Cool Cat Teacher Blog is at coolcatteacher.com

Heart first, tools second. That's the secret to teaching well in the age of AI — and on this Cool Cat Teacher Talk, Vicki Davis and three educators show you how. Great teaching still happens, even in the hardest times, and the research is clear: the most powerful thing in any classroom is still a human relationship. In this episode, Vicki talks with Dr. Patricia Dickenson (author of "Smart Teaching in the Age of AI") about teacher-driven instruction and using AI to plan, differentiate, and rethink assessment; with Dr. Jie Tao (founding director of Fairfield University's AI & Technology Institute) about building AI out of compassion and using agentic AI without giving up control; and with instructional coach Amy Storer about the practical tools teachers are most excited about right now. In this episode, you'll learn: Why teacher-driven instruction still wins — and how to bring your authentic self into the room How to use AI to plan, differentiate, and asse...

Experiential learning through travel changes students for good — and Denver science and CTE teacher Angela Cannava proves any teacher can lead it. In this episode of the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast, Angela shares how curriculum-aligned international trips with EF Explore America transformed her students: a forensics lab in Great Britain where they did real DNA fingerprinting, and a Belize Ridge-to-Reef conservation expedition with a midnight bat workshop. She tells the story of a student who barely spoke in three years coming home changed, and a Belize traveler now headed back to work at the conservation NGO he visited on the trip. In this episode, you’ll learn: - Why curriculum-aligned travel makes lessons “stick” long after the trip ends - How travel transforms your relationships with students — and the culture of your whole classroom - The two things to nail before your first trip: a diverse chaperone team and clear student expectations - How to make international travel doable o...

Art teacher Tim Needles brings AI art into the classroom without losing the watercolors, clay, and joy of real art. In this Tech Tool Tuesday, Tim shares how he uses Adobe Express and text-to-image to amplify student imagination, why the kids who use AI well are simply more descriptive, and the daily 10-minute creativity habit that helps teachers fight burnout. Plus: the legacy mural project that reaches a whole community, and the student who broke INTO the art room to keep working — and now works at Industrial Light & Magic. In this episode, you'll learn: How to bring AI art into any subject with Adobe Express (works on a Chromebook) Why specificity makes the difference between weak and strong AI art prompts How to keep students respecting traditional media in the age of AI A simple daily creativity habit that protects against teacher burnout Why "fun is underrated" — and how passion projects change kids' lives Full show notes and resources: https://www....

Leadership in education isn't a title — it's seeing a gap and building the bridge. A 16-year-old coder, a college-readiness expert, and a national principal show how. In this episode of Cool Cat Teacher Talk, Vicki Davis brings together three voices on what leadership really looks like at every stage. Ky'lin Spears, a 16-year-old who taught himself to code, built a free chemistry simulation platform (Atomency) when his school lacked lab equipment. Dr. Johanna David-Tramantano shares her evidence-based CONNECT framework for the hard bridge from high school to college — and why "showing up is a habit, not a skill." And Raquel Martinez, the first Latina president of NASSP, explains how leaders grow other leaders through what they choose to say, and why multilingual learners are an advantage, not a deficit. In this episode, you'll learn: Why initiative — seeing a need and meeting it — is the heart of leadership at any age How to build the "enduring sk...

Vibe coding for teachers means describing what you want in plain English and letting AI write the code — no coding background required. 2021 Kentucky Teacher of the Year Donnie Piercey joins Vicki Davis to show how any teacher can build custom classroom tools that save real time. Donnie shares the small-problem-first method he used to build printable daily student task lists, auto-translate his classroom newsletter into five languages, and create self-checking games — plus the dead-simple troubleshooting trick of screenshotting the error and pasting it back to the AI. Vicki shares how she rebuilt a unit into a game that raised her eighth graders' scores five points with zero retests. In this episode, you'll learn: - What vibe coding actually is (and what it isn't) - How to pick the one small problem worth solving first - How to fix broken code without knowing how to code - Why publishing to HTML lets your tool work anywhere - How AI tools like Gemini, ChatGPT, Canva ...

MIT's Justin Reich interviewed 120 teachers and students about AI in the classroom — and his honest takeaway is that there are no research-based best practices yet. Here's what to do instead. In this episode of the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast, Justin Reich (MIT Teaching Systems Lab, host of The Homework Machine) joins Vicki Davis to talk about what AI is really doing in K-12 classrooms, why the research is still in its infancy, and how teachers can run their own small "local science" experiments right now. In this episode, you'll learn: Why classroom teachers and students — not thought leaders — give the truest picture of AI in schools Why there are no AI "best practices" yet (and the 25-year research timeline that explains it) How to run a small, honest "local science" experiment in your own classroom this week Why your domain knowledge — not the tool — is what makes AI actually useful Four ways teachers are handling AI cheating (and ...