A New “Chapter”: AI-Guided Teacher Support

August 4, 2025
Luis Hernández

Category: AI in Education, Books, EdTech, Professional Development, Teacher Education

AI-Generated Audios

I’m excited to announce that my co-authored chapter, “AI-Guided Professional Development: A Vygotskian Approach for Teachers in Multilingual Classrooms,” has just been published in the new IGI Global volume: Harnessing AI’s Potential to Support Student Success and Teaching Excellence.

This book brings together educators, researchers, and instructional designers who are exploring how artificial intelligence can meaningfully support teaching and learning in real-world classrooms. Together with my co-author, Dr. Uvaldina Janecek, I’m honored to be part of this timely and important collection, one that moves beyond theory to offer actionable insights for today’s educators.

What the Book Is About

Harnessing AI’s Potential to Support Student Success and Teaching Excellence addresses a critical question facing educational institutions today: How can we use AI responsibly and effectively to improve education without losing what makes teaching human?

The chapters in this volume highlight practical strategies and research-backed frameworks for integrating AI in ways that enhance (not replace) teacher decision-making, student agency, and equitable learning environments. Topics range from STEM and special education to literacy development, writing instruction, and teacher preparation.

Here’s a quick look at the volume’s contents:

Locate, Interrogate, and Challenge: Using AI to connect research to classroom practice – Heather A. Cato & Nancy Anderson
AI in Action: Practical strategies for integrating AI with pedagogical integrity – Christina Salazar
Empowering STEM Education: Experiential learning with MagicSchool AI – Michaine S. Ashley
Unlocking AI for Faculty Development: Tools and mindsets for higher ed instructors – Tami Butler Morton
AI and Collaboration: Redefining educator roles in content creation – Shivnath Ghosh & Olivia Jana
AI in Special Education: Tools for differentiated support – Catherine Howerter & Teresa Cardon
Literacy and AI: Pre-service teachers using AI for reading planning – Heather M. Huling & Kathleen Crawford
AI and Learner Autonomy: Developing writing skills through AI-reflective journals – Sena Könez & Selami Aydin
Our Chapter – AI-Guided Professional Development for Teachers in Multilingual Classrooms – Luis J. Hernandez-Ledezma & Uvaldina Janecek

Our Chapter: Practical AI Support for Bilingual and ESL Educators

In Chapter 9, we share our work on Verónica, an AI-powered virtual tutor designed to support pre-service and in-service teachers working with multilingual learners. Using Vygotsky’s theory of the Zone of Proximal Development, we position Verónica as a “More Knowledgeable Other” that offers personalized feedback, resources, and scenario-based support, particularly for bilingual and ESL educators navigating complex classroom realities.

Here’s what readers will learn:

Real-world challenges faced by bilingual educators, such as planning instruction across two languages, differentiating for students at varying levels of language proficiency, and aligning with state and federal guidelines such as the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), the Texas English Language Proficiency Assessment System (TELPAS), and the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which are complex and ongoing. Tools powered by AI, like the virtual tutor described in our chapter, offer innovative ways to support teachers navigating these demands.
How AI can provide mentoring-style support, extending beyond teacher prep programs into those critical first years in the classroom.
A practical framework for using AI to scaffold educator growth, reduce planning workload, and build confidence, especially in schools with limited bilingual resources.

If you’ve read my earlier blog posts on Verónica, or how AI can reshape teacher preparation, or if you’ve seen how I’m using AI to support certification prep for bilingual teachers, this chapter gives you the theory and research behind it all.

Why This Matters in Your Classroom

This book offers a wide array of practical ways educators can use AI to support student success and teaching excellence. While it includes research-based insights, it’s far from just theoretical—it’s designed for teachers, coaches, and school leaders working directly in classrooms. In particular, Dr. Janecek and I wrote our chapter to share ideas that are not only showing promise, but are also replicable in real-world bilingual and multilingual settings. Whether you’re new to AI or already exploring its role in your practice, you’ll find examples and strategies you can adapt to meet your students’ needs.

A Note of Thanks

I’m deeply thankful to my co-author, Dr. Uvaldina Janecek, to the editors of the volume, Dr. Juan J. Araujo and Dr. Sharla Snider, and to the editorial team at IGI Global for making this project possible. Being part of this publication reflects the work we’ve been doing for years—combining culturally responsive education, AI innovation, and a deep commitment to supporting teachers and multilingual learners.

Ready to Dive In?

Explore the full book or get your copy here:

📘 Order Now from IGI Global

Feel free to reach out, comment below, or share how you’re thinking about using AI in your own classroom or teacher preparation program. Let’s keep the conversation going.

How We Use AI, and Why Our Digital Credentials Require Evidence

When we talk about our work with educators, at conferences and with universities, two questions come up: how do we use AI, and what does our digital credential actually prove? We answered both in writing, in two new pages on our website. The first is a note from our founder, Luis J. Hernández, on how an educator came to build with AI and where we draw the line. The second explains why our digital credentials are issued only when a learner shows the skill, and why that matters for learners and the institutions that prepare them.

A single objectives card pinned on an elementary classroom wall, with a stack of cards for the rest of the week on the teacher's desk.

One Objective on the Wall. Five Levels in the Room.

Principals want the ELPS posted, but one classroom holds students at five proficiency levels. How do you post one objective for all of them? We answered with something teachers can print and use, the Objectives Card in the ELPS Online Helper: one content objective, one language objective, and a strip showing what meeting it looks like at each level. Here is what it does, what we added after seeing how teachers used it, including a week planner and cards for lessons taught in Spanish, and why it matters in a dual-language classroom.

Layered translucent glass panes suspended in dark blue space, each etched with glowing abstract letterforms from a different writing system, overlapping and interlocking where the panes cross.

Verónica Speaks Twelve Languages. The Hard Part Was the Rules.

Verónica, the AI tutor inside our courses and apps, now responds in twelve languages. Arabic, Telugu, Tamil, and Korean joined because districts and teacher preparation faculty kept describing the families they serve. Adding the languages was never the hard part, since these models were multilingual from the start. The hard part was the rules: which characters even count as letters, whether the page or the person gets to decide, and when a tutor should hold the target language instead of following a student into English. Here is what broke, what we changed, and why it matters.

A Certificate No One Can Verify. It Is Just a File.

Most professional certificates share one weakness: confirming they are real means contacting the issuer and waiting, so in practice it rarely happens. A PDF can be edited in a browser. A paper certificate proves only that someone owned a printer. This post makes the case for digital credentials for both learners and institutions, looks at what the 2026 hiring research actually shows, explains why course completion is the wrong trigger for issuing one, and describes transparently how our scored capstone gates work, why we chose the Proof of Knowledge platform, and what we would tell any institution starting from zero.