EdSurge Podcast

By EdSurge Podcast

What's EdSurge Podcast about?

A weekly podcast about the future of learning. Join host Jeff Young and other EdSurge reporters as they sit down with educators, innovators and scholars for frank and in-depth conversations.

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EdSurge Podcast episodes:

04.23.2024
Why a New Teaching Approach is Going Viral on Social Media (Encore Episode)
When a professor’s research showed that standard methods of teaching problem-solving weren’t working, he set out to figure out what led to more student thinking. His resulting approach is spreading through classrooms, helped by teachers sharing examples on social media....
04.16.2024
Whatever Happened to Building a Metaverse for Education?
Two years ago the metaverse was getting all the buzz in education circles (and hardly anyone was talking about AI). We checked back in with two educators at the forefront of building a virtual realm for education to see where...
04.09.2024
How VR Can Be an ‘Empathy Machine’ for Education
The biggest reason to use VR in education is to tap into a student’s emotional response through immersive experiences, argues Maya Georgieva, director of The New School’s Innovation Center and a leading voice about where VR is headed. Hear her...
04.02.2024
Is It Time for a National Conversation About Eliminating Letter Grades?
There’s a growing movement to drop letter grades in favor of new systems that focus on mastery of material rather than chasing points. But opponents worry about losing rigor. A new book hopes to start a national conversation about the...
03.26.2024
Could AI Give Civics Education a Boost?
Social studies has been ‘deprioritized’ for decades, in favor of STEM fields, according to some educators. Could AI essay grading help improve the quality of civics and social studies education in schools?
03.19.2024
What New Research Says About Fostering a ‘Sense of Belonging’ in Classrooms
There are key junctures in education that are especially important for helping students feel they belong in school or college. And new research points to better ways to strengthen student-teacher relationships and a sense of belonging, argues Greg Walton, a...
03.12.2024
How Is the ‘College Is a Scam’ Narrative Influencing Who Goes to Campus? (Doubting College, Ep. 3)
There’s growing skepticism of higher education, complete with popular memes on social media that “college is a scam.” Experts in policy and marketing have some suggestions on how to counter that narrative.
03.05.2024
An Educator’s Podcast Aims to Be an Antidote to School Culture Wars
A longtime educator worries that the raging culture wars in education create toxic environments that hurt academic learning. He’s started a podcast that brings together people with deeply different views on issues that are most dividing school communities these days...
02.27.2024
Can VR Help Preserve and Teach Indigenous Culture?
Could virtual reality be the key to teaching indigenous ways of knowing to a broad population of students? Jared Ten Brink, a doctoral student in education, is trying to record and teach some key practices of his tribal elders using...
02.20.2024
How Growing Skepticism of College Is Making Students Savvier Edu Shoppers (Doubting College, Ep. 2)
In part two of our podcast series Doubting College, which explores the growing skepticism of higher ed, we talk to students and counselors at a public high school about how students are thinking through their choices after graduation.
02.13.2024
AI Is Disrupting Professions That Require College Degrees. How Should Higher Ed Respond?
A recent study ranked the top professions that are likely to be disrupted by ChatGPT and other new AI technologies, and most of them require college degrees. How does higher ed need to change what it teaches to respond?
02.06.2024
What If Myths, Metaphors and Riddles Are the Key to Reshaping K-12 Education?
Did the education theories that drive today’s schools and teaching practices get off track and do they need a reset — one that gets back to earlier days of oral storytelling? That was the argument of philosopher Kieran Egan, whose...
01.30.2024
How Classroom Technology Has Changed the Parent-Teacher Relationship
It can be harder than ever for teachers to manage their relationships with parents, even though digital tools make interactions more frequent. This week’s EdSurge podcast looks at why.
01.23.2024
Inside the Push to Bring AI Literacy to Schools and Colleges
There’s a growing push to add AI literacy as a subject in schools and colleges. But what exactly is AI literacy, and can educators promote curiosity about the subject amid their own concerns, and in some cases fear, around ChatGPT...
01.16.2024
How Smartphones Have Changed Student Attention, Even When They’re Removed
Holding student attention may be harder than ever. Even if educators make students put away their smartphones, internet-connected devices have changed the way people relate to others and made it harder for people to be present, argues a Georgetown University...
01.09.2024
Lessons From This 'Golden Age' of Learning Science (Encore Episode)
Experts have described this as a 'golden age' of discovery in the area of learning science, with new insights emerging regularly on how humans learn. So what can educators, policymakers and any lifelong learner gain from these new insights? This...
