10 Minute Teacher Podcast with Cool Cat Teacher

Episode

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  What Happens to Your Student's IEP After High School? - Episode 972 19.08.2026 15mnt

  Your student has an IEP all the way through high school. Then they graduate — and it doesn't go with them. Dr. Toby Tomlinson Baker was diagnosed with a learning disability in 1987, attended six different schools between kindergarten and twelfth grade, and was told by her guidance counselors not to bother applying to college. She has a PhD. In this episode she explains what actually changes the day a student walks off a high school campus, why the accommodations you fought for don't automatically transfer, and how to teach a student to ask for what they need before anyone makes them. In this episode, you'll learn: - What legally changes when a student moves from high school to college — and why a university can say no - Why self-advocacy is a skill you teach, not a personality trait a student either has or doesn't - What Dr. Baker found when she interviewed college professors about disability law for her dissertation - Why the accommodation that helps one student usually helps the whole class - The one thing that predicts whether a struggling student turns a corner Full show notes, resources, and the complete transcript: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e972  If this episode helped you think differently about a student, share it with a teacher who needs it. SPONSORED: Ellis, a program of Children's Health Council, sponsored this episode. All opinions are my own and that of the guest. Show Sponsor: Ellis, a program of Children's Health Council, sponsored this podcast episode. All opinions are my own and that of the guest. Ellis pulls from a knowledge base on content from trusted partners like CAST, CASEL, Understood and others, and gives you evidence-aligned ideas for students who are struggling with learning, behavior, or the emotional side of school (but not clinical advice). If you've got a student (or two) who you can't stop thinking about, try it and see what it brings you. No personally identifiable student information is collected, and it is a much better place to start than "brainstorming" with your general-purpose AI chat tool. Try Ellis today: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/ellis
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  Free Teacher-Facing AI for Behavior and Learning 18.08.2026 14mnt

  Most teachers reaching for AI to help with a struggling student are reaching for the wrong kind of AI. General-purpose chat tools pull from the open internet, they were never trained on whether the information is accurate, and they should be nowhere near a student's personally identifiable information. Natalie Tamburello, a learning disability and education equity advocate at Children's Health Council, walks through what a teacher-facing AI built on vetted research actually looks like — and why she thinks that is where the real classroom wins are right now. In this episode, you'll learn: - Why "just ask ChatGPT" falls short when a student is struggling with behavior, learning, or the emotional side of school - What RAG (retrieval augmented generation) is, and how pulling from a curated library of vetted nonprofit resources changes the answer you get - Why the first question a good tool asks you is "what are this student's strengths?" - How to describe a student situation without putting personally identifiable information into any AI - The clear line between a classroom strategy and clinical advice — and what a teacher-facing tool should refuse to do Ellis is a free tool for K-12 educators from Children's Health Council. It pulls from a knowledge base of content from trusted partners like CAST, CASEL, Understood and others, it gives you information rather than clinical advice, and it does not collect personally identifiable student information. Today's show was sponsored by Ellis. All opinions are my own and that of the guest. https://www.askellis.org/  Full show notes, links, and the complete transcript: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e971  Share this one with the teacher down the hall who is still thinking about that one student.
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  Teaching Kids Boundaries: What to Say in the Moment — Episode 970 17.08.2026 13mnt

