aiEDU Studios

aiEDU: The AI Education Project

aiEDU Studios is a podcast from the team at The AI Education Project.

Each week, a new guest joins us for a deep-dive discussion about the ever-changing world of AI, technology, K-12 education, and other topics that will impact the next generation of the American workforce and social fabric.

Learn more about aiEDU at https://www.aiEDU.org

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S1 · E50
July 9 · 1 hr 11 min
Chong-Hao Fu on Putting Teachers Back at the Center of AI
What's a better investment: a data center full of chips that expire in two years, or the people whose learning compounds across a lifetime? Chong-Hao Fu thinks the field has the answer backwards. Chong-Hao is CEO of Leading Educators, the national nonprofit behind some of the strongest evidence we have on what actually moves the needle for kids; including being the first professional learning organization in a decade to reach Tier 1 What Works Clearinghouse status. He sat down with Alex to work through what responsible AI in schools really demands, and why the teacher keeps getting left out of the conversation. Learn more at leadingeducators.org. aiEDU: The AI Education Project aiEDU.org linkedin.com/company/aiedu/
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S1 · E49
July 2 · 51 min
Carole Basile on Why Schools Have to Be Redesigned, Not Just Re-tooled
Everyone wants a checklist for AI in schools. Carole Basile thinks that's the wrong instinct — because the real problem isn't the technology, it's the 19th-century structure we're dropping it into. Dr. Carole Basile is Dean of ASU's Mary Lou Fulton College for Teaching and Learning Innovation, where she's spent nearly a decade rebuilding the education workforce around teams of educators instead of one teacher alone with 25 kids. Before higher ed, she spent over a decade in the corporate world — and that organizational lens runs through everything here. In this episode: Why "embracing AI" at ASU means building human relationships, not replacing them The metacognitive data we've never had before — and the ethical obligation that comes with seeing it Why there's no teacher shortage, only a shortage of people who'll do an impossible job "Principled innovation": the what-should-we-build framework ASU started in 2016, before the AI wave Why the AI-cheating panic is a signal to redesign assessments, not police students The curriculum-company business model AI is quietly threatening — and the "Spotify moment" for textbooks Using AI for possibility thinking — expanding what a team can imagine, not handing over the answers Why K-12 keeps modeling itself on universities instead of on how the world actually works Dr. Carole Basile — Mary Lou Fulton College for Teaching and Learning Innovation, Arizona State University: https://education.asu.edu aiEDU: The AI Education Project aiEDU.org linkedin.com/company/aiedu/
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S1 · E48
June 25 · 1 hr 12 min
Shortcuts, Skeptics, and What Schools Keep Getting Backwards
Andy Rotherham has spent 25 years advising the education sector — co-founding Bellwether, serving in the Clinton administration and on the Virginia Board of Education, and writing Eduwonk. He's also clear about something that's become unfashionable to say plainly: he's a skeptic of how AI will be used in schools, even as he takes the technology dead seriously. That distinction runs through this whole conversation with Alex. They sit with the hard tensions instead of resolving them too quickly. Why is the most valuable thing a student can do still "learn something about something"? Why does Andy now think telling his kids to learn to code may have been wrong and what does that uncertainty mean for everyone else? What happens to a generation that got social media, a year of closed schools, an AI-disrupted job market, and now AI companions that behave like the "perfect friend"? And what's his real worry about schools: not that AI replaces teachers, but that we hand kids the shortcuts before they ever learn to do the work the right way. It's a measured, occasionally contrarian conversation for anyone trying to think clearly past the hype. Read Andy at eduwonk.com and find Bellwether's AI work at bellwether.org. aiEDU: The AI Education Project aiEDU.org linkedin.com/company/aiedu/
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S1 · E47
June 18 · 50 min
The Case for Mentorship in an AI World — Sarah Morgenthau & Michael Barrett
Sarah Morgenthau runs the "I Have A Dream" Foundation; Michael Barrett has helped govern it from the Board while serving as a trustee at the University of Pennsylvania. Between them they make a grounded case: the technology is changing fast, but the thing that actually improves a kid's life hasn't changed at all: a long-term relationship with someone who keeps showing up. Across the conversation they get specific about what that looks like in practice: wraparound services in Title I schools, AI Dream Labs that put real hardware in students' hands, a mock interview that ended in tears, and an honest reckoning with whether "go to college" is still the right advice. The throughline is a refusal to accept that a kid's circumstances should decide their future — and a 45-year bet that long-term relationships are what change it. "I Have A Dream" Foundation https://www.ihaveadreamfoundation.org aiEDU: The AI Education Project aiEDU.org linkedin.com/company/aiedu/
