, is access. Not all schools have the same technology. Many continue to rely on outdated curricula. And there’s still resistance to AI within the education system itself.

“Some educators shun AI and want nothing to do with it. But willful ignorance about recent developments, especially in technology, does more harm than good,” Suplido said. “Even for those who know of AI, it is very difficult to stay up-to-date and keep up with all the changes.”

She believes the most important thing schools can do is teach students how to think, not just what to know.

“All subjects that require students to think critically, analyze given information and allow students to collaborate, adapt, make right choices and be creative are relevant,” she said. “Whether it's math or computer or language arts.”

Rizalina Elomina, a consulting resource teacher for special education at Guam Adventist Academy Charter School, agrees that education must evolve alongside technology. With more than 20 years in the classroom, she has taught math in both Catholic and charter schools.

“AI is becoming embedded in the daily routines of students, educators and school leaders,” she said. “It makes work more efficient while also increasing our dependence on these systems.”

Elomina said her own awareness of AI’s role in education expanded significantly during an off-island training.

“It was a powerful reminder that professional development is no longer optional. It’s essential.”

She emphasized that students need digital literacy, coding and data analysis just as much as reading and math. Without meaningful updates to teaching methods, she warned, students could fall behind.

“If we continue with traditional teaching methods without adapting, we risk creating a disconnect between what we teach and what students actually need to succeed in a digital future,” Elomina said.

That doesn’t mean abandoning traditional teaching entirely. Mentorship, guidance and relationship-building will always matter, she said. But educators must evolve their methods, stay informed and set an example for students.

“With all the rapid changes, it’s our responsibility as educators to be open-minded, proactive and committed to self-improvement,” she said. “Only then can we truly equip the next generation.”

Cristina Mantanona, who chairs the English Department at the Academy of Our Lady of Guam, has spent 19 years teaching courses ranging from AP English Language to ESL. She sees both opportunity and risk in how AI intersects with writing instruction.

“Our English Department wants the students to understand that AI-generated responses lack the nuances of a human voice that is unique to each individual,” she said.

To preserve that individuality, the school discourages students from using AI to write essays or research papers and relies on detection tools to maintain academic integrity.

“Although we discourage the use of AI with regards to essays and research papers, it is obvious that some students still opt to use it,” Mantanona said. “As a result of this, I believe integrating AI into lessons will allow us to show students the reason their writing still has more value than what AI produces.”

She is currently exploring how AI can help students better understand how language shifts across contexts and audiences. Her goal is to ensure that students learn foundational skills while developing a writing voice of their own.

“It is not so much the curriculum that needs to change, but more so the instruction,” she said. “If a teacher uses AI as a tool to enhance the learning experience, then students will be adequately prepared because using AI as a tool would not seem so foreign.”

Mantanona’s advice to educators is to lean into the discomfort. “Fear is often driven by the unknown, and the only way to overcome it is to learn more,” she said. “We teach our students to be lifelong learners, so it is only fitting that we model this as well.”

Suplido echoed that belief. She spends time researching current events and tailoring her projects to build moral, technical and human-centric skills.

Her advice is practical. To students: learn how to learn. To parents: don’t fixate on grades—encourage curiosity, ethics and engagement. To educators: stay current, integrate interdisciplinary activities and guide rather than lecture.

“Teachers should be open to non-traditional methods of teaching and innovations,” Suplido said.

In that same Budget Project unit, Suplido helps her students assess education not as a requirement, but as an investment. They examine facts. Weigh costs. Question trends. And while AI may assist with the calculations, it’s still up to the students to think through the decisions.

That, Suplido says, is the point.

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