  Boundaries are not a heavy conversation you need a degree to have. They are small, repeated moments — and the right words handed to a child before they need them. Ashley Bendiksen, author of A Kids Book About Boundaries, shows teachers what to say. Ashley Bendiksen is a national speaker and abuse prevention advocate who spent years talking to teens about dating violence. Then she moved earlier. Her book for children ages five to nine teaches the skill underneath all of it: knowing you have a choice, and having the words to say so. In this conversation she shows what that looks like in an elementary classroom — the two-option choice, the "I don't like that" script, the pause to ask "did we ask first?" — none of which requires adding anything to your lesson plan. We also talk about your boundaries, because teaching is high-burnout work and we are modeling something for kids either way. In this episode, you'll learn: - Why boundaries are emotional and social, not just physical - The micro-moments that teach boundaries without a new lesson - A role-play activity you can run this week - What to say to the student who always decides what everyone plays - Why "let's all just get along" can send the wrong message - One small boundary to set for yourself this week Show notes and full transcript: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e970  Show Sponsor: Ellis, a program of Children's Health Council, sponsored this podcast episode. All opinions are my own and that of the guest. Ellis pulls from a knowledge base on content from trusted partners like CAST, CASEL, Understood and others, and gives you evidence-aligned ideas for students who are struggling with learning, behavior, or the emotional side of school (but not clinical advice). If you've got a student (or two) who you can't stop thinking about, try it and see what it brings you. No personally identifiable student information is collected, and it is a much better place to start than "brainstorming" with your general-purpose AI chat tool. Try Ellis today: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/ellis  ★ If this show helps you, leave a rating or review wherever you're listening. It is the single thing that helps another teacher find us.
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  Who Smarted? Why Human-Made Kids' Media Still Beats the Bots — Episode 969 14.08.2026 11mnt

  Jerry Kolber built Nat Geo's Brain Games and Netflix's Brainchild — then moved his team off screens entirely. In this episode he explains why, and what teachers are doing with kids' podcasts that he never planned for. The practical piece: transition time. Coming back from lunch or recess, a short episode gets students seated, listening, and settled without a single reminder — and they don't notice they're learning. Jerry also shares how mini quizzes every three or four minutes train attention, and why "co-listening" — making a show adults genuinely enjoy — is a deliberate design choice. Then the conversation turns. Vicki and Jerry talk through what happens when AI-generated audio floods the feed, and land on the question that actually matters: if a show gets something wrong, is there a human on the other end who can fix it? In this episode, you'll learn: - Why transition time is the highest-value slot for a short podcast in your day - How question breaks every few minutes build listening stamina - Why co-listening makes a classroom resource work at home too - How to search a back catalog for episodes that match your current unit - Why human accountability is the real dividing line with AI content One thing worth knowing: Who Smarted?+ is free and ad-free for educators. Go to whosmarted.com, click Educators, and enter your school email. Full show notes, resources, and the complete transcript: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e969  If this episode gave you something you can use Monday, please leave a rating or review wherever you're listening — it's the single best way to help other teachers find the show.
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  Keeping the Teacher at the Center of Classroom AI 13.08.2026 17mnt

  For twenty-five years we sent the struggling kid to the back of the room with headphones on. Todd Brekhus of Renaissance explains why that model broke personalized learning, and how teacher-facing AI hands the room back to you. Todd Brekhus is Chief Product Officer at Renaissance, General Manager of Nearpod, a former English teacher and technology director, and the creator of the myON literacy platform. We recorded this conversation at ISTE 2026. In this episode, you'll learn: - Why "personalized learning" quietly pushed teachers out of the loop, and what changes when you say "personalized teaching and learning" instead - How to pull last year's skill-level data and plan two paths before tomorrow's lesson - Why back-of-the-room intervention stigmatizes kids, and how to differentiate inside the core lesson - The case for a formative check every six to eight minutes without leaving your slides - Why Renaissance deliberately chose not to build student-facing AI, and what productive struggle has to do with it This episode is sponsored by Renaissance. Renaissance Intelligence connects the loop across assessment, curriculum, instruction, practice and proficiency, so educators can act on student needs in real time. Learn more at renaissance.com/intelligence Full show notes, resources, and the complete transcript: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e968  If this episode gave you something you can use tomorrow, leave a rating and review wherever you're listening — it helps other teachers find the show. And share it with a teacher friend who's tired of the screen-time argument. Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a sponsored episode. Renaissance has compensated me to share information about Renaissance Intelligence. However, all opinions expressed are my own. I have personally reviewed these resources and only recommend tools I believe offer genuine value to classroom teachers. My endorsement is limited to the educational products and services discussed in this episode. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255: "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising." The sponsor has no impact on the editorial content of this show.
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  How to Teach About Quantum Computing to Littles (Yes, Littles!) 12.08.2026 15mnt

