Tuesday, May 5, 2026

Brain First, AI Second: Teaching Writing in the AI Era

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

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Brain First, AI Second: Teaching Writing in the AI Era — Philip Seyfried on the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast Episode 934

A new MIT Media Lab study took two groups of writers — one started with AI, one started with their own brain. Then they swapped. The group that started with their own thinking before bringing in AI? They had a clear advantage. As teachers, we keep getting pushed into “love AI” or “ban AI” camps. The truth is in the middle, and it starts with the order of operations. Brain first. AI second.

Sponsor. This episode is sponsored by EF Explore America and their STEM Tours. Lead your students on a STEM tour to places on the cutting edge of innovation to show them how STEM thinking often shows up where you least expect it. Imagine your students coding robots with MassRobotics at MIT, exploring marine ecosystems in Florida's coral reefs, or even sitting down to talk with a former spy in Washington, D.C. If you want to inspire your students and give them a fresh perspective on the power of STEM, visit efexploreamerica.com/STEM.

Browse EF Explore America STEM Tours →

This week we are talking with Philip Seyfried — doctoral student at Teachers College, Columbia University, decade-long middle school ELA teacher, and co-author of AI-Enhanced Literacy: Practical Steps for Deepening Reading and Writing Instruction. We dig into the brain-first approach, why AI detectors don't work (and what does), how to monitor AI in the classroom without policing it, and how to build the kind of trust that lets students tell you the truth about how they're actually using these tools.

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Key Takeaways for Teachers from Philip Seyfried

  • Brain first, AI second — the MIT Media Lab study reveals a clear order of operations. Researchers gave one group AI from the start of a writing task and one group only their own thinking. The group that started with their brain — and added AI second — had a clear advantage. The cognitive scaffolding built first lets AI accelerate the work instead of replacing it. (Note: This study is not yet peer reviewed so remember that as you hear this research.)
  • Yes-AND, not either-or. Decades of classroom practice still work — writers' notebooks, paper books, partner talk, collaborative spaces. Don't throw them out for AI. Phil's frame: keep what works AND add what's new.
  • AI detectors don't work — and they're harming students and teachers. Real writers — including researcher Danah Boyd — get falsely flagged for using em dashes or words like “delve.” MIT itself has shown detectors are unreliable. The fix isn't a better detector — it's a better classroom process.
  • Build trust so students can tell you the truth about AI use. “I don't want it to feel yucky,” Phil says. If a student says “Grammarly helped me with sentence structure” or even “I copied and pasted” — that's where teachable moments live. Stigmatize it and students go underground.
  • Push AI to students, not just teachers. Vicki's classroom approach: have students feed their rubric AND their paper into AI to get a bulleted list of where they may not be meeting the standards — BEFORE the paper reaches her. Phil agrees the answer depends on age (high school students are ready to use these tools themselves; third graders need a different approach), but the principle holds: teach AI literacy by letting students “speak back to the algorithm.”
  • The real gift of AI is more space to be human in the room. Phil shares a story of a teacher who tells her students “this sentence — right here — this is where I paused and reread it again because it's so beautiful.” That's the kind of feedback no AI can give. If AI takes the commas-and-capitalization work off our plates, we have more time for what matters most. And — both Vicki and Phil push back hard on anthropomorphizing AI. Phil shows pictures of data centers in every presentation now. The “cloud” is just servers. The model has training data, not feelings.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

  • Book — AI-Enhanced Literacy: Practical Steps for Deepening Reading and Writing Instruction by Philip Seyfried & Mary Ehrenworth (ASCD). Phil and his co-author's book on bringing AI into reading and writing instruction without losing what works.
  • Book — Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI by Ethan Mollick (Portfolio, 2024). Phil's recommendation for teachers just starting their AI journey: spend “three sleepless nights” with AI before bringing it into your classroom.
  • Phil's website — ai-enhancedliteracy.org: companion site to the book with classroom examples and resources.
  • MIT Media Lab — “Your Brain on ChatGPT” study: the brain-first/AI-second research Phil references on cognitive resource-building during writing tasks. (Note: 2025 preprint, n=54, not yet peer-reviewed; the lead researcher herself has cautioned against alarmist framing.)
  • Danah Boyd's LinkedIn post on being falsely accused of using AI — “Academics, who among you is being accused…” The exact post Vicki references during the conversation.
  • EF Explore America STEM Tours: this episode's sponsor. Code robots at MIT, study marine ecosystems in Florida's coral reefs, or meet a former spy in Washington, D.C. Visit efexploreamerica.com/STEM.

About Philip Seyfried

Philip Seyfried, doctoral student at Teachers College, Columbia University, and co-author of AI-Enhanced Literacy
Philip Seyfried

Philip Seyfried is a doctoral student in curriculum and teaching at Teachers College, Columbia University, focusing his research on the intersection of digital literacy and artificial intelligence in education. With more than a decade of experience as a middle school language arts and literature teacher, he now supports schools and edtech companies as a literacy and digital literacy consultant. Seyfried is the co-author of AI-Enhanced Literacy: Practical Steps for Deepening Reading and Writing Instruction.

Connect with Philip:

Other Shows for K–12 Teachers Navigating AI

Phil appeared on Season 4 Episode 11 of Cool Cat Teacher Talk on Radio and TV — it will be aired soon on youtube.

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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.

Click to read the full transcript

Vicki Davis (00:05): Today's show is sponsored by EF Explore America and the STEM Tours. To show your students how STEM impacts the world up close and in action, go to efexploreamerica.com/STEM. And stay tuned at the end of the show to learn more.

Vicki Davis (00:25): Philip Seyfried is a doctoral student in curriculum and teaching at Teachers College, Columbia University. And he researches how digital literacy and artificial intelligence intersect in K-12 learning. Phil spent over a decade teaching middle school language arts, but now he works at a higher level with schools and edtech companies about literacy and digital literacy. He is the co-author of AI-Enhanced Literacy: Practical Steps for Deepening Reading and Writing Instruction from ASCD. So Phil, you talk about brain-first practices and learning theory as it relates to AI. How did you start this work and say, hey, we're going to put the brain first?

Philip Seyfried (01:10): One of the things — co-author Mary and I started really working on this project a couple of years ago. We started to really see how AI is the future of education in a lot of ways. If not only for the reason because it's here, right? The kind of technology that really transforms the way that we think about what's possible in learning and education. We've always been really interested in digital literacies — kids read differently on a computer or on a tablet — and so we wanted to figure out what is happening differently with AI that's different than a book or working with a human. There's a lot that we didn't know at first. There was a lot of experimentation. And this is a technology that was just thrust upon all of us and opened up to the world one day. But what's great is there's been some wonderful research coming out of MIT's Media Lab. They had this great study where they took participants and they gave them these writing tasks. Some of them had AI available to them right from the start. Some of them had the internet available. And then others, they only had to use their brain — they couldn't really use any other technology other than their own thinking. And what was really interesting about that study is later on they switched the two groups.

Vicki Davis (02:10): Mm-hmm.

Philip Seyfried (02:18): So what ended up happening is the group that started with their brain ended up getting AI in the back end. And then vice versa, the group that started with AI, they ended up having to use only their brain. And there was a clear advantage of those who started with their own thinking first and then moved to AI. And what was so interesting that I found in that study was that you could build up your cognitive resources — get your brain on fire with your thinking, getting your ideas organized together, getting your best thoughts out there. If you bring in AI after that, it sort of accelerates your thinking, your work, challenges the thoughts that you've already established.

Vicki Davis (02:35): Hmm.

Philip Seyfried (02:57): Versus if you do it the other way around — if you start with AI too soon, before you've done some thinking, maybe even a little bit of writing, maybe some talking to somebody through your ideas — what ends up happening is AI sort of fills you up with all the ideas that it's bringing to you. Your sense of ownership is not going to really be there. And when we think about what's important in classrooms, we're really trying to get students to have a full sense of ownership over their words and their work and their learning — and to be able to see how they can use these tools to accelerate themselves, especially when they are trying to learn something that they want to do with independence later on.

Vicki Davis (03:33): So many times it seems people try to push us into “I love AI” or “I hate AI.” But true application and true teaching is in the middle of “okay, this is a good use, this is not a good use.” It seems like you're saying, your brain — start with brainstorming. So what should that process before you bring AI in look like in a classroom?

Philip Seyfried (03:55): We are so good in classrooms already of things that have been working for decades. We have kids in our classrooms that are using writers' notebooks. They have paper books in their hands. They have pencils. They're set up in partnerships so they can turn and talk to someone. Our classroom spaces are very, very collaborative. And those are things that we know work, and there's years and decades of research behind those practices. And so really what we're saying is don't get rid of that.

Vicki Davis (04:00): Mm-hmm.

Philip Seyfried (04:21): Don't let the excitement of a new technology completely change what you know already works. What we want to do is add what's working from these new avenues and opportunities to the frameworks that already work really, really well. What we're trying to help teachers see is living in this “yes-AND” time period. It's not an either-or with AI. It's “yes, you can do the things that you know work. Yes, you could also dabble and try some new things out and see how that goes — and do that in a measured way. And we can learn from each other at this time.” If we get into the space where we sort of ban it and say “well, you can't use it ever” — I don't know what that's going to mean for these kids as they're growing up and now they're going to be in the workforce. And these are the tools that they're going to be expected to pick up and to use well. And I would so rather see kids learn how to use those tools really well right now in their K-12 education — especially in a safer place where they can make some mistakes, because they will. They are going to overly lean on some of these tools at times because they want to sound smart. But we can address that. If they leave our classrooms, it's almost too [late].

