Teachers are aware that AI is present in schools and learning environments, whether we like it or not. And many feel pressure, internally and externally, to learn and teach some form of "AI literacy". Justin has cautioned that it's too early for us to really understand what AI literacy is, and that just guessing at what might constitute AI literacy might do harm.

Teachers and schooleaders appreciate that warning, but many feel that we can't do nothing. It's essential for teachers to start getting some knowledge about how AI works, to start experimenting with AI powered practices, and think about implementing them into our instruction.

In our research, the most eloquent proponent that teachers should gain, and perhaps teach, some kind of AI literacy is Maureen Russo Rodriguez. Maureen is a Spanish and English teacher at St. Mark’s School in Massachussets. She is a cofounder of a network of educators called CoLab, which started in 2024 and now includes over nine hundred educators from over three hundred schools. We talk with her about her path to leading a process by which teachers design their own AI literacy professional development process, and Justin and Maureen try to pin down where they are in agreement, and disagreement.

This episode was produced by Jesse Dukes. You can learn more about Co-lab at https://www.educolab.org/.

We got support for our interview with Maureen from RAISE at MIT: Responsible AI for Social Empowerment and Education. Thanks to Eric Klopfer and Cynthia Brezeal. RAISE also sponsors a series of professional development opportunities around AI for teachers, in a similar spirit to Co-Lab called Day of AI. We had editorial help this week from Steven Jackson, Alexandra Salomon, Adam Brock, Sara Falls, and Steve Oulette.

Teach Lab is a production of the Teaching Systems lab at MIT Justin Reich Director

Over the last two years, teachers and schools have felt immense pressure to incorporate AI literacy into their curricula. In the fall of 2024, California became the first state to pass a law mandating AI literacy instruction in schools, and several others have since followed suit. In the summer of 2025, the Department of Education released the "AI Action Plan for Education," which stated in part: "The Action Plan encourages schools to teach AI literacy and supports the responsible integration of AI in classrooms. AI is seen as a key education tool to enhance individual student preparation for the real world and to bolster the United States as a leader in AI."

Most major AI companies have pledged significant capital to train teachers or educate students in AI literacy. Google alone has committed over 40 million dollars toward these initiatives, while OpenAI, Microsoft, and NVIDIA have all launched similar donation programs.
But do we actually know what "AI literacy" means? Sam Wineburg doesn't think so. Sam is a professor emeritus of education and history at Stanford and the co-founder of the Digital Inquiry Group. He previously led a landmark study for the Stanford History Education Group (SHEG) that exposed how standard school methods for teaching web literacy were failing K-12 students.

In part one of this two-part miniseries, Wineburg shares his observations on how educators have gotten "literacy" wrong in the past. He suggests there are more responsible ways to adapt to transformative new technologies than to hastily stand up literacy guidelines that may repeat old mistakes.

We’re pleased to share powerful reporting from our friends at the show Click Here, from Recorded Future News and PRX. They tell true stories about the people making and breaking our digital world. Over the past year, they’ve been documenting the digital – and cultural – erasure of Uyghurs in China.

As part of that series, they follow one man who set out to preserve his culture the old fashioned way: by opening kindergartens that celebrated the Uyghur language. And then, almost overnight, those doors were locked. And the school’s founder went from teacher… to enemy of the nation. Sean Powers reported the story and Dina Temple-Raston Dina, the host of the Click Here, brings it to us.

It’s not too late to take our listener survey about the Homework Machine series. We will enter you in a drawing to receive one of two $25 gift cards.