  Quantum computing is roughly where AI was nine years ago. Dr. Nneka McGee has already taught it to five-year-olds — with a penny. Nneka is the founder of Muon Global, project lead and principal co-author of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning white paper "AI + Learning Differences," and the author of an ISTE Jump Start Guide on introducing AI to young learners. Her FETC session on quantum for educators is what convinced me this belonged on the show. Her argument is simple and hard to dodge: the technologies that will shape our students' careers are being built right now, states are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in them, and we are sending kids to college without the grounding to take those seats. As she puts it — there will be a breakthrough technology like ChatGPT in quantum at some point, and where will we be as educators if we didn't do what was necessary? Then she gets practical. You'll hear how she teaches superposition, entanglement, and coherence with materials already in your desk drawer. You'll hear about the plate with no nose — an image generator's mistake she turned into a full lesson on why AI still needs a human in the loop. And you'll hear about my own ninth grader, who worked out on her own that attackers could capture encrypted traffic today and decrypt it years from now once quantum arrives. That's a real, named threat, and she nailed it. In this episode: - Why quantum won't replace classical computing, and the problem it's actually built for - The encryption math that makes today's passwords a temporary arrangement - "The nerds before the herds" — the 2022 ISTE room with empty seats - Teaching quantum concepts to four- and five-year-olds - Why the awareness gap is the opportunity, not the obstacle Full show notes, every resource, and free unplugged activities you can use this week: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e967  ⭐ If this show helps you teach, please leave a rating or review wherever you're listening. It's the single best way to help another teacher find us — and it takes about thirty seconds. Share this one with the teacher down the hall who thinks quantum is over their head. It takes a penny to prove otherwise.
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  Vibe Coding with Gemini: Build Your Own Classroom Tools 11.08.2026 10mnt

  Alice Keeler built the Educator AI Assistant — a Google Sheets add-on that collects no data — in two days. In this episode she talks about how she vibe codes with Gemini to create extensions and tools for teachers and the classroom. Vibe coding is all the rage and everyone is talking about it. But how do you actually do it? This conversation goes specifically to Gemini, surfaces the privacy issues we should be concerned about, and casts a vision for what school IT departments are becoming — or might need to become. Alice makes the case that if a district can describe the tool it needs, someone inside that district can build it — and know it is safe, because they made it themselves. She also talks about what it costs to own the thing you built, and the question worth asking about any tool you rely on: is anyone still maintaining it? This was recorded in the middle of last year. The tools have changed and they will keep changing. The principles underneath — how we protect student privacy and help our schools succeed — have not. Full show notes, Alice's free resources, and a Gemini prompt you can use tomorrow: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e966  If you're vibe coding in your classroom, I'd like to hear your story.
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  How a School Built Its Culture Around the 7 Habits — and the Academics Followed — Episode 965 10.08.2026 17mnt

  A struggling Title I school built its culture around the 7 Habits — and the academics followed. Principal Muriel Summers tells how. In 1999, Muriel Summers became principal of A.B. Combs Elementary in Raleigh, North Carolina — the fifth person interviewed for a job four others had walked away from. She had just heard Dr. Stephen Covey speak, and she went back to her staff with one question: do you think we can teach these habits to children? There was no framework. There was no money. What they built turned A.B. Combs into the original Leader in Me school and one of the most visited schools in the world. Muriel is now Global Ambassador for the Leader in Me, co-author of the updated The Leader in Me, and co-author with David K. Hatch of the new book Teacher Believed in Me. This is a Motivational Monday conversation for every educator heading back to school. In this episode, you'll learn: - Why Muriel fixed the school's culture first and let the academics follow — "you don't have to worry about the academics, they just happen" - The one question she asked parents, students, teachers, and local business leaders before changing anything, and what each group actually said - The three words posted above the front door that every child read getting off the bus: you are seen, you are known, you are loved - How children as young as five were taught to interview teacher candidates — and the one time in twenty years Muriel overruled them (she was wrong) - What "every child has genius" looks like in practice, from 900 pieces of art on the walls to a morning meeting that matters as much as instruction Full show notes, resources, and Muriel's books: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e965  If this episode gave you something to use tomorrow, please rate and review the show wherever you're listening — it's the single best way to help another teacher find it. And share it with a colleague who's rebuilding their classroom culture this year.
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  Free BBC Resources for Your Classroom: Dinosaurs, Bluey, Planet Earth and News — Episode 964 07.08.2026 14mnt

