Friday, July 24, 2026

How to Teach About Space in the Classroom with Mark Wagner

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

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Key Takeaways for Teachers from Mark Wagner

  • Space is the ultimate engagement hook — in any subject. Space isn’t just for science class. Mark calls it “the gateway to all kinds of learning” — a way to engage and motivate any student, no matter their strengths or interests.
  • The space economy is everyone’s economy. Projected toward $1 trillion by 2030, space already touches nearly every career — from welders and machinists to marketers, HR, finance, and even fashion designers. As Mark puts it, “whatever your strengths and interests are, they need you.”
  • Four mindsets prepare students for space — and for life on Earth. The explorer’s mindset, moonshot thinking, design thinking, and astronaut Cady Coleman’s “operational mindset” (“it’s not all about you, but you are critically important to the mission”) are exactly the mindsets entrepreneurs and problem-solvers need down here.
  • Let kids explore — even a map counts. Mark says schools fall short most on giving kids the freedom to explore and think big. Something as simple as bringing a map into the room — or hands-on tools like databot and MaxIQ.space — lets students discover answers on their own.
  • The “overview effect” changes how we see our planet. Astronauts who look back at Earth come home more focused on stewardship and diplomacy. Mark’s challenge for students: “We are all crew — or we should be. Don’t be caught being a passenger on spaceship Earth.”

Try This Tomorrow

Bring a map into your classroom — a star map, a map of Mars, or even a world map — and open with a question you don’t answer for them. Mark calls this tapping into the “explorer’s mindset”: you spark discovery without handing over the answer. It costs nothing and works in any subject.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

Mark packed this conversation with places to go next. Here’s everything he mentioned, grouped so you can find what fits your classroom.

Mark’s Space Education Programs

Books Mentioned

  • Space Education: Preparing Students for Humanity’s Multi-Planet Future by Mark Wagner & Frank White — Mark’s book, which introduces the overview effect and the mindsets discussed on the show.
  • The Overview Effect by Frank White — the book that coined “the overview effect,” now in its fourth edition.
  • The Cosma Hypothesis by Frank White — Mark’s recommended next read on our “moral mandate” to spread consciousness.
  • Sharing Space by astronaut Cady Coleman — the source of the “operational mindset.” (Mark refers to her as “Katie” on air; the astronaut-author is Cady Coleman.)
  • The Next 500 Years by Christopher Mason — on engineering life to survive deep space (tardigrade DNA, radiation, and the trip to Mars).

Classroom Tools for Hands-On Space Learning

  • databot — a pocket-sized multi-sensor device for student-designed experiments.
  • MaxIQ Space — sensors, CubeSat kits, and high-altitude balloon payloads that let students send experiments toward space.

People, Places & Organizations Mentioned

About Mark Wagner

Dr. Mark Wagner is CEO and co-founder of ARES Learning, a public benefit corporation dedicated to preparing for humanity’s future in space. In this capacity he leads a space education online course for teachers, co-leads an astrogeology for educators field experience, and co-hosts a free online space education summit.

He has served as President of the Space Prize Foundation, Director of Education Partnerships at the Aldrin Family Foundation, and in a similar role with Slooh: The Cosmic Classroom.

Recently, he launched a new space education course… for everyone! Mark has a Ph.D. in Educational Technology and a master’s degree in Cross-Cultural Education. He also holds graduate certificates in Space Education and Space Philosophy. He is the author of Space Education: Preparing Students for Humanity’s Multi-Planet Future (2022).

Connect with Mark: LinkedIn · Instagram · areslearning.com · mark@areslearning.com

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Episode Transcript

This transcript was generated using AI and has been reviewed by humans for accuracy. Minor errors or artifacts may remain but I worked my best to find any issues with the transcript as I reviewed the show. – Vicki

Click to read the full transcript

John: Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the…

Vicki Davis: John, we are not doing that.

John: Long ago, in the galaxy far, far away.

Vicki Davis: This is not the intro we're supposed to be doing, John.

John: Luke, I am your father.

Vicki Davis: John, I am your mother. This is not going to be our intro.

John: I'm sorry, mother. I can't do that.

Vicki Davis: Okay, so this is what happens when a mom and son work together. Sometimes it goes a little bit off the rails. This episode is about space. This is not sci-fi. Space is actually something that we can teach in every classroom. So, John, don't you think that you're taking this space thing just a little too fast?

John: No.

Vicki Davis: I don't know what that was. But do or do not, there is no try. We are going to talk about space in any classroom. John is my son, and he and I create this show together. We love Star Wars, Star Trek, Guardians of the Galaxy, all these space things. And we just decided to have a little fun because, hey, the 10-minute teacher is back to five days a week and sometimes six. So we're going to talk with my friend Mark Wagner about how to teach about space in any classroom.

Announcer: This is the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast with your host, Vicki Davis.

Vicki Davis: Today, I'm talking with an old friend, Dr. Mark Wagner. He is CEO and co-founder of ARES Learning, president of the Space Prize Foundation, and author of Space Education, Preparing Students for Humanity's Multi-Planet Future. Mark founded EdTech Team back in 2006 and helped shape how a whole generation of us learned to use technology in the classroom. But now he's turned his attention to preparing students to the growing space economy and for a future that may include the moon, Mars, and beyond.

Mark Wagner, Ph.D.: When you reached out to me, you were talking about how excited everyone is about the Artemis mission. I am so excited to see it's taken a hold of people's imaginations in a much broader way than even the exciting headlines in the last couple of years.

Vicki Davis: So let's talk about how space took a hold of your imagination. So you spent all this time in Web 2, and then you were like, space is going to be big. Why? What was the story?

Mark Wagner, Ph.D.: It makes my 20-year education technology career almost a side story. I went to space camp a couple times as a kid in sixth grade and again in 11th grade. I originally went to school to be an astronomical engineer, but I realized at the time that the science fiction stories that inspired me were really important, and I ended up jumping ship and studying literature and teaching high school English, which is what got me into ed tech to begin with. In 2020, right before the pandemic, I had the opportunity to start thinking about what's next, bringing both those worlds full circle so that I could apply my ed tech career to what was happening in space. Between you and me, I saw a lot of parallels of how excited people were in 2006 about Google for Education and how little support there was for teachers. And if you look at 2019, there was starting to be some real excitement around SpaceX and Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic and everything that was hitting the headlines in terms of human spaceflight and commercial spaceflight, with very little support for it in schools. So literally right before COVID, some of my partners and I were talking about how to use space as an element to engage and motivate kids and teach just about anything, really.

Vicki Davis: So you talk a lot about the space economy. Interestingly, there's an AP course where they had to talk about the issues of lower orbit satellites and the lack of regulation in that area for an AP lit class. That was one of the things they analyzed this year. And I was thinking, wow, people are starting to talk about space. I mean, is it just Artemis or is it the fact people realize, hey, this is part of who we are on this earth is space?

Mark Wagner, Ph.D.: Yeah, and it's interesting. It's not necessarily a funding priority for schools just yet, at least not at large scale. But absolutely over the last five, six years, I've seen that interest notching up in a growing community of educators. Some of them have been there for decades. The Space Exploration Educators Conference, or SEEK, hit its 30th year a couple of years ago. So there's some people who have been doing this a really long time, and we're seeing a rise in the number of people that are interested in it. And for me, especially coming out of tech and kids learning socially, no matter who you are, what your strengths are, what your interests are — and this goes for teachers and students — space can be that element of engaging, motivating, hooking, being the gateway to all kinds of learning. And you mentioned, this is kind of the other big hook, especially at a societal or policy level, is the growing space economy. A couple of years ago, we passed a milestone of about $400 billion a year. At the time, they were saying it would reach a trillion dollars by 2040. But those projections now look like a trillion dollars by 2030. And I think we're still on track for that. Aerospace is growing for scientists, engineers, astronauts — there's never been more opportunities to be a part of it. And there's this growing space economy where whatever your strengths and interests are, they need you. A lot of people talk about the barista at Spaceport America where Virgin Galactic flies. But even more so, I play hockey with guys that never got a degree and they're welders and machinists, and their biggest client is SpaceX in Hawthorne. I love telling the story of one of them telling me at hockey one Saturday morning, like, Mark, those guys are the dumbest smart people I know — I've got to teach them the most basic stuff. Whether you're a welder or a barista or you're in marketing — I know space marketers, I know people in HR and space finances. I've interviewed a space fashion designer and an interior designer who works on luxury spacecraft. These are all real jobs today. There's a whole lot of opportunity in this wider space economy. I also like to joke that the opposite is true. Even if you're not interested in space, you'd better understand the opportunities that are coming out of space. So the same way in the 90s we had to convince people that learning about the internet was maybe a good idea, and now it's just a given, I like to joke: if you work for a shoe company, you'd better know the new materials coming out of micro-G environments. You'd better know what your shoe can do if it can talk to GPS and Starlink and be part of the Internet of Things. Already, satellites — particularly GPS, but also communication satellites and Earth observation satellites — impact every industry from agriculture to crime fighting. If you're not up to speed with what's happening with space technology, it's pretty equivalent to not being up to speed with what's happening with the internet. You're missing out on big opportunities and you're not really fully participating in today's economy.

