How to Overcome Your Self Limiting Beliefs with Dr. Brandon Beck
10 Minute Teacher Podcast with Cool Cat Teacher
Release Date: 01/13/2021
Keeping the Teacher at the Center of Classroom AI
10 Minute Teacher Podcast with Cool Cat Teacher
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...
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How to Teach About Quantum Computing to Littles (Yes, Littles!)
10 Minute Teacher Podcast with Cool Cat Teacher
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...
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Vibe Coding with Gemini: Build Your Own Classroom Tools
10 Minute Teacher Podcast with Cool Cat Teacher
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,...
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How a School Built Its Culture Around the 7 Habits — and the Academics Followed — Episode 965
10 Minute Teacher Podcast with Cool Cat Teacher
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...
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Free BBC Resources for Your Classroom: Dinosaurs, Bluey, Planet Earth and News — Episode 964
10 Minute Teacher Podcast with Cool Cat Teacher
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...
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Assessment and Feedback That Move Learning Forward — Episode 963
10 Minute Teacher Podcast with Cool Cat Teacher
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...
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Math Games That Build Fluency While Kids Have Fun — Episode 962
10 Minute Teacher Podcast with Cool Cat Teacher
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...
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How to Make VR Actually Work in Your Classroom — Episode 961
10 Minute Teacher Podcast with Cool Cat Teacher
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...
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Data-Driven Leadership That Changes School Culture — Episode 960
10 Minute Teacher Podcast with Cool Cat Teacher
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...
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Travel With Students: A Principal's Grade-by-Grade Plan — Episode 959
10 Minute Teacher Podcast with Cool Cat Teacher
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...
info_outlineSometimes our own beliefs can limit our ability in the classroom - these are called self-limiting beliefs. Today's guest, Dr. Brandon Beck, helps us learn how to face our self-limiting beliefs, appreciate the positive things we have done, and move forward to a brighter future.
Sponsor: Educaplay is inviting all educators to try their platform. You can create your own crossword puzzles, memory games, map games, scrambles, matching, and more educational activities on this versatile website. Go to www.educaplay.com, sign up for a free account. Then the fun begins! Not only can you create and share, but you can also search for activities created by other teachers and easily share them to Google Classroom. You can even win a free premium account when you share your review of Educaplay with the hashtag #EducaplaywithUS. Try out Educaplay today!
Post financed by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). A way of making Europe.
Dr. Brandon Beck's Bio as Submitted
Dr. Brandon Beck is a National Board Certified teacher and Award Winning Professional Soccer Coach. He is the author of the new book "Unlocking Unlimited Potential" released from Codebreaker in December 2020.
He also holds a Doctorate in Educational Leadership. His primary purpose as an educator and teacher leader is a simple one: “To inspire people (adults and kids) to have faith in themselves and believe in their inner genius.”
He has been an elementary teacher for 20 years, a monolingual, dual language teacher, and holds a wide range of educational experience in versatile settings. He is also a Professor at Manhattanville College, NY, an editor and reviewer for AASA Journal of Scholarship & Practice, a regular presenter at state, regional, and national conferences, a motivational speaker for students and educators, a life coach, and an education consultant.
As a speaker, author, educator, and consultant his areas of expertise include:
- Rediscovering Your “Why”
- Self-Efficacy & Growth Mindset
- Social-Emotional Learning
- English Language Learners
- Culturally Responsive Teaching
- Therapeutic Animals in schools
Dr. Beck is a Mutt-i-grees National Trainer. Mutt-i-grees is a program designed by Yale University’s School for the 21st Century in partnership with North Shore Animal League of American and the Pet Savers Foundation. The Mutt-i-grees curriculum is an innovative Pre-K – Grade 12 social-emotional learning program that brings adopted shelter dogs into schools.
Dr. Beck is also an entrepreneur, ex semi-pro soccer player, and a professional soccer coach. He is currently a nationally certified instructor for the United States Soccer Federation. In addition, he has coached High School and Premier soccer teams that have won numerous state, regional, and national championships.
Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a “sponsored podcast episode.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. 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."