  Free, ad-free BBC videos with ready-to-teach lesson plans — Bluey, leveled reading articles, dinosaur field trips, and a daily newsroom, all free for K-12. Kimmie Fink spent 13 years in the classroom and was named Puget Sound Teacher of the Year before becoming Senior Editor of the BBC Learning Hub. At her ISTE 2026 booth, teachers kept asking what the premium version costs. The answer: there isn't one. Everything is free. In this Fab Idea Friday episode, Kimmie walks through what a teacher can download and use tomorrow — and how a former teacher decides what belongs in a resource library she once wished she had. In this episode, you'll learn: Why the BBC Learning Hub holds the only licensed Bluey learning materials — 15 free lessons on friendship, feelings, and reading body language Where to find leveled reading articles pulled from BBC magazines, written at grades 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12 so every reader in the room can access the same content How the Walking with Dinosaurs virtual field trip works — six dig sites, an interactive map, a paleontologist field journal, and a full teacher guide, in a 45- to 60-minute student exploration you can also break into pieces How a daily five-minute Newsbite with built-in questions gives you a media literacy warm-up that's ready every school day How to sign up free, build your own playlist, and assign it straight to Google Classroom Full show notes, every resource link, and the complete transcript: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e964 This episode is sponsored by the BBC Learning Hub.
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  Assessment and Feedback That Move Learning Forward — Episode 963 06.08.2026 14mnt

  The moment you put a grade on something, it stops being formative. Starr Sackstein returns for her fourth 10 Minute Teacher appearance to make assessment practical — what formative really means, what to do with the data you're already collecting, and the strategies that work at the start, middle, and end of a lesson. Starr has spent more than two decades helping teachers move from traditional grading toward feedback that actually drives learning. Her newest book, Actionable Assessment, is co-authored with Michael McDowell. In this episode, you'll learn: - The one-word difference between assessment OF learning and assessment FOR learning — and why it changes everything - Why putting a grade on a formative task cancels the formative part - How the four corners strategy works, plus the Post-it note round that gives quiet students the floor - The most common assessment mistake teachers make: assessments that don't match what we're actually trying to assess - Why observational data is just as valid as testing data — and why you don't have to quiz every day Full show notes, resources, and the complete transcript: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e963  If this show helps you, a rating and review wherever you're listening genuinely helps other teachers find it. And if you know a teacher who is drowning in grading right now, send them this one.
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  Math Games That Build Fluency While Kids Have Fun — Episode 962 05.08.2026 16mnt

  Timed tests don't make kids faster! These experts say timed tests make kids anxious and don't tell you what a child actually knows. Dr. Jennifer Bay-Williams and Dr. Gina Kling, co-authors of Math Fact Fluency: 60+ Games and Assessment Tools to Support Learning and Retention, explain what to do instead: low-stress card and dice games where nobody races anybody, and where watching kids play gives you better assessment data than any speed drill. Vicki shares why math facts in first grade were harder for her than calculus at Georgia Tech. (She also shares why her mom, who sat at the kitchen table with her, changed everything. Not everyone has that, so we need to do better!) In this episode, you'll learn: Why playing a game to learn basic facts isn't a reward day, it's best practice The three reasons Bay-Williams says timed tests need to be abandoned What students do when they're under time pressure (they drop back to counting) How to play Salute — the card game that started this writing partnership Better ways to assess fact fluency: game observation, quick interviews, strategy writing How to coach parents who tell their kids "I was never good at math" Show notes, the full transcript, and every resource mentioned: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e962 If this episode helped you, leave a review wherever you're listening — it's how other teachers find the show.
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  How to Make VR Actually Work in Your Classroom — Episode 961 04.08.2026 16mnt