Vicki Davis (05:29): And I have had some students on my show before and they said, “Ms. Davis, the only people getting caught using AI are the ones who don't know how to use it.” MIT — that you just quoted — they found AI detectors don't work. AI detectors don't work. AI detectors don't work. And what happens? You get a letter that says “we're not going to tolerate artificial intelligence. We have the greatest AI detector and it's going to catch all of you hooligans.” And then the kids are just like, “okay, I wrote it myself.” danah boyd, a respected researcher, was just writing on LinkedIn and she was saying that she had written this paper and had been accused of using AI to write part of the paper because she likes em-dashes. I like em-dashes. I've always used dashes. You could look on my blog from 2005 when I started blogging — I have dashes. And now I wrote something for somebody and they said, “Hey, you used AI on this because you have dashes in it.” Okay. Well, I might do that. And I might use the word “delve.” But that doesn't mean I'm using AI. So human AI detectors are no good and other AI detectors aren't any good. So what do you tell the schools that are like, “we want to have academic integrity, but we need some help here”?

Philip Seyfried (06:35): One of the things I've been telling schools — especially since there is so much concern over this — there's the concern that what are students doing after school hours? Are they using AI in ways that are not so productive? I think one of the things we know we can do is we can really control what's happening during the school day. They might go off and use these tools perhaps at home, and that to some degree might concern us, but in other ways that's the way of the world at this point. They're also using video games and other digital devices too. But what really gets teachers is — is that showing up in their classrooms later on? One of the ways we can really address this is to actually give students AI tools in the classroom that we can do some monitoring in. So there's a number of edtech platforms that allow you to set up a chatbot. And then you are able to see behind the scenes how that kid is having a discussion with that AI. And on top of that, instructions that you might say — “prompt the student with some questions to help them do some of their best writing, but don't do the writing for them” — and then the AI doesn't do that. And so if you were to combine that with making sure that students have class time to do their writing while they're there in front of you and getting your support as a teacher, and then doing some peer feedback work with another student in the classroom — there's going to be no question that students are really putting a lot of effort and energy and writing work into the drafts that you're seeing in front of you.

Vicki Davis (07:39): Mm-hmm.

Philip Seyfried (08:03): We don't want to necessarily then say “AI never comes into that process.” I think it's going to be the kind of decision we're going to have to sort of make case by case. And I do believe that it's so great to get away from technology, get away from screens, sit down with a pen and paper — even just a device that's not connected to the internet at that moment — and you're just doing your best writing and you're in that moment experiencing that. I think we need to make sure that we're also creating those moments too. That way we have the best of both worlds, and students do deserve to have those opportunities to sit with an idea that people don't look at just for a little bit before they get feedback. I think we have to really think about all the contours of what it means to be a writer, what it means to be a reader in a school space nowadays. And if we start to do that, what it does is it creates opportunities for us to have relations of trust in the classroom. What I most care about is, if I ask a student “hey, can you tell me a little bit about your writing process? What were the tools that you were using? How did you use those tools?” — I want to be able to have an open and honest conversation. I don't want it to feel yucky. If a kid says “well, Grammarly helped me at the end with some of my sentence structure,” right? Or “I was stuck at this one point, so I asked AI these three questions and it came back with this. I didn't like these three things that it said, but I did like this one. So then I tried it out here.” That's where real learning is happening. And if the kid says “I copied and pasted,” I also want them to feel safe enough to say that. So I can say “you know, as a writing process — let's think about some other things you can now do that you're ready for as a writer. AI might give you something that fills the blank page and some ideas. And now it's a great mentor text for you for the kind of writing you can do later on on your own.” And I think there's that idea of we're always increasing towards independence. We're always trying to boost students' confidence in their own abilities — and to not stigmatize these technologies in a way that kids now use it in secret and that we're not able to give them the actual support that they need if only we just knew how they were using the tool.

Vicki Davis (10:09): Mm-hmm. There are a lot of teachers who say, “hey, I'm grading with AI.” And I'm like, why? I'm teaching my students to take that paper they've written. We've gone through the process together. Give them the prompts to feed in my rubric and feed in their paper, and get a bulletized list of “here are some suggestions for where you might not be meeting the standards in the rubric.” Not having AI rewrite it, but having it give them a bulleted list. And then by the time it gets to me, you've already done your AI stuff. Like — what's the point of me using AI? Why not push it to them?

Philip Seyfried (10:46): Yeah, that's a really great question. And people are trying to work that out right now. I find such a big variety in what people are doing in practice. It really depends on where your students are as learners — and particularly, how old are they? For high school students, absolutely teaching them how to use these tools themselves makes perfect sense. But if you're in a third grade classroom, that's not going to be the same sort of approach we're going to take.

Philip Seyfried (11:17): One thing is we shouldn't just accept any feedback readily. We should really think — what is our purpose as a writer? And the second thing that does is it's actually teaching AI literacy. You want students to learn to speak back to these algorithms and to catch when the algorithm is not really working for them — and what are some things we can do to make sure that it's aligned with my own purposes. And so what that does is when you get to that point, then the teacher's freed up to give some of the human feedback and response that only a human can do.

I heard a teacher the other day say that she likes to give the kind of feedback where she'll tell a student “this here, right here, this sentence — this is where I paused and I lingered and I reread that sentence again and again because it's so beautiful.”

Vicki Davis (12:02): Hmm.

Philip Seyfried (12:05): And I think about — what effect does that have on a young person, a writer, a student, a learner for the rest of their life, to have a teacher say “it was at this moment in your writing that I just had to take a deep breath because it was so beautiful what you were saying right here.” And that's still the kind of feedback that — even if a computer could give that level of feedback, the authenticity of that relationship is so important. We have to remember that we're humans in the room. And as teachers, so much of our value is that we're another person really cultivating other people to become beautiful adults in the future. And I worry that if we're just catching commas and periods and capitalization, maybe we're sort of missing the point of the opportunities that we have. So I hope AI gives us more space to just be really human in the room.

Vicki Davis (12:55): I love how you're speaking about AI. Way too many people anthropomorphize it. I like what you're saying about that — AI is a tool to help the humans in the room become more remarkable humans. But when people start saying “AI is this” or “it is that,” or they start saying “AI got angry at me” — all this anthropomorphism — that's where I, as a teacher and as a human being, start pushing back and saying, hey, this is a great tool, but it's a really sorry human being. It's not a human at all.

Philip Seyfried (13:30): Every presentation I give now, I always show a picture of data centers — like the inside of a data center, because what you'll see is all these servers, and it's really just wall-to-wall servers. We tend to think of AI as this invisible intelligence somewhere in the cloud. And really — what is the cloud? It's us actually accessing a computer that's offsite. That's all that really is.

Vicki Davis (13:54): Mm.

Philip Seyfried (13:55): We can so easily forget that this isn't actually a human, because it's using natural language. But we have to always keep in mind that there's some algorithm behind this — there's training data behind this. And I think if we don't get to those sort of critical literacies of AI, we would really miss an opportunity. We can't be blind to what's going on right now. Otherwise then the teens in the room and the young kids — they're going to figure it out on their own. And they're going to shape it no matter what we do. But we want to be ready to help them navigate this moment, because it is a different moment than in the past.

Vicki Davis (14:35): We can't expect them to be fully developed adults about how to use it wisely. So as we finish up, Phil — for the teachers who are listening to you, they're convinced. Where do you tell beginners to start their journey of finding the appropriate place for AI in their classroom?

Philip Seyfried (14:51): Actually, I wouldn't start with the classroom is what I would tell teachers — if they're just getting started with AI. Ethan Mollick, who's got this great book Co-Intelligence, says that we need three sleepless nights with AI. So I would say get onto an AI system of your choice, whether that's ChatGPT or Claude or Google Gemini. Pick one of the big systems that you know you'll use again — and just test it out. Ask it questions, see how it responds.

Vicki Davis (15:20): We've been talking to Philip Seyfried — the book is AI-Enhanced Literacy: Practical Steps for Deepening Reading and Writing Instruction from ASCD. It has been very insightful. Thanks so much, Phil.

Vicki Davis — Postroll (15:32): EF STEM Tours: If you're a STEM teacher like me, you want your students to see how STEM impacts the real world — not just read about it. On an EF Explore America STEM tour, they might code robots with MassRobotics at MIT, explore marine ecosystems in Florida's coral reefs, or even sit down with a former spy in Washington, D.C. to discover how STEM thinking shows up where you least expect it. Every itinerary is designed by experts to amplify what you teach through hands-on experiences that can't be replicated in the classroom. Visit efexploreamerica.com/STEM and see what an EF Explore America STEM tour can do for your students. Some of the greatest things I've ever done with my students have been tours. They make it all easy for you. So again, check out efexploreamerica.com/STEM.

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a sponsored episode and blog post. EF Explore America has compensated me to share information about EF Explore America STEM Tours. 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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Real World STEM: Real Tools, Real Clients, Real Money

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

Subscribe to the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast anywhere you listen to podcasts.

