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Some of the greatest memories of my life have been taking students to new places. Qatar. India. China. The UAE. Hawaii. Even just up the road in Atlanta, Georgia. Over the past twenty years, I've taken students literally all over the world — and they've expanded my world, too. Sometimes it's about seeing the world through their eyes and watching the wonder light up their faces.
My students on the beach in Dubai — arms wide, face full of possibility.
I will never forget a boy who wanted to go to Dubai more than anything. He fundraised. He had barbecue after barbecue. He raised every dollar himself so he could make the trip. When we finally stood on the beach, dipping our toes in the Arabian Gulf, he stretched out his arms and shouted to the sky: “Dubai! I'll be back!”
His whole life was forever changed. I saw it in the way he walked through the Dubai Mall, the way he engaged at the conference where he was a co-speaker with me. My students have traveled to present at conferences around the world, and they've done an exceptional job. But that moment on the beach — arms wide, face full of possibility — that's the moment that reminds me why student travel matters.
Angela Cannava, a high school science and CTE biomedical sciences teacher in Denver, Colorado, told me about a student of hers who had barely spoken ten words to her in three years of class. Then she took him on EF's Health Sciences in Great Britain tour.
“After we went on that trip, he just hit it off with me — telling me all about his weekends, about his baseball games, about how he wants to travel the world now, and about how I inspired him. Moments like that are just so incredible and so touching that it's worth it all.”
— Angela Cannava, Denver, Colorado
My students at a global citizens conference in India
Travel Transforms Lives in Ways Nothing Else Can
When students travel, they learn about different cultures and different languages. They figure out how to use Google Translate to communicate with people from other countries. They come back with a different respect for others — even if they're just traveling across the country. They learn that other places aren't like where they're from, and that people everywhere are both the same and wonderfully different.
Miranda Grabowski, a high school biology teacher in Austin, Texas, has led five international trips with students — including a recent Panama wetlands conservation trip where eleventh graders worked with local NGOs to plant mangroves.
“I get to sit back and watch my students learn in real time how science happens in the real world. They're actually doing the science on their own, not just sitting back and letting someone talk to them. That's why I like traveling with kids — to see them actually experience things, as opposed to just read about them.”
— Miranda Grabowski, Austin, Texas
And Edith Cortez, an eighth grade social studies teacher in Laredo, Texas, has watched her students come home genuinely changed.
“They came back super different. They had to handle their own money, they had to pick up after themselves, they had to set their own alarms. It's exposure and accountability. And they don't even come back with souvenirs — they come back with things from those museums of, ‘this is where I came from.'”
Traveling gives you an opportunity to transform lives in ways that no other activity can. And when you integrate experiential learning with science, history, or math, it truly changes the world for those students.
I remember going to Washington, D.C., when I was in middle school. Standing on the National Mall and hearing the stories of the people who had gone before — people who gave their lives so that we could have the freedoms we enjoy. Years later, when I was in college, I jumped at the chance to intern for a U.S. senator. I knew the richness of serving in our nation's capital because I had been there. I had experienced it. That school trip planted a seed.
But the trip that truly changed my life came in eighth grade, when my grandmother took me to Alaska. She had decided to take each of her grandchildren on a trip, and I was the oldest. Her health declined soon after, so I was one of the only grandchildren who got to go.
We stayed awake late, and she told me stories. But the thing she told me that I carry to this day was this: “Vicki, you live in a small town, but it's a big world. You need to have a big mind. You need to know that there are people all over the world who are different from you — and you need to think with a world in mind.”
Megan Philbrook, 2026 New Hampshire Teacher of the Year and a 5th–8th grade social studies teacher at Andover Elementary Middle School in rural New Hampshire, put this feeling into words for me:
“All adults can look back on their time in schools and think about a couple lessons that really stuck out. These kinds of experiences transform teaching into something our learners will never forget into adulthood.”
— Megan Philbrook, 2026 New Hampshire Teacher of the Year
Not every child has a grandmother or parent who can take them places. But I wish every teacher and school could help facilitate these experiences for their students!
Why I Recommend EF Tours
I'll admit, I probably did student travel the hard way for many years. I planned the trips myself. I booked the plane tickets and hotels. I even put a lot of it on my own credit card and waited to be reimbursed by parents. (Truly a terrible idea.) That approach worked for me for a season, but it's not something I'd recommend for most teachers.
As I've talked to teacher friends who have traveled with EF Tours, I've realized this is the better way. Edith Cortez says it simply:
“EF handles everything, really. My consultant — bless her heart — sends me email templates, social media posts, posters for campus, handouts for families. They do the itinerary. EF handles most of the work, and it is pretty much amazing.”
— Edith Cortez, 8th grade social studies, Laredo, Texas
Angela Cannava, who now leads international tours every year, echoed the same thing:
“EF makes it so easy. They make my flyers, my PowerPoints, everything. Then it's just ready to go for my promotion nights. They give me deadlines, a website to help kids raise money. We're so busy as teachers — EF makes it doable for our workload.”
— Angela Cannava, high school science, Denver, Colorado
EF Tours also offers global scholarships to help students who otherwise couldn't afford to travel. And when something comes up that's not on the itinerary, they pivot. Karen Spencer, principal at Parkview Baptist School in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, told me about a last-minute detour on a recent Boston trip:
“The Museum of Ice Cream was a spur-of-the-moment thing. One of the parents mentioned it in passing at lunch and I said, ‘Wait, what?' I called EF and said, ‘How can we make this work?' They were like, ‘We're on it.' Three hours later, we were there. That's one of the reasons I like EF so much — they want to make it a great experience.”
— Karen Spencer, Principal, Parkview Baptist School, Baton Rouge, Louisiana about her Boston STEM Trip
If you're worried about the stress of leading your first trip, Miranda Grabowski's advice is encouraging:
“It's okay to be stressed the first time you do it — but it's only the first time that's stressful.”
— Miranda Grabowski, high school biology, Austin, Texas
EF Tours works with teachers one-on-one to find the perfect itinerary, and their tours are curated by world travelers and subject matter experts who understand that great itineraries should be full of experiential learning opportunities. They handle all the things that come with traveling with children and teenagers — so you can focus on the teaching moments instead of the logistics.
