Maureen Russo Rodriguez is coming up on her 20th year as an educator and teaches language and literature — primarily Spanish, with occasional turns in English — at St. Mark's School, a small boarding school outside Boston. With a background in comparative literature and a stint in higher ed, she co-founded AI Co-Lab, a teacher-led, peer-to-peer network for building AI literacy. What began with a single faculty email she sent the week ChatGPT launched (a tool she shares a birthday with) has grown from nine teachers into a movement of 900+ educators across 300+ schools, with materials released under a Creative Commons license so any school can remix and reuse them.

Ron Spalletta teaches in the English department at the same school, with a background rooted in poetry (and a little molecular biology). Through a Patterson Innovation Grant, he has been probing what AI means for writing, learning, and assessment — and has designed several of Co-Lab's monthly "explorations," including a widely used one on alternative assessment built to help teachers profile themselves as assessors and rethink AI-resistant assignments.

In this episode, Maureen and Ron talk with Svenia Busson about:

  • Defining AI literacy for teachers — awareness of what these tools are and aren't, in order to preserve the human core of teaching
  • Why AI literacy is "a lot more driver's ed than automotive repair" — hands-on practice, not looking under the hood
  • How Co-Lab works as a peer-to-peer network — structured monthly explorations, breakout rooms, and PD that pushes back on "one-and-done" webinars and consultant hype
  • The four types of "naysayers" — and why refusing AI can be a legitimate, informed act of teacher agency
  • Generative AI as an "arrival technology" — it's already in students' lives whether or not it enters your classroom
  • Sarah Schneider Kavanagh's dilemma-and-decision cycle — how professional judgment breaks down if teachers never touch the tools
  • Reinventing assessment in the age of AI — from oral exams to AI-resistant tasks, and pairing an LLM's scope with a teacher's discernment
  • The students who worry them most — the ones doing everything right and watching peers coast on A-pluses through dishonest AI use


A conversation about why AI literacy isn't optional — it's how teachers keep their agency.

Links mentioned in the episode:


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