Equity Programs in New York State
10 Minute Teacher Podcast with Cool Cat Teacher
Release Date: 08/22/2019
A Real Teacher Sparking Curiosity Makes All the Difference — Episode 946
10 Minute Teacher Podcast with Cool Cat Teacher
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...
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AI Assisted Grading: A Teacher's 30-Second Checklist — Episode 945
10 Minute Teacher Podcast with Cool Cat Teacher
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...
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Habits of Hope to Help Educators with Dr. Julia Garcia
10 Minute Teacher Podcast with Cool Cat Teacher
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:...
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How Students Actually Learn: Memory & Attention
10 Minute Teacher Podcast with Cool Cat Teacher
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...
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Experiential Learning Through Travel That Sticks
10 Minute Teacher Podcast with Cool Cat Teacher
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...
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AI Art in the Classroom with Tim Needles
10 Minute Teacher Podcast with Cool Cat Teacher
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...
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Vibe Coding for Teachers: No Coding Skills Needed
10 Minute Teacher Podcast with Cool Cat Teacher
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...
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AI in the Classroom — Why There Are No Best Practices Yet
10 Minute Teacher Podcast with Cool Cat Teacher
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...
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Moviemaking in the Classroom: Where Every Student Has a Story
10 Minute Teacher Podcast with Cool Cat Teacher
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...
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AI as a Creativity Amplifier with Dr. Sarah Thomas
10 Minute Teacher Podcast with Cool Cat Teacher
Dr. Sarah Thomas says AI is a creativity amplifier — a tool that gives teachers back their time so they can do the work only humans can do. In this episode of the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast, Dr. Sarah Thomas — founder of EduMatch and a Regional Technology Coordinator — reframes artificial intelligence as a creativity amplifier rather than a replacement for human thinking. We talk about what she actually automates, how to use AI ethically with students, and why staying pro-human matters more than ever. In this episode, you'll learn: Why AI works best as a creativity amplifier that...
info_outlineDr. Anael Alston is Assistant Commissioner for the Office of Access, Equity and Community Engagement in the New York State Education Department. He talks about what works to engage young men of color in education and his journey and passion for helping all students engage in school and do their best. If this is your heart's passion, you'll want to hear what Anael has to say.
Advancement Courses is today's sponsor From now until September 28, Advancement Courses, an online provider of professional development for K-12 teachers, is donating 10% of their sales to funding DonorsChoose.org projects. Go to coolcatteacher.com/give to submit your project. AND if you need some awesome PD, 10 Minute Teacher listeners get 20% off any online courses with the code COOL20. With this coupon, a 3 grad credit course for continuing education, salary advancement, or recertification is only $359. So, go to advancementcourses.com/coolcat to learn more and use the code COOL20.
Dr. Anael Alston - Bio As Submitted
Born and raised in Bedford-Stuyvesant Brooklyn, Dr. Anael Alston “Dr. A” is currently the Assistant Commissioner for the Office of Access, Equity and Community Engagement in the New York State Education Department. In this capacity, he informs educational policy across the state and administers over $200 million dollars to help support students across New York State from pre-Kindergarten through college. Prior to that, he was the Superintendent of Schools for the Hamilton Central School District. As a superintendent, Dr. A distinguished himself as one of the few superintendents across the state to have a 100% graduation rate while moving an agenda that included creating a program that allows international students to pay tuition to attend public school and involving the entire school community in creating a Board-adopted 5-year strategic plan to improve access, opportunity, and fiscal responsibility to the small rural school district. A recognized leader in the field, this year Dr. A was a main stage featured speaker at MBK Rising!, the inaugural national gathering marking the 5th year anniversary since President Obama launched My Brother’s Keeper.
A former Golden Gloves champion, Dr. A fights for children each day knowing that if not for the battles waged for him as a child, he would not be where he is today.
Twitter: @DrAAlston