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S1 · E46
June 11 · 1 hr 3 min
The Jagged Edge: Why Working With AI Is the New Human Skill
Wim Sweldens has watched technology remake itself for forty years — Bell Labs, mobile networks, and now Kiswe, the interactive live-streaming company he co-founded. The last time he felt anything like this moment was 1991, when a colleague told him "everything that's not on the internet doesn't exist." His answer to this one is AIQ: a way of measuring not how smart AI is, but how well humans navigate its jagged edge — the boundary where a model brilliant at one task fails absurdly at a nearly identical one. The unsettling part: that edge moves daily, which means your AIQ falls every day you don't work at it. Alex and Wim trace what that means for how we learn and work: the math teacher (Wim's father) who let students bring calculators in exchange for a harder exam, the engineers at Kiswe who now throw away code because the English specification is the source of truth, the test agent that cheated by reading the code it was supposed to test, and why "the point of a teacher is not to transfer knowledge, but to transfer understanding.” Wim Sweldens is co-founder of Kiswe: https://www.kiswe.com Wim's writing on AIQ: https://substack.com/@wimsweldens aiEDU: The AI Education Project aiEDU.org linkedin.com/company/aiedu/
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S1 · E45
June 4 · 1 hr 4 min
Change Management as a Learning Problem (with Jennifer Husbands)
Two decades of working on school improvement — at High Tech High, at Chicago Public Schools, at the Gates Foundation, and now through her own consulting practice — have left Jennifer Husbands with a fairly direct view of why AI adoption in schools is going the way it's going. The technology isn't the problem. The problem is that the US invests less in teacher learning time than almost any peer system, and you cannot ask people to change their behavior in a setting that gives them no room to learn. In this conversation she lays out what she's hearing from funders right now (humility, anxiety, and a quiet retrenchment from K-12 that she thinks is happening at the worst possible moment), why she believes the district is the only unit of change that actually scales, what role coaching and teacher-to-teacher networks have to play, and why she keeps coming back to the idea that AI is a tool, not a solution. Alex also opens the episode by walking her through a live vibe coding demo — a useful prelude to the broader conversation about how fast the underlying technology is now moving. aiEDU: The AI Education Project aiEDU.org linkedin.com/company/aiedu/
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S1 · E44
May 28 · 1 hr 2 min
How can we reinvent public education for the AI era? With Robin Lake
Robin Lake has been studying public education from the systems level for more than thirty years. Her diagnosis is sharper than most: we built a school system for an average student who doesn't exist, and we keep placing kids in special education because general classrooms have run out of tools to support them. This conversation works through what CRPE has been finding in its AI research — the widening gap between suburban and rural/urban districts on AI literacy, why most early-adopter schools are still "tinkering," and the "wicked opportunities" the field is underplaying — and then turns into something rarer: a live demo, with Robin in the role of designer, building a tool she wishes had existed when her own twice-exceptional son was in school. It's also the most honest conversation we've had on the show about what schools should actually be asking of ed tech, versus what ed tech keeps trying to sell them. Robin Lake directs the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) and writes the Think Forward Substack. crpe.org aiEDU: The AI Education Project aiEDU.org linkedin.com/company/aiedu/
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S1 · E43
May 21 · 53 min
We're Funding the Wrong Side of AI in Education — with Bree & Babak
In 2017, before ChatGPT existed, a 180,000-student district in Georgia decided to build the first AI-ready high school in the country. Babak Mostaghimi was one of the people who built it. Bree Dusseault, at Center on Reinventing Public Education/The Strategic Education Research Partnership, was one of the people who later studied what made it possible — and what stops most other systems from following. This conversation, recorded at CRPE's Think Forward Fellowship, lives at the intersection of those two views. Bree's research keeps surfacing the same five conditions: leadership longevity, a community-rooted vision, deliberate talent flows, integration across departments — and one resource almost no one is funding, which is time for adults to think. Babak's lived answer, after eight years inside the work, is the sharper version of the same idea: center the people and the problems they're trying to solve, not the tool of the moment. What follows is less about which AI tools to pilot and more about the architecture underneath — a "grammar of learning" rather than a grammar of schooling, parents who've played with the tools before they form opinions about them, and a kindergarten teacher whose target is 2035, not next September. aiEDU: The AI Education Project aiEDU.org linkedin.com/company/aiedu/