STEM Travel
Inspire your students with hands-on STEM learning in the real world.
Here are some of EF Tours' most popular experiences to get you started:
London, Paris & Rome — One of EF's most beloved tours, this classic European itinerary takes students through world-class art, medieval architecture, and centuries of history across three iconic cities.
Health Sciences in Great Britain — Angela Cannava took her CTE health sciences students to Scotland and England for nine days. They visited anatomical museums, rode the London Eye at sunset, and did real DNA fingerprinting in a working forensics lab. One of her students told her, “Oh my gosh, Ms. Cannava, everything you taught me is actually what they do in the real lab.”
Washington, D.C.: The Capital Tour — Bring history to life through monuments, museums, and the heart of American democracy. Perfect for bringing social studies off the textbook page. And in 2026, EF is offering special America's 250th Anniversary tours to celebrate our nation's heritage. Edith Cortez took her eighth graders on EF's Washington STEM version: “Everyone thinks Washington and monuments — but the museums were so hands-on. My kids were competing with one another through scenarios. It was very, very interactive.”
Boston STEM & History — Karen Spencer's seventh graders at Parkview Baptist School have been taking this trip for years. They tour MIT and Harvard, visit the Museum of Science and the Museum of Fine Arts, walk the Freedom Trail, do a duck boat tour, and get hands-on with FIRST Robotics.
Discover Costa Rica — Thundering waterfalls, active volcanoes, and lush rainforests become the classroom. Students develop environmental awareness and explore ecotourism practices with local experts.
Belize Ridge to Reef — Angela Cannava's STEM conservation trip to Belize had students doing a nighttime bat-tagging workshop, beach cleanups to study microplastics, and snorkeling with local marine biologists. One of her students is going back this summer to work at the NGO that ran the bat workshop.
“The most fun our kids had was talking with the farmers. They got to hook up all the milking machinery — and then they got to drink fresh milk. In the United States, that doesn't happen at any dairy very often. The kids really put agriculture in perspective.”
Panama Wetlands Conservation — Miranda Grabowski's eleventh graders in Austin work alongside Panamanian NGOs to plant mangroves and help conserve wetlands.
“They're actually out there in the boots, picking up the mangroves, getting on a boat, getting sunburned.”
— Miranda Grabowski, high school biology, Austin, Texas
London, Paris, Venice & Rome — For teachers who want to go deeper into European history and culture, this expanded itinerary adds the canals and architecture of Venice to the classic route.
Language Immersion Through Costa Rica — Each day is built around a different theme, tying together daily language lessons, cultural activities, and meaningful interactions with locals. A beautiful option for world language teachers.
EF also offers middle school tours designed specifically for younger students, STEM-focused tours, performing arts tours, and service learning trips. Whatever your subject area, there's an itinerary that fits.
Give Your Students the World
Every spring, I do a project with my eighth graders called the Personal Trip Project. It's a spreadsheet project where they plan a dream trip. They might “plan” to go to Bora Bora or Venice or even just one state over to a place they've always dreamed of going. A wonderful outcome is they realize these are places they can actually go. Some of them go home and talk to their parents. Recently, a student got to go to Venice after planning the trip in my class.
But I want this experience for every student. Angela Cannava's Belize story captures why:
“One of the students who went on that trip is actually going to work at the NGO this summer — the one that did the bat workshop. So not just classroom connections, but connections beyond that for life. He could end up working there.”
— Angela Cannava
And Karen Spencer, from the principal's chair, sees something I see in my own classroom:
“My favorite thing is getting to know the students on a different level and having them see me in a different light. I just got home yesterday from our Boston trip, and I saw a child who sometimes gets in trouble in such a different light. I have such a new love and respect for him that was different than what I had before.”
— Karen Spencer
Traveling with students is one of those things that changes their life — and changes yours. You become closer to those kids, and they truly become your legacy. I see former students years later, and they'll tell me how that trip was a pivotal moment. Whether they were in India on Elephant Island, riding a rickshaw in Beijing, walking on the Great Wall of China, or standing on a beach in Dubai with their arms outstretched — these are the moments they talk about twenty years later.
With my students in China — these are the moments they still talk about twenty years later.
Edith Cortez said something to me I want to leave you with:
“There's a whole world outside of Laredo, Texas — and we need to take advantage of seeing it. We really need to see what's out there and the opportunities that the world has for us.”
— Edith Cortez
Replace “Laredo” with wherever you teach. The line still works.
Not every child will have this opportunity, but we need to make the opportunities for more. I hope you'll check out what EF Tours does and find out that it might be a lot easier than you think to plan a trip that opens up your students' lives and changes them forever.
You'll be glad you did.
Ready to take your students to the world?
Browse STEM tours and Career Readiness tours — EF handles the logistics so you can focus on the teaching.
This is a “sponsored blog post.” The company who sponsored it compensated me via cash payment, gift, or something else of value to include a reference to their product. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I believe will be good for my readers and are from companies I can recommend. All opinions expressed are those of the individual teachers quoted and Vicki Davis — all opinions our own. 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.”
Subscribe to the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast anywhere you listen to podcasts.
Some of the greatest memories of my life have been watching a student's whole world open up the moment they step off a plane in a place they never dreamed they'd stand. After 20 years of taking students to Qatar, India, China, Dubai, Hawaii, and even just up the road to Atlanta, I can tell you this: travel changes students. It changes lives. And it changes us as teachers, too.
My students in Dubai, where they co-presented with me at a conference and had life-changing experiences.
In this episode of Cool Cat Teacher Talk, you'll meet five educators who decided their students deserved to see the world. A middle school teacher in Laredo. A rural ag teacher in Colorado. A Denver science teacher whose quiet student found his voice in Belize. A biology teacher planting mangroves in Panama. And a principal in Baton Rouge who's done this for years and knows exactly what to look for. I'll also share my tips and tricks for planning a life changing trip where everyone comes back changed. (And everyone's ok. Of course, this is a concern for all of us. But many of us are doing it and it can be done.)
Sponsor. This show is sponsored by EF Tours and their STEM Tours and Career Readiness Tours. EF has been planning teacher-led student travel for over 60 years and offers scholarships for students who couldn't otherwise afford to go. All opinions are those of my guests and me, and do not represent the opinions of our schools.
