10 Minute Teacher Podcast with Cool Cat Teacher

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What is Mastery Learning and How Do You Implement It Effectively? Sep 08, 2026

Show notes

Mastery learning is the driver's-test rule applied to school: if a student fails the test, they take it again until they pass. Jon Bergmann teaches that way, full time, in chemistry and physics.

This is #8 in the Top 10 of the First 1,000, a two-week countdown of the most-downloaded episodes of the 10 Minute Teacher leading up to episode 1,000 on September 28, 2026. Jon Bergmann is one of the two teachers who started the flipped classroom movement — and he has spent the years since making the case that flipping was never the destination. Mastery was. He came back to the classroom in 2019 specifically to teach this way, and he wrote the how-to manual he wished he'd had.

In this episode, you'll learn:

- Why mastery learning is a simple idea most schools already accept everywhere except the gradebook - How an exchange student who arrived in January, with no chemistry background, accidentally proved flipped mastery could work - What a mastery unit looks like in physics — five or six lessons, then a test where students get one shot at hitting the target - The number one reason teachers abandon mastery learning in the first year, and the strategy Jon and Aaron Sams built to fix it - How tiered tests work: a deep-understanding test, a clear test, and a basic test — and how you decide what every student must know versus what is nice to know - Why the research says mastery learning helps lower-achieving students most, and which courses are the easiest place to begin - Where to go next if you want to keep learning: Teach Better's Grid Method, the Mastery Transcript Consortium, and the wider competency-based learning world

Show notes, resources, and the full transcript: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e986

We are eight episodes away from number 1,000. If you've been listening along, subscribe and stay with me for the next thousand — and if a colleague came to mind while you listened, send this one to them.

Engage Every Learner: 8 Timeless Classroom Principles #9 Episode (updated for 2026) Sep 07, 2026

Show notes

Eight ways to engage every learner — recorded in 2021, and every principle still works. This was #9 in our all-time top 10 countdown, and it isn't a ten-minute episode: it's a full session of classroom principles and tools for re-engaging students.

I've edited this one lightly to remove a few apps that no longer exist and to fix my numbering. But I left the AI ethics segment in on purpose. Back in 2021 — well before ChatGPT — educators were already teaching students to think about whether we should, not just whether we could. Those students got a head start, and that history is worth hearing.

In this episode, you'll learn: - Why slow, steady progress ("innovate like a turtle") beats a total overhaul - How to relate before you educate — and the research behind why it works - Four ways to give students a safe channel to tell you how they're doing - How to bring students into evaluating your own teaching practices - What teaching AI ethics looked like before ChatGPT existed

The story of Sue and Mrs. Scruggs is the center of this episode — a five-minute conversation with one teacher that changed the entire direction of a life.

Full show notes, every link from the original slides, and updated 2026 tools: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e985

If this one helped you, please leave a review wherever you're listening — it's how other teachers find the show.

Are You an Upset Teacher? How to Understand What Is Wrong (#10 of all time) Sep 04, 2026

Show notes

This is #10 in the Top 10 of the First 1,000 — a countdown of the ten most-downloaded episodes in the history of the 10 Minute Teacher, running weekdays through September 18. Ranked on total downloads including re-airs, this conversation with Michelle Blanchet has been heard 23,379 times.

It originally aired on September 27, 2021 as episode 764. I am re-airing it unchanged because the problem it solves did not go away.

Michelle Blanchet, co-author of The Startup Teacher Playbook, teaches a method for figuring out the specific thing that is wrong — not the vague heavy feeling, but the actual named problem — so that you can make an improvement and feel forward progress. Social emotional learning is not just for students. This one is about you.

Show notes: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/are-you-an-upset-teacher-how-to-understand-what-is-wrong/

AI in Schools: Stop AI Detection, Start Learning Detection Sep 03, 2026

Show notes

AI with intention. AI with integrity. Is it possible? Tony Frontier, author of AI with Intention, is talking about how we value learning in the age of AI. He shares the language we can use to evaluate what we're doing, how we're talking about AI, and how we're measuring learning, and ultimately, why education needs to change more than ever.

Experience AI, a program co-developed by Raspberry Pi Foundation and Google DeepMind, sponsored this podcast episode. All opinions are my own and those of the guest. Experience AI is a free AI literacy program with ready-to-teach lessons for ages 8 to 16, in any subject. http://experience-ai.org

I also open this show with some highlights from the Report of MIT's Ad Hoc Committee on AI Use in Teaching, Learning, and Research Training and what it means for learning, and they use a term I think we should all be discussing: cognitive surrender. We cannot let our kids cognitively surrender and let AI do the work for them. They also talk about helping students understand that their learning, integrity, and judgment are the product of college, not the grades. So many challenges we have now, but this week has been about sharing the conversations and thought leaders to help you improve the AI conversation in your school. I hope this Thursday helps you be a thought leader in your school!