  The wow has to be secondary to the why. Meghan Freeman spent a year letting her staff play in VR before a single student put on a headset — and what they found changed how she designs immersive learning. Meghan Freeman, M.Ed., is Co-Founder and Co-CEO of IlluminateXR. Before that she founded and led Elite Academic Academy, where she bought 46 headsets for her staff and gave them an entire school year to explore, argue, and write the policy themselves. In this conversation she gets specific about what actually works: how to manage a room full of students who can't see the room, how long a first session should run, and the one question a teacher has to answer before booking the equipment. In this episode, you'll learn: What XR means and how VR, AR, and AI fit together in a classroom Why the "wow" of an immersive moment has to be secondary to the "why" The classroom-management controls that make group VR workable — spatial audio, seating, mute, and locking down browsers Why the first trip in should be a scavenger hunt, not instruction How long students should actually be in a headset, and why motion sickness matters How she used VR sprints to reach students working toward a diploma on their second or third try What happened when her school put human intelligence first and standards second Show notes, resources, lots of links to VR activities, and the full transcript: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e961 If this episode helped you, please take a moment to rate and review the show wherever you're listening. Reviews are how other teachers find us — and share it with a colleague who's about to get headsets and no plan.
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  Data-Driven Leadership That Changes School Culture — Episode 960 03.08.2026 13mnt

  Most principals say "data-driven" and mean test scores. Dr. Deborah Dennie means attendance, discipline, and climate too — and it changed her school. Dr. Deborah Dennie has led Leonardtown Middle School in St. Mary's County, Maryland for ten years. She's Maryland's Middle School Principal of the Year and one of three middle-school finalists for the 2026 NASSP National Principal of the Year. In this episode she walks Vicki through the data routine she runs every two weeks, why she spent her entire first year looking and listening instead of changing things, and how a classic car show and a 94% attendance goal did more for her building than another round of test-score analysis. In this episode, you'll learn: • Why her first year as principal was spent looking and listening, not changing anything • The every-two-weeks data review she runs with her assistant principals and resource teacher • How she identifies teachers above the building failure average — and the questions she sends them • Why attendance and discipline data drive instructional data, not the other way around • How her school hit the state's 94% attendance number using community, not consequences • What she tells teachers who are hurting and tired Full show notes, free data drive resources, AI prompts, and the transcript: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e960 ⭐ If this episode helped you, please rate and review the show wherever you're listening — it's the single best way to help another teacher find it. And share it with a school leader who needs to hear it.
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  Travel With Students: A Principal's Grade-by-Grade Plan — Episode 959 31.07.2026 10mnt

  Travel with students changes what a school leader sees. Karen Spencer, principal of Parkview Baptist School in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, treats travel as part of her school's mission rather than an add-on — a sixth grade overnight, a seventh grade STEM and history trip to Boston, Washington D.C. in eighth grade, and international travel in high school. In this conversation she walks through how the Boston trip started, what it costs a principal in effort, and what she gets back that nothing inside the building can give her. In this episode, you'll learn: How a single teacher's push to "bring more STEM to the school" became an annual seventh grade trip to Boston Why the trip grew from STEM-only into STEM, history and fun — MIT, Harvard, robotics, the Freedom Trail, Lexington and Concord What a grade-by-grade travel ladder looks like when each grade builds on the last What hands-on learning looks like abroad — cooking classes, flamenco lessons, hiking and biking Karen's honest answer to administrators who ask why she'd take on the headache, and the mindset she says you have to bring Full show notes, resources and the complete transcript: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e959  Sponsor. Today's show is sponsored by EF Explore America and their STEM Tours. Lead your students on a STEM tour to places on the cutting edge of innovation to show them how STEM thinking often shows up where you least expect it. Imagine your students coding robots with MassRobotics at MIT, exploring marine ecosystems in Florida's coral reefs, or even sitting down to talk with a former spy in Washington DC. If you want to inspire your students and give them a fresh perspective on the power of STEM, visit efexploreamerica.com/STEM. If this episode gave you something useful, share it with a teacher or administrator who's been thinking about taking students somewhere.
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  Gold Standard PBL vs. Just Doing a Fun Project 30.07.2026 14mnt