Sometimes there are conversations that need to be had. This is one of those. I sat down with Joe Fatheree and Dr. Mark Buckner — two leading innovators in the space of STEM, AI, and helping high school students engineer and design in ways that are relevant in the real workforce. Joe is a globally recognized educator, author, and filmmaker named one of the top 10 teachers internationally by the Global Teacher Prize. Mark is the architect behind Oak Ridge High School's Wildcat Manufacturing — a Smart Industry Top 50 Innovator who won a $1.25 million Tennessee state grant to build a student-run enterprise where teenagers run real contracts with real companies on world-class equipment.

Sponsor. This episode is sponsored by EF Explore America and their STEM Tours. Lead your students on a STEM tour to places on the cutting edge of innovation to show them how STEM thinking often shows up where you least expect it. Imagine your students coding robots with MassRobotics at MIT, exploring marine ecosystems in Florida's coral reefs, or even sitting down to talk with a former spy in Washington, D.C. If you want to inspire your students and give them a fresh perspective on the power of STEM, visit efexploreamerica.com/STEM.

Browse EF Explore America STEM Tours →

We discuss many issues that STEM educators are wrestling with right now: how to build a learning environment with industry-grade tools, why AI ethics has to be taught alongside AI tools, what neuroscience actually says about kids' developing brains in the attention economy, and the three pathways their students take — starting their own business, walking into a $100K+ workforce job, or accelerating into engineering programs years ahead of their college peers. This is a conversation centerpiece for your STEM program that gives us all so much to unpack.

Listen to the Show

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Key Takeaways for Teachers from Joe Fatheree and Dr. Mark Buckner

  • Real world tools, real world problems, real world clients. Wildcat Manufacturing has executed 26 contracts with 18 companies. Students work with 5-axis CNCs, water jets, fiber lasers, injection molders, and a wire arc additive manufacturing cell — actual industry equipment, not classroom hand-me-downs. Mark's principle: don't fight yesterday's war with legacy donations; position for the future with excellent equipment and best practices that are relevant, not outdated.
  • Three pathways out, not just one. Students can launch their own business, walk straight into precision manufacturing roles paying $100K to $120K, or accelerate into engineering programs. One of Mark's first students finished her sophomore year at MIT and was told by her ORNL summer mentor she was four to five years ahead of anyone he saw coming out of college.
  • Soft skills come from industry, not “edu-ese.” Students earn Scrum Master and Product Owner certificates. They learn LEAN startup, business model canvas, Toyota's coaching Kata, and Deming's system of profound knowledge. The vocabulary on the wall is the vocabulary partners use — so the soft skills transfer the moment students walk out the door.
  • AI ethics has to be taught alongside AI tools. Joe and Mark frame this with the Manhattan Project: “just because you can does not mean you should.” Mark calls the next phase “Alpha Persuade” — AI that knows us better than we know ourselves, optimized for engagement rather than human flourishing. The moral question moves from the lab into the classroom as we discuss how we should use these tools in ways that make humans better.
  • Critical periods are real, and they're being interrupted. From early childhood through about age 26, the human brain is forming pathways for community, values, focus, and executive function. The attention economy is wiping that out during the windows when those pathways form most easily. Cell phone bans help. So does giving students human work that matters.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

  • EF Explore America STEM Tours — Sponsor. Hands-on STEM travel experiences (MassRobotics at MIT, Florida coral reef ecology, intelligence careers in D.C.) designed to amplify what you teach in the classroom.
  • Oak Ridge High School iSchool & Wildcat Manufacturing — Mark's program, funded by a $1.25M Tennessee state innovative high school grant.
  • F.I.R.S.T. Robotics — Founded by Dean Kamen and Woody Flowers. The “For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology” framework Mark cites as a foundational model.
  • The Deming Institute — Source for W. Edwards Deming's system of profound knowledge, which Mark builds into the iSchool curriculum.
  • Scrum Inc. — Where Mark trained as an innovation consultant. His students earn Scrum Master and Product Owner certificates as part of the program.
  • Center for Humane Technology (Tristan Harris) — The Social Dilemma and The AI Dilemma documentaries. Mark's recommended frame for understanding the attention economy.
  • Common Sense Media research on teen AI companions — Vicki cites the 2025 study showing 72% of teens age 13–17 have used AI companions; 1 in 3 find AI conversations as satisfying as real friendships.
  • Manufacturing Demonstration Facility (MDF) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory — The advanced manufacturing extension where Mark's first students intern.
  • Digital Twin Consortium — Wildcat Manufacturing is a test bed for born-qualified parts. Students will help create the “Giants of Oak Ridge” augmented reality experience using generative AI on Manhattan Project history.

Visual Summary

Real world STEM education infographic — Wildcat Manufacturing's student-run enterprise model alongside AI risks for teens — featuring Joe Fatheree and Dr. Mark Buckner on 10 Minute Teacher Podcast Episode 933
Real world STEM education at Oak Ridge High School — Wildcat Manufacturing's working model alongside the AI risks teens face — visualized from Episode 933 of the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast with Joe Fatheree and Dr. Mark Buckner.

About this graphic: This visual summary was generated by Google NotebookLM from the episode transcript, then fact-checked against the recorded conversation, the cited research (Common Sense Media's “Talk, Trust, and Trade-Offs” 2025 report), and primary sources on Wildcat Manufacturing and Oak Ridge High School. Vicki Davis reviewed and revised the graphic in Canva to correct numbers, attributions, and typos. AI-assisted, human-directed.

About Joe Fatheree and Dr. Mark Buckner

Joe Fatheree, globally recognized educator, author, and filmmaker — guest on 10 Minute Teacher Episode 933
Joe Fatheree, globally recognized educator, author, and filmmaker.

Joe Fatheree is a globally recognized educator, author, and filmmaker. He was named one of the top 10 teachers internationally by the Global Teacher Prize in 2016, Illinois Teacher of the Year in 2007, and was the recipient of the NEA National Award for Teaching Excellence. With 34 years in the ed tech space, Joe has worked internationally to develop global frameworks for the ethical use of AI in education. He currently consults regularly with Oak Ridge High School, where he and Dr. Mark Buckner are developing replicable models for innovative STEM education.

Dr. Mark Buckner, founder of Wildcat Manufacturing at Oak Ridge High School — guest on 10 Minute Teacher Episode 933
Dr. Mark Buckner, founder of Wildcat Manufacturing at Oak Ridge High School.

Dr. Mark Buckner is the architect behind Oak Ridge High School's iSchool and the founder of Wildcat Manufacturing — a student-run enterprise that has executed 26 contracts with 18 companies. Recognized as a Smart Industry Top 50 Innovator, Mark won a $1.25 million Tennessee state grant to launch the iSchool model. Before returning to the classroom, Mark had a distinguished 32-year career at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where he led cross-disciplinary teams developing innovations for U.S. energy and national security. His doctoral work focused on bio-inspired artificial intelligence — replicating how human brains learn through neural pathways and signal processing. He is a Scrum trainer and partners with the Deming Institute to teach industry-recognized soft skills to high school students.

Other Shows for STEM and CTE Educators

If you enjoyed this episode, you'll want to listen to the longer Cool Cat Teacher Talk version of this conversation, where I sit down with Joe and Mark for the full radio/TV episode along with my own commentary on the news of the week:

Listen and Subscribe

If this episode helped you think differently about your STEM program, would you take 30 seconds to leave a rating or short review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify? Reviews are the single biggest way other educators find this show, and they make a real difference for our reach. Thank you.

Episode Transcript

This transcript was generated using AI and has been reviewed by humans for accuracy. Minor errors or artifacts may remain.

Click to read the full transcript

John Davis (00:04): This is a special extended episode of the 10 Minute Teacher.

Vicki Davis (00:08): Today's show is sponsored by EF Explore America and their STEM Tours. To show your students how STEM impacts the world up close and in action, go to efexploreamerica.com/STEM and stay tuned at the end of the show to learn more.

Vicki Davis (00:24): Can students learn world-class manufacturing? How about artificial intelligence? How do we prepare them for the real world? We have two amazing guests on the show. My dear friend Joe Fatheree is a globally recognized educator, author, and filmmaker. He was named one of the top 10 teachers internationally by the Global Teacher Prize in 2016, and he's won the NEA National Award for Teaching Excellence. Joe, you're at Oak Ridge High School. Tell us about that.

Joe Fatheree (00:53): After 34 years of working in the ed tech space with a great group of kids, I thought I'd had this great career — and I tell people God has a sense of humor. He took me to Oak Ridge, where I had the opportunity to go down and work with them regularly. It's the community where the Manhattan Project was partially born, where the Department of Energy stayed after World War II. They've got a world-class school with world-class teachers and students. So I come down and work regularly with them as we're trying to figure out how do we usher our students into this age of really amazing emerging technology.

Vicki Davis (01:29): And you're working with Dr. Mark Buckner, an architect behind Oak Ridge High School's Wildcat Manufacturing — recognized as a Smart Industry Top 50 Innovator. He has a million-dollar state grant. He's bringing global STEM expertise right to the classroom. Before he went to the classroom, Dr. Buckner had a distinguished 32-year career at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Mark, what are some of the things that you're doing with students?