Academic Integrity: What 22 Confessions Taught a Teacher Sep 02, 2026

Show notes

Tim Plaehn is a teacher who writes about honor codes. In his writing class last April, he believed he had two students he knew used AI. So, he gave the whole class an opportunity to "come clean," and he said his email began dinging while 22 of the 40 students admitted they had used AI on their papers. Tim has authored the book, The Honor Code: Students, Integrity, and our Path Forward where he talks about integrity and how we need to be discussing integrity with our students. This is not an easy topic but an important one!

Show notes: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e982

How to Build Your Own Data Dashboard: No Coding Required Sep 01, 2026

Show notes

A.J. Juliani has been leading cohorts of educators and administrators to learn how to build data dashboards that improve student learning. I love how he focuses on the human aspect of learning. In today's show, we'll talk through the "interview mode" of using AI that is so powerful in addition to using data to improve the experience of school for our learners and teachers. We'll talk about personally identifiable information, the importance of removing it, and some tips and tricks for interacting with AI to generate data dashboards and other tools of your choice.

📌 Full show notes, resources, and transcript: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e981

Teaching Creativity: 4 Ideas Every Subject Can Use Aug 31, 2026

Show notes

Teaching creativity is not an "extra" that is just for art, theater, or woodshop. As teachers, we can learn how the four branches of creativity are applied in math, science, and engineering and how creativity gives us an edge in today's world.

📌 Full show notes, resources, and transcript: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e980

Student Personal Branding Without Social Media Aug 28, 2026

Show notes

We all have a reputation, whether we build it intentionally or not. One of my son's favorite assignments from middle school was when a teacher asked him to draw a coat of arms. It included what he liked, what mattered to him, and what characteristics he wanted to portray. He was figuring out who he was. Who would even put the word "brand" with an activity like that? However, there are times we may want to take the approach of "building a personal brand."

Whatever angle you want to take, Elisabeth Bostwick talks about authentic learning. Now, for those of us who automatically associate personal branding with social media, this doesn't mean that students have to post on social media at all. Students can start with their strengths and interests and select brand colors as well. Elisabeth has done this with high school entrepreneurship students as well as fourth graders. For today's Fab Idea Friday, think about activities that help students think through how they want to be viewed.

Show notes: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e979

AI and Academic Honesty: The Second Crisis in Schools Aug 27, 2026

Show notes

Honesty. We need to be honest about where we are in education. Whether authentic, true, genuine learning is happening should be the question for all of us in education. None of us wants to pretend or participate in a farce. AI guilt is now "a thing" college graduates are talking about. College graduates who are not being "caught" but feel like they spent the last years pretending to learn.

Dr. Christian Miller, author of The Honesty Crisis, has spent more than a decade running some of the largest funded research projects on honesty and moral character. He says that the internet was the first honesty crisis in education. AI is the second one.

We talk about both sides of the desk on this one. Both the student writing their paper with AI and learning nothing, and the teacher giving AI-generated feedback without disclosing it to students. This is why an honest expert is staying up at night about the papers his philosophy students are writing (or if they are not).

Show notes: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e978

Teaching Autistic Learners: Listen, Believe, Then Act Aug 26, 2026

Show notes

Wow, this is a sensitive topic. And remember that every person with autism has a different experience. But Claire O'Neill is a teacher and she's telling her story of school.

Claire can see the roof of her old primary school from her classroom window. She remembers walking up to the school door with that gnawing, upset feeling in her stomach and the itchy, scratchy uniform that made her so uncomfortable. She says the room was either too hot or too cold. It was almost always too loud, and she says it was smelly. Claire got in trouble a lot. Now, that she's studied autism, she understands better why.

Claire has spent more than twenty years teaching autistic students and is a PhD researcher at University College Cork (Ireland) studying what school is actually like for autistic teachers.

Claire shares her story from an educational perspective. A full-circle moment of a PhD expert teacher reflecting upon the girl she used to be and advocating to help us all understand how to help children like her.

My Mom was one of the most compassionate, intuitive teachers I've ever known. She always said when I had a student who learned differently and I would accommodate for the whole class, everyone in the classroom learned better. Claire says the same thing. She also talks about the importance of Universal Design for Learning (UDL).

She also encourages us to listen to our learners. Believe them when they tell you how they experience your room. And to act upon what they tell us.

Claire is an expert, but I'm not. While I've taught some precious students with autism and most of them thrived in my classroom (one early in my career, I wish I could go back and use strategies I know now.) I share this story with sensitivity and the knowledge that I don't know what I don't know but I know it is important to listen. And isn't that what Claire tells us in the show?

I hope this show makes us all more empathetic on this Wonderful Classroom Wednesday because not every child actually thinks our classroom is wonderful and we need to listen and learn to make it better.

Show notes: https://www.coolcatteacher.com/e977

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