  Gold standard PBL isn't a fun project with a poster at the end. Lisa Mireles of PBLWorks explains what a real project based learning classroom looks and sounds like — and how to teach it without falling behind on standards. Lisa Mireles, Ed.D., is Managing Director of Digital Curriculum at PBLWorks (formerly the Buck Institute for Education). She's taught bilingual students in California, led schools in Indonesia and India, served as an IB coordinator, principal, and assistant superintendent, and was named HIDOE Kaua'i Complex Educational Officer of the Year in 2018. In this episode, you'll learn: • What the Gold Standard framework actually contains — seven essential project design elements plus seven project based teaching practices — and why a great project still fails without the teaching moves • What you see and hear in a gold standard PBL classroom: a productive buzz, a project wall with the driving question and milestones, students returning to their need-to-knows, teachers coaching instead of lecturing • Concrete projects outside business and computer science: designing a community microgrid in high school science, designing a custom diamond in middle school geometry, and a second grade community heroes gallery • How PBL turns literacy into an all-day practice — reading, writing, speaking, and listening — rather than something that only happens during the literacy block • Lisa's answer to the time squeeze: coverage isn't enough, and going deeper on power standards teaches more than racing through everything • The principal move worth stealing — have teachers mark what they planned to teach, then revisit after the project to mark what they actually taught deeply. It's always about twice as much. • Where to find more than 100 free project ideas, searchable by grade and subject, that scale up or down for your students Full show notes, resources, and the complete transcript: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e958  If this episode gave you something you can use, take a second to leave a rating or review wherever you're listening. It helps other teachers find the show. And if a colleague is on the fence about project based learning, send this one their way.
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  AI in the Classroom: Assignments Students Can't Fake 29.07.2026 13mnt

  AI in the classroom isn't a tool problem — it's an assignment problem. Dr. Nancy Frey on designing work students can't fake. Dr. Nancy Frey — professor of educational leadership at San Diego State and teacher leader at Health Sciences High and Middle College — joins Vicki Davis for a practical conversation about what actually changes in a classroom when every student has AI. Not which app to use. What to assign, what to collect, and what to teach kids to verify. Nancy's newest book, Teaching Students to Use AI Ethically & Responsibly, is co-authored with Salman Khan, Douglas Fisher, James Marshall, and Meghan Hargrave. In this episode, you'll learn: - How to build verbal assessment into a classroom that has 180 students — including a Google Docs workaround when face-to-face isn't practical - Why you should collect the student's dialogue with the chatbot, not just the finished product - How lateral reading — Sam Wineburg's method — transfers directly to interrogating AI-generated content - What appropriate AI use looks like by grade band: "truth detectives" in K–2, "information investigators" in grades 3–5 - How to redesign a task so it's AI-resistant, plus Carol Jago's reflective questions a chatbot can't answer for a student Show notes, the full transcript, and every resource: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e957 ★ REVIEW ASK: If this show helps you teach, please rate and review it wherever you're listening. It's the single best way to help another teacher find us — and I read every one.
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  How to Teach AI in Any Classroom, Not Just CS Class — Episode 956 28.07.2026 17mnt