01.02.2024
Looking Back at the Biggest Education Trends of 2023
What were the biggest surprises and trends in education in 2023? Hear from five EdSurge reporters as they give their highlights and analysis and also talk about what they’re digging into in the coming year.
12.26.2023
Why Do Some Schools Get Better Quickly and Others Get Stuck? (Encore Episode)
“Why do some schools get better quickly, and others get stuck?” That question drove MIT professor of digital media Justin Reich to write a new book about what he’s learned as a teacher, edtech consultant and professor about making small...
12.19.2023
After Transforming a College With Online Offerings, a President Steps Down to Tackle AI
Paul LeBlanc grew Southern New Hampshire University to an online education powerhouse with more than 200,000 students. This month he announced that he’ll step down as president after the academic year, and he talks to EdSurge about online education, about...
12.12.2023
How a Billionaire’s Fellowship Spread Skepticism About College’s Value (Doubting College, Ep. 1)
When the libertarian billionaire Peter Thiel started a fellowship 13 years ago that pays young people $100,000 each to not go to college for two years, it made a splash and drew criticism. These days that sort of skepticism of...
12.05.2023
Can Kids Grow Up If They're Constantly Tracked and Monitored?
Students these days are under constant watch with digital tools — whether it’s friends posting pictures on social media, or learning management systems sending parents alerts about missed assignments. And that can make it hard for students to learn to...
11.28.2023
The Growing Push to Recruit New Teachers
Schools of education are working harder at recruiting these days, in response to enrollment declines. Can more people — and more people from a variety of backgrounds — be convinced to join the teaching profession in this particularly trying time?
11.21.2023
Why Schools Should Teach Philosophy, Even to Little Kids (Encore Episode)
It’s important to nurture philosophical thinking in kids throughout school and college. So argues a philosophy professor who wrote a book that highlights the natural tendencies of kids to think like philosophers. When big, important questions arise, he says, parents...
11.14.2023
How AI Could Spark Fundamental Shifts in Education
The rise of generative AI technology such as ChatGPT could rapidly reshape knowledge work in the next few years. A trio of education researchers recently sat down to map out what those changes could mean for education — and what...
11.07.2023
Why a New Teaching Approach is Going Viral on Social Media
When a professor’s research showed that standard methods of teaching problem-solving weren’t working, he set out to figure out what led to more student thinking. His resulting approach is spreading through classrooms, helped by teachers sharing examples on social media.
10.31.2023
Is It Time to Rethink the Traditional Grading System? (Encore Episode)
More educators are wondering whether the grading system hinders many students rather than helps them learn. For this week’s podcast, we’re rebroadcasting an episode from this summer diving into alternative methods of marking papers in ways that encourage students to...
10.24.2023
What a Popular TikTok Channel Reveals About the Stress of College Admissions
It’s statistically harder to get into a selective college these days, and who gets in and why can feel like a mystery. So students are turning to TikTok and other social media platforms to fill the void, in what some...
10.17.2023
How Teaching Should Change, According to a Nobel-Prize-Winning Physicist
Since winning the Nobel Prize for physics in 2001, Carl Wieman has devoted the bulk of his energies to trying to improve teaching. That has led him to promote active learning – and to look for better ways to evaluate...
10.10.2023
How to Help Students Avoid Getting Duped Online — and by AI Chatbots
Students these days are terrible at sorting facts from misinformation online and on social media. But they can improve with just a few simple strategies, argues information literacy researcher Mike Caulfield. And he says those skills are even more important...
10.03.2023
How to Encourage Viewpoint Diversity in Classrooms
Can educators continue to teach troubling but worthwhile texts in this time of polarization and culture wars? And how can instructors make classrooms a welcoming place for debate as schools and colleges grow more diverse? This week’s EdSurge Podcast dives...
09.26.2023
Helping Students Think With Their Whole Bodies
What if Rodin’s famous sculpture of the thinking man sitting holding his chin gives us the wrong idea about how people think? A growing body of research suggests that thinking is influenced not just by what’s inside our skull, but...
09.19.2023
Is VR the Next Frontier in the School Choice Movement?
Could cutting-edge virtual reality tech help to spread classical education models and alternatives to traditional public schools? That’s what one proponent is hoping, and she’s started a new online charter school delivered largely through VR headsets to try it.
09.12.2023
Mockumentary Explores College Admissions — and Post-Pandemic Student Life