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S1 · E42
May 14 · 35 min
What Is STEM Education Actually For? — with Dr. Patrice Johnson of Project Scientist
"It's not that girls aren't good at STEM. It's the confidence around 'can I do STEM?'" That's Dr. Patrice Johnson, and her quiet challenge to the dominant frame of STEM education — that the gap is technical when it's actually cultural — is the throughline of this conversation. She runs Project Scientist, a national nonprofit that puts girls into hands-on STEM and runs the Elevated Institute — a teacher-training arm built around the principles that make their own programs work: joy as a pedagogical constant, confidence (not skill) as the real STEM gap, women mentors for every cohort. We also get into her own story (city council in her Michigan hometown at 22), what overwhelmed schools actually need from outside partners, and what Back to the Future and Iron Heart do to children's mental image of who gets to be a scientist. Dr. Patrice Johnson is CEO of Project Scientist. projectscientist.org. aiEDU: The AI Education Project aiEDU.org linkedin.com/company/aiedu/
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S1 · E41
May 7 · 47 min
Matt Sigelman: AI Raises the Bar – It Doesn't Lower It
Matt Sigelman has spent two decades building the most granular picture anyone has of how the labor market actually works – first at Lightcast, now at the Burning Glass Institute. So when he says schools are asking the wrong question about AI, it's worth slowing down. The new research he's just released with aiEDU translates how AI is reshaping work into concrete implications for what schools should teach. Among the findings: AI raises the cognitive bar for students rather than lowering it. Writing matters more in the AI era, not less. And "AI literacy" is the latest in a long line of skill-of-the-moment dodges that lets schools avoid harder curricular questions. Matt joins our host, aiEDU CEO and Co-Founder Alex Kotran, for a discussion on teacher autonomy, what a 17-year-old who'd never used AI taught everyone at a recent vibe coding workshop, and why – even now – schools' obligation to teach what's "beautiful and true" doesn't go away. Burning Glass Institute https://www.burningglassinstitute.org/ aiEDU: The AI Education Project aiEDU.org linkedin.com/company/aiedu/
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S1 · E40
May 1 · 51 min
Michelle Culver: Why school has to be designed around relationships
What if the most important thing school can teach kids in the AI era isn't how to use the technology — but how to stay in relationship with each other? That's the question Michelle Culver, founder of The Rithm Project and a former senior leader at Teach for America, has spent the last two years trying to answer. We dig into what happens when the loneliness epidemic collides with generative AI, why AI companions are already a $28 billion industry growing 20x faster than ed tech, and why redesigning school around human connection may be the most urgent education challenge of the next decade. Michelle also gets personal — sharing what it felt like to sit her husband down and tell him she wanted to have "an affair" with an AI bot, and what that experiment taught her about how quickly these tools can start to feel real. Content warning: This episode includes discussion of sensitive topics, including self-harm. The Rithm Project https://Rithmproject.org linkedin.com/in/michelleculver/ aiEDU: The AI Education Project aiEDU.org linkedin.com/company/aiedu/
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S1 · E39
April 16 · 55 min
Kaya Henderson: Stop underestimating kids
What if the biggest problem in education isn't technology — it's that we've reduced school to reading scores and graduation rates and stripped away everything that actually makes learning meaningful? Kaya Henderson took the lowest-performing metropolitan school district in the country and made it the fastest-improving — not by drilling harder, but by bringing back art, music, field trips, and a curriculum built around problem solving. Now she's leading the Aspen Institute's Center for Rising Generations, building a national model for youth leadership. We get into the enrichment double standard between rich and underserved kids, why AI companions are a much bigger deal than most adults realize, and what it would take to make leadership development a predictable part of growing up. aiEDU: The AI Education Project aiEDU.org linkedin.com/company/aiedu/
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S1 · E38
April 9 · 56 min
Tony Wan: AI is raising the bar – is education ready?