Vicki Davis: You know, folks who look at all this may say, why is everybody rushing to have these lower orbit satellites? But there really is a space race to cover the whole world with the internet, right?

Mark Wagner, Ph.D.: Over the last couple of years with SpaceX and Starlink, we're already in a world where broadband access can happen regardless of borders and despots. They've used Starlink in emergency situations after hurricanes, after the fires in L.A. They put Starlink base stations out for first responders, behind enemy lines in Ukraine and elsewhere. Now you're in a new position where, like, oh, this big company controls the internet. But we're certainly in a position where you can sidestep borders. You don't need the kind of infrastructure you needed in the past. Never mind copper lines — we don't even need cell towers going forward.

Vicki Davis: What are the experts saying about how long it's going to be to have global internet?

Mark Wagner, Ph.D.: You and I remember the time of OLPC, one laptop per child. It turns out even putting a billion dollars behind something like that doesn't solve the problem. We've come a long way in narrowing the gap of who's got access to broadband and basic computing, but there's no easy solution. There's still some room to grow. But it's interesting to roll back 13 years or so. We had a guy named Rich Duvall keynote one of the Google for Education summits up in Silicon Valley, and he worked for the X Lab at the time, their moonshot factory. He had this great idea that he pitched to Larry and Sergey, as the story goes, and they said, that's a great idea, but it's going to benefit the next billion people to get online most — fix that problem first. And that's when Project Loon was born. The idea at the time was to put balloons into the stratosphere with basically 5G cell technology on them to beam internet down to the planet. A great success story there, and a great failing-forward story there. But long story short, Project Loon's gone, because somebody thought 10x that and thought even bigger. Now we've got thousands of satellites in orbit doing that job. Amazon's coming in with competition, and last I heard, Rwanda wants to launch 300,000 satellites with a similar capacity. If you've got African countries launching their own constellations, I'd say that barrier to entry is coming down.

Vicki Davis: You talk about the skill sets and the mindsets that students need for the space economy.

Mark Wagner, Ph.D.: The sort of mindsets that are good for, say, an astronaut or an engineer or a scientist turn out to also be good for an entrepreneur or a social change agent trying to solve big problems here on Earth. So I start with the explorer's mindset. You're talking about things like comfort with the unknown. It also tends to tap into the idea that people who are explorers develop a greater sense of stewardship for the environment and for the earth. I like to bring in moonshot thinking. That's the idea that when we went to the moon the first time in the 60s, we didn't know how we were going to do it when Kennedy said we're going to do that in this decade. But we did it anyway — this idea that we were going to learn by failing forward. So moonshot thinking encourages kids and educators to think big, to think outside the box, to tackle problems bigger than they might have tackled otherwise. I mean, it was a 19-year-old that solved the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, right? Most people are capable of much more than they think possible. And to me, you've got to hit that moonshot thinking before getting into a system like design thinking, because that threatens to just be iterative and get people what they already think they want. To me, those are almost a trilogy: the explorer's mindset, moonshot thinking, and design thinking. But my favorite one now is what astronaut Katie Coleman calls the operational mindset. In the business world that means something else, but to her it means it's not all about you, but you are critically important to the mission. Like for any given kid, or the teacher for that matter, it's not all about you, but you are critically important to the learning environment. Those are four that I think are really important to start with.

Vicki Davis: Where do you think that schools are falling short out of those four the most?

Mark Wagner, Ph.D.: You see a lot more project-based learning. You see a ton of design learning in schools — design thinking, design methodology. That was true a decade ago, too. I think moonshot thinking, or thinking big, is really hard, and I think giving kids the freedom to explore is really hard for schools. As a general rule, schools don't allow kids to discover on their own and wander in the wilderness a little bit — metaphorically, or literally — to find their own way. Even something as simple as bringing a map into the classroom, you can tap into that element of exploration without giving a kid the answer, letting them discover the answers on their own. That could be physical problem solving in a maker space, or — I love databot or MaxIQ.space — they make sensors that kids can use to create their own classroom experiments. They can create their own high-altitude balloon payloads. They can even send them to space with various partners. So there's this opportunity to let kids create the experiment, create the hypothesis, and figure out a way to get their hardware up into the stratosphere or up into space even. I think there's very, very little of that happening. And there are opportunities for kids to actually get their experiments up to the ISS or into orbit on other vehicles. They're not necessarily cheap, but there's some great opportunities out there. There's a book I'll recommend, The Next 500 Years by Christopher Mason — he's a microbiologist — and we've already put tardigrade DNA into human tissue to make it radiation resistant. We already know the 247 gene edits or whatever it is, something like that, to cause a human to create their own vitamin C. And if we're going to survive the trip to Mars and back — literally a couple of years ago, we learned that our kidneys won't make it. Just hands down, won't make it. The radiation is going to kill us. So we either need much heavier ships with a lot more shielding, or we're going to need to modify ourselves genetically.

Vicki Davis: Your book, Space Education, was written with Frank White, and he coined the term the overview effect. For teachers who want to dive deeper into this, what is the first chapter you would point them to in your book and why?

Mark Wagner, Ph.D.: One is he talks about the overview effect. In the book, he coined the term to capture the change in perspective that people tend to experience when they look down on the earth from space. They don't see borders. They don't see tribes. They don't see our conflict. And they see the stark reality that the earth is a relatively small and fragile ball of life hanging in the forbidding black void of space, and that thin, thin blue line of atmosphere. Everybody I've spoken to about it says it's thinner than you think. You can see the pictures of that thin blue line, and it's thinner than you think. And you think about how every living thing, aside from maybe some things in the ocean, is in that blue line. That blue line is what's protecting us. So people look down, they don't see borders typically — although my interview with So-yeon Yi from South Korea was interesting because they see a border from space. But typically people don't see borders, they don't see conflicts, they don't see our tribes. They see that we're all in this together on spaceship Earth. And they tend to come to that realization: we are all crew, or we should be. Don't be caught being a passenger on spaceship Earth. And they tend to come back more interested in diplomacy, more interested in protecting the environment. And that changes the way people interact down here. That's why astronauts have said for years, if only we could pull the politicians up to orbit or up to the moon so that they could look back on the Earth.

Vicki Davis: We've been talking with Dr. Mark Wagner, CEO and co-founder of ARES Learning, president of the Space Prize Foundation, and author of Space Education, Preparing Students for Humanity's Multi-Planet Future.

Announcer: Thanks for tuning in to the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast. Watch the video version of this podcast and catch my new radio and TV show, Cool Cat Teacher Talk, on YouTube and a radio or TV station near you. Join my Cool Cat Teacher Classroom Matters newsletter at coolcatteacher.com forward slash newsletter. Leave a review if you found this helpful. See you later, educator.

Disclosure of Material Connection: This episode includes some affiliate links. This means that if you choose to buy I will be paid a commission on the affiliate program. However, this is at no additional cost to you. 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.” This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

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Thursday, July 23, 2026

Servant Scholarship: How to Choose a Dissertation Topic That Helps

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

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Do we have any PhD candidates out there? I would argue that at this point in history, your research might matter more than ever. Here's an example that shows why.

Patrick O’Neil at a community college in Indianapolis has literally set AI in education on its head. So, he read the research on AI, and something didn’t add up. Justin Reich, associate professor of digital media at MIT, shared this on LinkedIn, said:

So he [Patrick] did what any normal person would do: 1) he read 40 papers and chapters on meta-analytic methods teaching himself the field, 2) found and carefully read 14 meta-analyses on GenAI and education, 3) read a sample of 60 of the underlying papers in these analyses. Finally, he did 4) published a forensic review of these 14 papers.