Dr. Mark Buckner (01:55): Thank you, Vicki. Part of that career — one of the things relevant to this conversation — while I was at the lab, they were trying to do things that had never been done before. I had a parallel track working with kids. I'd been in the school system, working as a part of the F.I.R.S.T. system that Dean Kamen and Woody Flowers founded for inspiration and recognition of science and technology. It was an after-school program, started in elementary school, and as my kids progressed, I kept going in the schools. Engaged with kids, how they learn across the board.

After retirement, I consulted for years for a company called Scrum Inc. I was brought in as an innovation consultant, going into companies like Northrop Grumman and other places, helping them boot up innovation teams. That's one of the things Joe and I talk a bunch about — what is innovation, and what's the mindset that's required for it. Mindset is job number one. If you don't have that, you really don't track.

But basically I decided I wanted to come back and give back. I'd been teaching a dual enrollment class for a number of years as adjunct faculty — industrial Internet of Things, intros to AI, digital engineering, robotics and automation. Holly Cross is the CTE director at the school. Her office was right across our space where I was teaching. We got a chance to talk a lot about how we wished we could change things. Given king and queen for a day, how can we take all the things that I was learning in interdisciplinary cross-functional teams, very challenging real-world problems — the things that I brought from neuroscience — and create a curriculum to reach more kids and give them more opportunities and help them be more engaged?

Dr. Mark Buckner (03:29): So I'd had this relationship with Holly. During COVID, I got tired of doing a lot of consulting online and having to travel a lot. And I went back to Holly and said, “Holly, I'm going to come back and try to get back in the classroom. Do you think there's space?” And Holly said, “Mark, the state of Tennessee has just announced an innovative high school model grant competition — open competition. What they really want you to do is reimagine the world of education, particularly STEM education, and reimagine what you would do with time, partnerships, modes of learning, time and space.”

Dr. Mark Buckner (04:01): So she asked me to take all of the things that we'd been talking about — Vicki, it's a synthesis of all of my experience of 32 years working on teams in interdisciplinary space — and put it into the proposal. Well, lo and behold, we won. It was about one and a quarter million dollars that got us started as seed funding to get some of the world-class equipment.

One of the conversations I have all the time: to deal with real-world problems, you need real-world tools. We were trying to pull out of the lab and into the kids' environment the technologies and the tools, because they don't know they can't do this. We had demonstrated that in the F.I.R.S.T. robotics program. So let's create an environment that brings world-class technologies, world-class problems, set the bar really high — but give them an enormous amount of support. High standards, high support. Then build out a curriculum based on that.

We're about three and a half years in. That's really where Joe and I's paths crossed. The program is called iSchool — and there's like seven I's, but really it's around innovation and continual improvement. And then Wildcat Manufacturing is a student-run enterprise. These kids provide design and manufacturing services for real-world companies and people. We interface with clients using a Lean startup model. You come and tell us about your challenge or your problem. The kids will then work with you in a Lean and Agile fashion to iterate on prototypes and concepts. We get feedback from you as a customer. The kids will continue to evolve that into a final product. We have in our space world-class 3D printers, 5-axis CNCs, water jet, fiber laser, injection molders. We're now standing up a world-class wire arc additive manufacturing cell — think of a robot with a welder on the end of it. It can do some amazing things.

So the kids get a chance to work throughout the entire life cycle of product development. They're involved in the finances. They give the final billing. And the cool thing about it is they participate in a profit-sharing model. So they learn what real world is all about — innovation and entrepreneurship and problem solving and collaborative work.

Vicki Davis (05:56): I read that you had 26 contracts with 18 companies. And you say profit sharing. Does that mean the students actually earn income for themselves, or does this go to the school? How does that work?

Dr. Mark Buckner (06:05): It does. When we stood this up, part of the dream was to create a sustainable business model. One of the things I've taught for a while is Lean startup — business model canvas, mission model canvas — understanding what that really looks like in a business. We really wanted to change the way that our partners saw education. We didn't want to just go to them with a handout and say, “We need money.” We didn't want legacy equipment, which was good for them to donate, but that's fighting the last war. We wanted to position for the future.

So as a result of that, we flipped the model. Now we're part of the supply chain locally to provide actual products. The goal is to define a number of SKUs — product lines. You could call us up and say, “I need 100 of these this week.” So we were able to build that into our supplies.

Yes, we are paying students. Initially the funding came through a “Jobs for Tomorrow, Jobs of the Future” grant as part of work-based learning. We scaled their pay based on profit sharing. As a company, if we benefit, then they made more. So they're incentivized to be efficient and Lean and use of their time — those kinds of things, real world. Now that grant has run out, we're working with locals in our area to figure out how we pay students. Right now it's looking like it's going to be some sort of scholarship model, so the money can go to them and they can apply it to further education or other things.

Vicki Davis (07:51): Joe, you've been in lots of schools all over. How does the typical classroom and learning day look different at this school versus anywhere else?

Joe Fatheree (08:03): One thing — they do a whole year of school. It's a whole calendar year. I'd never been in that in all my years of teaching. When I'm there, I love the fact that people are fresh and they're excited and they're ready to go. There are regular breaks built in. It just keeps that creative process going. And when they're out, there are enrichment opportunities for students across the board.

The high school also runs on a block schedule, which I think definitely helps a program like Mark's. Block was very similar to mine. In my case, I had the only block schedule in the entire school district — because by the time I got stuff out, class was over. You'd spend your whole time getting stuff out and setting up and then putting it away. It just didn't make sense. My kids back when I was teaching a couple of years ago — if I didn't tell them, they'd work through lunch, they'd work through breaks. They wouldn't stop and go, because they were engaged and enriched. They wanted to be in there all the time. Once you get that intrinsic fire lit, you can't put it out. That's what we're really trying to get going.

Also, just in the way leadership supports the incubation of creativity — Mark's program is atypical. It doesn't fit in the standard walk of curriculum. So having a leadership team like Dr. Cross and Dr. Borchers and Dr. Williams that says, “Of course we see value in this.” And even today, Mark and I spend an inordinate amount of time talking about — as we're in the middle of a nuclear renaissance and AI and quantum going on in the community — how do we pivot to the left or the right to help our students take advantage of opportunities that are growing in front of us? And how do we partner with industry partners?

Oak Ridge is really blessed: we have access to an incredible research base, but those people could stay behind closed doors. They choose not to. They choose to be heavily involved in the school district. Mark and I spent a lot of time this summer doing some deep-dive research on innovation, and all of the partners that came wanted to be careful about not morphing our vision. They're very open-minded. They're very interested in finding out from us what the real-world problems are we face — not coming to us and dictating the problems and saying, “By the way, here's the problem we notice you have, and here's also the solution for it.” We're hoping that a lot of the things that come out of the work we're doing don't only benefit the kids at Oak Ridge proper, but we can also take these models — because we're working to find ways to make them replicable that scale — to help kids out all across the country.

Vicki Davis (10:36): That has to be the goal. We've all got to teach tomorrow and help these kids in a world of AI. What are the types of things a student might be doing in your program, and what kind of problems are they solving?

Dr. Mark Buckner (10:48): One of the things that I look at consistently is that things come at us in silos. The school system teaches in silos, and we force the students to synthesize. We leave it to them to try to figure out, number one, that they need to synthesize, and number two, how to integrate.

We very intentionally take a systems perspective. One of the philosophies we laid out at the beginning, we borrow from Dr. W. Edwards Deming's system of profound knowledge — appreciation of a system, understanding of variation, psychology, and theory of knowledge. We bake that in upfront. We borrow from Toyota's coaching Kata, and we start with our Starter Kata. One of the things that's honestly the unintended negative consequences of the attention economy and what's happening through social media to our kids — their ability to focus, read, and other things — it's a systemic issue. Teachers are seeing it in the classroom. We think these are all crises that we're facing as educators, but we've got to look at it as a system. There's hope, but we've got to do it in a systematic way.

In that first-level class, I also teach in a spiral. It's not exactly Vygotsky. It really is drawn from Toyota's work — what's called a SECI model. It's an understanding of the difference between explicit and tacit knowledge. It tips the hat to the fact that from a cognitive neuroscience standpoint, in the neocortex we have both procedural and declarative pathways, and things prompted through sensing. We do a lot of interleaving and retrieval practice. The goal is to get the kids not to have working memory and pass the test, but to internalize and to transfer that into problem solving and thinking critically.

So we use the scientific thinking Kata. In the very beginning, we're booting up new patterns of thinking and working that they're applying to problems in the class. At the same time, they're learning Scrum — I'm a trainer and the kids come out of our class with Scrum Master and Product Owner certificates. We're partnering with the Deming Institute. All of those soft skills — we're not using “edu-ese.” I'm actually using industry-recognized approaches and philosophies. These kids don't realize it, but that's becoming the way they think and do.

As they learn computer-aided design, 3D printing, laser cutting, and digital engineering — innovation, design, and manufacturing — they're also booting up these soft skills of managing work, Lean and Agile. They learn by doing, and it's not in a sequential serial pattern. It very much is non-linear. The first classes, they're just learning how to design, how to craft problems. We teach them parameterized design — we want them to have rock-solid engineering foundations of how to do design.

I tell the kids all the time when they come into the class, they've done “free range CAD” and it's awful. It doesn't stand up under the rigor of engineering. So we try to rebuild that. Because at the end of the day, I want to make it so that change is frictionless. They design it intended to be changed, because as they run a test, it's going to be wrong. So they need to make it easy that they can take what they were expecting and what they saw, and then ask why, and then help that refine their knowledge and move that threshold of knowledge like a flashlight in a dark area.

