This Week with EdSurge

On this episode we’re going to revisit some of the most memorable moments from our podcast in 2020 -- and some bonus material that we wanted to get on but just didn’t quite fit.

The disruptions in the job market caused by COVID-19 mean colleges and employers will need to rethink the relationship between the workplace and the classroom. That’s according to Michelle Weise, who makes the case in her new book, Long Life Learning.

Forgetting is a feature, not a bug. That's one of the surprising truths about how the brain works in the new book "Grasp: The Science Transforming How We Learn." We talk with the book's co-author, Sanjay Sarma, a professor and the vice president for open learning at MIT.

Some colleges were committed to doing as much in-person teaching and activities as possible this semester, even during this health crisis. While other colleges decided early on to focus attention online and pretty much shutter campus for now. For our series finale of the Pandemic Campus Diaries series, we ask: which decision was the right one for students and professors?

How can educators make their teaching more inclusive? For perspective and advice, we recently talked with José Vilson, co-founder and executive director of #EduColor, a nonprofit advocacy group dedicated to issues of race and social justice in education and author of “This Is Not A Test: A New Narrative on Race, Class, and Education."

This week's guest, John Warner, has just released a timely book with fresh arguments on how to frame this larger question of who should pay for higher education -- and even how we should think about college’s place in American life. The book is called “Sustainable. Resilient. Free.: The Future of Public Higher Education.”

Residencies are the new trend in teacher education. What are they teaching about race? Victoria Thiesen-Homer, a postdoctoral research fellow at Arizona State University’s School of Social Transformation, embedded herself in a no-excuses and a progressive residency school for her new book, “Learning to Connect: Relationships, Race, and Teacher Education."

This stressful and disrupted semester is leading professors to rethink how they teach, and helping students learn about themselves. But are there things that will stick even after the health emergency ends? Hear views from six campuses on the latest installment of our Pandemic Campus Diaries series.

Other than their parents and caregivers, children spend more time with their teachers and school staff than with almost any other adults. So when something is wrong or seems off, educators are often the first to notice. As a result, educators end up detecting a significant number of child-abuse cases each year. But with the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic, these situations where trouble might be noticed have disappeared overnight. To get a sense of where this issue stands seven months into the pandemic, EdSurge connected with Bart Klika, chief research and strategy officer at Prevent Child Abuse America

Today is Election Day in the U.S. And for this installment of our Pandemic Campus Diaries series, we are focusing on how the election and social unrest have been playing out on campuses during this pandemic semester. Students seem to be voting this election season like never before. But some professors are struggling to hold productive discussions of political issues in this polarized time.