If you love educational research as I do—if you love helping practicing teachers get evidence to support good practice—I suspect you will find the review very disturbing.

None of the 14 papers have a coherent outcome measure, lumping indicators of mental health alongside tests alongside self-reports of perceived learning. 11 of 14 have no study population criteria, so children can be included alongside medical trainees. Six of the meta-analyses include a paper with fabricated citations. Three meta-analyses include a study with references published before November 2022 that refer to ChatGPT. The main paper summarizes and illustrates these problems, and the included appendices provide a review of each meta-analysis. I find Patrick’s work to be thorough and compelling.

The operative word there. Patrick read. He read. He thought. He examined. And then, Patrick wrote. A chemistry teacher at a local university didn't like what he read. Look at this!

As I was reading Patrick’s paper, I remembered an interview I did with Dr. Maggie Broderick about servant scholarship and the need for research at the graduate level that makes education a better place.

Honestly, from what I saw Patrick do, it seems like real research (where you set aside the AI and actually read the papers yourself and follow every link) may add more value than anyone can imagine. In the age of AI, Patrick proves that it is humans who actually do the work who excel. And that is the kind of servant scholarship we all need.

So, if you're choosing your dissertation topic and you're in the field of education, I hope you'll consider research that can be part of your service to humankind. If you're going to use your brainpower, use it for good. Serve with your study! Humans are more important than ever! Maggie really is encouraging for PhD students. Let me hear from you. What do you think?

“It’s much more of a process than a product.”

Dr. Maggie Broderick

Associate Professor, National University

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Dr. Maggie Broderick is an associate professor at National University, where she serves as a dissertation chair and as a faculty lead for Social Emotional Learning and Curriculum and Instruction. She is also the director of NU’s Advanced Research Center and the editor of the International Journal of Online Graduate Education. Dr. Broderick is an active scholar who is passionate about teaching and learning at all levels.

Connect with Maggie on LinkedIn.

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If Maggie’s idea of servant scholarship resonated, share this episode with a colleague who’s thinking about a doctorate.

Episode Transcript

This transcript was generated using AI and has been reviewed by humans for accuracy. Minor errors or artifacts may remain but I worked my best to find any issues with the transcript as I reviewed the show. – Vicki

Click to read the full transcript

Vicki Davis: Today, we're talking with Maggie Broderick about social-emotional learning at the college level. Now, this is important because we do want our students to be prepared for the next level, and you could argue that some of these things we need to be teaching at the high school or even junior high level. Happy Thought Leader Thursday!

Announcer: This is the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast with your host, Vicki Davis.

Vicki Davis: I'm so excited today to be talking to Dr. Maggie Broderick. She's associate professor at National University and editor of the Journal of Online Graduate Education. Maggie, I know that you've written about everything from social-emotional learning to research-based guidance for teachers of less commonly taught content areas. But there's this kind of overarching passion you have about servant scholarship. What is that?

Maggie Broderick: Thanks so much, Vicki. It's great to be here. I love your podcast. I was thinking about how you do so much with PK through 12 and also thinking about higher ed, how those go together. And servant scholarship, I guess you would say, is sort of my heart of a teacher. I think a lot about that. Why is somebody a teacher? Also about my role in higher education. Why does somebody publish and present if they do some kind of scholarly work? Basically, what's their why? What's their motivation and their whole reason for doing it? Because it's a lot of work. If you want to write a chapter or a book, publish a journal with peer review or present at a conference, you're signing yourself up for a lot. It's not a quick thing. And you really have to pour your heart and soul in. So I think, OK, people kind of need a little guidance on that journey. There's so much out there these days. So the idea is that if we have that kind of lens where we're thinking, what good can we do for everything once we're not there anymore, sort of planting trees won't see someday, that can be our muse and really give us a guidance for how we choose to publish and present. Because there's just so much out there and so many avenues, people get stuck. It's just a good way to think about sort of a servant leadership mindset towards your scholarship.

Vicki Davis: I sort of think that when you wrote the book, Navigating the School as a Smaller Fish, is there a servant scholarship story behind that book?

Maggie Broderick: I was really grateful. With that chapter, it was in a book a colleague of mine did, well, two colleagues, and they were looking for basically guidance for new teachers because we have such attrition rates, right? Hasn't everybody heard that statistic that an enormous number of teachers leave within the first five years? I thought to myself, well, I taught music and German, which is a little different, right? And I teach ESL teachers and I was like, well, I don't know the research on that just yet. I'd like to bet their role is even harder in terms of that attrition. There's a lot. And I thought, gosh, we need to support those teachers. So I reached out to some colleagues and colleagues of colleagues and friends of friends and just said, can you share some anecdotes of what it's like to be that small fish, right? What is it like when you are the only, let's say, Russian teacher in a program within this enormous high school and you have this role for all this time and maybe you don't have colleagues who quite get your groove. You're doing something different. And we find that often those are sort of safe spaces and really extra wonderful places for our students. When teachers have that emotion labor within themselves, they give that to their students and that beautiful gift of helping the students. We need to support those teachers, too, when they're doing those beautiful things. Let's say it's in an art class over in that wing of the high school, or maybe it's the marching band or something like this. Less commonly taught, so maybe they need a different kind of support.

Vicki Davis: Some of the greatest schools that I've seen, I'm thinking of the American School of Bombay with my friend Shabbi Luthra, who's actually director of research. Some K-12 schools, larger, well-funded schools, have research directors because they understand to truly look at their unique situation and unique environment and the unique time and history in which we are. We have to do research to understand that attitude of constantly doing research, is a powerful one. So how can we empower more of our Ph.D. students? It's not about just picking something out of the blue that's easy. It's about having a servant's heart with what you select that can actually help people, right?

Maggie Broderick: Absolutely. It's so interesting, Vicki, because I've been sharing dissertations since, I think, gosh, 2016 as a chair and maybe 2012 or 2013 as a committee member, over a decade being on dissertation committees. So you end up with like this portfolio of many dissertations you've looked at over the years, and they're lengthy, right. And you do see a pattern like anyone who does this and wants to do a doctoral degree can learn the basics. How can I do research? What is qualitative? What is quantitative? What's an appropriate methodology? What are the steps in making a lit review? Right. But like you said, to make it something actually from your heart and not just learning sort of the ropes and the ways to be a researcher, I think that makes that connection between research and practice. Right. So we're not just learning sort of, oh, how do I do a correlational analysis? We learn how will that impact maybe, I don't know, the English language learners at my school or maybe parental engagement, all kinds of things. I have a student right now who's about to defend and I talk about her work a lot. Mary Alvarez is her name. And Mary is doing her dissertation on people who left the profession after COVID. They just said, hey, I'm retiring. I could stick around. I'm still pretty young. Teachers, maybe they retire after 30 years, but they're like, I'm out of here. And she really wants to understand what their stories were. I think that's helpful because something could happen again. We don't know what's going to ever happen. What are things that can go on and suddenly we have a bunch of teachers leaving? What can we do to support the teachers? It's a really heartfelt message there of servant leadership. We need to understand, okay, why did they leave? What was the decision there? What would we do perhaps differently if we had a chance, you know?

Vicki Davis: And this profession is a noble profession, and we need to partner. Researchers and practitioners in the classroom and our best, most noblest, we are friends and partners and collaborators, not two separate things. Because there are some teachers who feel like, well, Ivory Tower, they don't get the classroom. But you're talking about people who actually get the classroom and do the research.

Maggie Broderick: Right. It's so important to make that connection. It's almost one of those mantras that you hear, oh, let's connect research and practice. Yay. But it's so much deeper than just like sort of reading one article and saying, I'm going to try that new tip or trick, which is good. If you see something in an article and go, I'm going to try that today. Like I think of Tomlinson's differentiated instruction and how widespread that is now and how it took some time, you know, actually for us to change our mindset. And that's connecting research and practice. But even at a deeper level, sometimes it's a very specific population. I've had doctoral students in American Samoa, for example, who are Native American who work in a school where it's a tribal school or something like this. Their problems are specific sometimes to their context. So it might not just be a widespread sort of connection with differentiated instruction, which is super important, but maybe it's something very specific to that group or that context. Maybe it's rural, urban, suburban, whatever the case may be. We have a very diverse country here with lots of different pockets of people who have different needs, you know?

