This Week with EdSurge

EdSurge Podcast

This Week with EdSurge is the essential weekly podcast that takes you past the headlines and deep into the fascinating, fast-evolving world of education. Hosted by Ira Apfel alongside our talented team of EdSurge contributors, each episode cuts through the hype to explore the human stories shaping our schools—from the rise of artificial intelligence in the classroom to student well-being, shifting policies, and the future of teaching. Whether you are a classroom educator, a district leader, an edtech innovator, or simply a curious mind, this show delivers the rigorous, empathetic, and trusted journalism you need to understand where education is headed.

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494 episodes
Updated Wednesday

Episodes494

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Wednesday · 27 min
Vinyl, Pencils, and Life Without AI
This week, two educators arrive at the same question from very different directions. Nathan Kraai, Director of Innovation and Design Thinking at The Fenn School, explains what a trip to the record store taught him about artificial intelligence and learning. Court Shuller, a middle school English teacher and EdSurge Voices of Change fellow, joins from ISTELive in Orlando to talk about what their classroom has already decided about AI. Together, they ask what should still take real effort when a shortcut is only a click away. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN Nathan Kraai connects the resurgence of vinyl records to what he calls a signal about how people are actually responding to AI, drawing on Jane McGonigal's trends versus signals framework from her book Imaginable. Nathan also explains why watching 9th graders wrestle with capstone speeches, despite having AI tools that could draft a polished version in seconds, left him hopeful rather than worried. Court Shuller, a National Board Certified educator and reading specialist, discusses how their district in New Jersey has responded to AI by returning to pencil and paper. Both guests weigh in on what students should still be required to do themselves. STORIES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE How a Vinyl Record Resurgence Helped Me Understand the Future of AI in Education by Nathan Kraai We Must Stop Using AI to ‘Level-Down’ Our Students by Court Shuller STAY CONNECTED Subscribe to EdSurge newsletters at edsurge.com. Find the latest education news at edsurge.com/news. Follow EdSurge on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. HOST AND CONTRIBUTORS Host: Ira Apfel Featuring: Nathan Kraai, Director of Innovation and Design Thinking, The Fenn School Court Shuller, Middle School English Teacher and Reading Specialist
July 22 · 21 min
AI Cannot Fake This Kind of Learning
Every few months, another headline declares the college degree dead. This Week with EdSurge puts that claim to the test with two guests defending something slow against something fast. Rita Finkel of the Armory Foundation argues that a four-year degree still holds value at a moment when artificial intelligence can produce a credential adjacent skill in minutes. Then Cobretti Williams of the EdSurge Voices of Change Fellowship makes a similar case for writing, where an essay can take months to draft even though AI could produce one in eight seconds. Both guests land on the same idea: skip the time, and you skip the point. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN Bachelor's degree holders earned a median of $81,800 in 2024, compared to $50,600 for high school graduates, a gap of 62%, according to the College Board's Education Pays 2026 report. From 2000 to 2025, workers with only a high school diploma consistently faced unemployment rates at least 2.3 percentage points higher than college graduates, according to a St. Louis Fed analysis. A McKinsey survey of more than 3,000 employers found that skills such as critical thinking and judgment remain in high demand from employers even as AI adoption grows. Cobretti Williams describes how the EdSurge Voices of Change Fellowship helps teachers develop their writing across multiple drafts, arguing that the growth between a fellow’s first and fourth essay only comes from doing the work yourself. STORIES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Why College Degrees Matter in the Age of AI by Rita Finkel EdSurge Voices of Change Writing Fellowship by EdSurge, featuring Cobretti Williams STAY CONNECTED Subscribe to EdSurge newsletters at edsurge.com. Find the latest education news at edsurge.com/news. Follow EdSurge on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. HOST AND CONTRIBUTORS Host: Ira Apfel Featuring: Rita Finkel, Co-President, Armory Foundation Cobretti Williams, Editor, EdSurge Voices of Change Fellowship
