Cool Cat Teacher Blog is at coolcatteacher.com

Leadership is not a personality you're born with. It can be learned — and if it can be learned, it can be taught. In part one of a two-part series, Vicki Davis talks with Ronn Nozoe, CEO of the National Principals Association (formerly NASSP), about what principals across the country actually told us about AI in their schools — and why the number one thing they need isn't a tool, it's time. Then Muriel Summers describes taking a struggling Title I elementary school and rebuilding it around a single conviction: every person in that building is a leader, including the five-year-olds who interview teacher candidates. The thread running through both conversations is the idea Vicki's mother gave her — make your to-be list before you make your to-do list. Character before tactics. Identity before activity. In this episode, you'll learn: • Why "time" — not training, not tools, not money — is what principals say they need most right now, and what a leader can ac...

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 v...

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 obse...

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 ga...

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 lockin...

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 t...

AI is already in your school—the real question is how to use it on purpose. In Part 3 of the ISTE 2026 AI & EdTech Super Series, recorded live in Orlando, Vicki Davis talks with three education leaders about implementing AI across a whole school while keeping the teacher at the center. Superintendent Dr. Jeremy Owoh makes the case that reaching kids still starts with relationship. Author Tony Frontier (AI with Intention) reframes the conversation from AI detection to learning detection. And Renaissance product chief Todd Brekhus explains why his team pulled student-facing AI back and built a tool that keeps the teacher in the middle. In this episode, you'll learn: Why a strong school technology policy runs toward AI, not away from it How to shift from catching cheaters to detecting real learning—through integrity, transparency, and explainability What students actually say about how much they use AI (and how little guidance they get) Why one edtech company pulled its stud...

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 answe...

Host Vicki Davis takes her microphone onto the floor at ISTE 2026 in Orlando for Part 2 of the ISTE AI and EdTech Supershow. Karim Meghji, President and CEO of CodeAI — the nonprofit formerly known as Code.org — argues that AI literacy belongs in every classroom, and that the goal is students who can question an answer, not just generate one. Kimmie Fink, a thirteen-year classroom veteran now senior editor at the BBC Learning Hub, walks through free resources teachers can use tomorrow. And Brandie Wright tells the story of the student from her ISTE keynote — a real child that audience members assumed was invented by AI. Cool Cat Teacher Talk episode:

ISTE 2026  Buzz + AI assessment + space education: the conversations every teacher is having this summer, with Dr. Carmalita Seitz, Steve Swanson, and Dr. Mark Wagner. This summer’s biggest ed-tech conversations in one show. Dr. Carmalita Seitz of ISTE+ASCD previews what everyone will be talking about at ISTE 2026 — AI, instructional leadership, the tech backlash, “brain rot,” and the return of project-based learning. High school engineering teacher Steve Swanson built his own AI grading tool, ClassLens — then deleted the one-button auto-grade feature because every grade should pass through a teacher’s eyes. And Dr. Mark Wagner, author of Space Education, shows why the growing space economy needs every kind of learner. In this episode, you’ll learn: - What teachers actually take home from ISTE 2026 — and why to lead with good teaching, not the tool - Why “human in the loop” matters for AI grading, and the privacy questions to ask first - How to vet an AI tool’s data handling (...

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 c...

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 dire...

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 tool...

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...

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...

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....

Project-based social studies ideas students never forget — from 2026 New Hampshire Teacher of the Year Megan Philbrook, whose students secretly nominated her for the award. Megan Philbrook teaches social studies to grades 5 through 8 in rural New Hampshire, where her students wrote, directed, and filmed their own play on Ancient Rome, podcast about the American Revolution, and research WWII veterans buried fifteen miles from their school. In this conversation she shares how project-based learning and civic engagement make history unforgettable — and the classroom moves that made her students love her enough to nominate her for Teacher of the Year without telling her. In this episode, you'll learn: How to reuse last year's student projects to inspire this year's students A 30-second door-greeting ritual that starts every class with connection The "look through the window" rule for teaching controversial history without taking sides Where to find free state-l...

Can elementary students build their own apps? Two elementary teachers — Erin Keith and Edward Courtney — show how they use MAD-learn for gold-standard project-based learning, and how app-building teaches the soft skills that last long after the code. In this episode, you'll learn: How teachers with no coding background get started with app development Real student apps — from advocacy projects to digital portfolios to "Meet the Teacher" apps The soft skills students build: persistence, teamwork, and design thinking How to introduce AI to elementary students safely and thoughtfully Why moving students from app users to app creators changes engagement Full show notes and resources: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e951 This is a sponsored episode featuring MAD-learn. If this one helps you, share it with a teacher friend who's curious about coding with kids. Check out this episode!

What students achieve is tied to whether they feel valued — and the same is true for the teachers who serve them. In this Motivational Monday conversation, coach and author Debbie Simões (founder of Best Questers, co-author of High Five to Thrive ) shows teachers how valuing students transforms a classroom, even on the hardest days. Drawing on years in inner-city classrooms, Debbie shares how to see past a child's behavior to the person of value underneath, how to communicate to connect instead of to correct, and how to be a "hope agent" for yourself and your colleagues in a season of burnout and teacher shortages. In this episode, you'll learn: Why "communicate to connect" changes how kids respond to correction The difference between behavior-based praise and identity-based praise How to respond when a student is at their worst What it means to be a "hope agent" when your own tank is low The mantra that can transform a school: people of va...