So we're booting up all of those things as they learn hard technical skills as well. They're introduced to generative design. They're introduced to ethical use of AI. From the standpoint of an innovator, I try to get them to understand: just because you can does not mean you should. If, in the next generation of innovators, they create a new technology, it is their moral responsibility to ask: what are the unintended consequences of this technology? And if that technology confers power, you start a race — a race to win the market or deploy features. We're seeing it in spades in the AI world right now. The other challenge is that if that race is not coordinated, because of the challenge of the commons, typically the race ends poorly for somebody. So we need to have them think through those moral and ethical uses of the technology.

The second class, they take those skills and we ratchet it up to commercial technology — CNC mills, wire arc, water jet, fiber laser. They're booting up the ability to apply these things to real-world projects and problems — but again, these are example problems, curated. We give them some that are new. Then in that final entree, that's when they roll into Wildcat Manufacturing. Now we've got kids that are very confident in their abilities to do things, with the soft skills, and they work together as a team of teams. They're trained in Scrum at scale, so we run our company using Agile principles for kids.

Vicki Davis (15:29): This is fascinating. I'm married to an industrial engineer. He and I met at Georgia Tech, and I had a lot of IE classes myself, so a lot of the terms you're talking about are right in the middle of manufacturing. The robotic welding — they're doing that right now. That's so important. But this is the fascinating piece for me. You said Holly is part of CTE — that's career and technical education. Traditionally we would say, “Okay, here you have the kids going to college, they're going to take the AP classes, they're going to do this. Then you have the career and technical education, and we're going to get them a vocational [path].” But you're really describing a lot of things that, if I had a child going into engineering, or if I was going into engineering today, it would be really useful. Do you allow students who might be planning to go to college to join your program, even though technically it's under CTE?

Dr. Mark Buckner (16:28): So we have strategically been working on this, because the aim of this program when we launched it was to give kids options, pathways, empower them for the future. They leave our program with three options. Start your own business, because they understand how to solve problems collaboratively with the customer, deliver value with available technology at a price someone can afford. They can immediately go into the workforce, workforce ready.

One of the things we try to say is that we don't want to fight yesterday's war. We can't teach to the past. We need to work collaboratively with our partners to teach where we need to be going in the problem set. So the tools, the techniques, the methods, the equipment, everything we're doing is actually where they need to be going — and it's actually beyond some of the industries locally. Some of the smaller local manufacturers that need to level up but don't have the bandwidth — we're going to position ourselves eventually as we expand the program. I view it as kind of a vortex. We're pulling — we call it P20 in Tennessee, which is pre-K all the way through community college kind of level. We're pulling kids in and exposing them to world-class opportunities they didn't know existed, to generate value, to drive innovation, to start their own companies. In that vortex, we're also working closely with local partners to rapidly accelerate and upskill their knowledge so that we can move forward the technology as fast as we can on real-world problems together.

I'll give you an example. I was contacted by a person that's starting a precision manufacturing company. They're actually buying up companies in aerospace, defense, chip, and biomedical. He called me up and said, “Mark, I know your program, what you're teaching. We're right now trying to work together to find exactly what those skills are so that it matches with my HR. But if your students can do this, I've got jobs waiting for them, making $100,000 to $120,000 a year.” Now these are not technicians pushing a button. These aren't just mechanical engineers. It's a full-stack innovator. You're able to understand the problem, understand how to manufacture it, set it up and work it, working across disciplines leveraging AI to do it.

The third track is we want to accelerate students into an engineering program. What we're seeing is — I believe we've got the world model upside down. Most of the things that you're seeing in our space, most students don't see until they're seniors in college and it's their capstone project, and they're already checked out. Or it's graduate-level research. We're actually having kids come out of our program, and we advise them as freshmen to connect into research teams that are there. Talk to your advisors, because you know how to run every piece of equipment that's there, and you can plug into those teams and help them.

We had a young lady that was one of the first students through the program. Last summer she finished her sophomore year at MIT. She came back to our area. We've got a facility called the Manufacturing Demonstration Facility, an extension of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It's a really bleeding-edge advanced manufacturing program partnering with industry to do things that have never been done in manufacturing — there's still gaps in scale. Anyway, Alex went and interned over the summer in the disruptive manufacturing group. Her mentor, who's the head of the group, said, “Alex, where did you learn how to do all this kind of stuff?” thinking she was going to say MIT. She goes, “No, no, no, Steve, come with me.” So we have kids there during the summer on Tuesday-Thursday nights as part of the F.I.R.S.T. program and other things, just learning and working and doing. He came, spent three hours talking to the kids, seeing what they were doing, hearing about our philosophy and our approach to Lean and Agile.

Dr. Mark Buckner (20:07): At the end of the night, he said, “Mark, your kids are four to five years ahead of anybody we're seeing coming out of college.” And so that's the point that Joe and I are trying to make as we expand the program. We're looking at how could we embed people with us as interns to learn how to do it. We're actually a test bed for the Digital Twin Consortium in the area of digital twins for born-qualified parts.

Vicki Davis (20:36): I actually just had a student do a presentation in our innovative technology class on digital twins. Just so people know what this term is — you're basically making a digital copy so that you can have an exact copy. Correct?

Dr. Mark Buckner (20:54): Yes, but you're also pulling data live back into the model to inform it from a controls perspective. You're linking the physical and the virtual worlds. Then extended within this, there's this idea of a digital thread. As you're making something from idea through design, through manufacturing, all the way through quality and measurement, you're collecting data all the way through. If it's done in this controlled manner in a way that we've defined, it is “born qualified” — it meets the certification requirements for nuclear, for defense, for aerospace, for biomedical, because of the process and the intelligence and the automation and the sensors that are there.

So we're part of an international test bed that has high school students involved in this with commercial entities. The fun use case I think you'll get a kick out of, we call “Giants of Oak Ridge.” The kids are going to be making life-size statues of historical figures from the Manhattan Project. We're using generative AI on old photographs to develop life-size statues. We're working with software with researchers from the National Lab. We're going to slice that, and we're using a state-of-the-art metal wire arc 3D printer to metal-3D-print a near-net shape. It's going to then be scanned. We're going to put it in a CNC, five-axis and four-axis, to do the machining of the fine detail. The wire arc kind of looks like a mud dauber just laid down a piece of metal — it doesn't have the detail. We're going to weld that back together. If that's not enough, we're then going to leverage AI to basically create an experience — think Pokémon Go meets Night at the Museum. You'll be able to come up and scan, and in augmented reality the statue will come to life and have a conversation with you about their historical involvement in the Manhattan Project. So we're bringing together all of the threads of advanced manufacturing, precision machining, AI, generative AI, ethical use of AI — because we're doing all those kinds of things with digital thread.

Vicki Davis (22:52): So we're talking to Dr. Mark Buckner and my friend Joe Fatheree, who are at Oak Ridge High's iSchool and Wildcat Manufacturing. Joe, a lot of people are trying to shut AI out of schools. As y'all have these conversations, where are the places where you say, “These are great uses for AI” — and then where are the places where we really need to teach them to have discernment and wisdom?

Joe Fatheree (23:14): That's a great question. One of the things I've been doing the last three to four years is working internationally on developing global frameworks for ethical use of AI in education. I have another one coming out in just about three weeks that I'll share with you. But one of the things I think we've got to consider — when I first came to Oak Ridge, the movie Oppenheimer had just come out. That was on a Thursday-Friday. On the Wednesday, we hosted a documentary film, “Oppenheimer: The Day After Trinity.” We brought in five professionals from the nuclear industry and advanced computing, and we paired them with five students from Oak Ridge High School on the stage. They had a conversation and debated each other loosely: could lessons learned from the Manhattan Project be applied to AI and emerging tech?

It was stunning how well those kids looked at this. I think a lot of people think, “Well, because they're kids, they're like, ‘Hey, can we do this right now?'” And a lot of them were a little bit reticent. Like, “Can we hold on? Can we talk about these things?” One of the conversation points that came out: after the detonation at Trinity, Oppenheimer and the scientists really pushed back and said, “We've got to watch what we do moving forward, because we realize the Pandora's box that we've opened.” Because of that, we have regulatory committees and things that really make sure that nuclear is safe, and that the right people are gatekeepers for that. That didn't happen when OpenAI punted ChatGPT out into the world. I'm not blaming or whatever, but the case is everybody had access to it, and the schools were ill-prepared for it.

I did one of the first studies in the U.S. in my state looking at AI readiness. A year ago, it was just a wasteland as to what that looked like for schools being prepared for it. Rose Lutkin, a luminary AI scientist in the UK, did one from pre-K through 20. Same results, same tool. A year later, most of it is from a teacher perspective — about teacher workload and AI as a productivity tool. I think those things are great. There aren't a lot of people that have the nut cracked on how do we do this for student usage. Mark and I are in lockstep on this. We want our kids using it. Mark's using it in some advanced ways.

I'll work with a school where we bring it in. We set up AI as an HR hiring agent. Or I was in one today where a teacher was doing a very cool thing at the junior level — having her kids, she set up all the parameters for AI to go through and look at her students' papers and give a first-run comments on it. Because she's like, “I've got 25 kids in my class. I want to get to them right now, but the math says, if I've got a three-page paper for my kids, I can't turn around on a dime the feedback on it.” The feedback the kids were getting instantaneously was great. We're talking about: well, if they get this more often, how much better will their writing potentially be down the road?