July 15 · 25 min
3 Gaps Stalling AI in Classrooms
Microsoft just released the third edition of its global AI in Education report, and the numbers raise more questions than they answer. Ira Apfel sits down with Pat Yongpradit, General Manager of Global Education and Workforce Policy at Microsoft, on the floor at the ISTELive and ASCD Annual in Orlando. They dig into the delta between daily use and overall adoption of AI, a sharp drop in student optimism, and a persistent training divide between what leaders believe and what teachers and students actually experience. The conversation also turns to academic integrity and where the policy backlash against AI in schools may be headed next. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN Daily AI use lags far behind overall adoption, with just 33 percent of educators and 27 percent of students using it every day despite nine in ten having tried it. Student optimism about AI dropped 21 points in a single year, a shift Pat links to a predictable trough in the technology adoption curve. Three out of four students and half of educators report no formal AI training, even though seven in ten leaders believe their people are trained. Yongpradit explains why academic integrity worries students and educators for opposite reasons, and what that means for how schools should write AI guidance. STORIES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE 2026 AI in Education Report, Published by Microsoft STAY CONNECTED Subscribe to EdSurge newsletters. Find the latest education news at edsurge.com/news. Follow EdSurge on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. HOST AND CONTRIBUTORS Host: Ira Apfel Featuring: Pat Yongpradit, General Manager of Global Education and Workforce Policy, Microsoft
July 8 · 18 min
ISTELive 26: Bans, Microdosing, and the Future of AI
Ira Apfel wraps up a whirlwind week at ISTELive 26 in Orlando with Sarah McKibben, Editor-in-Chief of EdSurge. Together they unpack the buzziest ideas to come out of the conference, including why so many educators are pushing back on AI bans, and what one surprising theory about AI slop means for the future of student writing. From burnout to breakthroughs, this recap captures everything that stuck with them once the convention center emptied out. WHAT YOU’LL LEARN Why current education leaders believe relational intelligence could become education’s most valuable currency in the age of AI. How new research cited at the conference links a steep decline in daily conversation, especially among people under 25, to rising social isolation. Why one Educational Leadership contributor’s approach to AI in the classroom centers on microdosing rather than banning it outright. How district leaders are being encouraged to rethink AI policy by comparing it to another everyday risk millions of teenagers already navigate. STORIES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE This is a special recap episode from ISTELive 26 in Orlando where Ira and Sarah reflect on the hallway conversations, speaker presentations, and podcast interviews they enjoyed throughout the week. Featured speakers include: Pat Yongpradit, GM, Education and Workforce Policy at Microsoft Dr. Nneka McGee, Fmr. Chief Academic Officer and Founder of Muon Global Isabelle Hau, Executive Director of the Stanford Accelerator for Learning Heather E. McGowan, Bestselling Author, Leadership Expert, and LinkedIn Global Voice for Education Melinda Glowacki, MAT Supervisor and Leadership Coach for the University of California, Irvine Tambra Clark, Technology Integration Facilitator of Birmingham City Schools Mary Ehrenworth, Author, Speaker, Consultant, from Teachers College, Columbia University Philip Seyfried, Student, from Teachers College, Columbia University Jessica Garner, Managing Director, Innovative Learning at ISTE+ASCD Court Shuller from the Voices of Change Fellowship STAY CONNECTED Subscribe to EdSurge newsletters at www.edsurge.com/newsletters. Find the latest education news at edsurge.com/news. Follow EdSurge on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. HOST AND CONTRIBUTORS Host: Ira Apfel, Editorial Director, EdSurge Featuring: Sarah McKibben, Editor-in-Chief, EdSurge
July 1 · 23 min
Can an Algorithm Replace a Teacher’s Instinct?