Vicki Davis: One of the things I think frustrates some teachers is that a lot of the research these days is being funded by the tool companies. I've never seen a tool that improves learning. It's always how the teacher uses the tool, supports the tool, is the pedagogy around the tool. So I know that researchers need funding. And yes, PhD, that's at a little different stage, but you work with researchers of all types. How can researchers maintain a servant heart, still get funding without, quote, selling out?

Maggie Broderick: Well, that's a great question. It's so much in the world today, especially in our country, I think, where money is the language, right? We all know money speaks volumes sometimes. No, I'm thinking about sort of the first part of what you asked, because that teacher being so much more important than, say, some packaged item, it's a dispositional thing, right? So I think about dispositions for teachers, and I've done research on that connecting with SEL. I think that's true for researchers, too. I think the disposition of a researcher matters. And do they care more about fame and money or sort of having a resume that's like really, really long and extensive? Or do they care more about making that impact? And it might end up being somewhere in the middle. Most people who publish and present aren't going to make money on it. It's pretty rare, but I think we need to give a bit of encouragement, put their name out there and say, there's a balancing act, right? We don't want it to be totally pro bono per se, but we also want it to be unbiased, appropriate. So that's a really great question. I think it kind of depends on who you're asking. If you're asking the people I work with more as sort of just a small, I do a very simple book chapter as opposed to sort of these huge grants and things like that, right? So I think there's two different sets maybe.

Vicki Davis: Well, for me, I'm a classroom teacher, but also need to fund the podcast and the newsletter. And that's thousands of dollars. I'll probably turn away 95% of the people who want to sponsor. But you know what, there's that 5% of organizations and tools I would recommend anyway. To me, my litmus test is, if I would recommend this anyway, and does their culture respect the artistry of the teacher? So we can't always judge as teachers and say, oh, I'm going to do that. A tool company sponsored this, so we just have to throw it out. There is research out there that can be very helpful for us, even if funded by a big company. I do think it's the heart of the researcher, which sometimes can be hard to get at unless you look at their body of work, because doesn't body of work matter?

Maggie Broderick: 100%. And we have to collaborate. When you're looking at that, is the person doing everything sort of just on their own? Or are they sort of like, I'm going to come over here and work with you and with you, and then we all come together. It's that spirit of collaboration. And that's one of our four C's, right? We've been hearing about for 24 years now, the 21st century skills. But I think it's still super relevant that collaboration and research, just like collaboration and teaching, just makes everything richer.

Vicki Davis: Well, and I do want to point out that servant scholarship can filter down to every grade level because I've seen students do research about this. The school had some money and they're trying to figure out where we're going to put the basketball court or they're trying to figure out how to improve their recycling program or what type of things need to be added on campus. And the students do research. They do servant scholarship. I mean, this is far-reaching of how can we do research that serves our communities? That's so powerful.

Maggie Broderick: I love that. I mean, I always think about adding in that policy piece, right? Like research, practice, policy. It's not just your practice, like we said, with differentiated instruction, which is super important, but also your policies. What are you going to do for equity of distribution of resources like the basketball court or whatever the case may be and all of that? And really having kids understand the research process and the why behind it could be really powerful to make that lasting in them instead of sort of, just like we said with doctoral students, oh, you've learned the ropes. That's great. If the more to it is what's really motivating and engaging.

Vicki Davis: If we look at the characteristics of this younger generation coming up into scholarship, into teaching, Purpose is a big part of why they want to work, isn't it?

Maggie Broderick: I have three kids. One is 22, one's 18, and one's 13. And I see that a lot. Two of them are old enough to vote, and we have discussions, and the 13-year-old still wants to have those discussions. The purpose, like, what are we doing? Why are we doing it? Instead of just going with the flow and learning sort of the more shallow level understanding of things, they want to go pretty deep. I love that.

Vicki Davis: So, Dr. Maggie Broderick, why don't we finish up with just a quick pep talk encouragement for all of our listeners who are looking at earning their PhD. It is something you have to earn. You have to work for it. It's not given to you anywhere I know of. So could you give them a little pep talk about selecting their topics for their dissertation in this servant scholarship approach?

Maggie Broderick: I think it's helpful. A lot of people don't realize that there are various types of doctoral degrees. You might think you can only get the PhD, but there's the PhD and the EDD within education and other ones that are tangential to education. There's really, I don't want to say something for everyone because it's a special niche to want to go that far, but people might be surprised that they have options. And then within that, just really have that growth mindset, which we want to see in our students. Keep thinking, I'm just on a journey. And then eventually you do work with your committee in a PhD or an EDD program and just understand you're going to get different perspectives and your role is to look at all of that and make sense of it and try to grow through it. It's much more of a process than a product. So we really want to think about our growth and our growth mindset and understanding that that's a journey that may take a lot of time, but just like lots of things that take time, it's really worth it to have that beautiful, transformational kind of growth within yourself.

Vicki Davis: Dr. Maggie Broderick, thank you for your time today. And thank you for this terminology of servant scholarship. I absolutely love this and I'll be using this one. Thank you.

Maggie Broderick: Thanks, Vicki. It's great to be here today.

Vicki Davis: Thanks for tuning in to the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast. Watch the video version of this podcast and catch my new radio and TV show, Cool Cat Teacher Talk, on YouTube and a radio or TV station near you. Join my Cool Cat Teacher Classroom Matters newsletter at coolcatteacher.com forward slash newsletter. Leave a review if you found this helpful. See you later, educator.

A Note from Vicki

As we work to live, grow, and thrive in the AI age, I hope we all recognize the value of true human connection. I work hard to add my perspectives and personal insights to every blog post and to each podcast episode, with news from right now. I do use AI to generate the summary and the transcript. I think AI adds value there. But I believe I add value to you with my thoughts. Part of the conversations we should have is where humans have a true advantage and where we best improve the world. I think this show is an important conversation for PhD programs everywhere, as I think Maggie makes some great points. I hope you join the conversation. Don't play king or queen of the hill — make a bigger hill. (And yes, you can quote me on that!)

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Wednesday, July 22, 2026

Project-Based Social Studies Ideas Students Never Forget

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

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The 2026 New Hampshire Teacher of the Year Megan Philbrook made a real difference in her classroom, her social studies class. Project-based learning is part of an awesome teacher’s toolkit. While we may not use it every day, the two or three times a year or a semester that we do will make a huge difference, and it might just change your life like it did for Megan.

Watch on YouTube and subscribe for new episodes every week.

Key Takeaways for Teachers from Megan Philbrook

  • “Every single interaction has to be done with such care and even just such intention.” Her fifth graders play rock, paper, scissors to enter the room — thirty seconds that tells every kid this class is a good place to be.
  • Reuse last year’s student projects to inspire this year’s students. Megan played her seventh graders’ self-written, self-filmed Ancient Rome play for the third graders — little kids rise toward what the big kids built.
  • “Look through the window” at history — and retire the word “we.” We didn’t fight the American Revolution, so her students examine the perspectives of the people who did — a discourse move that takes the heat out of hard history.
  • Tap your state’s free resources for America’s 250th. Megan says the training she hosted drew 60 educators representing 51 schools to hear what free semiquincentennial resources their state entities already offer.

Try This Tomorrow

Greet your class at the door with rock, paper, scissors — beat the teacher and walk in; lose and head to the back of the line. One round per student, zero prep, and every kid starts class with a smile and a moment of connection.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

About Megan Philbrook (Bio as Submitted)

Megan-Philbrook-headshot
Megan-Philbrook-headshot

Megan Philbrook is a social studies teacher for grades five through eight at a rural K-8 school in New Hampshire. Philbrook holds a Bachelor of Arts in history and secondary education from Wheaton College. Her course load includes fifth- grade World Citizenship, sixth-grade Ancient Civilizations, seventh-grade World History, and eighth-grade American Studies.

Philbrook is known for her dynamic, student-centered teaching style, which she calls Top Notch Teaching for the 603. Her pedagogy emphasizes connecting classroom content to real-world experiences, encouraging students to engage deeply with history, and understand their role in a democratic society.