Vicki Davis (00:00): Some of the greatest memories of my life have been watching a student's whole world open up. The moment they step off a plane in a place they never dreamed they'd stand. That's what today is about. Five teachers who decided their students deserve to see the world and what happened when they did. Today's show is brought to you by EF Educational Tours and their STEM and Career Education Travel opportunities. Welcome back, educator. This is Cool Cat Teacher Talk and I'm Vicki Davis. Today we're talking about changing a student's world through travel.
Announcer (00:38): Ever wondered how remarkable teaching happens? Find out right now Cool Cat Teacher Talk with award winning teacher Vicki Davis. Get insights from top educators, tips and inspiration to elevate your teaching.
Vicki Davis (00:51): Over the past 20 years, I've taken students literally all over the world. Qatar, India, China, Dubai, Hawaii, and even just up the road to Atlanta, Georgia. Today we're going to hear from five educators who have done this too. A middle school social studies teacher in Laredo who is taking economically disadvantaged students to Washington, D.C. A high school science teacher in Denver whose quiet student came home transformed. A rural ag teacher in Colorado who stood in an Irish pasture with 10 FFA kids. A biology teacher from Austin planting mangroves in Panama and a principal in Baton Rouge who's been doing this for years and knows what to look for. By the end of this hour, if you've ever thought I could never take my students on a trip, I hope you'll be thinking differently with some ideas and some practical tips that help all of us be able to travel with students. So first, let's talk about why I travel with students. When I was in eighth grade and my grandmother took me on a trip, I was one of the only grandchildren who got to go before she couldn't travel anymore. She took me to Alaska and we stayed awake late at night. My grandmother told me stories. The thing that she told me that I carried forward was Vicki. You live in a small town, but it's in a big world and you need to have a big mind. You need to know that there are people all over the world who are different from you, and you need to think about life with the whole world in mind. That trip planted a seed, and years later, a school trip to Washington, D.C. led me to jump at a chance to intern for a U.S. Senator. When I was in college, I enjoyed the richness of serving in our nation's capital. Is a teacher. Took me there first, and I'll never forget a boy who wanted to go to Dubai with me. More than anything, he raised every single dollar himself so he could make the trip. And when he finally stood on that beach, as we dipped our toes in the Arabian Gulf, he stretched out his arms and shouted to the sky, Dubai! I'll be back! I knew right there in that moment, his whole life was forever changed. I saw it in the way he walked through the Dubai Mall. I saw it in the way he engaged the conference where he was a co-speaker with me at that moment on the beach. Arms wide and face full of possibility. That's the moment that reminds me why student travel and working with students matters. Not every child has a grandmother or parent who can take them places, but I hope every child has a teacher who can give them that kind of eye-opening experience. And that's why when I heard about my first guest today, an eighth grade social studies teacher in Laredo, Texas, she's been doing this for her students.
Vicki Davis (03:43): Our next guest is Edith Cortez, an eighth grade social studies teacher in Laredo, Texas. She's in her 14th year of teaching and just finished her master's in educational administration. She's passionate about connecting and traveling with her students, something we have in common. Tell us a little bit about the classroom culture that you try to create.
Edith Cortez (04:04): My classroom culture is based on the foundation of communication.
Vicki Davis (04:08): I always say we have to relate, to educate, build those relationships. So Edith, one thing you and I have in common is we both love to travel with our students. What are some of the places that you've taken your students?
Edith Cortez (04:21): My first trip was Washington and New York, so they all had so much fun. Washington and New York for them was just remarkable. I went to San Francisco and LA the following year. After that we went to Boston and New York. Then last year we just had the first STEM trip to Washington, so that was really exciting.
Vicki Davis (04:39): What are some of the things that your students do when they're on the trip?
Edith Cortez (04:42): Specifically in our STEM trip, it was very interactive. Everyone thinks Washington, like monuments and memorials, but the museums that we went to were so hands on and my kids loved it, working together but also competing with one another. They had so many scenarios to gravitate from. It was really neat to go through them. I kept saying like, oh, it's a STEM trip, it's a STEM trip. We're going to do this. They all loved the idea of it, but they didn't really internalize what it really meant. Once they got there: Hey Miss Cortez, this is really cool. I didn't think we were going to get to do all these things. I had no idea we were going to actually build on things or try and navigate through all of these activities or scenarios. There was one that they showed them. It was about terminology, and then they gave them scenarios and they had to build on a story. My boys were so curious, so engaged with it that they had the crowd going. We all recorded it. I have it on video and I sent it to all the parents. I'm that group leader. I have a massive group thread with all the parents, and I'm sending them videos of everything, and the parents are like, we should have signed on to this trip. EF really takes their time finding the right things that student travelers will enjoy. It's well thought out. That's what families are investing in. Their money is definitely well spent.
Vicki Davis (06:42): When I've taken my students all over the world, I always have students who know they're going to have to do fundraising. I'll never forget I had one boy that I took to Dubai and he got his whole family. They did three barbecues. That's what we do in South Georgia. They did three barbecues, raised all this money. I'll never forget him standing there looking at the ocean and saying, I'll be back. It just transformed his whole life because of the process, even the raising of the money, because he had the dream. So how do you help all your students be able to go? Because it's not something that everybody can write a check for.
Edith Cortez (07:15): One of my teacher friends has a club on campus and they fundraise. I tell my students, hey, here are some ideas. There are families that do raffles and any type of activities to raise funds because it's not easy and sometimes they don't have that opportunity. I totally understand. My parents would never have been able to. I always tell my students, if and when you have the opportunity in life, take advantage of it, because there's a whole world outside of Laredo, Texas, and we need to take advantage of seeing it. We really need to see what's out there and the opportunities that the world has for us.
Vicki Davis (08:01): Traveling with kids is not easy. What are some of the tips that you have for teachers who want to travel with students?