What does the rise of AI mean for schools, startups, and the skills students actually need? Tony Wan – Head of Platform at Reach Capital and former co-founder of EdSurge – has spent over a decade watching education technology evolve. Now he's watching AI reshape the landscape faster than anything before it. We get into why "taste" – the kind you can only build through practice and productive struggle – may be the most important differentiator left. Tony also shares how his background in history and journalism shaped his thinking, and why he worries about a generation that may never develop its own sense of what "good" looks like. aiEDU: The AI Education Project aiEDU.org linkedin.com/company/aiedu/
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S1 · E37
April 2 · 59 min
Erin Mote: AI literacy is as foundational as reading
What if AI literacy belonged alongside reading and math as a foundational skill – not tucked inside a computer science elective? That's the case Erin Mote, CEO of InnovateEDU, has been making for years. In this conversation, she gets specific about what it's going to take to actually get there. We dig into the disappearing entry-level job, why middle school may be more important than people think, and what it looks like to reimagine a system built around schooling into one built around learning. Erin also gets personal – sharing how she talks to her own kids about synthetic content, screen time, and why the box fort taking over her kitchen might be one of the most important learning experiences they're having. aiEDU: The AI Education Project aiEDU.org linkedin.com/company/aiedu/
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S1 · E36
February 19 · 50 min
Copley High School: Students tell us how AI is helping and hurting
Do the benefits of generative AI in education outweigh the harms? We sat down with Copley High School debate team members Anna and Charlotte, two sharp juniors who placed 5th at Ohio’s state finals, to hear how they built winning cases, adapted under pressure, and what they’re actually seeing in classrooms right now. From earlier cancer detection to drug repurposing for rare diseases, they explain how measurable outcomes like lives saved can carry a debate when compared to vague classroom promises. On the flip side, they unpack their con work on bias, Department of Education shifts, and AI-fueled misinformation. Equal opportunity surfaces as the toughest challenge. Will under-resourced students end up with AI tutors while wealthier peers keep human teachers, or will affluent districts race ahead with premium tools? We also get ground-level truth from inside the halls — teachers unevenly enforcing AI policies, students quietly using AI for assignments, and a widening gap between capability and oversight that could leave some graduates unprepared for in-person exams and real-world work. Throughout the episode, we compare AI to math calculators as tools that can raise the ceiling if we redesign learning to value process, reasoning, and oral defense. We also share concrete moves for educators, like scaffold drafts in class, placing an emphasis on sourcing and reflection, and using AI transparently for feedback and differentiation. If you’re an educator, parent, or student wondering how to navigate AI without losing the skills that matter, this is a candid and practical guide because it comes from real conversations about real classrooms. aiEDU: The AI Education Project aiEDU.org linkedin.com/company/aiedu/
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S1 · E35
February 5 · 54 min
Pat Yongpradit: Coding isn't dead, it's evolving
What if AI didn’t kill coding but made learning it more meaningful? We sat down with Pat Yongpradit (former Chief Academic Officer at Code.org) to unpack why computer science still matters, how AI is reshaping classroom practices, and what real AI literacy looks like for students and teachers. We also zoomed out to note that coding is only one piece of computer science, which also spans data science, cybersecurity, and the social and ethical impacts of technology. We also talk about jobs, nuance, and the future of post-secondary education. BLS projections still show growth in software engineering even as “programming” tasks automate, which shifts demand toward systems-based thinking, UX, and human-centered design. Pat makes the case for a blended future where a renewed liberal arts education integrates technical fluency with ethics, communication, and problem-solving in order to prepare students for AI-infused roles across every sector. If you care about teaching, learning, or the future of work, our conversation with Pat delivers a clear message — keep the human at the center, use AI as a partner, and give students the agency to build, critique, and create. aiEDU: The AI Education Project aiEDU.org linkedin.com/company/aiedu/
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S1 · E34
January 29 · 33 min
Celeste Riley: Teaching with AI, learning with critical thinking
Imagine a classroom where 5th graders present their research to younger students, take questions, and proudly defend their findings — and where AI is a quiet helper, not the centerpiece. That’s Celeste Riley’s dual-language classroom in Memphis! It's a space built on trust, cultural relevance, and clear expectations that make learning feel urgent, relevant, and real. On this week's episode of aiEDU Studios, we spoke with Celeste about how she uses AI to widen access and differentiate for multilingual learners while still ensuring academic rigor. Instead of policing AI tools, Celeste focuses on vetting and verification: Students first draft projects in Canva. Then, they compare AI summaries with primary sources Finally, they refine their projects until the writing sounds like them. Subsequently, class presentations serve as honest assessments. If a grade-schooler asks, “Why did that family leave their home country?” gimmicks fall away and understanding shows up. Along the way, Celeste teaches students good habits for digital citizenship with lessons about strong passwords, online privacy, checking sources, and spotting misinformation. Celeste also shared a favorite lesson from an AI cohort: students wrote step-by-step prompts while a partner “played” the AI to reveal how vague requests fail and precise language succeeds – kind of like Amelia Bedelia! She also walked us through her process of using AI to personalize lessons, like reading fluency tools that put students in charge of their own pace of learning. For school leaders, this episode digs into what actually works: Short, teacher-led professional development sessions A culture that treats mistakes as part of the learning process Visible celebrations of classroom wins. The result is a blueprint for blending AI, project-based learning, and bilingual education together without losing the human element that makes school matter. If you believe student voice is non-negotiable, you’ll find practical moves you can use tomorrow. aiEDU: The AI Education Project aiEDU.org linkedin.com/company/aiedu/