In 2025, Philbrook's commitment to civic education and historical inquiry has been widely recognized. She was awarded an American Battlefield Trust Field Trip Grant, earned a competitive scholarship to attend the National Teacher's Institute at Gettysburg battlefield, was accepted into the iCivics Leadership Academy, and was selected for the National History Day Silent Heroes project celebrating WWII Marine Corps Veterans from NH.

Beyond her classroom, Philbrook is a dedicated school and community leader. She co-leads Andover Elementary/Middle School's technology integration team and volunteers at her local library to fundraise and bring literacy initiatives to young readers.

As a historian and educator, Philbrook is currently preparing her school and town to commemorate the United States Semiquincentennial in 2026. She is actively involved in promoting state-level planning for America's 250th birthday and is leading student-driven civic projects designed to deepen understanding of U.S. history, government, and their active citizenship.

She is honored to serve as the 2026 New Hampshire Teacher of the Year.

Follow Megan on Instagram at @TopNotch603Teaching and on her “NH Teacher of the Year” Facebook fanpage.

Other Shows for Middle School and Social Studies Teachers

And every week on my radio/TV show Cool Cat Teacher Talk, I dig into topics like this with multiple educators.

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If this show helped you, would you leave a quick rating or review wherever you listen? It helps other teachers find these conversations.

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Tuesday, July 21, 2026

Building Apps with Students Using MAD-learn

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Subscribe to the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast and Cool Cat Teacher Talk anywhere you listen to podcasts.

Can elementary students really build their own apps? I've been building apps with my students for years — I even led a global collaborative app project back in 2017 with classrooms around the world, and blogged about it on Edutopia. This is a fantastic app building tool for students. This year, we even vibe coded, as there's a place to put code into it, and created some fantastic apps.

Watch on YouTube and subscribe for new episodes every week.

Key Takeaways for Teachers from Erin Keith and Edward Courtney

  • Students move from consumers to creators. When kids build their own apps, they stop just using technology and start making it — and that shift changes how they see themselves as learners.
  • The soft skills are the real curriculum. Erin's students build persistence, collaboration, and problem-solving — the very skills the future will ask of them — while they think they're “just” building an app.
  • Apps become acts of service. Edward's students built apps to save their school, protect sea turtles, and support their beach community; Erin's built “Meet the Teacher” apps to welcome next year's class. The work turns outward toward helping others.
  • Introduce AI with care and a plan. Both teachers frame AI as a tool — not a person — and teach it with guardrails, echoing Dr. Nancy Frey's line that “it's okay to have a ban as long as you have a plan.”

Try This Tomorrow

Ask students to name one real problem in your school or community, then sketch a three-screen app on paper that helps solve it: a home screen, an information screen, and a “take action” screen. No devices required — you're teaching the design process before anyone writes a line of code.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

About Erin Keith (Bio as Submitted)

I am the Computer Science Teacher and Technology Specialist at Kedron Elementary School in Fayette County, Georgia. Thirteen years of teaching experience has reinforced my passion for education and also ignited my interest in technology. As the Computer Science Teacher, I teach digital citizenship, Google applied skills, 3D modeling and printing, mobile app development, robotics, graphic design, video production, and block coding to kindergarten through fifth grade students. I had the honor of receiving the 2025 Computational Thinking award, presented by Dr. Richard Woods and the Georgia Department of Education. As the Technology Specialist, I maintain all of the devices in the building, I lead technology based school improvement initiatives, and I manage mass communications for Kedron. Prior to working at Kedron, I was a high school English teacher. As an English teacher, I served in technology focused leadership roles by serving on the Learning Management System Evaluation Committee, the 1:1 Technology Rollout Committee, the Personalized Learning Committee, the Virtual Teacher Exemplar Committee, and as a virtual course designer and a virtual course teacher. Through these experiences I have gained expertise in both leadership and instructional technology. Most importantly, I have enjoyed a plethora of opportunities to experience, promote, and advocate for the teaching and learning of technology skills.

About Edward Courtney (Bio as Sumitted)

Mr. Edward Courtney is a certified elementary & special education classroom teacher and has worked in the field for 8 years. He has received recognition and several local and regional accolades for technology innovation in the classroom. He has a MS in Teaching from Fordham University and a BS in Psychology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. In addition to his professional degrees, he is also certified in school building and district leadership. Mr. Courtney currently works for Long Beach Public Schools located in Long Beach, NY at East Elementary School as a K-5 WINGS teacher. WINGS, or What I Need to Grow as a Student, provides students with opportunities for differentiation and personalized learning paths. Mr. Courtney believes that we are all lifelong learners and strives to create meaningful and collaborative learning environments.

Connect with Edward on X: @MrCourtneyNY.

Other Shows for Teachers Bringing Tech Into the Classroom

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If this episode helped you, please leave a rating and review — it helps more teachers find the show.

Episode Transcript

This transcript was generated using AI and has been reviewed by humans for accuracy. Minor errors or artifacts may remain but I worked my best to find any issues with the transcript as I reviewed the show. – Vicki

Click to read the full transcript

Vicki Davis: Happy Tech Tool Tuesday. Today we're talking about MAD-learn, one of my favorite tools for creating apps with students. Let's learn.

Announcer: This is the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast with your host, Vicki Davis.

Vicki Davis: Today's sponsor is MAD-learn, my favorite app development tool for students. Stick around at the end of today's show to hear more, or visit coolcatteacher.com/madlearn.

Vicki Davis: Can you build apps with students? We have with us today two elementary teachers, Erin Keith and Mr. Edward Courtney. As we talk about building apps with kids, we all use something called MAD-learn. I use it in my classroom and they use it as well. So Erin, we're going to start with you. You're the computer science teacher and technology specialist at Kedron Elementary School in Fayette County, Georgia. She has 13 years of teaching experience. So Erin, how did you get into making apps with kids?

Erin Keith: Let me give you some of my background to help you understand my foray into mobile app development. I have been teaching for now 14 years — the first 10 years of my experience was high school English. In 2020, I jumped on board with virtual course development and got very involved in instructional technology and made a career shift from high school English to elementary computer science. That being said, I need everyone to know that my first experience with mobile app development came with almost zero computer science knowledge. Since then, I have taken a lot of classes and I feel much more qualified for the position that I'm in. But when I started, I had no coding experience, and it was easy. And so I feel like if I can do it, and if I can make it something really special for my students, then anyone can. I just really love it. It may sound intimidating at first, but the way that the software is presented, it's as simple as it can be, and it takes students through the entire design process so that they're learning those skills, as well as computer science, coding, app development — those pieces too.

Vicki Davis: So we have Mr. Edward Courtney also with us. He's a certified elementary and special education classroom teacher. He's worked in the field for eight years, and Mr. Courtney currently works for Long Beach Public Schools located in Long Beach, New York, at East Elementary School as a K-5 WINGS teacher. Okay Edward, I have to ask — what is a WINGS teacher? And then you can tell us how you got into app development.

Edward Courtney: WINGS is an acronym for “What I Need to Grow as a Student.” And the program came to life four years ago. I was a fourth grade teacher before that, and then this opportunity presented itself where I step out as a classroom teacher and become more of a building teacher. So I am able to interact with every student in our building. And through this program, we get to work on individualized projects. We get to push enrichment, technology, gameplay — all learning from what the student needs, diving into questions that the students have on their mind that they really can't get to in the typical classroom day. So we have an opportunity to explore different platforms. At a tech conference, I was in a room learning about Genius Time, which I implemented with the WINGS program. And they spoke about this app called MAD-learn. And I was like, I am very intrigued by this. My students will love it. How can we get this? Working with MAD-learn, I found this amazing platform that I'm sure we can all agree upon that the students love. I, along with Erin, know nothing about coding. I am still very much a basic user of coding, but the platform itself is so user friendly that someone like myself — like my third, fourth, fifth graders — can really dive into it and see their work come to life. And that's a huge plus in my book.

Vicki Davis: Well, I first saw this when a fifth grader, back when ISTE was in Atlanta, was presenting a science app that she had made. And I thought to myself, wow, I really want to do some more app building. We actually did a global collaborative app building project that first year. It's such a great way to incorporate project-based learning, problem-based learning, and really harnessing student passions and even writing. Let's talk about some of your favorite apps that your students have built, and I might sprinkle in a few of my favorites too. Edward, do you want to start?