Summer reading for teachers — 11 books I've highlighted over 6,800 times and keep coming back to. This Significant Saturday special is my personal summer list for educators and lifelong learners, spanning AI ethics, productivity, faith, and the classroom-management classics I hand every first-year teacher. In this episode, you'll learn: Why The Age of AI by Jason Thacker belongs at the top of a Christian educator's list The one big-picture idea from The Future Is Faster Than You Think that brings hope about technology Which books to reach for when you're feeling burned out or overwhelmed The productivity and knowledge-management book that changed how Vicki organizes ideas The two classroom-management classics worth giving every new teacher Pick just one or two — you don't have to read them all. Choose what speaks to where you are right now. Full list with links to every book: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e949 If this list pointed you to your next read, ...

Adobe Express and Canva are packed with AI tools that save teachers hours — Amy Storer shares the features her teachers love most. Innovative learning specialist Amy Storer (Montgomery ISD, TX) walks through the AI-powered tools inside Adobe Express and Canva that teachers and students are getting most excited about — from studio-style student podcasts to interactive games you can build without writing a line of code. She also shares a favorite bonus tool for creating step-by-step how-to guides, and closes with a word of encouragement for any teacher feeling buried by "all the things." In this episode, you'll learn: How Adobe Express's Create a Podcast and one-click Enhance make student podcasting simple Why Animate a Character is an easy win for your youngest learners and GT projects How Canva Code lets you build interactive, self-grading activities with no coding A hidden Canva presentation timer and how Scribe turns clicks into a how-to guide Amy's ...

Teacher burnout isn't weakness — it's disconnection. Michelle Singh shares how teachers can reconnect, set boundaries, and feel fulfilled again. Michelle Singh — National Board Certified Teacher, founder of The Restful Teacher, and CEO of LCT-E Learning Solutions — spent more than 20 years in the classroom and district leadership before her own burnout forced a change. In this honest conversation with Vicki Davis, she offers teachers a path back to the work they love. In this episode, you'll learn: Why teacher disengagement is an "iceberg" with far more below the surface How to serve from fulfillment instead of sacrifice The power of starting with acknowledgement How to build a support team so you're not doing it alone The "clarity audit" — a simple self-reflection tool you can try this week Why writing down small wins carries you through the hard days Full show notes and resources: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e947 Share this episode w...

Why do we have to prove we're human in the age of AI? STEM educator and AI coach Brandie Wright shares the real story behind her ISTE main-stage talk on sparking curiosity — and why the presence of a teacher still matters. When Vicki first heard Brandie's story on the ISTE main stage, she wasn't sure the student was real — that's how believable AI-generated stories have become. This Wonderful Classroom Wednesday conversation is about curiosity, human connection, and the artisanship of teaching in an age when a kid alone with a screen simply isn't enough. In this episode, you'll learn: How "crew" — school-family grouping — builds the relationships that spark curiosity Why one student calls the whiteboard marker "magical" What teachers misunderstand about where AI's believable stories actually come from Why small classes and real human connection matter more than ever Three quick ways to spark curiosity in your own classroom Full ...

Steve Swanson built an AI grading tool — and then deleted the feature that would have returned AI-generated grades straight to students. He's a high school engineering teacher who was staring down 150 assignments after a field-trip week, and he built ClassLens because he needed it for his own gradebook. But when he got to the point where he could push one button and have everything graded and sent back automatically, it felt wrong. So he took the button out. In this Tech Tip Tuesday conversation, Steve makes the case for "human in the loop" — not as a buzzword, but as the actual job of teaching. He also answers a question he pitched to me by email, and it's the right one: what is the single question every teacher should ask before letting an AI tool grade student work? In this episode, you'll learn: The 30-second checklist to run before you let AI grade a stack of student work The one question to ask any vendor about where student data goes — and what "t...

Hope isn't just a feeling — it's a practice you can build. Psychologist and author Dr. Julia Garcia ( The 5 Habits of Hope ) joins Vicki Davis to redefine hope as something educators can practice, even in the hardest seasons. Recorded shortly after Vicki lost her father, this is an honest, encouraging conversation about hopelessness, grief, and the small habits that help us hold on to hope. In this episode, you'll learn: Why we experience hope as a feeling — and how to practice it instead The habit of reflection: pausing long enough to connect with something real The habit of receiving: learning to name and accept support How to reshape the thought patterns that keep us stuck How to keep teaching and creating through grief Full show notes and transcript: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e944 If this episode encouraged you, share it with a teacher friend who needs a little hope today. Check out this episode!

How do students actually learn? AP Psychology teacher Blake Harvard — The Effortful Educator — shares the cognitive science of attention and memory that every K-12 teacher can use tomorrow. In this episode of the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast, Vicki Davis talks with Blake Harvard about why attention is a necessary component of learning, the simple pre-test that primes the brain, and the mistake of making hard content even harder. Blake breaks down the two strategies with more than a century of research behind them — retrieval practice and spaced practice — and why rereading notes just doesn't work. In this episode, you'll learn: Why attention is where we lose students the most — and how to win it back The power of a quick pre-test to prime the brain for new content How limited working memory means complex material needs simpler activities Why retrieval practice (not rereading) builds lasting memory How spaced practice beats cramming — in less total study time Listen, then...

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 ...

Moviemaking in the classroom isn't the fun thing you do at the end of the year — it's how Jessica Pack gets to know her students on day one. The 2014 California Teacher of the Year and author of "Moviemaking in the Classroom" shares the exact projects she uses in the first two weeks of school to lift student voice, build creative confidence, and weave in generative AI the right way. You can use it now or next school year as you plan ahead this summer! I want to give you lots of ideas for what you can do in your classroom with moviemaking!   In this episode, you'll learn: Two day-one projects that turn new students into whole people (using the book "The Best Part of Me" and the "I Am" poem) How to introduce generative AI through Adobe Express and build "AI citizenship" from the start Why growth over grades helped her long-term English learners blossom How to balance high-tech and low-tech so creativity — not the tool — stays ...