Edith Cortez (08:09): Communication is key. Just like in the classroom, expectations have to be set from the very beginning. Even at the meeting that you have with the parents when you pass out the backpacks, the parents need to hear it as well. This is the way that the trip is going to be handled. I express those expectations in front of the parents. Everyone's representing the campus. Even if it's not a district trip, you're a district employee and these are district students, your minors traveling under me, and my expectations are very high. I'm a different mode. My expectation is respect and punctuality, so they know there will be a wake up call and a knock on the door either way, and rooms have to be tidied. Everything goes with trust and respect. Communication goes a long way. It's basically just keeping up with that, being consistent.
Vicki Davis (09:04): One of the things I always tell my students is that I do look for punctuality. If you can't get to school on time when you're tired after a long game, how are you going to show up if we're going out on a desert barbecue or wherever on time? So I also look for punctuality and respect. And if you don't behave in my classroom, I'm not going to take you anywhere, right? In many ways, it's transformative to students to understand that punctuality matters. Cleanliness of your room matters. Staying on track matters. It opens up a world of fun. But there's also a responsibility and accountability that you have personally to be able to have fun. Do you see kids change as you travel with them?
Edith Cortez (09:52): Definitely. Some years back I had a group of kids travel with me. The first two trips, the parents would tell me they came back super different. Miss Cortez, they had never gone away and she was so shy, and I would do everything for him. Now they pick up after themselves. They had to handle their own money. They had to set their own alarms. It's exposure and accountability. I love that for them. When I have a repeated student traveler, it's nice to see them so grown up that second time. They take someone under their wing: I got this, come on, I'll show you. I see they're growing up.
Vicki Davis (10:30): So Edith, as teachers are listening to you saying, this sounds like some work, can I do this? What's your pep talk for teachers about why they should want to travel?
Edith Cortez (10:40): EF handles most of the work. To be honest. All I have to do is handle meetings. Even the simplicity of sending out the emails. My consultant, bless her heart, sends me a template of what to send to parents. I receive everything from email templates, things for social media, posters, campus handouts. They do the itinerary. I can give suggestions or what I plan or would like to do. Everyone's so great and everyone's focused on the student travelers and the group leaders. There's nothing difficult about it other than time. Sometimes as teachers, we feel like there's no time. But we can definitely give an hour to set up a meeting and talk to parents. With willing parents, parents will show up. Sometimes you can just do it through a Google meet and it'll be as easy as that.
Vicki Davis (11:45): I'm a little jealous. I planned my trips myself, and it was a lot of hard work and a lot of stress. If I had been able to outsource that, it still would have been a great experience but easier on me. Our next guest is rural, not urban. Ranching, not social studies. He took 10 FFA kids from Rush, Colorado to a dairy farm in Ireland.
Vicki Davis (12:17): Today we're talking with Nolan Payne. He's an agriculture education teacher and FFA advisor at Miami-Yoder School in rural Rush, Colorado, where he's starting his 15th year of teaching. Nolan and his wife Marissa are raising their two daughters as a fifth generation on their family ranch. This past summer, Nolan took 10 FFA students and his family on a 10-day Agriculture in Ireland trip. Today we're talking about why he did it, what changed, and what it meant to his students. Nolan, when did this idea of taking students out of Colorado and onto a farm in Ireland first enter your head?
Nolan Payne (13:04): We've done things at the local level, district, state and national. We've gone to the National FFA Convention there in Indianapolis. It's been a dream of mine to have kids experience agriculture overseas in an entirely different atmosphere. I started looking, and at one of my professional development workshops that the Colorado ag teachers put on, they had a booth set up. Two young ladies from EF Tours. I started talking to them, and they explained what they do. I took a pamphlet home and shared it with my family, and it just kind of evolved from there. The first thing we did was propose it to my school district. We had an informational parent meeting to see if the kids were even interested. Before long, we started the planning. Not only did we get to do that for our rural community, we also got to travel with a group from California and a group from Utah for ten days.
Nolan Payne (14:14): The first two days we flew into Dublin, Ireland, and we got to do a walking tour of Grafton Street and the Temple Bar District. We got to see St. Patrick's Cathedral and the EPIC Immigration Museum, which was really neat. I found out that I have some Irish descent, so that was kind of neat for me and my family. After Dublin, we did Kilkenny. We got to see a lot of castles. Every day was jam packed with farms, and our kids really enjoyed talking to the farmers. We got to do some sightseeing in Dublin, but the truth is, the most fun that our kids had and experienced was talking with the farmers. One of the farms we visited was a fruit farm where they had greenhouses and apple orchards. Another farm was a dairy farm that also grew potatoes. Our kids got to go on the milking floor and the farmers let the kids hook up all the milking machinery. Then they drank fresh milk. That was an experience in itself. We also got to see an oyster farm where we learned about that and got to see all the marketing and the business side of it. At the end they got to try a fresh oyster. Really neat experiences. Each day was planned by EF Tours. Everything inclusive, from hotel rooms to the food. The hospitality was outstanding.
Nolan Payne (16:17): They put agriculture in perspective. To be totally honest, I don't think it's really still sat in. Even as school's still going on, they bring up different experiences and talk about it. I think the food, they really noticed the food and the culture. Some of the kids wanted to get back to McDonald's and their habits and way of life. The one thing that stood out was how green it is in Ireland. In rural Colorado where I teach, we are a very dry climate, rarely green. Seeing that was really neat. Also, the similarities of the relationships in Ireland to Colorado. It's actually not that different from what a farmer experiences. Putting your heart and soul into agriculture and the legacy that the Irish leave with their family. A lot of the younger fourth and fifth generation kids are running the farms in Ireland, which I thought was really neat.
Nolan Payne (17:26): Yes, definitely. My overall goal is to have this kind of as a legacy project for my ag kids. International travel is huge. Everything from going through an airport, passports, all the little things that a teacher doesn't think of until they actually experience it. I'd like to make this a legacy project, so probably every 3 or 4 years. I'm in the process right now of looking at another destination. I've looked at maybe Belgium, maybe Switzerland or the Alps. I'm working with EF Tours now to see what their plans look like for us.
Nolan Payne (18:23): FFA is one of the largest, if not the largest student-led organization in the world. There's a lot of misconceptions out there from parents to kids that you have to be a farmer or a rancher to be an FFA member. That is not the case at all. I enjoy the leadership, the public speaking, the camaraderie, the networking, the problem solving, the hands-on learning. It's not until 6 or 7 years down the road, when kids go through the program and are in college or in their jobs, that it actually sinks in. As an ag teacher, I really feel lucky and blessed to be able to help kids in a rural school. The kids need more hands-on learning and those experiences. I really can't say enough about FFA.