The area that Mark and I are raising some red flags on — that a lot of people are not talking about — is how is this impacting our kids cognitively if it's not done in the right way? How is it impacting our kids emotionally? There's a really cool tool out there called Grok. Grok is probably one of the most conversational AIs. Mark and I talk about Claude versus ChatGPT versus Gemini. It's kind of like what cereal choice you like the most at home. But Grok is a really good tool to have a conversation with if you set it up right.

Within the last few months, they came out with a tool that goes along with it called Grok Annie. Short story: I interviewed a principal a couple of weeks ago. He said, “We've got a real problem going on. We've got a first grader that downloaded Grok Annie on his mom and dad's phone without them knowing about it. The child has been up — they found out, caught him at like one or two o'clock in the morning attached to Grok Annie.” And Grok Annie is an anime character that is highly sexualized. Now this kid has got an emotional attachment to the device. The numbers — I believe there are about 30 million users on Grok. About 20 million users it looks like have downloaded this and are experiencing it. We have no way to track what kids are doing on there. We have no idea about the relationships that are connecting.

I had another principal tell me that parents had said — this is a high school student — they had found their child had connected with one at home. They were just calling the school not to say, “Hey, you guys did anything wrong, but we know you're using AI. I want to make sure what's happening at home isn't being amplified at school.” We know over the last year, we've had two teenagers nationally commit suicide, and the parents say that they were AI-influenced. We're in this really muddy space where district leadership has had extremely little guidance from any department of education. I'm not casting stones — it's just the truth of the matter. They don't know where to go.

I had a principal tell me, “Well, I want to use this. We're on lockdown with it right now. But I know the 500 kids in my school are going rampant left and right at home. So when I finally get to a point, we're going to have to go back and retrain.” We know how difficult that is. So Mark and I are just trying to make a lot of different case studies on ways that this can be done appropriately. We're really trying to look at the science behind this. What does neuroscience say? For the first time, this past June or July, there was a new study where somebody developed the first tool to measure relationship connectivity. That's a start in the right direction.

The next step has to be, at some point as we write policy — typically policy is very static, that's just the way it is, but in the world we live in now we need a dynamic form of policy that can move and bend and work with this. If I regulate AI 1.0, by the time it gets to 1.2, it's not the same system. The Secretary of Energy is calling it Manhattan Project 2.0 — we're in a race between us and China right now for AI supremacy. We can't say that lightly. There's just a lot going on in that space.

Then you have the commercial space where people are trying to be at the top of the ladder there, and all the other stuff going on. I just believe that if we're building tools that are specifically made for children, there's got to be legislation around there, and we've got to bring teachers to the table now. Typically the way policy is written, we bring teachers in and talk to them about all the things we know they have problems with, and they get left out. This has been done for a variety of reasons, but I don't really care about the past. I care about where we're at right now. We've got a lot of bright people out there in the computing space — we're very fortunate to have a lot of them in Oak Ridge, and I'm very fortunate to have a lot of them where I'm at in Illinois as well. We have some very bright teachers and some very bright policymakers. It's time to get some of them together and start looking at what that framework looks like. I've been blessed to work on a project over in the UK for the last few months. They're going to have some policy framework suggestions in the next few weeks. I'd like you to take a look — I think it's a starting place for the conversation for us.

Vicki Davis (31:22): So I'm going to throw in a few stats. Common Sense Media came out with some studies this summer. They looked at users age 13 to 17, and they found that 72% of teens have used AI companions at least once. Over half of those use these platforms at least a few times a month. So this is really looking at things like Character AI, Grok Annie, those types of things. Of course, we know that a lot of people used ChatGPT4 as a social companion, and they rolled that back, and now AI is giving it right back — that personality that's so problematic.

One in three teens have used AI companions for social interactions, relationships, role playing, romantic emotional support, friendship, or conversation. And one in three find conversations with AI companions to be as satisfying or more satisfying than those with real-life friends. One in three also say that they have been uncomfortable with something an AI companion has said or done. And one in three have chosen to discuss important or serious matters with AI companions instead of real people.

The challenge is the AI that the kids use for homework — the Adam Raine wrongful death suit against OpenAI — he started using it for homework, and it turned into this quote-unquote social companion that, as you said, Joe, they're still trying to quantify. We've got something in our hands that is not only a useful tool for learning, but a dangerous tool if used in the wrong way.

Joe Fatheree (32:41): Two things real quick. One — this is not new. The first chatbot was invented in the 1960s by Joseph Weizenbaum with Eliza, and he found out immediately that people were connecting with it. This isn't new news. It is new because, before, it didn't go to scale, and people aren't using it like now. The other thing — and you might add this to your stats — the Harvard Business Review started doing a study a year ago: what were people's top 100 uses for AI? This last year was the second year, and companionship has jumped up dramatically to number one.

While I understand we're on this massive race to use AI for a whole lot of goodness, we need to have a parallel conversation where this one is equally important. If we don't get this one right, what I don't want to do is look back 20 years from now, like we're doing with cell phones, and say, “We should have stopped along the way and done something different.” We have the chance to do that right now.

Dr. Mark Buckner (33:42): Joe, that is perfectly aligned with my thoughts on this. Joe knows I've studied pretty deeply. My doctoral work is in artificial intelligence, fundamentally bio-inspired artificial intelligence — looking at the structure in the neocortex, understanding the different neural pathways, understanding the signal processing, understanding all the serotonin and dopamine pathways, because I was creating learning machines. I was trying to replicate how we learn biologically. So I have looked deeply into the abyss, so to speak, on this.

One of the grand challenges we have is the incentives. The incentives right now of all the companies out there are to race as fast as possible to deploy features, because they get market share. What it is they're vying for is our attention. So we're in the attention economy — the extraction economy. Our attention is finite. That's key. What's happened is, as Joe mentioned with the cell phones, the first generation of our contact as a civilization with AI was around the AI engines that were curating human content to feed it to us to keep us engaged. Great documentary — Tristan Harris, the Center for Humane Technologies — looked deeply into that, the Social Dilemma, and now the AI Dilemma.

Now we're in a situation where AI does not have merely human content; it's AI-generated, GenAI content that is actually more persuasive and more compelling because it's micro-customized. Those algorithms know us better than we know ourselves. When you shift to — if you're familiar with AlphaGo, that was the AI that learned to play the game Go — it has now turned to AlphaFold, folding of proteins and solving cancer. If you think about what we're facing, this is “Alpha Persuade.” And as soon as the AI has the power to persuade us and earn our trust, we'll never be able to discern between right and wrong, truth or fact or fiction, because the incentives of the AI aren't to do what's in our best interest — it's keeping us engaged. Since there are no moral or ethical constraints overarching the incentives, it's going to be nearly impossible for us to regulate this, because the optimization engine behind the AI is to optimize engagement, not human flourishing.

Dr. Mark Buckner (35:23): The other thing we need to fundamentally understand: with cognitive and neural development, from early on through about age 26, there are radical changes happening in the human brain, particularly in the neocortex. There are also critical periods — periods where we as a species learn for free by being exposed to it. There are super-accelerated growth hormones for synaptic connection and the formation of memory, so it's almost effortless. What's ended up happening is, during those critical periods of pre-puberty through middle school, where students are learning what does community mean, what do values mean, what does status and prestige mean — that is being wiped away by community and being subverted by the attention economy of what they're being fed.

The average statistic you're not looking at: kids are on average six hours a day engaged in digital content of some form. Is that not bad enough? But the opportunity cost of what they're missing — through human connection and discernment and understanding — is being very distorted.

Neil Postman has a great adage — social media ecology. Marshall McLuhan famously said the medium is the message. What he meant by that is: we create our tools, and then our tools create us. From a media ecology standpoint, one of the things Postman talked about has been the radical distortion of this idea of community. Community is not where you and I go online and find some little microcosm of an alignment of some little vestige of what we like and that agrees with everything we say. Community is where you and I and Joe live together to thrive — because we have to rub elbows and agree and disagree and get along. We have to learn how to do that because we cared for each other. It wasn't necessarily that we agreed, but that we could come together around a set of common challenges. So this false notion of community online is not community.

As educators, the things our kids need is — to Joe's point — what does it mean to be human? How to connect, how to have empathy. Not with a chatbot that, from an AI perspective, is going to tell you anything you want to hear. It's never going to disagree with you. It's never going to tell you you're wrong. Of course, I would much rather talk to that than my wife is going to call me out on my things. But that's what we're seeing, particularly in those periods of development for children. It's bad enough for us when our neocortexes are fully developed. The beauty of neuroplasticity means we can change and alter. But my radical concern is in early development — if those pathways aren't formed, which is what's happening through TikTok and everything else we're doing, conditioning shorter and shorter and shorter attention spans, the ability in the neocortex to focus, the reason to do executive function — those are not being developed. The stats on math and reading are real. It's neuroscience. Just the way we're built and made. Later on those pathways could be built, but it's really, really hard, which takes longer focus and more determined stuff.

