Tag: AI

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Ep. 86: Rewriting the Rules of Student Engagement

Marc and Nick sit down with Stephanie Clinise, a ninth-grade English teacher at Hatboro-Horsham High School in suburban Philadelphia, to talk about what happens when a teacher leads with the hook every single time. Stephanie found We Will Write, a gamified writing platform out of Norway, got her students engaged in meaningful writing on their first try, and ended up featured at FETC 2026 sharing the story with anyone who would listen.

The conversation digs into the teaching philosophy underneath all of it: why context has to come before content, how a classroom timeline stretching from the Transcontinental Railroad to the birth of Taylor Swift unlocked Shakespeare and Roald Dahl for ninth graders, and how Stephanie is navigating AI in the writing classroom with real structure and genuine optimism. If you believe the lesson has to earn student attention before it can teach them anything, this one is for you.

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Ep. 85: The Power of Play in Serious Learning

Marc Isseks and special guest co-host, Karen Walsh sit down with Dan Thomas, a recently retired STEM teacher who spent his entire 32-year career at the same school he graduated from in Jamestown, New York. Now consulting and speaking under his Coach Thomas Tech brand, Dan brings a hands-on, PBL-driven philosophy to educators looking to make learning visible, meaningful, and yes, actually usable by Tuesday morning.

This conversation covers a lot of ground: why AI has finally moved past the shiny-new-thing phase and into real implementation, how the Tuesday Test reframes professional learning (if you cannot use it tomorrow without hand-holding, what is the point?), and why AI may be the first tool that makes genuine differentiation possible at scale. Dan and Karen, a veteran English teacher known for her commitment to creativity and reinvention, bring decades of classroom experience to a discussion that is as practical as it is forward-looking. The takeaway: the teacher who embraces this moment has more power than at any point in the history of education.

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Ep. 66: Hangin’ With The Cool Cat Teacher

In their first visual podcast, Marc and Nick sit down with the one-and-only Vicki Davis, known worldwide as the Cool Cat Teacher. Topics include: the role of AI in teaching and learning, computational thinking, and the power of making meaningful connections with students.

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You can explore Vicki’s insights, projects, and resources at CoolCatTeacher.com.

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