Vicki Davis (19:39): A fifth generation rancher watching his FFA kids milk a cow in Ireland. The legacy he lives on his own ranch is beautiful. Before I bring on my next guest, let me share a few things I wish somebody had told me before my first trip with students. First: not every student is ready for a trip. If a student doesn't mind me in the classroom, I'm not taking them across the world. 98% of kids will do exactly what you ask them to do, and they will thrive, but you have to be willing to say no until a child can prove their maturity. I once had a parent tell me her daughter was terrified of flying, but it was okay because she was going to give her a sedative and by the time she got to Hawaii it would have worn off. I said no, ma'am. If your daughter is afraid of flying, she needs to be on a trip with you, not with me. That wasn't popular, but it was the right call. Second: talk about the awkward stuff before you go. Talk about the bathrooms. I had a student going to India who refused to use the airplane restroom for the entire flight, and when we landed in Mumbai, the women's restroom was a hole in the ground. 16 hours is dangerous. Prepare your kids ahead of time. Talk about the food. Real Chinese food often has bones in it. Talk about how toilets work in different parts of the world. In the Middle East, you don't put toilet paper in the toilet, you put it in a trash can. These are things you don't think about if you haven't traveled. That's what preparation is for. Third: I always pack cereal bars and granola bars, enough for three people every trip. No matter how you prepare, you'll have a student who just won't eat the food. I had a girl in China who basically lived on those granola bars for two weeks. Teach your kids to pack smart. Two roommates should swap half their suitcases before you leave. So if one bag gets lost, they each still have something. That saved us in China when a student suitcase went missing. And fourth, watch the food and watch the water and have a good local guide. I had a boy in India order some chicken and it didn't look right to me. He said no, it looks great. He didn't get to go anywhere for the next day and a half because of that decision. That's why I always travel with multiple adults, and I love to have parents on the trips. A good local guide can read a situation that you can't. Once with my students, it appeared a protest was forming near a government building. My tour guide sized up the situation and we immediately diverted. That's the kind of insight you only get from someone who really knows the area. Now our next guest is a high school teacher in Denver whose students have been to Great Britain and Belize. She's going to tell you about a student who almost never spoke until he did. Let's talk to Angela.
Vicki Davis (22:52): Today we're talking with Angela Cannava. She's a high school science and CTE teacher in Denver, in her 19th year. She established the CTE Biomedical Sciences Pathway and serves as advisor for HOSA Future Health Professionals. In the last five years, she's been taking her students beyond the classroom walls and leading international tours, including a Health Sciences trip to Great Britain and a Ridge to Reef expedition in Belize. Angela, why don't you start with your first trip?
Angela Cannava (23:34): Thank you so much for having me on. I had my first travel experience with students with EF Tours in Great Britain. The reason I decided to take kids to travel in the first place is because I had actually gone on a tour with EF with one of my friends, Brian Jenkins, the year before. When I was on that tour with him, I saw how much students' eyes were opened and how you could build different relationships with them. So that's what sparked me to lead the Health Sciences in Great Britain tour. I was very nervous leading my first trip. I can't believe I'm taking kids all the way overseas. But EF did a great job easing my anxiety. I had chaperones, I had support, I had a tour director that met us right at the airport. Some of the kids had never left Denver before. The trip was aligned to the curriculum I'm teaching. One of the highlights was a forensics lab where we did real DNA fingerprinting. I remember a student that wasn't always the most excited to be in class coming up to me after the workshop and saying, oh my gosh, Ms. Cannava, everything you taught me is actually what they do in the real lab. We did anatomical museums, anatomical artifacts, brains that were preserved, the old paintings of anatomy that hooked into the anatomy class I teach. We went on the London Eye at sunset. I have a picture of these students just looking out across the skyline, all smiles. I've never seen such happy kids in my life. If you build strong relationships with students, they will want to travel with you.
Angela Cannava (28:37): A lot of the students I had in my class the next year would talk about connections from the trip. For example, when we were starting our anatomy unit looking at some of these historical pieces of anatomy, one of the kids said, oh my gosh, we saw that in Great Britain. I got so many more students in HOSA because of that trip. They saw that traveling beyond and being part of something bigger than your normal school day enriches your life and your learning. We're an IB school as well, so having that international component is really helpful. Building those relationships, kids wanting to come in and eat lunch with me and go back through the pictures from the trip. I was teaching three levels at that time, so it was the third year I had this student who had never said maybe ten words to me. After we went on that trip, he just hit it off with me and told me about his weekends, his baseball games, how he wants to travel the world now and how I inspired him. Moments like that were so incredible and so touching. It's worth it all.
Angela Cannava (31:34): Belize Ridge to Reef was so different. EF offers a very diverse menu of trips, and I wanted to do a STEM trip centered around conservation. I knew most of the kids that were on this tour. I had had most of them in class before, mostly upperclassmen, so I had a strong relationship with them. We landed and our tour director, this Belizean, just full of energy, picks up our group and says, okay, we're going to the zoo right now. Different kind of zoo than what we have here. It's all about saving animals and restoring them in natural habitats. Belize was the ridge part. Three days were in the mountains and four days were in the ocean. One of my favorite memories was a bat workshop in the middle of the night where this NGO showed us how they do studies on bats and untangle these nets. We were ten feet away from it. They explained all of the anatomy about the bats. Zip lining through the rainforest was really cool. Some advice I'd give to teachers thinking of traveling: make sure kids know what they're getting into. The kids kept asking, when are we going to the ocean? It's from Ridge to Reef. Setting students up with the expectation for the trip is super important. And one of my favorite things, one of the students that went on that trip is actually going to work at the NGO this summer that we did the bat workshop. He just told me that last week. So not just classroom connections, but connections beyond that for life.