  Most teachers know AI belongs in their classroom — almost nobody tells them where to start if they don't teach computer science. Karim Meghji, President and CEO of CodeAI (the nonprofit formerly known as Code.org), gives the answer at ISTE 2026. Vicki took one of Karim's classes on the ISTE show floor before this conversation — including a lesson that asks AI to generate a "healthy meal" and then hands students the cultural bias in the result to talk about. That design choice is the whole episode: students don't learn what AI gets wrong by being told, they learn it by watching it happen and then discussing it. In this episode, you'll learn: - Why CodeAI rebranded from Code.org — and what "glass box instead of black box" means for how you teach - Why Karim's teams deliberately build lessons where the AI answers incorrectly - The question he wants every student asking: who is in control — you or the AI? - What sits behind free student AI tools — pre-filters, post-filters, and hundreds of jailbreak tests - The exact first step for a teacher who has never taught a line of code Karim's answer to "where do I start" is shorter than you'd expect, and it puts the teacher and the students in the same boat on purpose. Full show notes, every resource, and the transcript: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e956  If this show helps you teach better, leave a review wherever you're listening — it's how other teachers find us.
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  How to Teach Confident Communicators with Dr. Jeff Bogaczyk 27.07.2026 12mnt

  You gave the directions. You were clear. You wrote them on the board. Half the class still did it wrong — here's the reason why. Dr. Jeff Bogaczyk, head of school at Christian Life School in Kenosha, Wisconsin, holds a Ph.D. in rhetoric and studies media ecology — how our communication technologies shape the way we think, relate, and learn. In this Motivational Monday conversation, he explains the cognitive bias that quietly sabotages teacher-to-student communication, and what one school does about it on purpose. In this episode, you'll learn: The curse of knowledge: a 1990 Stanford study asked people to tap out a familiar song's rhythm — and revealed why what's obvious to you is noise to everyone else The illusion of transparency: why we assume other people know what we're thinking and feeling, and what that assumption costs in a classroom The repetition rule one head of school gives his teachers: the moment you're sick of saying it is the moment they're finally starting to hear it Why the brain-as-computer metaphor is wrong, and why emotional intelligence is the skill AI can't replace How "confident communicators" becomes a real, teachable outcome in a portrait of a graduate Jeff's line that will stick with you: "There is no relationship without communication. Communication is — you might even say it is the relationship." Show notes, resources, and the full transcript: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e955 If this one gave you language for something you've felt in your classroom, share it with a teacher friend who needs it this week.
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  How to Teach About Space in the Classroom with Mark Wagner 24.07.2026 15mnt

  How do you teach about space in any classroom—not just science? Dr. Mark Wagner says space is the ultimate hook for engagement, and the growing space economy means every student needs to understand it. In this conversation, the CEO of Aries Learning and author of Space Education shares why space belongs in every subject, the mindsets students need, and simple ways to bring exploration into your room this week. In this episode, you'll learn: Why the space economy (projected to reach $1 trillion by 2030) touches nearly every career How satellites and Starlink already shape agriculture, GPS, and global internet access The four mindsets Mark teaches: explorer's mindset, moonshot thinking, design thinking, and operational mindset Low-cost, hands-on ways to let students explore—from a simple map to student-built payloads What the "overview effect" teaches students about caring for our planet Full show notes, links, and resources: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e954 If this episode helped you, share it with a teacher friend who'd love to bring more wonder into their classroom.
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  Servant Scholarship: Choosing a Dissertation Topic That Helps 23.07.2026 13mnt

  Choosing a dissertation topic? Dr. Maggie Broderick shares "servant scholarship" — how to pick research that helps real teachers and students instead of just checking a box. In this conversation, Dr. Maggie Broderick — associate professor at National University, dissertation chair, and editor of the International Journal of Online Graduate Education — joins Vicki Davis to explore how doctoral students and classroom teachers alike can choose research with a servant's heart. In this episode, you'll learn: What "servant scholarship" is and why your motivation ("your why") shapes better research How to support teachers of less commonly taught subjects who often feel isolated Why connecting research to practice — and policy — matters more than just "learning the ropes" How researchers can keep a servant's heart even when funding is involved Encouragement for anyone weighing a PhD or EdD Full show notes and resources: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e953 If this episode helped you, please rate the show and leave a review wherever you're listening — it helps more educators find these conversations. And share it with a teacher friend who's thinking about grad school.