Edward Courtney: Last year, when we fully embraced the MAD-learn platform and I introduced it to my students, we were actually going through a difficult time with our building with a potential school closure happening. The students — we were currently working in an activism and advocacy unit, and I started introducing them to MAD-learn. We learned the curriculum, and all the kids wanted to do was share how to save East School. Their focus on their apps was this advocacy piece. And while some students did save East School — share information, facts, all about what we could do to support it — other students pivoted in a different direction with educating others on save the rainforest, save the sea turtles, save our beach, being a beach community. So that really lent itself to the app development with advocacy, activism, and sharing knowledge with others that we can do something and implement change.

Erin Keith: I've had the opportunity now to try several different projects. I've encouraged students to identify problems and solve the problems with the apps that they're building. And when you leave it that open-ended, you get some really interesting results. We are also a Leader in Me school. So that's based on Stephen Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective Leaders, and so it's our character development program here at Kedron. We are currently using MAD-learn to develop digital portfolios for our students. It's a great application for the platform. Another one is I've encouraged students to build apps that will help the rising students. So I've had students create Meet the Teacher apps so that they are essentially informing the rising students of what they need to know — the ins and outs of the current teacher that they have in the classroom. And that's been really fun and entertaining. But my favorite way that I've seen this unfold is when I teach them how to build the app in computer science for a specific reason — maybe for the Leader in Me portfolio — they then have that skill and they apply it to other contexts. For example, our students participate in an InVenture project through Georgia Tech, and they get to build something. And these students will come to me and say, here is my idea, this is what I'm creating for InVenture, let's build this app.

Vicki Davis: I teach ninth grade, so a little bit older, but still the same concept. My students identify a problem. They've self-formed teams. I coach them a little bit, so I shift over into being coach versus quote “teacher.” And I do teach them some things about graphic design and color theory and all that sort of thing. But I actually teach the person on their team they have designated. So they have a project manager, assistant project manager, graphic designer. So the graphic designers might meet with me and do something, or the others might meet with me and do another thing. Then we have a shark tank, and we have three judges who come in and judge, and they compete and they present, and the parents come. And we've had everything from Drone Zone, an app that categorized all different types of drones, to iCare, an app that was all about — people care, but they don't know how to care, they don't know how to be kind. And one of the most powerful ones I ever saw that really changed the lives of the students that one year was one called Uncut. It was against self-harm. We had to be really, really careful, because as they proposed their project, I actually found it was a problem for some of the kids on the team. But they're like, we want to know how to help with this. I had to involve our counselor, and we had to do it. It was done in such a tasteful way, but it was really about “you are great the way you are.” And it was such a powerful, moving app. So your kids come in and they propose these apps and they pitch these apps and they create the apps. When your administration comes to you and says, “Hey Erin and Edward, what are the kids learning?” — what are some of the things you feel like that they're learning as they're creating the apps, besides “hey, I'm making an app,” right?

Erin Keith: So I spoke earlier to the design process, which is definitely a section of our computer science standards. It's easy to argue for computational thinking, for problem solving, for all of these skills that we're watching them master. But my favorite part — and what I think the future will desire of our students — are the soft skills. It's that they are working with each other, bouncing ideas off each other, they are learning to be persistent when they hit a wall and they can't really figure out what to do next. I think that it's incredible that they are able to develop apps as young children. But I don't think that when they graduate that that's really the skill that the future is going to need of them. I think it's going to be all of those other pieces that come to the forefront when they have the opportunity to do something like this.

Vicki Davis: Great answer. Edward?

Edward Courtney: Couldn't agree more. The soft skills behind the process of working together through the app building — the design process that is built into MAD-learn is so huge and really can be transferred into any other area beyond the app building, because it is a step-by-step process. It's methodical, where at the end you see what the results are and you can check it in real time and give yourself feedback in the moment and really respond to what you're doing in the moment. That is such a critical skill that students can transfer into other areas and see success in all of their growth and their learning.

Vicki Davis: Okay, so this is incredible, because that's exactly what — we're going to talk technology here — you know, it's the emotional intelligence. I also have older students, so I do teach them the appropriate ways to get UX feedback from AI, and how you can interact with AI and get your appropriate color scheme into logos. Now, since the inception of AI, the graphic design capabilities of my students getting feedback from AI — since they're in ninth grade and they're allowed to do that — are just amazing. But the other thing is I pull a lot of content from Adam Grant's book Hidden Potential and talk about, do teams work well together. I also share the statistic that in high school — typically, and actually all the way K through 12 — team captains are usually elected that are extroverts. But very often, the best team captains are actually not extroverts. And not that we want to be anti-extrovert, but it seems that in K-12 we're so pro-extrovert, to the point that it's hard for our teams to get anything done because we elect the person who talks the most. What's happened since I've been sharing — we listened to some of it, we talk about some of his content — is that the students who are elected the head of these teams, these self-forming teams, are now different students than would have been elected five years ago. And the team dynamics are incredible. But just helping the kids say, I'm going to look at who brings us together, I'm going to look at who helps us work together — that emotional intelligence is just priceless. My kids come back years later and say, wow, one of the best things I ever did was build an app. What do your students say when they get all the way through?

Erin Keith: Students who typically struggle with being distracted, or who can't really absorb a significant amount of instruction at one time — that's gone, because they want to do it. They're excited to do it. It's not something special that I had to orchestrate. It's just part of building the app that all of a sudden we have this excitement and this engagement, and we are accomplishing so much so quickly because they're so excited about it.

Edward Courtney: I introduced the platform in third grade. It's for my third, fourth, and fifth graders. And I see them at the start of third grade, see them again fourth grade, see them again fifth grade. And we celebrate the initial start at the end of the unit in third grade, and we say, oh my gosh, you made an app, congratulations. You see the progress that you made, and you see your design all the way through from start to finish. I reintroduced it again in fourth grade, and they were like, I want to change my app from last year, I want to finesse my app from last year. And they can then grow with the app, and there's no stopping point. They can revisit it, they can make tweaks as they learn and grow. And that's one of the most amazing things — that's one of the shining stars through this app, through our unit — is that they can grow with the app, and they can get real-time feedback that helps them to understand, grow, and learn along the way.

Vicki Davis: So we keep talking apps, and I do want to clarify that — people might say, well, are these apps protected? Right. They are private. They're not officially on the app store. There are QR codes where anybody can launch them who has the QR code and look at the apps. There is a way — I've had a couple of my students receive sponsorships to launch these onto the official app stores for the phones that anybody could download. But it is sort of a protected place for the kids. It's not like they're live immediately. It's a protected app environment. Edward, have you had any kids who've surprised you?

Edward Courtney: My three, four, five level have just started to dabble into AI. And with the way that technology is constantly evolving, and knowing that the skills we are teaching students today need to transfer into careers in the future — we don't even know what those careers could potentially be — it's so important for us to teach it the right way, or to teach it in a way that can be, again, transferable, things that can really see through many different iterations of it. So for myself, we are currently building an AI unit where students will become their own prompt engineers. That's the key, the meat of it all. If you're not putting in the correct prompt, then you're not going to get the output that you are ideally looking for. Doing it in a safe manner, doing it in the correct, efficient manner — that's what we are starting to work on with the elementary students. So far it's been really engaging. The kids enjoy it so much. We've dabbled into Magic Media with Canva, where they are creating these outrageous, fun, silly images that we then talk about, we reflect on — how do you know that this is AI? How does it look different than something real? It's making sure that they understand the technology, the tools, how to use them safely, how to use them correctly, and reflecting on that process. That's where the awe, the inspiration, the spark comes in. And it's been so much fun so far.

Vicki Davis: And let me applaud you, because some folks just rush into AI everything. But there's a darker side of AI, particularly with kids who can struggle with understanding that AI is a tool. It's not a he or she. It's not human. It is just a computer tool that you can chat with, which is just so powerful. But we do have to have care and wisdom. I had Dr. Nancy Frey on the show not too long ago, and she said, you know, it's okay to have a ban as long as you have a plan. You don't have to start with it wide open, but you do need to have a plan for how you're going to get there. And it's great to see that both of you are doing that. Mr. Edward Courtney, Erin Keith — thank you both for coming on the show.

Erin Keith: Thank you for having us, Vicki.

Edward Courtney: Thank you so much.