Angela Cannava (37:37): Yes. My biggest piece of advice is to make sure you go with some sort of travel company. EF is our flagship for our school. Definitely have somebody that can help with the organization and the planning, because we're so busy as teachers. EF makes it so easy. They make my fliers, they make my PowerPoints, they make everything for me. Then it's just ready to go for my promotion nights. They give you deadlines, a website to help kids raise money. Having a tour director with knowledge of the destination, having all the hotels ready, having all the meals ready, suggesting restaurants. Making it doable for the teacher with our workload, I will say that it can be done. I was very nervous at first, but now I am not. I'm not going to stop.
Vicki Davis (39:32): A quiet student who came home from a trip and finally found his voice. A kid who's going to work at the NGO where he did the bat workshop. Travel changed his career path. Our next guest has done 11 trips with her high schoolers, including Panama, Thailand, Italy, San Francisco, and Boston. Today we're talking with Miranda Grabowski. She's been in education for 8 years after graduating from the University of Texas at Austin with her degree in biology and English. Most of her career, she has worked in Austin, Texas as a biology teacher and instructional coach focusing on experiential learning.
Miranda Grabowski (40:32): We do 11 trips a year with our students through the school itself, not on spring break or summer, but during school. It has to do with our experiential learning model. Each year I probably go on 3 or 4 trips with different grade levels. Our students can travel 2 to 3 times over their four years.
Miranda Grabowski (41:13): Most recently I got back from our Panama trip with about 40 of our 11th graders. Our students work with local NGOs in Panama to actually help conserve their wetlands. I get to sit back and watch my students learn in real time how science happens in the real world. They're actually doing the science on their own. Boots on the ground, picking up the mangroves, getting on a boat, getting sunburned, going to plant the mangroves to help conserve that natural environment for the country. It's really great to actually see the students not just pretend to like the thing, but actually do the thing.
Miranda Grabowski (42:16): In Thailand, we work with the same elementary school the whole time. We help build a garden the kids can work in, revitalize their classrooms, and build a relationship between our students and these international students. Italy: last year was the first time the kids did “learn how to be a gladiator,” minus the slavery aspect. Foam blood, replicas of armor and weapons. They went to gladiator school for a day. Italy is a lot of eating great food, taking in art and ancient culture. San Francisco and Boston were both STEM trips. My favorite experience in San Francisco was the hike in Muir Woods National Monument. The first time most of our students get to see trees that large. The first year I went, it was also salmon spawn season. We got to see the salmon swimming upstream in the river that runs through the monument.
Miranda Grabowski (45:03): I travel with high schoolers, so this advice is for high school teachers. Even if they're complaining, they're actually enjoying what they're doing. They're complaining about being tired, they're complaining about their curfew. They're complaining, but they're actually having fun and making memories and learning about something. It's okay for them to complain off in their corner. They're teenagers. That's what they do. You don't have to take it personally when they don't like something.
Miranda Grabowski (45:53): First of all, bring other adults with you that you trust. Even if you're the group lead, it is not all on you. I haven't had a bad experience with another adult that I've taken with me. Also, things like make sure you have extra copies of, say if you're on an international trip, the kid's passport. We had to give them to the hotel. I didn't even know I was going to give those to the hotel. A list of the hotel rooms. We carry a med kit. Being overly prepared is one way to help yourself not be stressed. I carry lists of kids' allergies and their hotel rooms. I have their parents' phone numbers. Anything you could think of to prepare yourself means one less thing to freak out about when you're actually on tour.
Miranda Grabowski (47:17): We always call them ten minutes before we actually want them, so that way we can go get the kids who are still asleep 15 minutes after we called them.
Vicki Davis (47:57): What happens when the decision-maker at the top of a school says travel is part of who we are? Today we're talking with Karen Spencer. She's principal of Parkview Baptist School in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Karen is a lifelong educator who's worked in both public and private schools across elementary and middle school grades. For many years, she's partnered with EF Tours.
Karen Spencer (48:46): This is a pre-K through 12 school. We have about 1,100 students from varying socioeconomic levels. We are associated with the Baptists. We are a very mission-minded school. There's so much learning that can happen outside the walls of the classroom. Several years ago, one of my teachers and I decided we wanted to bring more STEM to the school. We reached out to EF and said, we want to see what we can do to offer some type of a STEM component to travel. We had just the previous two years before started a Washington, D.C. trip with our eighth graders, and it was such a great success. So we said let's bring in a STEM component. Boston just hit us. What I love about EF is that over time, this has evolved from just a STEM trip to a STEM, history and fun trip. It's so much fun to watch the students grow and gain independence. We just got back yesterday from our Boston trip. Watching my seventh graders navigate security at a busy, bustling Boston airport, I was a little nervous, but they did a fantastic job.
Karen Spencer (50:26): We went to MIT and Harvard. Got a glimpse at Harvard, a more liberal arts Ivy League school, then MIT, a more STEM school, to show them options. There are options out there. But it starts now: building that resume, getting your scores up, your transcripts ready so you have options when you graduate. We did a duck boat tour to see all of Boston. We went to FIRST Robotics and MassRobotics and got to experiment with the robotics, turned it into a competition and they were all in. Did you know Boston has a Museum of Ice Cream? We found that one on this trip and it was so fun. We did the Fine Arts Museum, the Museum of Science. We did Lexington and Concord, the Boston Tea Party, the USS Constitution, the Freedom Trail. We walked up Beacon Hill. You name it, we did it. Boston this time of year was stunningly beautiful.
Karen Spencer (51:35): Just one quick overnight marine biology trip on our own. Then in seventh grade we start with EF and do our Boston STEM and history trip. In eighth grade we do Washington, D.C. In high school we add in international trips. We have gone to Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Greece, France, all of Italy. This past summer we did London, Paris and Edinburgh, Scotland. I'm a fan of Scotland. The whole trip was fabulous, but I really love Scotland.
Karen Spencer (53:05): It is amazing. It is so much fun. My favorite thing is getting to know the students on a different level and getting to see them and having them see me in a different way. We do allow parents to come on our trips, and I have built some amazing relationships with parents and students because they get to see my heart and see me in a different light. I came back this morning, and one of our students. I saw this child who sometimes gets in trouble in such a different light. I saw him come to life in a different way. I had such a new love and respect for him. It's a lot of work, but it is so worth it. There's going to be problems to solve. You have to be flexible. You have to go with the flow and you want to bring the fun.