This week, two teachers take a hard look at what happens when you hand a problem to a tool and trust it to solve that problem. David Webb, a school teacher based in Jakarta, India, spent a year vibe coding an AI-powered library app called LibraryAid and discovered exactly where the algorithm ends and the educator begins. Then, California high school teacher Gabe Nitro makes a counterintuitive argument: the phone pouches sweeping his district may be swallowing the very instructional time they were designed to protect. WHAT YOU’LL LEARN David Webb built LibraryAid, a personalized book recommendation app, using vibe coding techniques with no prior computer science background, and the tool now tracks approximately 30 factors, including student interests, reading history, and classroom topics, to generate personalized reading recommendations. One student reading two grade levels below placement made three times the average reading progress after the app matched him to a book series he loved, demonstrating both the power and the limits of algorithmic recommendation. A study from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that Yondr pouches had no statistically significant impact on standardized test scores for high schoolers in English, a finding that surprised even teachers who had adopted the pouches. Gabe Nitro argues that phone pouches consume up to 49 minutes of instructional time per school day in enforcement alone, and that the real distraction problem simply shifts to Chromebooks once phones are sealed away. STORIES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE 1. Vibe Coding Sparked a Love of Reading in My Classroom by David Webb 2. I’m a Teacher, and I’m Against Phone Pouches by Gabe Nitro STAY CONNECTED Subscribe to EdSurge newsletters at www.edsurge.com/newsletters Find the latest education news at edsurge.com/news. Follow EdSurge on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. HOST AND CONTRIBUTORS Host: Ira Apfel, Editorial Director, EdSurge Contributors: David Webb, International school teacher, Jakarta; creator of LibraryAid Gabe Nitro, High school teacher, California
June 24 · 24 min
Is TikTok Now a Teacher Training Tool?
Two educators are reckoning with who is really in charge: technology or the teacher. First, a teacher notices her students are quietly forming their professional knowledge on TikTok and decides to lean in rather than fight it. Then a high school engineering teacher builds an AI grading tool so efficient that it sent feedback to students without him ever reading it, and confronts what that actually means for his role in the classroom. Together, they raise urgent questions about judgment, accountability, and what teaching is really for. What You'll Learn Pre-service teachers are forming their professional knowledge partly through TikTok and social media reels, including content from former teachers who left the profession, raising questions about how teacher prep programs should respond. Evi Wusk argues that the information gleaned from social media is already shaping how future teachers think, so the more productive move is to help them engage with it critically rather than dismiss or ignore it. Steven Swanson built a fully automated AI grading tool that sent feedback directly to students without his review, and after a student thanked him for words he never wrote, he rebuilt the tool to put himself back in the loop. Swanson describes specific assignment types where AI grading adds value versus where it falls short, including the risk of missing opportunities to learn who students actually are as people. Stories Mentioned in This Episode What TikTok Is Teaching Future Teachers That We Aren't by Evi Wusk I Built an AI Grading Tool. Then a Student Thanked Me for Words I Didn't Write. by Steven Swanson Upcoming Event ISTE+ASCD Live '26 in Orlando, Florida Stay Connected Subscribe to EdSurge newsletters at edsurge.com Latest education news at edsurge.com/news Follow EdSurge on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube Host & Contributors Host: Ira Apfel, Editorial Director, EdSurge Guests: Evi Wusk, Ed.D., teacher educator and author of What TikTok Is Teaching Future Teachers That We Aren't Steven Swanson, high school engineering teacher and author of I Built an AI Grading Tool. Then a Student Thanked Me for Words I Didn't Write.
June 17 · 23 min
Your Kids Know More About AI Than You Do
Schools are racing to write AI policies, but what if the policy is not the first step? This week, we hear from Aleta Margolis, founder and president of the Center for Inspired Teaching, who argues that real progress starts with a conversation, not a rule. Then EdSurge editor-in-chief Sarah McKibben brings it home with what AI actually looks like at her kitchen table, with two middle schoolers navigating it in real time. What You'll Learn A new RAND American Youth Panel survey found that only about one in three students say their school has a school-wide AI policy, and Aleta Margolis of the Center for Inspired Teaching explains why co-creating guidelines with students leads to better outcomes than top-down rule-making. A recent NPR and Ipsos poll found that 54 percent of teachers say AI is making it harder for students to learn critical thinking skills, and nearly three in four believe its impact on education will exceed that of the internet or computers. Sarah McKibben describes the mix of productive and concerning AI use she sees with her own children, including a student using an AI humanizer app to avoid plagiarism detection when submitting AI-written essays. Both guests converge on the idea of productive struggle: the concern is not AI itself but whether students are learning to think with it rather than bypassing the thinking entirely. Stories Mentioned in This Episode What to Do About AI: Begin by Talking About It by Aleta Margolis NPR / Ipsos Poll: Teachers on AI and Critical Thinking RAND American Youth Panel: Select Findings Upcoming Event ISTE+ASCD Live '26 in Orlando, Florida Stay Connected Subscribe to EdSurge newsletters at edsurge.com Latest education news at edsurge.com/news Follow EdSurge: LinkedIn X Facebook TikTok Instagram YouTube Host & Contributors Hosted by Ira Apfel, Editorial Director, EdSurge Featuring Aleta Margolis, Founder and President, Center for Inspired Teaching Sarah McKibben, Editor-in-Chief, EdSurge Stay informed, stay curious.