Vicki Davis: MAD-learn is my go-to app development tool for students, and here's why it stands out. It's not just about coding. MAD-learn guides students through the entire design process using six built-in modules covering ideation, planning, designing, building, testing, and launching — all in one place. My ninth graders have built everything from study tools to stress reduction apps to apps about hobbies that they love. And they own every step of the process. If you want your students to think like designers and builders, visit coolcatteacher.com/madlearn. That's coolcatteacher.com/madlearn.

Vicki Davis: Thanks for tuning in to the 10-Minute Teacher Podcast. Watch the video version of this podcast and catch my new radio and TV show, Cool Cat Teacher Talk, on YouTube and a radio or TV station near you. Join my Cool Cat Teacher Classroom Matters newsletter at coolcatteacher.com/newsletter. Leave a review if you found this helpful. See you later, educator.

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a sponsored episode and blog post. MAD-learn has compensated me to share information about MAD-learn. However, all opinions expressed are my own. I have personally reviewed these resources and only recommend tools I believe offer genuine value to classroom teachers. My endorsement is limited to the educational products and services discussed in this episode. 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.” The sponsor has no impact on the editorial content of this show.

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Monday, July 20, 2026

Valuing Students and Teachers: Become a Hope Agent

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Subscribe to the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast and Cool Cat Teacher Talk anywhere you listen to podcasts.

This show is encouraging and hard at the same time. Debbie Simões survived South Phoenix shootouts, five-year-olds cursing her, and an assault that left her with a bruised liver, kidney, and separated shoulder. She still chooses to see the value in every child and to advise a way forward. Our value as teachers and students is not in whether we get everything right, but in just who we are. Each of us is valuable. Each of us needs hope. And we can be hope agents for each other! Her mantra is, “We are people of value who value people and add value to them.”

If you think your situation is too hard and nobody understands, Debbie does. Yet she is advising us on a way forward. One anchored in the truth of how hard and heartbreaking education can be in the hardest schools.

Now, we work hard to get the shows down to 10 minutes but on this one, my son John, who edits, came to me and said, “Mom, this is too important and I feel like she has lived this.” She’s perfect for a Motivational Monday. I challenge all of us to be a hope agent today for someone. Do something small. Be an encourager. Text someone. Take someone to lunch. Debbie shares how.

“We are people of value who value people and add value to them.”

Debbie Simões

Founder, Best Questers · Co-author, High Five to Thrive

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My journey began teaching in inner-city classrooms, where I saw firsthand that student success was deeply tied to relationships, mindset, and school culture. I became a student—not just of pedagogy—but of how leadership, connection, and collective thought shape both teachers’ and students’ outcomes. Frustrated by bureaucracy, I helped open a dual-language charter school and served as principal, leading everything from instructional coaching to Title I, ESOL, and ESE compliance. I also served as Director of a university-based lab school. Along the way, I’ve earned two M.Ed.’s, devoured books, studied business and organizational coaching, enrolled in coaching programs, and trained with John Maxwell’s Leadership Team and the Center for Teacher Effectiveness.

Five years ago I started my own business, Best Questers, to equip educators—from the boardroom to the classroom—with practical, relevant, and meaningful tools that foster holistic growth and cultivate a hopeful, happy culture of belonging. I believe, as John Maxwell teaches, “We are people of value who value people and add value to them.” That belief drives everything I do. My calling in this season of my career is to equip and empower educators to live out their noble purpose with excellence, joy and hope. All teachers and students should love stepping into their greatness together each day!

Connect with Debbie at bestquesters.net and read High Five to Thrive.

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If this episode encouraged you, would you leave a rating or review? It helps another tired teacher find a little hope.

Episode Transcript

This transcript was generated using AI and has been reviewed by humans for accuracy. Minor errors or artifacts may remain but I worked my best to find any issues with the transcript as I reviewed the show. – Vicki

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Vicki Davis: Happy Motivational Monday. This is episode 950, and we’re talking about the importance of feeling valued in education. Our guest today encourages us teachers to be a hope agent — somebody who refills another person’s tank when it’s running low. Here are three ways you can become a hope agent this week. One: find someone who needs encouragement and leave them an anonymous note. Two: when you see someone doing something awesome, tell their administrator — not them, their principal. Let it come back to them from above. And three: put one positive into every conversation. Become a hope agent.

Announcer: This is the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast with your host, Vicki Davis.

Vicki Davis: I’m excited today to be talking with Debbie Simões. She’s the founder of Best Questers. She’s a John Maxwell certified coach and dedicated to equipping educators with leadership skills and helping people know that they are valued. Her newest book is High Five to Thrive. Now, Debbie, it’s really important to you that people feel valued. Why are you passionate about this?

Debbie Simões: Our potential — it’s tied to being valued and feeling valued, because what you think and believe has everything to do with what you achieve. Every single one of us is a person of value. We don’t always know that, and we’re not always treated like that, and sometimes we don’t even treat ourselves like that.

Vicki Davis: It is true. My classroom is called Masterpiece Theater. Ephesians 2:10 is my inspiration, because I believe every single one of us is a masterpiece. And just valuing people, slowing down and realizing that even that person who’s driving you crazy or whatever, they’re a person of value — that’s so important, especially in schools where our job is people.

Debbie Simões: That’s right. It just floods over into every single aspect of life. I think it’s something that we don’t always keep in the front of our mind. But when you really value people and you keep that in the front of your mind, you realize that I’m a person of value because I’m a people, and you’re a person of value. And like you said, even the person driving you nuts — we’re all a person of value. That kind of opens the floodgates. When we’re communicating, we can connect with one another instead of listening to respond, or listening to be right or correct someone. When we communicate to connect, it sort of teaches us to let go of communicating to correct. And that allows us to really build connections that uplift all of us.

Vicki Davis: We have to relate to educate. Can you give me a practical example of the difference in communicating these two different ways?

Debbie Simões: A lot of times we want to correct. And especially if you’re trained as a teacher, we have to correct. If you’re a parent too, you have to correct sometimes. In life, we all need other people to shine a light on our blind spots. But you can do it in such a way that you’re still preserving that connection — because if you’re correcting in a way that is demeaning and putting self-talk in that other person’s mind, you’re building limiting beliefs that are building walls around that person’s potential. And if you’re that person doing it to yourself, we accept those limiting beliefs and they become part of how we see ourselves.

Debbie Simões: I guess as an example — what I’m going to give is not from my classroom, but more from my family. My parents are up in age and they have dementia. That one thing has been life-changing, because our relationship cannot flourish if I’m always correcting them. If I’m remembering that I am communicating to connect, most of the things that they’re getting mixed up don’t really matter. And a lot of times, as a teacher or a parent, it’s the same. Not everything has to be corrected.

Vicki Davis: Right. And you do learn that. My mom passed away from dementia in 2020. I think that’s a mistake that I made a lot early on in her situation. It’s like, hey, let’s just relax and enjoy being together. If you want to ask me the same question seven times, I’m going to answer it seven times, because I’m with you. It is a great example. You talked about early on being kind to yourself — how you treat yourself.

Debbie Simões: I noticed as a teacher, especially early in my career, I was so critical of myself, because I had those high ideals and expectations. And of course, I was just learning. I didn’t know how to do it all. And I always taught in inner-city school districts. My first job was in South Phoenix. We had shootouts at my school on a regular basis. My five-year-olds were telling me to F off and things like that. And it was a whole new world for me. And I didn’t have a lot of support at that school. So I was just learning. I just didn’t have like those hope agents, I like to call them — people that lift you up and give you that hope when your gas tank is a little low.

Debbie Simões: I’ve learned that when you really don’t take the time to be tuned in to the thoughts that are in your head, and you don’t have an awareness of how critical those thoughts are — because they guide you in what you’re willing to do, what you’re going to be able to do — it’s all tied to what you think you’re going to be able to do. And whether you see yourself as a person of value. As I’ve gone through life, and especially as a teacher — particularly with those students who have one or both parents in jail, and a lot of dysfunction in their lives that they’re dealing with, a lot of times abuse that they’re dealing with — the messages that they’re getting are not always affirming in a positive way. My superpower quickly became, even in my very first year, seeing beyond the mask of the behavior to the real person and the value of that person within. I feel very blessed that I developed that.