Karen Spencer (54:17): EF has proven time and time again that they're willing to listen. The Museum of Ice Cream was a spur-of-the-moment thing. I looked at my tour guide and said, we have to make this happen. I called EF, how can we make this work? They were like, we're on it. Three hours later, we were there. That's one of the reasons I like EF so much. They want to work with me. One year we had a terrible plane delay. The next year they solved it. They sent security guards to help at night. It just gives me peace of mind.
Vicki Davis (55:21): Edith showed us that when the teacher in an economically disadvantaged border town decides there's a whole world outside of Laredo, Texas, and we need to take advantage of seeing it, students rise to the occasion. Nolan Payne showed us that rural kids who've never left Colorado can stand in an Irish pasture and see themselves in a fifth generation farmer half a world away. Agriculture has a legacy in every country, and as a farmer's daughter, I really feel that one. Angela reminded us that the quiet student who barely spoke ten words in three years is waiting, and sometimes that trip is the key that opens the door. Miranda Grabowski shows us that you can be in the boots with students actually doing the science, and even when they complain they're making memories they'll carry the rest of their lives. Karen Spencer reminds us that when a principal commits to travel as a school value, everyone sees each other in a new light, including the kids who sometimes get in trouble. I'll close with this. I took a group of students to a street school in Mumbai, India. The children there were each given one small pencil and a tiny two-by-four-inch notebook, and that was what they used for the entire year. My students were speechless in that moment. They understood something about the world and their world that no textbook could ever teach them. Travel changes students. It changes lives. So can you travel with students? You do not have to plan it yourself. And I'll be the first one to tell you, I did it the hard way. For too many years, I booked my own flights, I put hotels on my own credit card and waited for parents to reimburse me. Do not do that. Let a good company handle the logistics so you can focus on teaching. But first we have to decide. Decide your kids are worth it. Start small if you need to. A trip down the road, a service project, a single day of field learning locally. But travel with students changes their life. You become closer to the kids and they become your legacy. You'll be so glad that you did. Today's show is brought to you by EF Educational Tours and their STEM and career travel opportunities. You can see the show notes at coolcatteacher.com/travel. This is Vicki Davis. Thank you for listening to Cool Cat Teacher Talk. See you later, educator.
(This transcript was generated using AI and has been reviewed by humans for accuracy. Minor errors or artifacts may remain.)
Key Takeaways for Teachers from This Episode
Travel is possible and worth the effort. Edith Cortez teaches at United South Middle School in Laredo, Texas, where most of her students would never get to leave the area without her. She helps her students raise the money themselves, which becomes part of the transformation.
Curriculum-aligned travel changes how students see your subject. Angela Cannava aligned her Health Sciences in Great Britain trip and her Belize: Conservation From Ridge to Reef trip directly to her CTE Biomedical Sciences pathway and her work as advisor for HOSA Future Health Professionals. A student who barely spoke 10 words in three years came back from Great Britain transformed. A Belize student is now going to work at the NGO they visited.
Agriculture trips are an amazing way to connect farmers with future farmers across the world. Nolan Payne, a Colorado rancher whose two daughters are the 5th generation on the family ranch and an FFA advisor, took 10 FFA students on a 10-day Agriculture in Ireland trip with EF Tours. Milking cows on a dairy farm, walking Temple Bar in Dublin, and visiting the EPIC Irish Emigration Museum. He calls it a legacy project, and he's already planning the next one (maybe Belgium or Switzerland).
Many schools are making travel a part of what the school does to improve daily learning and relevance. Miranda Grabowski's Austin high school runs 11 student trips a year as part of its experiential learning model, and she personally leads 3 or 4 of them, including Waterways and Wetlands in Panama, Thailand, Italy, hiking in Muir Woods National Monument outside San Francisco, and a Boston STEM trip. Her advice: bring trusted adults, carry copies of every passport, give kids a 10-minute “buffer zone” before excursions, and don't take their complaints personally. They're teenagers. They're fine.
Travel can build relationships between school leaders, parents, and students in life changing ways. Karen Spencer, principal at Parkview Baptist School in Baton Rouge, just got back from a STEM Discovery: Boston trip with her 7th graders. She watched a student who often gets in trouble “come to life in a different way,” and now she has a new respect for him. That's the leader's perspective: travel doesn't just change the student, it changes the relationship.
Karen Spencer's 7th grade Boston STEM and history trip is a great example of how to blend learning, exploration, and fun. Here's everything they packed into the trip:
Toured MIT and Harvard so students could see two very different higher-education paths.
Hands-on robotics workshops with FIRST and MassRobotics, including programming a self-driving car. Karen turned it into a competition, “and they were all in.”
A duck boat tour of Boston by land and water.
The Museum of Ice Cream in Boston (a spur-of-the-moment add. Karen called EF and they made it happen in three hours).
The Museum of Fine Arts and the Museum of Science.
Historical sites: Lexington and Concord, the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum, the USS Constitution, the Freedom Trail, and a walk up Beacon Hill.
For Karen's older students, Parkview Baptist's high school international trips have included Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Greece, France, all of Italy, and most recently London, Paris, and Edinburgh, Scotland. (“I'm a fan of Scotland,” she told me. “The whole trip was fabulous, but I really love Scotland.”) That kind of multi-year travel program is exactly what gives students what Karen calls a real “view of the world.”)
Featured Guests
Edith Cortez, 8th Grade Social Studies Teacher, United South Middle School, Laredo, TX
Edith Cortez has been making travel possible for her Laredo, Texas students for years.
I'm Edith Cortez. I'm the youngest of 5 siblings (4 of which work in education). Building relationships and great rapport is important to me in and out of the classroom.
This is my 14th year teaching and it continues to be quite the ride. Engagement and collaboration is what makes it.
I completed my Master of Education Degree last year in Educational Administration and look forward to the challenge when it presents itself.
Traveling with EF has added to my experience as an educator. The experiences are priceless.
Nolan Payne, Agriculture Education Teacher and FFA Advisor, Miami-Yoder School, Rush, CO
Nolan Payne took 10 FFA students from rural Colorado to dairy farms in Ireland.
My name is Nolan Payne and I am starting my 15th year as an educator. I teach agriculture education and FFA at a K-12 school in rural Rush, CO. I have been married to my lovely wife Marissa for the past 11 years and we have two girls, Avery (8) and Ainsley (6).