June 10 · 19 min
Recess, Screens, and Absenteeism
Schools have been quietly chipping away at recess for nearly a decade, and a sweeping new report from the American Academy of Pediatrics says it is time to stop. Meanwhile, the federal government has issued a formal advisory on screen time and children, raising urgent questions about how schools, parents, and tech companies should respond. This week, EdSurge reporters Lauren Coffey and Nadia Tamez-Robledo bring both stories together around a single urgent question: what does it look like when kids get less real-world experience and more pressure? What You'll Learn The American Academy of Pediatrics updated its recess guidelines for the first time since 2013, expanding its recommendations to include middle and high school students. One Massachusetts high school cut chronic absenteeism from 35 percent to 23 percent in a single year after introducing movement breaks, suggesting that belonging and physical activity can drive school attendance in meaningful ways. The screen time advisory issued by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy calls for bell-to-bell phone bans, warning labels on apps, and the elimination of recommendation algorithms for children, but researchers caution that the evidence linking screen time to negative outcomes is correlation, not proven cause and effect. Experts warn that broad phone and screen restrictions could inadvertently affect students with IEPs and disabilities who rely on assistive devices, a tension the advisory acknowledges but does not fully resolve. Stories Mentioned in This Episode Recess Took a Break in Some Schools. A Push Is On to Bring It Back by Lauren Coffey Surgeon General Advisory Wants Kids to Live Beyond the Confines of Screens by Nadia Tamez-Robledo Stay Connected Subscribe to EdSurge newsletters at edsurge.com Latest education news at edsurge.com/news Follow EdSurge: LinkedIn X Facebook TikTok Instagram Host & Contributors Hosted by Ira Apfel, Editorial Director, EdSurge Featuring Lauren Coffey, Reporter, EdSurge Nadia Tamez-Robledo, Reporter, EdSurge Stay informed, stay curious.
June 3 · 22 min
AI Is in Schools. Teachers Are Not Ready.
Three-quarters of school districts now have AI guidelines, up sharply from just a year ago, yet 82 percent of teachers say they have never received formal guidance on how to use AI in their work. EdSurge reporter Lauren Coffey breaks down the 2026 CoSN State of Ed Tech report and what it reveals about AI adoption, cybersecurity gaps, and edtech vetting inside K-12 districts. Then host Ira Apfel talks with Joseph South, chief innovation officer at ISTE+ASCD, about why teachers say they feel unprepared to bring AI into their classrooms and what it would take to change that. What You'll Learn Why AI adoption in K-12 districts jumped from 54 percent in 2025 to 75 percent this year, and why most prefer local flexibility over state or federal mandates. Why cybersecurity remains many districts' top concern even as two-thirds lack the staff and budget to address it, and what the Canvas ransomware attack reveals about the real cost of that gap. What the Gallup and Walton Family Foundation data actually shows about the teacher guidance crisis: 82 percent of teachers have received no formal AI guidance, 34 percent have received no guidance at all, and 69 percent have received no guidance specifically on using AI for one-on-one instruction or tutoring. How districts in Long Beach, Gwinnett County, and Fairfax County are building transparency-first AI frameworks, and what the Lighthouse Schools model offers as a replicable path for districts that want to move without waiting for policy from above. Stories Mentioned in This Episode CoSN U.S. State of EdTech 2026 Report with coverage by Lauren Coffey Teachers Say Lack of AI Guidance Is a Major Problem from Education Week featuring Joseph South, Chief Innovation Officer, ISTE+ASCD Stay Connected Subscribe to EdSurge newsletters at edsurge.com/newsletters Get the latest education news at edsurge.com/news Follow EdSurge LinkedIn X Facebook TikTok Instagram YouTube Host and Contributors Hosted by Ira Apfel: Editorial Director, Journalism Featuring Lauren Coffey: Reporter, EdSurge (public policy, early childhood education, K-12 technology) Joseph South: Chief Innovation Officer, ISTE+ASCD Stay informed, stay curious.