A mockumentary web series made by undergraduates makes some timely observations about college admissions, and about student life after the pandemic — when students sometimes struggle to make social connections after high school experiences spent on lockdown.
09.05.2023
Today’s Kids Are Inundated With Tech. When Does it Help — and Hurt?
The pandemic has sparked more-nuanced conversations about kids and tech, getting away from simple questions of how much screen time to allow. Now, one researcher argues, it’s time to provide better guidance on how to match tech to what children...
08.29.2023
Group Project Horror Stories — And How to Avoid Them
EdSurge recently took a microphone to a university campus and asked several students to share their group project horror stories. Every student we talked to had one. Then we ran them by a teaching expert to get his advice on...
08.22.2023
The Power of Storytelling for Youth
For more than a decade, the nonprofit behind the popular storytelling podcast The Moth has run workshops in schools to help students share impactful stories from their lives. Now the group started a spin-off podcast, Grown, highlighting those student stories....
08.15.2023
Is Improving Reading Instruction a Matter of Civil Rights? (Encore Episode)
A new documentary follows an educator and activist pushing to require schools to offer reading instruction that has been proven effective, calling it a matter of civil rights. But the main subject in the film started out reluctant to participate....
08.08.2023
Who Does School Reform Serve?
A professor of urban education dug into the history of school reform in Philadelphia, and came away with questions of what motivates large-scale efforts to change schooling.
08.01.2023
Why Legacy Admissions May Be on the Way Out
The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision striking down the consideration of race in college admissions has sparked a strong push to also end the consideration of enrollment legacy in admissions. Here’s what’s behind the push and a look at other...
07.25.2023
How Podcasting Is Changing Teaching and Research
Scholars have taken to podcasting, interviewing each other about ideas and sharing their favorite areas of knowledge. Even when audiences are small, this new way of spreading information to a broader public is challenging traditional notions of what counts as...
07.18.2023
Why Class Diversity Can Be ‘Invisible’ at Colleges
As colleges think about diversity on their campuses, they need to consider issues of class as well as race. Because especially among Black students at selective colleges, there are many types of experiences, argues University of Pennsylvania professor Camille Charles.
07.11.2023
Using AI to Test Which Teaching Materials Work
A group of researchers developed a tool that uses AI to test and improve digital course materials. On this week’s EdSurge Podcast, two of those researchers talk about how their project won first place in a $1 million education XPrize...
07.04.2023
Making Children's Media about STEM More Inclusive
A Drexel University professor has been researching how to make children’s media more inclusive. And lately he’s been putting his ideas into practice as a creative producer of a new animated show on PBS for 3- to 6-year-olds.
06.27.2023
Why Do Some Schools Get Better Quickly and Others Get Stuck?
“Why do some schools get better quickly, and others get stuck?” That question drove MIT professor of digital media Justin Reich to write a new book about what he’s learned as a teacher, edtech consultant and professor about making small...
06.20.2023
Should Schools Adopt ‘Cellphone Jails’?
When their school implemented a new policy requiring students to lock their phones in pouches during the school day, the students had some concerns. This week on the EdSurge Podcast, we share an episode of the student-produced Miseducation podcast that...
06.13.2023
Has It Become Harder to Connect With College Students?
Since the pandemic, more professors are reporting they’re having trouble connecting with their students. That’s according to Bonni Stachowiak, dean of teaching and learning at Vanguard University of Southern California and host of the weekly podcast Teaching in Higher Ed....
06.06.2023
Why Schools Should Teach Philosophy, Even to Little Kids
It’s important to nurture philosophical thinking in kids throughout school and college. So argues a philosophy professor who wrote a book that highlights the natural tendencies of kids to think like philosophers. When big, important questions arise, he says, parents...
05.30.2023
How Instructors Are Adapting to a Rise in Student Disengagement (Encore Episode)
Professors are finding that they can’t just go back to teaching as they did before the pandemic and expect the same result. It takes more these days to hold student attention, and convince them to show up. Check out part...
05.23.2023
Will AI Chatbots Boost Efforts to Make Scholarly Articles Free?
For decades, proponents of open access scholarship have worked to make the research in scholarly journals freely readable to all. Will this moment of AI chatbots accelerate the effort?
05.16.2023
How a Viral Video Sparked an Ongoing Discussion of Police in Schools
In 2015, a video went viral showing a white school resource officer violently flipping over a Black student in her desk and dragging her across the room before arresting her. It sparked a lawsuit against a vague South Carolina law...