Debbie Simões: Each person is a priceless gift to the world. And what you do with the gift, that’s really all up to you. We as teachers are going to shape that destiny, but it’s ultimately up to the individual. It has to go beyond that kind of praise — especially the praise like “good boy, good girl,” behavior-based praise. But when we have identity-based praise, that’s really affirming who they are, and that the person they are is someone of value, and helping them cultivate those kinds of thoughts. So I felt like that was really my most important job as a teacher. I didn’t always measure up to that myself, because I’m a person. Sometimes my classroom would get on my nerves. I have to be honest — I’m not above that. I can’t say I was a teacher for all those years and nobody ever got on my nerves. It did sometimes. And I had to remind myself: remember Brian Cambourne’s Conditions for Learning? His were related to literacy — about immersion, demonstration, and so on. But one of them was approximation. And I used to keep Brian Cambourne’s Conditions for Learning in front of me on my desk, so that I could remind myself every day that I’m approximating and that my kids are approximating. And our value isn’t tied to whether we get everything perfect. Our value is: are we being the best person that we can — the best you? Are you being the best you that you can be?

Vicki Davis: My principal and I were talking not too long ago about some of the most difficult situations I’ve dealt with with students. Those students have become some of the dearest to me. And in many ways, I’m dear to them. They keep choosing to take my classes — because when you can see past behavior and see the value of the person, that makes such a difference. So, Debbie, pretend like I’m one of those students that’s just, you know, cussed at you — a five-year-old. How do you look past the profanity and the anger and the clenched fist?

Debbie Simões: Well, I think it would depend, because you have to have a relationship with each individual to really know the best thing that you can think of. And there’s not one right answer. For me, what I would do, first of all, take a deep breath and realize that a lot of times it’s not about you — and thinking about what is that student dealing with in their life, and who are they, where are they coming from, and where is that coming from? And in that moment, the kinds of things I might say to a student is something like: “That hurts me. I’m a person.” It’s okay to be a person with your kids. In fact, if you’re really going to connect with them, they have to also see you as a person. I go to the grocery store — I remember seeing my teacher in the grocery store once when I was a little girl. And I was like, my teacher goes to the grocery store? As if my teacher, what, didn’t eat? What did I think? I don’t know. When you connect with them and say, “That hurts my heart when you say things like that — and not just because you’re saying it to me, but because you have that feeling in your heart. Let’s take a few minutes to calm down and think about where’s that feeling coming from. And we can talk about it in a few minutes, because I know that’s not who you really are.”

Vicki Davis: I love your loving approach. Debbie, it’s not always easy, and sometimes we struggle with burnout and exhaustion. We’re recording today, and I had to really work on getting my energy level up, because I didn’t have a bad day, but it’s exhausting. How do we do this when we’re tired?

Debbie Simões: That is exactly why my business partners and I wrote High Five to Thrive — because we feel that from teachers, and we know the data is there. We’re losing teachers, and we are not replacing them at the rate that we’re losing teachers. This is a nationwide crisis: teacher retention. We as teachers have to learn — generally speaking, and I am not wanting to stereotype — but if somebody went into the field of teaching, number one, I’ve never met a teacher that said, “What am I going to do with my life? I could really make some money if I just be a teacher, and I’m going to be rich. I’m going to have the summers off.” Nobody goes into teaching for the money. So teachers have a calling. I think I see it sometimes on Facebook, that teachers feeling frustrated and angry. I see sometimes comments: “I’m tired — if one more person tells me to lean into my purpose, I want to choke them.” And I can understand that. But really and truly, you can’t just say, “Well, lean into your purpose.” It’s the context in which that message hits you, whether you can receive that or not.

Vicki Davis: Yeah. And your situation — if you can’t pay the bills, it makes you angry. Our joke at our house is that, because I started off in the business world, if my husband wasn’t an engineer, we couldn’t support my teaching. And I’ve always done stuff on the side, like Cool Cat Teacher, which is a calling also. There were seasons where my students didn’t have enough and I felt like I had to buy more stuff, and I needed stuff for my kids when they were in school. The struggle is real. Yeah, we want to do this job, but it’s also a professional job. It’s not something just anybody can do right off the street.

Debbie Simões: No, no, it is not. There’s something John Maxwell says to us whenever we have our Maxwell leadership conventions. And when I first heard it, I thought, well, that’s a whole lot of redundancy. Why does he keep repeating? It’s really at the heart of who I am and how I approach things. And I feel like this is a message that really needs to get out there — this is how we’re going to transform schools into vibrant hubs of engagement and belonging: having a mantra that we are people of value who value people and add value to them. That’s really what teaching is. It’s believing that we’re all people of value. You don’t go into teaching believing, well, some of my kids are going to be of value but not all of them. There’s that one over there — that one over there might not behave like they’re a person of value, but that means they need a little something extra. And most teachers are going to do the best they can to try to figure out what the little something extra is and make the magic happen.

Debbie Simões: When you internalize that — and if we had that mantra as the motto of every classroom and every school — just imagine what a very different approach we would be taking. And I think when you’re in the context of that, and you feel really valued, and you value others, and you see people trying to add value to you — then when you’re having a bad day and someone is trying to help you lean into your purpose, then you’re a little more likely to receive it than if you’re not feeling valued. Things are all relative. But to me, it is never acceptable. I feel heartbroken that it’s a thing today that on social media there are groups to help teachers transition out of teaching into something else. The reason why that’s unacceptable and really heartbreaking to me is because teachers are not just teaching because that’s just any old job they could get. It’s because they had a calling and a purpose. And that matters. Not everybody has that calling. Nobody should have to give up on their calling because of all the bureaucracy that they’re fed up with — not feeling supported, not feeling there’s a way to get the behaviors of your students to align with your vision for what your classroom should be like.

Debbie Simões: You know, I was a teacher. I didn’t have my kids always behaving. Things that I have witnessed are things I never, ever thought I would have ever seen. I always taught little ones. I once was assaulted by a first grader when I worked for D.C. public schools, and I had a bruised liver, a bruised kidney, and a separated shoulder. But that was heartbreaking for me, because the consequences of that were not in my control. Twenty years later, I’m still wondering what I could have done differently to have a better outcome for that young man. But I’m not perfect by any means, and I was never a perfect teacher. I had a perfect intention, and I just approximated the best I can. I feel that if I only knew what I know now — if I only had someone to encourage me and help my school really rally around one another, and building that community of learners as teachers even — that we’re a community of learners, and that we value ourselves and others, and we add value to one another. If I had a situation like that, and someone helping me understand leadership principles… Teachers don’t see themselves as leaders, but they are. They are influencers.

Vicki Davis: Influencers in the most important way. I want to say this: no teacher should ever have to fear for their life or be assaulted. But then again, no kid should ever have to fear for their life and be assaulted. Violence is just so heartbreaking, and there are no easy answers. But I do know this: treating people with respect, kindness, and valuing them — it just has to be part of the equation of what we do. And a lot of times that’s not necessarily taught in the classes we take to be teachers. You’ve used the word “hope agent.” How can we be hope agents for each other?

Debbie Simões: I think number one is just being aware that we all kind of have a hope tank, like a gas tank, and we all need to refill it sometimes. Having that awareness really allows you to walk alongside someone when they need that. But sometimes we have to hold the vision for someone else. We need someone else to hold the vision for us at times. When you have someone that can hold that up for you and say, “Hey, wait a minute — this is who you are, and this is where you’re heading. And you have such an important skill, and just your presence means so much to other people. We really need you. You’re going to be fine. This is a difficult thing that you’re in, but it’s not going to be forever.” And, you know, just whatever that person needs in that moment. And that’s being a hope agent.

Vicki Davis: Debbie Simões — and the book is High Five to Thrive. Debbie, thank you for telling us your story.

Debbie Simões: Thank you for having me. This was amazing.

Vicki Davis: Thanks for tuning in to the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast. Watch the video version of this podcast and catch my new radio and TV show, Cool Cat Teacher Talk, on YouTube and a radio or TV station near you. Join my Cool Cat Teacher Classroom Matters newsletter at coolcatteacher.com/newsletter. Leave a review if you found this helpful. See you later, educator.

Disclosure of Material Connection: This episode includes some affiliate links. This means that if you choose to buy I will be paid a commission on the affiliate program. However, this is at no additional cost to you. 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.” This company has no impact on the editorial content of the show.

The post Valuing Students and Teachers: Become a Hope Agent appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

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