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

Newest first

Dec 13, 2023 · 47 min
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 college is far more mainstream. We dive into the history and impact of the program on the first episode of our new podcast series about changing public views of higher ed, called Doubting College.
Dec 5, 2023 · 48 min
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 solve their own problems, argues Devorah Heitner, an author who advises schools on social media issues.
Nov 29, 2023 · 30 min
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?
Nov 21, 2023 · 51 min
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 and educators should treat kids like conversational equals. This is a rerun of an episode that first ran in June.
Nov 14, 2023 · 52 min
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 steps should be taken to bring out the best of the tech while avoiding pitfalls.
Nov 8, 2023 · 1 hr 4 min
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.
Oct 31, 2023 · 50 min
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 continually revise their work rather than quibble over which letter grade they deserve.
Oct 24, 2023 · 43 min
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 admissions folks call a “toxic” trend. We talked to a TikToker and an admissions counselor on how to help.
Oct 17, 2023 · 54 min
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 teaching. Will they catch on?
Oct 10, 2023 · 46 min
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 with the emergence of ChatGPT.
Oct 3, 2023 · 59 min
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 into the thorny issue of encouraging viewpoint diversity in classrooms.
Sep 26, 2023 · 27 min
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 by cues from our body movements, by our surroundings, and by other people we’re interacting with. And that has implications for educators.
Sep 20, 2023 · 34 min
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.
Sep 12, 2023 · 44 min
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.
Sep 6, 2023 · 49 min
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 need, and can reasonably handle, at each stage of their development.
Aug 29, 2023 · 58 min
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 how to avoid such scenarios.
Aug 22, 2023 · 34 min
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. Here’s what they’re learning, and why they say storytelling needs to be taught in schools.
Aug 15, 2023 · 45 min
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. Here’s why, and what he hopes comes of the film. This is an encore broadcast of an EdSurge Podcast that ran earlier this year.
Aug 8, 2023 · 33 min
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.
Aug 1, 2023 · 30 min
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 ways colleges are trying to encourage diversity in light of the new ruling.