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S1 · E33
January 22 · 1 hr 10 min
Jared Chung: Career flexibility in an uncertain AI future
Ready for honest career guidance instead of stage-ready talking points? We sit down with CareerVillage.org founder Jared Chung to unpack how AI is reshaping career prep, why human advice still matters, and what parents, teachers, and students can do to navigate uncertainty with confidence. We dig into the questions that families often whisper after conferences: Which jobs are safe? Should my kid study law, computer science, or learn a trade? The clearest answers center on no-regret skills (e.g. Communication, problem-solving, project management, EQ, etc.) and on a new reality for knowledge workers — the entry-level job is turning into a manager role. It’s not enough to complete tasks; you must direct the work, judge quality, and orchestrate tools and teams. Jared emphasizes labor market agility as a core competency in tracking how AI affects your job role, your industry, and your employer. Along the way, we examine the broken mechanics of job-matching, the risk of AI being used only for cost-cutting, and the upside if companies invest in new lines of business that create demand. We also get practical. Guidance counselors are stretched thin while students need both fast, tailored AI support and real humans who’ve done the job. That’s why AICareerCoach.org and CareerVillage.org exist side by side, with clear lines between AI help and human help. We talk trades versus degrees, nursing/healthcare demand, and why parents should model curiosity by reading credible industry news and discussing what they see with their kids. If you want a smart, grounded playbook for thriving in a changing labor market, this conversation delivers clarity without the clichés. Learn more about Jared Chung and CareerVillage.org: https://www.CareerVillage.org https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaredchung/ aiEDU: The AI Education Project aiEDU.org linkedin.com/company/aiedu/
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S1 · E32
January 16 · 54 min
Neeti Mehta Shukla: Work without the busywork
Imagine telling a chatbot to “onboard this vendor,” and it finishes the job across multiple systems in under a minute. On this episode, we sit down with Automation Anywhere co-founder Neeti Mehta Shukla to unpack how this shift frees people from repetitive tasks and lets them focus on more meaningful work that uses their human judgment, care, and creativity. We trace the journey from early RPA (robotic process automation) to today’s reliable, scalable automation that runs mission-critical operations. Neeti shares some compelling examples: A nonprofit delivering 400% more aid after automating intake. An energy company saving $120 million via an LLM-guided tax review. Universities improving student services with faster, error-resistant AI-driven processes. Throughout our conversation with Neeti, we get practical about the future of work. Some tasks vanish, many roles evolve, and new careers take shape. We also dig into responsible AI (privacy, governance, transparency) and why certifications like ISO 42001 signal that speed and safety can coexist. Ultimately, the overall message is hopeful and grounded — expand access to training, bring more voices into AI, and build tools that serve everyone instead of just early adopters. Learn more about Neeti Mehta Shukla and Automation Anywhere: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neeti-mehta-shukla-511476/ https://www.AutomationAnywhere.com/ aiEDU: The AI Education Project aiEDU.org linkedin.com/company/aiedu/
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S1 · E31
January 8 · 1 hr 10 min
Victor Lee: Rethinking school and AI literacy
If you’ve ever wondered whether AI has 'broken' school, this conversation with Stanford associate professor Victor Lee cuts through the noise and gets to the heart of the issue. We start by mapping out three lenses every learner needs: The user who applies tools well. The developer who grasps core concepts like models and training data. The critic who sees bias, persuasion, and societal impact. That trifecta becomes a practical compass for teachers, parents, and leaders trying to decide what matters by the time students graduate. Victor also shares fresh findings from his widely-cited study on AI and academic integrity: Cheating didn’t spike after ChatGPT arrived. The baseline was already high. When work is irrelevant or purely procedural, students seek shortcuts. When tasks demand interpretation, personal voice, and real evidence, AI becomes a helper rather than a loophole. We also explore how to rethink writing beyond the five-paragraph essay, turning “writing is thinking” into prompts that reward judgment over regurgitation. Think role-play, multimedia analysis, and context-rich arguments that students can own and AI outputs can’t fake. Lastly, Victor examined computer science in a world of co-pilots. Coding isn’t going away, but the value shifts from syntax to decomposition, abstraction, testing, and reasoning about systems. The best AI-assisted developers have strong fundamentals and the same is true in every field — domain knowledge multiplies AI. That’s the essence of AI readiness: deep subject-grounding plus AI fluency and skepticism. If you care about smarter classroom assessment, meaningful tasks, and preparing students for an AI-shaped world, this episode offers a grounded and hopeful roadmap. aiEDU: The AI Education Project aiEDU.org linkedin.com/company/aiedu/
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