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.

Play

Open in

33 episodes
weekly
Avg 31 min
English

Episodes 33

Newest Oldest Longest

All13 Unplayed13 In progress0 Played0

Counted on this page — what you have heard stays on this device, so it is not something the list can be paged by.

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.

Showing 21–33 of 33 episodes