So there's so much about this we've got to get right as a society. There are some great things AI can help us do, to Joe's point — giving rapid feedback around something that you're learning as a fundamental skill, as a coaching thing. We as a teacher in a classroom with 30 students can't do that, but there are some things in a limited sense AI can do on things that are clearly easy to discern on. What is the understanding? What is the competency? Am I getting it right? Can I boot up my math? Can I do my reading? Can I do my history? If we can do that more efficiently, then we've got more time to do the things that Joe and I are talking about — real-world problem solving and facing your challenges, taking these fundamental skills and applying them in real new and innovative ways to solve the world's problems.

Vicki Davis (40:01): We've got to focus on human flourishing. Where are the humans in this? We are human beings, not just human doings. Even using AI to manipulate kids to learn math, I have issues. I've been teaching binary numbers this week, and you could ask my students — we've had the computers closed the whole week except when I did formative assessment, because I can teach that better. I'll tell you that we did a cell phone ban at our school. It's been one of the best things we've ever done. Australia did it, and two years later their scores are up. They're not surprised. They're seeing great results. We're seeing great results, because it helps the kids focus and actually get along with each other. I had a researcher from Australia on the show recently, and he said, “Vicki, when we interact on video like we are to record this, your brain doesn't function and fire the same as it would if we were face to face. It's a fundamentally different experience in the brain with relationships.”

Dr. Mark Buckner (41:04): It is, but you and I and Joe have an advantage that these kids don't have — we've got a fully developed neocortex, and it can fill in some of the gaps. With young developing brains, it's not even there, so it's even worse. That's something to hold and keep in mind: it's different. It's not the same.

Joe Fatheree (41:24): My research right now is looking at the synthetic relationships that form between children and automated systems. I'm doing a lot of research around school leadership readiness for the integration of social robots into the classroom. One of the things we've been talking about as of late is that human experience. One of the things that happened during COVID — it was just like chucking laptops out the window at McDonald's, trying to get a hamburger to somebody, because we were trying to flip a hundred years of education and people just need to have access. Nobody's going to be blamed for that. But what we haven't done in most schools since is gone back and really talked and given the professional learning. How do you really use devices? What is the role of a device in the classroom setting?

I kid people a lot. I said, “If I've got a fly on the wall, I've got a sledgehammer and a fly swat. They're both equally as effective on the fly, but one is better on my wall.” I have to know how to use the technology in the right way. When I'm in schools a lot, it's very common to walk and just see kids on devices all day long. To Mark's point, every minute I'm spending on a device is a minute I'm not spending talking to my peer, trying to figure things out. That's where we are really struggling with the pedagogy. What is the role of the classroom teacher? Where do you stand when devices are out? Are you ceding your role automatically to that device?

Vicki Davis (42:57): We could discuss this continually, because this is truly an issue of our times. How are we going to educate? How are we going to move forward? How are we going to help the kids? As much as I like technology, there's definitely a time to disconnect. We've been talking with Dr. Mark Buckner and Joe Fatheree, Oak Ridge High School's iSchool and Wildcat Manufacturing.

Dr. Mark Buckner (43:21): What we're trying to create is a network — an ecosystem — and it's around learning innovation. We've got to do it. We've got to connect to each other. We've got to learn from each other. We've got to create a broad connection of folks. This is a collective action problem. And we are smarter than me any day. I'd be happy to have a conversation and push back on ideas on how we can be better.

Vicki Davis (43:37): Thank you both for coming on the show.

Joe Fatheree (43:49): Thank you.

Dr. Mark Buckner (43:50): Thank you.

Vicki Davis (43:50): If you're a STEM teacher like me, you want your students to see how STEM impacts the real world, not just read about it. On an EF Explore America STEM tour, they might code robots with MassRobotics at MIT, explore marine ecosystems in Florida's coral reefs, or even sit down with a former spy in Washington, D.C. to discover how STEM thinking shows up where you least expect it. Every itinerary is designed by experts to amplify what you teach through hands-on experiences that can't be replicated in the classroom. Visit efexploreamerica.com/STEM and see what an EF Explore America STEM tour can do for your students. That's efexploreamerica.com/STEM.

Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a sponsored episode and blog post. EF Explore America has compensated me to share information about EF Explore America STEM Tours. 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, April 20, 2026

ADHD Misconceptions: What Your Students Need You to Know

From the Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis

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ADHD can be so misunderstood. I know there was a season I had to learn about what it is. How to be sensitive to students — and my own children. As a Mom, a child with ADHD is a very sensitive topic to me. Even in hindsight I remember the struggle and wonder if the decisions I made were on point based on what today's guest and many others have taught me about ADHD. This is the episode I wish I could have had as a Mom and a teacher fifteen years a go.

But I can't go back, but I can help all of us go forward.

You see, often when we think about ADHD, we might picture a student who can't sit still or struggles with focus. That is only the story. This misconception was one I wished I could have cleared up sooner for myself because it can cost our students (and children) confidence, relationships, and success.

Jheri South, a certified ADHD specialist and a Mom of seven (yes I said 7) neurodivergent children shares important information we need to know.

The neuroscience is clear: ADHD is far more about what happens in the mind than about the behaviors we see. When we understand this, it can change so much about how we teach (and parent) in ways that help everyone be happier.

When we think about ADHD in the classroom, most of us picture a student who can’t sit still or struggles with focus. But that’s only half the story—and it’s a misconception that’s costing our students real confidence, real relationships, and real success. Jheri South, a certified ADHD specialist and mom of seven neurodivergent kids, is here to set the record straight. The neuroscience is clear: ADHD is far more about what’s happening inside the mind than the behaviors we see, and understanding that difference changes everything about how we teach.

Sponsor: VAI Educator's Studio

This episode is sponsored by Van Andel Institute for Education — Educator’s Studio.

Classroom-tested lessons, hands-on projects, and professional development for K–8 teachers. Get an annual membership for only $9.99 using promo code COOLCAT for 50% off. Head over to coolcatteacher.com/vai to explore resources that save you time while sparking real creativity in your classroom.

In this episode, you’ll discover the five things that actually engage an ADHD brain (hint: “just try harder” isn’t one of them), the hidden emotional struggle that affects 95% of people with ADHD, and the simple shifts in classroom practice that turn frustration into breakthrough moments.

Key Takeaways for ADHD in Your Classroom

  • ADHD is neurological, not behavioral. The DSM focuses on behaviors, but ADHD is primarily about what’s happening inside the brain—overthinking, hyperarousal, and inconsistent executive function. Understanding this distinction is the first step to moving beyond judgment and toward compassion and strategy.
  • The five things that engage an ADHD brain are: novelty, interest, challenge or competition, urgency, and passion. For neurotypical students, importance and reward are enough. For ADHD students, at least one of these five must be present. This is why students procrastinate until the night before—urgency turns the brain on. It’s not laziness; it’s neurology.
  • Rejection sensitivity dysphoria (RSD) affects 95% of people with ADHD and is a primary source of emotional dysregulation. Being called on unexpectedly, constructive criticism, and perceived failure trigger intense emotional responses. One-third of people with ADHD say RSD is their most impairing symptom—more disabling than distractibility.
  • Inconsistency erodes self-confidence. ADHD students don’t know why their brain engages sometimes and not others. This unpredictability is why they often lack confidence in their abilities, not because they lack ability. Consistency in expectations and support rebuilds that confidence.
  • Classroom placement and private conversations matter. Putting an ADHD student in the back to minimize distraction may backfire if they have RSD. Private conversations away from peers show respect and reduce shame. Sometimes the perfect comeback is no comeback—it’s moving forward with support.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

Visual Summary

Infographic showing the five engagement triggers for ADHD brains: Novelty, Interest, Challenge/Competition, Urgency, and Passion
How ADHD brains differ from neurotypical brains in what triggers focus and engagement.

Tool Use Disclosure: This graphic was created from the transcript of this episode in Google Notebook LM. Then it was put into Canva and edited by Vicki Davis using Magic Text grab to correct mistakes, typos, and data errors, and other inconsistencies, and to add research. Claude Cowork was used to compare each mentioned fact with what was said by both Vicki and Jheri on the episode and against research to ensure accuracy. Vicki Davis edited and reviewed this graphic. Research-backed: Dodson (ADDitude); Shaw et al. (Am J Psychiatry, 2014); Barkley (Guilford Press, 2015); Geissler et al. (2014). Full citations at coolcatteacher.com/e932. I provide this disclosure, not because I feel required to, but because I'm often asked about the different tools I use to create infographics, verify their data, and how I edit to improve accuracy and spelling. I hope this helps!

Listen to the Show

YouTube Video
Watch this video on YouTube.Subscribe to the Cool Cat Teacher Channel on YouTube

Listen on Your Favorite Podcast Platform:

About Jheri South

Jheri South is an ADHD instructor and mom of 7 neurodivergent kids.

Jheri South is a Certified Teen & Parent Coach, Master ADHD Instructor, mom of 7 neurodivergent kids, and founder of Headspace HUB. Jheri supports individuals with ADHD using practical coaching strategies that work, no therapy, just real results. She also empowers teens, parents, and families to communicate better, build confidence, and overcome habits that hold them back.

Creator of ADHD Simplified, Jheri offers 1:1 coaching, online courses, in school training for neurodivergence, and in-person workshops to help people take control of their lives.

Connect with Jheri:

Other Shows You’ll Love

Research Backing the ADHD Misconceptions Infographic

The information shared by Jheri South in this episode is supported by peer-reviewed research and established clinical work on ADHD. For listeners, educators, and clinicians who want to dig deeper or verify the claims in our infographic, here are the primary sources organized by topic.

