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

Jan 11, 2022 · 30 min
A New Perspective on 'Supercharging' the Brain
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.
Jan 5, 2022 · 27 min
Scenes From Campus Life During the 'Delta Semester'
Last semester has been described as a kind of limbo—with fewer COVID health restrictions and more in-person classes and activities, but still under the cloud of a stubborn pandemic. We asked students on five campuses around the country to share moments that epitomized this unusual time on college campuses.
Dec 28, 2021 · 45 min
Encore: The Strange Past and Messy Future of 'Gifted and Talented.'
Sometime early in elementary school, kids are put on one of two paths: regular or gifted. Where did this idea come from? The answer goes back more than a 100 years, to a once-famous scholar named Lewis Terman. And it turns out his legacy, and the future of gifted programs, are still very much under debate.
Dec 21, 2021 · 31 min
The Surprising History of Google's Push to Scan Millions of Library Books
Back in 2004 Google made a splash with a plan to scan nearly the entire book collections of some of the world's largest libraries. But soon it became clear the actual plan would turn out to be far more controversial than its organizers probably ever imagined.
Dec 14, 2021 · 26 min
How Can Colleges Break Out of the Funk of Low Morale?
Low morale of professors and college leaders is turning out to be one of the biggest issues in higher ed this year. We talked with a college leader who has been writing about educator burnout and demoralization for EdSurge, Kevin McClure, about how higher education can get out of its current funk.
Dec 7, 2021 · 35 min
When the SAT Feels Like a Lock, Not a Key. Bootstraps, Ep. 5
The SAT can feel very different to different students. While it can give any college applicant stress, some low-income and minority students see it as evidence that selective colleges don't want them. Can the rise of test-optional policies lead to a new, more equitable era of college admissions? | Guest reporter: Eric Hoover, of The Chronicle of Higher Education
Nov 30, 2021 · 24 min
Sal Khan's Quest to Make 'Mastery Learning' Mainstream
Khan Academy has grown from a grassroots phenomenon on YouTube to a non-profit with a mission to change education. Its big idea is to promote a notion of mastery learning, where students don't move on until they understand each step through a curriculum. We asked Sal Khan how that broader goal of making mastery learning mainstream is going, and what's next for Khan Academy.
Nov 24, 2021 · 28 min
What If Education Was ‘Competency-Based’?
Could the pandemic be a moment that competency-based education catches on more widely. It's an approach where colleges award degrees based on what students can show they know, rather than how long they've spent in a classroom. Paul LeBlanc, president of Southern New Hampshire University, talks about his new book about the approach, called Students First: Equity, Access and Opportunity in Higher Education.
Nov 16, 2021 · 21 min
Kids Don’t Always Believe in Climate Science. Are Schools ‘Miseducating’ Them?
Scientists agree that climate change is real and extremely pressing. But many kids in the U.S. aren’t so sure—even ones who have experienced its effects firsthand. The problem may be what’s taught (or isn’t taught) in today’s schools. Climate author Katie Worth takes us through her new book “Miseducation,” and what successful schools are doing to combat misinformation.
Nov 9, 2021 · 29 min
What If Free Online Courses Weren’t Inside Walled Gardens?
Free online courses have become big business in recent years, offered by companies that work to upsell learners to paid products. But that's not how they started out. Stephen Downes, a pioneer of open online education, argues for eliminating things like free registration to get to free course materials, to better spread the ideas.
Nov 2, 2021 · 28 min
Breaking Down the Early Childhood Education Crisis — and What Might Be Done About It
You’re probably hearing a lot about the crisis in early childhood education these days, as Congress is on the cusp the biggest policy change — and investment — in early childhood in decades. On today’s podcast, we want to step back and look at how we got here -- at what the situation means to educators at all levels and for parents, and at what the Biden Administration’s proposals could mean.
Oct 26, 2021 · 38 min
Are Upstart Online Providers Getting Better at Teaching Than Traditional Colleges?
You may remember the hype about 10 years ago when a new approach to online teaching with technology was touted as a possible alternative to traditional college, called MOOCs, or Massive Open Online Courses, led by startups like Coursera. These days you don’t hear much about them, but they never went away—in fact they’ve boomed since the pandemic. So much so that one professor thinks that higher ed should probably be nervous—or at least that colleges should try to learn something from these well-funded efforts.
Oct 19, 2021 · 27 min
Encouraging Teachers To Share Their Mistakes
We all make mistakes. But for educators, mistakes can be particularly challenging, since there’s a culture in education that prizes showing teachers at their best, and glossing over some of the biggest challenges. One educator has set out to change that, with a podcast that asks teachers to share their biggest mistake and how they've learned from it.
Oct 12, 2021 · 39 min
The Tyranny of Letter Grades. Bootstraps, Ep. 4
Our current grading system can be a way for kids to prove themselves and win college scholarships, or admission to selective colleges. It can also be a barrier, in sometimes surprising ways. What might a world without letter grades and GPAs look like?
Oct 5, 2021 · 40 min
Should Robots Replace Teachers?
Robots are having a moment—including the announcement last week of a new home robot by Amazon. What could that mean for education? We talked with Neil Selwyn, a research professor at Monash University in Australia and author of the provocative book "Should Robots Replace Teachers?"
Sep 28, 2021 · 27 min
This Educator Tutored Chinese Students Remotely From Her Basement. Then It All Came Crashing Down.
Meet a U.S. educator who has been tutoring students in China for years from her basement closet, only to have a policy change cut her off from her students. On this week's episode, we dig into a drama playing out in the online tutoring market half a world away, and look at how it's having huge repercussions for many educators in the U.S.
Sep 22, 2021 · 26 min
Going Back: What College Teaching Is Like Compared to Last Year
It's hard to generalize about which is “better” for learning — online or in person. Because both clearly have their pros and cons, at least listening to students at one campus adjusting to life back to in-person classes.
Sep 15, 2021 · 39 min
Glitches, ‘Gas Fees’ and Lessons We Learned Selling an NFT
EdSurge has spent the last month auctioning off our first NFT, a digital token on the blockchain, to learn what the process involves and the issues the technology raises. On this week's episode, we share what happened.
Sep 7, 2021 · 23 min
Why The Coming ‘Upheaval’ in Higher Ed May Change Notions of Equity, and Prestige
Big changes are coming to higher education, and those changes will be bigger and more disruptive than many college leaders and experts realize as online learning grows. That’s the view of longtime education leader Arthur Levine, in a new book called The Great Upheaval: Higher Education’s Past, Present, and Uncertain Future. And that means it's time to think differentLY about equity.
Sep 1, 2021 · 33 min
What the Maps in Our Brain Tell Us About the Learning Process
To fit all the billions of neurons in the human brain into our heads, they're organized so that brain regions are carefully mapped to things like vision and hearing. And understanding those maps can be a key to better understanding how the mind—and how learning—works, according to Rebecca Schwarzlose, a postdoctoral neuroscientist at Washington University in St. Louis, and author of the new book, "Brainscapes."