Jan 15, 2025 · 54 min
How a Vacant School Building Became a Symbol of Loss, and Then Hope, for a Dying Small Town
When the only school in Donora, Pennsylvania, closed a few years ago, it hit the town’s residents hard. Now the building may be the town’s best hope, as a community college considers setting up in the former school. A University of Pittsburgh professor spent three years documenting life in this fading town for an unusual podcast series that ran late last year. Education was a key theme. On this week's EdSurge Podcast, we talk to the professor about her takeaways for the role of education in the many forgotten small towns around the U.S.
Jan 7, 2025 · 58 min
How AI Has Changed Student Cheating — And How to Respond
One long-time expert on preventing student cheating argues that understanding why students cheat is key to making adjustments in teaching to prevent cheating with AI. It's the argument of Tricia Bertram Gallant, a longtime expert in academic integrity who is director of the Academic Integrity Office at the University of California San Diego who co-wrote a new book, “The Opposite of Cheating: Teaching for Integrity in the Age of AI. See show notes at EdSurge.com: https://www.edsurge.com/news/2025-01-07-ai-has-changed-student-cheating-but-strategies-to-stop-it-remain-consistent
Dec 10, 2024 · 55 min
Inside the Push to Bring AI Literacy to Schools and Colleges (Encore Episode)
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 and other generative AI? This episode originally ran in January 2024, and was the most-listened-to episode of the year.
Dec 4, 2024 · 43 min
What We Learned About Teaching and Creativity By Commissioning a New Podcast Theme Song
We found the theme song for the EdSurge Podcast on a free music library years ago, after spending hours clicking around searching for the right sound. The music turns out to have an unusual origin story, as we learned when we tracked down the artist this week for a conversation about the intersection of music, creativity and teaching.
Nov 20, 2024 · 34 min
Want To Find Highly-Engaged Students at 4-Year Colleges? Look At Transfer Students.
When students transfer from community colleges to four-year universities, there’s often culture shock. But those transfers are often more motivated and engaged in the classroom than students who arrive straight from high school, experts say. Hear firsthand from a student in his 30s who recently transferred from a two-year college to the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.
Nov 8, 2024 · 59 min
Should Students Chat With AI Versions of Historical Figures?
A new documentary project about Sacagawea, the young woman from the Shoshone tribe who helped guide the Lewis and Clark Expedition back in 1804, lets students chat with an animated chatbot of her. Some educators worry about how faithfully such chatbots can represent history, or whether they might keep students from digging into documents to form their own analysis.
Nov 4, 2024 · 47 min
The Effects of Smartwatches on Kids, Schools and Families
Should kids wear smartwatches? Companies market the wearable devices to kids as young as 4 years old, while digital media experts and educators worry about potential downsides of what some see as an “electronic umbilical cord.” On the EdSurge Podcast this week, we talk with our reporter who spent months researching the issue, Emily Tate Sullivan, and hear her read the full story.
Oct 27, 2024 · 57 min
What Can AI Chatbots Teach Us About How Humans Learn?
ChatGPT and other chatbots are modeled after how the human brain works. And one of the pioneers of the technology, Terrence Sejnowski, says that what AI has made clear is that we don’t really understand what it means for the human brain to “understand” something.
Oct 21, 2024 · 37 min
How Are School Smartphone Bans Going?
Many school districts and states have enacted new restrictions on smartphones in classrooms during instructional time, in the name of increasing student engagement and counteracting the negative effects that social media has on youth mental health. We checked in with two teachers and an administrator to hear how the new rules are playing out.
Oct 13, 2024 · 32 min
How the Job Market Has Changed for College Grads
College grads are facing a tough job market these days, with experts saying the college degree holds less of a premium in getting hired than in the past. And as it gets easier to apply to jobs online, applicants say they are getting ghosted by employers or applying to hundreds of jobs with little return. How can colleges respond?
Oct 6, 2024 · 44 min
Looking Back on the Long, Bumpy Rise of Online College Courses
When the web was new back in the late 1990s, Robert Ubell was among those pushing for its adoption to help students who couldn’t get to a campus — over the objections of professors who thought it would always be sub-par. The online learning pioneer says the history of online’s growth offers lessons for those trying teaching innovations today.