What's EdSurge Podcast about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

EdSurge Podcast episodes:

Why a New Teaching Approach is Going Viral on Social Media (Encore Episode)

Whatever Happened to Building a Metaverse for Education?

How VR Can Be an ‘Empathy Machine’ for Education

Is It Time for a National Conversation About Eliminating Letter Grades?

Could AI Give Civics Education a Boost?

What New Research Says About Fostering a ‘Sense of Belonging’ in Classrooms

How Is the ‘College Is a Scam’ Narrative Influencing Who Goes to Campus? (Doubting College, Ep. 3)

An Educator’s Podcast Aims to Be an Antidote to School Culture Wars

Can VR Help Preserve and Teach Indigenous Culture?

How Growing Skepticism of College Is Making Students Savvier Edu Shoppers (Doubting College, Ep. 2)

AI Is Disrupting Professions That Require College Degrees. How Should Higher Ed Respond?

What If Myths, Metaphors and Riddles Are the Key to Reshaping K-12 Education?

How Classroom Technology Has Changed the Parent-Teacher Relationship

Inside the Push to Bring AI Literacy to Schools and Colleges

How Smartphones Have Changed Student Attention, Even When They’re Removed

Lessons From This 'Golden Age' of Learning Science (Encore Episode)

Looking Back at the Biggest Education Trends of 2023

Why Do Some Schools Get Better Quickly and Others Get Stuck? (Encore Episode)

After Transforming a College With Online Offerings, a President Steps Down to Tackle AI

How a Billionaire’s Fellowship Spread Skepticism About College’s Value (Doubting College, Ep. 1)

Can Kids Grow Up If They're Constantly Tracked and Monitored?

The Growing Push to Recruit New Teachers

Why Schools Should Teach Philosophy, Even to Little Kids (Encore Episode)

How AI Could Spark Fundamental Shifts in Education

Why a New Teaching Approach is Going Viral on Social Media

Is It Time to Rethink the Traditional Grading System? (Encore Episode)

What a Popular TikTok Channel Reveals About the Stress of College Admissions

How Teaching Should Change, According to a Nobel-Prize-Winning Physicist

How to Help Students Avoid Getting Duped Online — and by AI Chatbots

How to Encourage Viewpoint Diversity in Classrooms

Helping Students Think With Their Whole Bodies

Is VR the Next Frontier in the School Choice Movement?

Mockumentary Explores College Admissions — and Post-Pandemic Student Life

Today’s Kids Are Inundated With Tech. When Does it Help — and Hurt?

Group Project Horror Stories — And How to Avoid Them

The Power of Storytelling for Youth

Is Improving Reading Instruction a Matter of Civil Rights? (Encore Episode)

Who Does School Reform Serve?

Why Legacy Admissions May Be on the Way Out

How Podcasting Is Changing Teaching and Research

Why Class Diversity Can Be ‘Invisible’ at Colleges

Using AI to Test Which Teaching Materials Work

Making Children's Media about STEM More Inclusive

Why Do Some Schools Get Better Quickly and Others Get Stuck?

Should Schools Adopt ‘Cellphone Jails’?

Has It Become Harder to Connect With College Students?

Why Schools Should Teach Philosophy, Even to Little Kids

How Instructors Are Adapting to a Rise in Student Disengagement (Encore Episode)

Will AI Chatbots Boost Efforts to Make Scholarly Articles Free?

How a Viral Video Sparked an Ongoing Discussion of Police in Schools