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

Oct 11, 2022 · 29 min
What Educators Should Know About the Latest in Brain Health. (Encore Episode)
An evolutionary biologist who studies the physiology of aging has some surprising advice about brain health. And it has implications for schools and colleges—and anyone interested in learning.
Oct 4, 2022 · 37 min
What Should Colleges Do to Help Students Find Jobs?
What should the college career center look like in this moment of seismic shifts in the job market and the economy, and growing skepticism of whether going to college pays off? We talked with two professors who edited the new book “Mapping the Future of Undergraduate Career Education.”
Sep 27, 2022 · 38 min
How to Make Classes More Active, and Why It Matters
Longtime professor Cathy Davidson is on a mission these days to promote the practice of active learning. And she says the stakes are higher than people might realize. It’s not just about test scores and whether people learn. She thinks there’s an ethical issue that sometimes gets lost in discussions about teaching.
Sep 20, 2022 · 51 min
What a College Degree Means to Adult Students. Second Acts, Ep. 3
There's a big difference between being nearly done with college and getting that diploma. In the finale of our Second Acts podcast series, we learn whether the three students we’ve been following finished their degrees, and what the distinction of college grad means to them at this point in their lives.
Sep 13, 2022 · 37 min
Exit Interview: Why This Veteran Teacher is Leaving the Profession
It’s back-to-school season, but not every teacher opted to return. This week, we listen in on a frank conversation between Jennifer Yoo-Brannon, an instructional coach in California, and Diana Bell, a veteran teacher of more than 18 years who recently decided to leave the profession.
Sep 7, 2022 · 48 min
Why State Universities Are Buying Up Online Colleges
Some big state universities have decided to get into online learning with a big splash, by buying an existing online college that already serves thousands of online students. What does it say about the future of online education, both at colleges and schools?
Aug 31, 2022 · 43 min
How to Keep Returning College Students on Track. Second Acts, Ep. 2
Millions of U.S. adults have attended some college but never finished a degree. What does it take to get them back in class? And once they’re back, how can colleges help them stay on track? In the second episode of our podcast series Second Acts, we hear the in-depth stories of three students who returned to finish a degree.
Aug 23, 2022 · 43 min
Inside the Booming World Where Students Buy Custom Term Papers
It’s easier than you might think to pay someone to write a term paper for you. A former homework-for-hire writer, Dave Tomar, shares the details of this booming industry in a new book, “The Complete Guide to Contract Cheating in Higher Education.” What does the popularity of these services say about our education system? And what can be done?
Aug 17, 2022 · 18 min
This YouTube Star Says AI Will Become a Creative ‘Collaborator’ With Students
Taryn Southern is a pioneering YouTuber who these days experiments with how cutting edge tech might transform human expression. She’s recorded a pop album that she co-wrote with some AI code, for instance, and she’s created a digital clone of herself that she can use to make videos for her popular YouTube channel. Here's what she sees coming for education.
Aug 9, 2022 · 14 min
Educators Don’t Need to Cope. They Need to Resist.
As an instructional coach, Jennifer Yoo-Brannon’s conversations with educators have gotten increasingly difficult this year. Rather than coping, she argues that her hope for every educator is to find a community of resistance when they need it. She says what education really needs is for teachers to flock together, affirm each other’s experiences and resist together.
Aug 3, 2022 · 39 min
The Many Reasons Students Bail on College. Second Acts, Ep. 1
Bad experiences and feelings of disengagement in middle and high school can haunt students even as they enter college. That, plus a number of other factors, explain why millions of students have left college without a degree. In the first episode of a new podcast series we’re calling Second Acts, we hear the in-depth stories of three students who walked away from post-secondary education and are now back to finish a degree.
Jul 26, 2022 · 40 min
Encore: The Tyranny of Letter Grades
What if schools and colleges ditched letter grades and GPAs? That’s the key question in this episode of our Bootstraps podcast series about who gets what opportunities in American education. It first ran last fall and was out most popular episode of the past year.
Jul 19, 2022 · 44 min
How to Help Teachers Tell Their Stories — And Why It Matters
Three educators who were part of EdSurge's first Voices of Change Writing Fellowship share how personal, narrative essay writing can help learners and leaders reshape our world.
Jul 12, 2022 · 38 min
Does Our Academic System Unnecessarily Pit People Against Each Other?
It’s worth taking a closer look at how the systems we live in -- including our education systems -- make us feel about ourselves and our connections with our fellow citizens. That's one key point in an award-winning philosophy paper by Waheed Hussain, and In today’s highly polarized environment, his framework for thinking about ethics in education seems more relevant and important than ever.
Jul 6, 2022 · 34 min
High School Students Say They Learn Their Most Important Skills Outside of School
If you ask middle school and high school students these days the most important skills they’re learning, they’re likely to name something they picked up on their own, outside of normal school hours. That’s according to Julie Evans, CEO of the nonprofit Project Tomorrow, who has been studying what she calls "free agent learning" for years—both before and after the pandemic.
Jun 28, 2022 · 47 min
Where Does Education Fit in an Emerging Metaverse?
Talk of the metaverse is suddenly everywhere, but what does that mean for education? To help us sort through this emerging space, we talked with two guests who have seen more of this VR space than most in both K12 and at colleges. This conversation was recorded live at the ISTE Live conference in New Orleans.
Jun 21, 2022 · 45 min
How the ‘Computer Science for All’ Movement Fits In a Broader History of Social-Justice Battles
What can today’s activists and educators fighting for equity in computer science and the tech industry learn from past civil-rights struggles in America? That was one question posed during the recent Black Tech Policy Week event hosted by the Black Tech Futures Research Institute. EdSurge was invited to moderate a session, which we're bringing you as this week's podcast episode.
Jun 14, 2022 · 33 min
Scholars Create Graphic Novel to Spur Discussion of Inequity in Computer Science
Who gets to learn about computer science in school? Though more schools these days offer CS classes, they’re more common in well-resourced schools than those that serve underprivileged students. Hoping to spark discussions among kids about equity issues in the tech industry, two scholars studying the issue recently made the unusual decision to produce a graphic novel based on their research. For this week’s episode, we talked to the authors about the new book.
Jun 7, 2022 · 39 min
Why This Children’s Show Host Pulled His Videos Off YouTube
In the last few years, the landscape of media for youngsters has gone through a transformation. Now kids watch videos on tablets and on their parents phones, and there’s been an explosion of content on YouTube and other social media platforms aimed at little ones. One preschool-teacher-turned-kids-show-host worries about the forces shaping the industry these days, and he’s been talking to a range of kids-media experts to get their advice on a way forward.
May 31, 2022 · 26 min
The Illusion of Danger: A Returning Adult College Student's Quest
Jackie Kim is on a quest to launch a career in acting and stunts, make it big in the movies—oh, and finish her college degree. She’s one of millions of adults who left higher ed before earning the credential they originally planned for. Now she is starring in her university’s spring production of a play packed with sword fights and monsters, learning how to balance risk and safety on stage and in life.