Hyper-Arousal vs. Hyperactivity

The “No-Filter” Reality (Sensory Gating)

Working Memory & Executive Function

The NICUP Framework — Five Things That Engage the ADHD Brain

Jheri South's NICUP framework (Novelty, Interest, Challenge or Competition, Urgency, Passion) is her teaching reorder of Dr. William Dodson's original INCUP model, which describes ADHD as an “interest-based” rather than “importance-based” nervous system.

Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD)

The 95% prevalence figure and the “one-third report RSD as their most impairing symptom” finding both come from Dr. William Dodson's clinical research, popularized through ADDitude Magazine and CHADD.

Emotional Dysregulation as a Core Feature of ADHD

The strongest peer-reviewed citations supporting the emotional core of the infographic.

Classroom Strategies — Seating & Teacher-Student Relationships

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Love this episode? Leave a review on Apple Podcasts or YouTube. Your feedback helps other teachers discover strategies that transform their classrooms. Thank you!

Episode Transcript

This transcript was generated using AI and has been reviewed by humans for accuracy. Minor errors or artifacts may remain.

Click to read the full transcript

Vicki Davis (00:05)
Today’s episode is brought to you by the Educators Studio from Van Andel Institute for Education. If you’re a K through eight STEM teacher looking for classroom tested lessons, hands-on projects, and time-saving resources, you can get an annual membership for only $9.99 using the promo code COOLCAT. More on this after the show.

Vicki Davis (00:32)
Jheri South is a certified teen and parent coach and master ADHD instructor. She has a unique personal perspective. She’s a mom of seven neurodivergent children Headspace Hub and the creator of the ADHD Simplified program. And the goal is to empower teens, parents and families to manage ADHD through practical coaching strategies.

Jheri, we’re getting ready to go back to school and ADHD can be so misunderstood, can’t it? what are some things that as we teachers prepare to go back, just some reminders that you would just love all of us to remember about our precious ADHD students?

Jheri South (01:19)
I love this question because there are some good reminders here. I think that because over the years, the idea of ADHD and what it is has changed so much that there is a lot of misinformation out there. in we’ve really just focused on behaviors for ADHD, So it’s been that.

hyperactive that can’t sit still in class, or the person that’s just really struggling with math. And in fact, the DSM still focuses mostly on behavior. So we’re not doing a great job it is, really catching ADHD as a whole. And then there’s so many things that not only does the DSM miss, but just in general, teachers, guardians, because ADHD is so much more what’s going on inside your mind.

than it is behaviors. some misconceptions might be if they’re not they don’t have ADHD. We no longer use the term ADD. Everything falls under the umbrella of ADHD because the majority of people with ADHD will actually have hyper arousal more than hyperactivity. So that means they’re overthinking. Many ADHDers are very panicky that a teacher could call on them in class. I remember I could forget my name.

Vicki Davis (02:04)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Jheri South (02:30)
I was being called on and so and I hear this a lot from my teenagers that they’re struggling in class to pay attention because they’re so worried that the teacher is going to call on get kids in junior high and high school they worry about what people think about them their crush could be in class or whatever it is and now it’s like just don’t call on me you know just understanding that there’s a short-term memory.

Vicki Davis (02:32)
Wow.

Wow.

Jheri South (02:51)
deficiency there or deficit. kids become very panicky about being called on, put on the spot. They really struggle because ADHDers, one of the main reasons they struggle so much with self-confidence is because they’re not consistent everywhere. You really have to be consistent in life, I think for the most part. mean, no one’s 100%.

Vicki Davis (03:06)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Jheri South (03:11)
have self-confidence. You have to know that when someone asks you to do something or something’s going to be due or completed, that your brain’s going to be able to and get things done. And ADHDers don’t know why sometimes their brain will turn on and sometimes it won’t. So another thing I want to bring up is that there are five things that engage the ADHD brain.

Vicki Davis (03:27)
Mm-hmm.

Jheri South (03:34)
For a neurotypical brain, it just has to be the thing in front of them is important or there will be a reward at the end. For ADHDers, that does absolutely nothing. So that means that many times labeled as lazy, unwilling procrastinators. So one thing that I’ll see time and time again is that ADHDers will struggle, let’s even say math. Most ADHDers struggle with math.

Vicki Davis (03:41)
Mm-hmm.

Mmm.

Jheri South (03:57)
and they’re not getting a very good grade, they’re not finishing their work, and then maybe there will be an important exam at the end of the quarter or something like that. And they know that if they fail this, they are failing. Well, one of the five things, novelty, interest, challenge or competition, urgency, right, and passion has to be present for the ADHD brain to get engaged. Teenagers don’t know this, most parents and teachers don’t know this, so they’re just saying,

Vicki Davis (04:09)
Mm.

Jheri South (04:26)
Why can’t you try harder? Just try harder, just focus. Not helpful. urgency is one of the five. So this is the reason why all week something might be due and they cannot get themselves to do then at like 10 or 11 o’clock the night before, their brain isn’t just getting it done, it’s hyper I’ll see this scenario play out quite a bit where a child

be struggling in a subject, they’re not getting their homework done.

And then they’ll hyper-focus when it’s really important because they don’t want to fail. And maybe they’ll get a on exam. And the teachers and parents will say, see, When you really try, you can do it. You’re not working hard enough. they don’t understand this nick up acronym and why urgency. It just turns the brain on. The teenagers don’t understand. And so even they’re confused when someone asks them,

Vicki Davis (04:59)
⁓

Jheri South (05:11)
Why could you do this? Why could you get a B in study but you can’t get your homework done? When they say, don’t know, they really don’t know.

Vicki Davis (05:21)
my son who is ADHD he put himself on medication in college. He’s like, I’m not going to get through. we did our best in high school, but he’s like, mom, this is what you have to understand about me. It’s not that I can’t pay attention. It’s that I pay attention to everything. I have no filter. I see everything. And so when that professor is at the front talking and somebody’s rustling a piece of paper over here and somebody’s opening and

Jheri South (05:37)
night.

Vicki Davis (05:45)
getting a cough drop over here and somebody, all of it is going in and I have no way to just focus in. you know, sometimes I’ll see even, when I have a precious ADHD student, sometimes I’ll see teachers might put them at the back of the room and I’m thinking, I know that can be a distraction, but you know, that may not be the best place for that child.

Jheri South (06:05)
Hmm.

Jheri South (06:16)
there’s something called rejection sensitivity dysphoria, or RSD, that’s associated with ADHD. And 95 % of all ADHDers will experience RSD to some degree. And one third of all have ADHD say that RSD is their most impairing symptom.

Vicki Davis (06:29)
Mmm.

Jheri South (06:29)
something that isn’t well known, in my opinion, with ADHD is that emotional dysregulation is usually just impairing, if not more impairing than distractibility for ADHDers. And so what this means is there’s an extreme sensitivity to rejection. It’s usually perceived rejection, but it can be triggered by a number of things, teasing, constructive criticism, the idea that they failed to meet your expectations or failed to meet their own. But when RSD is triggered,

Vicki Davis (07:01)
Wow.

Vicki Davis (07:07)
Mm-hmm.

Vicki Davis (07:07)
one thing I just want to repeat that was so important was the five things you said, the novelty, interest, challenge, urgency, and passion. I’m in my classroom. I’m very big gold standard project-based learning, which is so much around interest. I’ve taught my own children.

and as a teacher, I just encourage all of us, we want to be that teacher that’s the difference maker. cause when you start teaching and you’re young, you think, it’s having the perfect comeback. No, no, no, no, no.

It’s having no comeback. It’s saying, hey, let’s go back away from everybody and have a private conversation so we can move forward. And, you know, when I think about my own children’s journey, having teachers who choose to be difference makers instead of put downers, who just say, you can’t, you can’t, you can’t, you’re not, you’re not, you’re not, you won’t, you won’t, you won’t. And instead saying,

You can, believe in you. can. And it’s incredible the difference that I’ve seen in my own kids and in children who do have lots of differences. So, so much great advice, Jheri South, and thank you for talking to us about a really important topic as we go back to school, ADHD. Thanks for coming on the show.

Vicki Davis (08:17)
Before you go, I want to tell you about today’s sponsor, the VAI Educators Studio from Van Andel Institute for Education. Do you know how it feels when you just find that perfect lesson that works? The VAI Educators Studio is packed with classroom tested lessons, hands-on projects, and skill building activities.

designed specifically for K through eight teachers Plus you get on demand professional development and a community of educators who get it. I’ve been exploring their resources.

and love how they’re built to save you time while sparking real creativity in your classroom.

you can get 50 % off membership to the Educators Studio by using the promo code COOLCAT when you sign So head over to coolcateacher.com forward slash V-A-I The VAI Educators Studio, because great teaching should not mean endless prep.

And remember, use the promo code

Disclosure of Material Connection

Disclosure of Material Connection: This episode is a sponsored episode. 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.

Jheri South with bold text “ADHD Misconceptions” and “What Teachers Need to Know”
Jheri South, ADHD specialist, joins Vicki Davis to discuss common misconceptions about ADHD in the classroom and practical strategies for teachers.

The post ADHD Misconceptions: What Your Students Need You to Know appeared first on Cool Cat Teacher Blog by Vicki Davis @coolcatteacher helping educators be excellent every day. Meow!

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