My wife and I both grew up in agriculture and had grandparents that were involved in the day-to-day aspects of farming and ranching. Today, our girls are 5th generation on the ranch and we help my parents with around 200 head of Red Angus cow/calf pairs. Raising our girls in agriculture is very important to us and the girls love the day-to-day responsibilities that come with growing up in agriculture.
It has always been a goal of mine to take students on an international trip to see and experience agriculture in a different part of the world. I ran across a company called EF Tours that specializes in educational international trips, at one of my professional development trainings, and I knew I had to book a trip. I ended up booking the Agriculture in Ireland trip. So, this past July, my wife and I were able to travel to Ireland for 10 days with 10 FFA students and 2 other parents. We were lucky enough to travel with a group from California and Utah.
Our experience with EF Tours was exceptional. They took care of all of the planning with housing, flights, meals, and day-to-day activities and sightseeing.
Our Ireland trip was a life changing experience that I would highly recommend to students and adults. The landscape is absolutely breathtaking and the people are as kind as they come. I will be looking at booking another trip with EF Tours in the near future.
Angela Cannava, High School Science and CTE Teacher, Northfield High School, Denver, CO
Angela Cannava with her students in Belize on the Ridge to Reef expedition.
For the past 19 years, I have been a dedicated high school science and Career and Technical Education (CTE) educator, currently teaching at Northfield High School.
During my time at Northfield, I established the CTE Biomedical Sciences Pathway and proudly serve as the advisor for our HOSA Future Health Professionals chapter.
I am driven by a desire to take learning beyond the classroom walls. I began integrating international student travel into my program five years ago to help students apply their knowledge in real-world, global settings.
Experiencing the world alongside my students has been transformative, positively impacting both their educational journeys and my own passion for teaching.
Miranda Grabowski, Biology Teacher and Instructional Coach, Austin High School, Austin ISD, Austin, TX
Miranda Grabowski's Austin high school runs 11 student trips a year as part of its experiential learning model; she personally leads three to four each year.
Miranda Grabowski has been in education for 8 years after graduating from the University of Texas at Austin with her degree in Biology and English.
For most of her career, she has worked at Austin High School in Austin, Texas as a Biology Teacher and Instructional Coach focusing on experiential learning experiences for students.
Karen Spencer, Principal, Parkview Baptist School, Baton Rouge, LA
Karen Spencer brings the school-leader perspective to student travel.
I am the principal at Parkview Baptist School. I am married with 2 children, a golden retriever and a kitty.
I am a lifelong educator and have worked in public and private schools in elementary and middle schools.
I have worked with EF Tours for many years and have traveled with them domestically and internationally.
Frequently Asked Questions About Traveling With Students (Episode Q&A)
What is the best way to start traveling with students if I've never done it before?
Start small and use a tour company. Every teacher in this episode said the same thing: don't try to plan an international student trip from scratch your first time. Use an established educational travel company so they can handle the logistics, the contracts, the hotels, the meals, and the on-the-ground tour director, freeing you to focus on teaching. Many teachers begin with a domestic trip (Washington, D.C., Boston, San Francisco) before going international. A short overnight or a regional STEM trip is a great on-ramp.
How do teachers afford to take students on international trips?
Most teachers don't pay for the trips themselves. Students fundraise, families contribute, and tour companies provide scholarships. EF Tours (the sponsor of this show) offers scholarships and grants for students who otherwise couldn't afford to travel, and provides every group leader with fundraising tools, templates, and a personal consultant. Edith Cortez has students do raffles and family events. One of my former students raised every dollar himself through barbecues to travel to Dubai. The fundraising itself becomes part of the student transformation.
What age is best for international student travel?
Middle school (grades 6 to 8) is when many students take their first big trip, often a domestic STEM or history trip like Boston or Washington, D.C. International travel typically begins in high school (grades 9 to 12), when students can handle longer flights, customs, and more independence. Karen Spencer's school does Boston in 7th grade, Washington, D.C. in 8th grade, and international travel beginning in 9th grade. Maturity matters more than age.
How do you handle student behavior on a trip?
Set expectations clearly before you leave, communicate them in front of parents, and don't hesitate to say no to a student who isn't ready. The teachers in this episode emphasize: punctuality, room cleanliness, respect, and following the leader's directions are non-negotiable. Bring multiple trusted adult chaperones. Never travel alone. Carry copies of every student's passport, allergy information, parent phone numbers, and a simple medical kit. Build a 10-minute buffer into every excursion call time. My rule is that any student who doesn't behave in the classroom doesn't get to travel, but every school is different.
How do you make a student trip educational instead of just sightseeing?
Align the trip to your curriculum. Angela Cannava's CTE Biomedical Sciences students did real DNA fingerprinting at a UK forensics lab. Miranda Grabowski's biology students planted mangroves with NGOs in Panama. Nolan Payne's FFA students milked dairy cows in Ireland and learned about the agricultural economy. Pick a trip with hands-on workshops, not just monuments. Talk with your tour director about what classroom topics you want reinforced, and they'll often customize the experience.
Should I use a tour company or plan a student trip myself?
For international travel, use a tour company. I planned my own student trips for years, and my honest advice is: don't do it! Find a reputable educational travel company to handle your flights, meals, hotels, ground transportation, local guides, parent communications, scholarships, and emergency support. That frees you to focus on the students and the learning. For local field trips and regional travel, planning yourself is fine. For anything beyond a short bus trip, partner with a company that specializes in student travel.
Disclosure of Material Connection: This is a sponsored episode and blog post. EF Tours has compensated me to share information about their STEM Tours and Career Readiness 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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About Vicki Davis
Vicki Davis has been a teacher and IT director since 2002 in Georgia. She has been blogging at the Cool Cat Teacher Blog since 2005 and hosting the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast since 2017. Cool Cat Teacher Talk airs on radio, public access TV, YouTube, and all major podcast platforms. She has taken students on international trips to Qatar, India, China, Dubai, and beyond.
Five educators share why traveling with students changes lives — and how to actually pull it off.
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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.
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.
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.
Book — Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AIby 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.)
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
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.
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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.
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