In 2024, the Ministry of Education of the Dominican Republic partnered with Mentu Labs to design and implement an ecosystem of AI tools for teachers. Project Lucero, as we called it, became one of the most complex and revealing projects in our history. What we learned challenged many of our initial assumptions.

The context of Project Lucero

The Dominican Republic has an educational system of 2.2 million students and 70,000 teachers. Our mandate was ambitious: to co-design, with real teachers, a set of AI tools that would improve the quality of pedagogical practice. Not a generic platform adapted to the context; tools built from the context.

250 Co-designer teachers in the process. 6 AI tools developed. 40% Increase in sustained use at 6 months.

The six AI tools

  1. Lesson Planner: generates didactic sequences aligned with the Dominican curriculum in minutes.
  2. Conversational Coach: pedagogical assistant to reflect on classroom challenges.
  3. Pedagogical Portfolio: facilitates documentation and reflection on one’s own practice.
  4. Communications to Families: creates reports and suggestions to strengthen the home-school link.
  5. Assessment Manager: designs assessment instruments aligned with learning objectives.
  6. Results Analyzer: interprets student performance data and suggests concrete actions.

Lessons learned

Learning evaluation in Project Lucero

“The most important lesson was not about technology. It was about time. Dominican teachers were willing to adopt new tools only when they felt they saved them real time, not that they generated additional work.” — Carlos Méndez, Research Director

We had to redesign three of the six tools halfway through the process because the initial prototypes added complexity instead of reducing it. It was an uncomfortable but necessary process. Real co-design is not just including users in the presentation of the final product; it is including them when the product can still change radically.

Measurable results

Impact measured at 6 months: 40% increase in sustained use of the platform. 78% of participating teachers reported feeling that the tool improved the quality of their planning. Level 2 MEL evaluation in process, with learning results expected at 12 months.