This article is part of a collection of articles on artificial intelligence and titled "Professional Development" in the Spring 2025 issue of Independent School.
One evening during summer vacation in August 2024, nine educators from nine different independent schools opened their computers for a Zoom call. Some of us knew each other and some did not, but we joined because of what we had in common: a shared sense of urgency around the need for teachers to understand and interrogate AI’s role in our pedagogy. Collectively, we also possessed a powerful understanding of the strategies that hadn’t been working to advance AI literacy in our schools.
We knew that AI represented a rapidly evolving and complex problem with no go-to manuals, no true experts, no guaranteed success stories. We also knew that schools—ours and others across the country—were taking varied and fragmented approaches that had not yet truly addressed AI’s intersection with teaching and learning.
We all agreed that teachers needed hands-on experimentation and frameworks to empower their ongoing learning. Perhaps most important of all, teachers needed to talk with other teachers, both in and outside of their schools and departments, to build consensus around best practices. Not seeing anything out there, we decided to create an interscholastic professional development experience.
As we shared the idea with other educators, we quickly learned that every school had a handful of teachers just like us who were eager to explore AI’s applications for teaching and learning but lacked the opportunities, support, or solidarity to do so on their own. We realized that in the age of AI, human collaborative intelligence is more important than ever, and we knew we needed to work together to develop better strategies to help schools and teachers understand how to move forward in their approaches to learning about AI.
So in September 2024, we established Co-Lab, professional development that’s part lab—to experiment with AI—and part collaboration—to discuss findings with other educators around a single research question: “To what extent will this use of AI enhance teaching and learning?” We designed Co-Lab with two main goals: to empower teachers to engage in hands-on exploration with frontier models for use cases specific to teaching and learning; and to create a space for teachers to share experiences, agree on pedagogically sound best practices, and bring those ideas back to their respective schools.
What started with nine colleagues grew to more than 100 in less than two months by word of mouth, with participants from nearly 40 independent schools. At press time, there are more than 150 participants, and 17 educators from 14 different schools have designed or led our monthly group sessions.
How It Works
We structure our work in monthly cycles, during which participants independently explore a specific pedagogical use of AI before coming together at the end of the month. Each monthly cycle involves synchronous and asynchronous work that takes a total of about two to three hours to complete.
One designer and one facilitator—who are new each month—share the topic for exploration in a brief recorded introduction. These leaders assign homework (optional) and design activities for our collaboration call at the end of the month. Collaboration calls, which take place in the evenings on Zoom to avoid teaching schedule conflicts, typically begin in small groups of four, each run by a returning member (or “breakout room ranger”) where participants share key takeaways from their explorations. Then we build out to groups of eight or 12 to discuss our larger essential question about how and why this use of AI will impact teaching and learning.
After each cycle, participants are encouraged to invite new members, lead a breakout room next month, suggest new topics, and even design or lead a future cycle. This model of distributed leadership ensures that we have a constant stream of new leaders, new members, and new ideas.
Why It Works
During calls, members share not only their experiences engaging with the exploration but also what has been happening in their classrooms and schools. Members discuss how they have successfully shared what happens in Co-Lab with department members, administrators, and other colleagues. They are able to take the same model and bring it into a meeting at their school to share their knowledge.
After the inaugural September session, which focused on how AI can augment lesson design, participants shared lesson activities, assessments, and analogies that immediately enriched their teaching. In one small group, an English teacher used AI to help with an activity on analyzing prose, inspiring another teacher to replicate the activity. One participant reflected, “I’m stepping out of my comfort zone and gaining the confidence to introduce AI as a tool with its strengths and limitations.”
Co-Lab discussions have created solidarity as members take ideas back to their campuses, and it has inspired them to connect and collaborate outside of our calls. When asked what they value most about Co-Lab, participants cite the wisdom they gain “talking to other teachers, listening to other thinkers” and their appreciation for “the encouragement to explore,” which is, unfortunately, “simply not something teachers have been doing in a meaningful way” on their own.
This approach to PD is powerful because it does not simply create one-off opportunities for teachers to experiment; it creates new mindsets that will lead teachers to continue exploring independently. As one participant said, “Arguably the most valuable piece is the sense I’m just scratching the surface, and it encourages me to dig in.” This is exactly the attitude we want to encourage in our students.
Another key to Co-Lab’s success has been our ability to define and limit the scope of our work through guiding values and best practices that ask participants to remain open-minded and intentional in seeking quality pedagogical uses. We center classroom teachers and teacher agency, and we expect participants to keep the focus on teaching and learning. Because we know how precious teachers’ time is and also how easy it is to get sidetracked to chatting about related AI topics (comparing school policies, specific apps, academic integrity issues, etc.), we empower breakout room leaders to hold participants accountable for keeping the focus of the conversation on teaching and learning.
Throughout our years in education, we’ve heard plenty of platitudes about the importance of coordinating with colleagues across schools, but we have rarely seen any successful, sustained collaborative endeavors—and certainly none driven entirely by teachers. As one participant shared, “Co-Lab is the best kind of PD: practical, collaborative, interestingly engaging a novel tool, and supportive. Whether AI revolutionizes the classroom, genuine engagement with other seasoned teachers always will.”
On the Horizon
In a world where teachers must keep up with and integrate AI technologies into their classroom practices, it’s essential to empower teachers to dig into the complexities of AI to gain the hands-on experience that will prepare them to make their own judgment calls about if, when, and how AI use might help student learning. We do our students a disservice when we attempt to forge ahead on this topic as individual educators or individual schools rather than to work collaboratively and leverage our collective insights.
Co-Lab explorations and discussions are building teachers’ capacity to respond to the changes generative AI has brought to our schools and our classrooms while creating a culture of collaboration that will serve our schools for years to come.
Join the Co-Lab
This expanding network of educators seeking quality AI-focused PD underscores the power of grassroots professional development: Educators want practical, hands-on engagement with AI, not just passive learning about it. If you want to prioritize time for exploration and to collaborate across schools, join the Co-Lab.