How to Set Goals for Your Library This Summer
10 Minute Teacher Podcast with Cool Cat Teacher
Release Date: 05/15/2019
Reflective Teaching: How Video and AI Help Teachers Improve
10 Minute Teacher Podcast with Cool Cat Teacher
Reflective teaching matters. As teachers and professionals, we need to ask ourselves: how are we reflecting and improving? The times I've videoed myself teaching have been hard to watch, but I've learned so much. As you listen to the innovations happening in the teacher education program at Valdosta State University, think about how reflection can improve your teaching. Dr. Karen Terry has spent more than 30 years in education as a teacher, administrator, district leader, and now a professor preparing future teachers. Her goal is for the teachers from her program to still be happy in the...
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Student Belonging: A Principal of the Year's Plan
10 Minute Teacher Podcast with Cool Cat Teacher
When a principal and her school achieve amazing results, I find one thing stands out: the focus on helping students belong and grow. Student belonging is the first thing Sonia Ruiz builds. She is the 2026 National Middle Level Principal of the Year in the US. Incredibly but not surprisingly, her school's English learners and students with IEPs are making gains. Sonia says she didn't feel like school was built for her, but now she leads Jane Addams Middle School in Bolingbrook, Illinois. The school has earned the state's Exemplary status three years in a row. For her, love and high expectations...
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Bridge in the Classroom: A Screen-Free Math Game
10 Minute Teacher Podcast with Cool Cat Teacher
Going screen-free is an emphasis right now, as is building emotional intelligence. Perhaps that is why bridge is really attractive to some kids. You can also teach math, focus, and teamwork, and you don't have to know how to play. Hall of Famer Patty Tucker created JumpStart Bridge, a free curriculum that has reached more than 12,000 students. It comes with scripts, videos, supplies, and a stipend for teachers who have never dealt a hand. In this episode, you'll learn: The one rule of bridge that teaches kids not to quit The grade levels Patty calls the sweet spot for starting What a teacher...
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Screen Value, Not Screen Time: Leading Schools in the AI Age
10 Minute Teacher Podcast with Cool Cat Teacher
ISTE+ASCD 2026 Board President Dr. Jeremy Owoh explains how his district runs toward AI instead of away from it. He also shares why AI can never replace a good teacher and his approach to encouraging innovation in the classroom. So many teachers are tired of playing "AI whack-a-mole," but it is so helpful to hear how Jeremy helps his district make decisions that bring everyone on board. He says that schools should learn together and set clear expectations. He started as an English teacher in Little Rock, served as an assistant commissioner at the Arkansas Department of Education, and now leads...
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Grief in the Classroom When Teachers Are Grieving Too
10 Minute Teacher Podcast with Cool Cat Teacher
Sometimes we need to talk about hard things, like grief in the classroom. Because real life is hard, and real life is in our classroom every day. Our students and we as teachers — we all deal with death. I had to this past school year, and it was hard. It still is. And not everyone experiences it the same way. There's no one-size-fits-all. On this show, first-grade teacher Haleigh Bresnan and school psychologist Rebecca Brigner share how to help grieving kids and yourself. Their precious children's book about grief, If You're Lucky Enough to Know a Unicorn, honors Kennedy, a baby girl who...
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Using AI? Keep Teachers in the Driver's Seat
10 Minute Teacher Podcast with Cool Cat Teacher
Dr. Patricia Dickenson, author of Smart Teaching in the Age of AI, shows how teachers can use AI to plan and differentiate without losing the heart of teaching. Relationship is still one of the top factors driving student success. Part of using AI is knowing when to use it and when to put it away. Patricia has a third option for every teacher torn between using AI for everything and banning it altogether: let AI carry some of the planning load, so you have more time for what only you can do, which is connecting with your students. She spent more than 18 years in Los Angeles classrooms and now...
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A Blind Teacher on Truly Seeing Your Students
10 Minute Teacher Podcast with Cool Cat Teacher
Kathy Nimmer is the 2026 Helen Keller Achievement Award winner. Her story is so heartwarming that, to celebrate episode 1001, we're airing an extended episode focused on the heart of teaching. The story of her first year teaching is incredible and one we should all hear. If you've been there, you know how quickly a first-year teacher's confidence can shatter. For Kathy Nimmer, a blind high school English teacher, a classroom window shattered too, and it changed how she taught. Kathy tells how a chaotic first year taught her to bring her authentic self to the classroom, how being blind helped...
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Celebrating 1,000 Episodes: My Son Turns the Tables on Me!
10 Minute Teacher Podcast with Cool Cat Teacher
Thank you so much! It was February 2017 when I took a day off school to "figure out" how to publish this podcast. I started by telling the story of "" and I had no idea what I was doing. I only knew that a 5-day-a-week podcast where teachers, administrators, and those who love kids could get a quick idea every day could be a really good service to education. There are so many amazing stories of teachers, and most of them are too busy or just not called to have a podcast. I didn't want another "talking head" show, as I just wanted to interview people! So, this episode is not only a thank you,...
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Productive Struggle: When to Help and When to Hold Back
10 Minute Teacher Podcast with Cool Cat Teacher
Productive struggle is the sweet spot between too easy and too hard. Dr. Barbara Blackburn, author of more than 40 books on rigor and motivation, explains when to help a struggling student and when to hold back, so kids can wrestle with hard work without drowning. On this Thought Leader Thursday, Barbara shares her structured definition of productive struggle, why students read too-easy work as a sign the teacher doesn't respect them, and the simple "count to 20" habit that keeps teachers from rescuing too soon. She walks through an upper elementary science task where students build the...
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New Teacher Advice From a 3-Time Teacher of the Year
10 Minute Teacher Podcast with Cool Cat Teacher
New teacher advice from a three-time Teacher of the Year. Retired fifth-grade teacher Eric Hall spent 27 years in the classroom, and he says it starts with relationships before rigor. Build trust first, and the curriculum comes easier. On this Wonderful Classroom Wednesday, Eric, author of Controlled Chaos: Lessons They Didn't Teach You in Teacher School, shares how he got to know students and families before the first day of school, why his first call home is always a positive one, and how he let students help write the classroom agreements. He also tells how a weekend plane ride brought a...
info_outlineWhile we have to finish well, those of us who are returning to another year as an educator have to look forward to plan. Today, media specialist Amanda Johnson talks about the massive success of some new sections she added to the library last summer and how she's going to improve her library even more this summer. The goal is to encourage students to read and what Amanda is discovering might surprise you.
Today's Sponsor: SmartBrief
Keeping up with the news is challenging. Today’s sponsor, SmartBrief, has some email newsletters that will help you stay current. Whether you want to follow education technology, special education, math, or just teaching best practices, SmartBrief has an email newsletter for you. Check them out at coolcatteacher.com/smartbrief and sign up today.
Amanda Johnson - Bio As Submitted
Amanda Johnson is the media specialist at Meadow View Elementary in Henry County, Virginia. As a first year librarian, Amanda has hit the ground running with her students, setting up the library in Henry County's new elementary school.
A 2015 graduate of Mary Baldwin College with a degree in English with minors in education, coaching & exercise leadership, and history, Amanda went on to receive a Masters in Library and Information Science (MLIS) from Louisiana State University in 2018.
Amanda strives to be an innovative educator in a 1:1 iPad school, embracing the wide array of technology available in the media center. Wanting the library to be an enhancement and extension of the classroom, Amanda has tried to incorporate and further classroom lessons in the library through virtual reality, circuitry experiments, coding, green screen video production, and more. As a lifelong learner, every day is an adventure for Amanda and her 670 elementary school students!