PODCAST · education
This Week with EdSurge
by 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.
Episodes
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What Happens to Tutoring When the Money Is Gone?
Pandemic relief money paid for a big expansion of tutoring in schools, but now most of that money is gone. Districts could cancel programs, but University of Maryland researcher David Blazar warns of bigger risks: larger groups, fewer sessions, and tutoring that stops helping kids as much. Then...
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Who Gets to Build AI Infrastructure for Schools?
AI tools can generate a lesson in seconds, but educators still lack a shared way to check whether that lesson is evidence-based and aligned to state standards. Learning Commons, a nonprofit backed by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, launched an open platform to address this gap. Ira Apfel sits…
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4 Small Fixes for the October Blues
A few weeks into the school year, the adrenaline wears off and many teachers hit a wall that has a name: the October Blues. Ira Apfel sits down with author Mike Anderson, who crashed hard as a rookie teacher and swim coach working more than 100 hours a week. Together they explore why the slump…
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Can Schools Trust AI Features in Edtech Products?
From tutoring tools to grading platforms, edtech vendors are frequently adding AI features to new and existing instructional materials. Almost every company selling these products says the features are educationally effective, so EdReports went looking for the evidence behind those claims....
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Unchecked Assumptions: Fewer Male Teachers and More Baby Slop
A new workforce survey finds that men now make up less than a quarter of public schoolteachers, and the ones who do stay often walk into assumptions before they even introduce themselves. Meanwhile, a flood of AI generated videos aimed at toddlers is teaching young kids things that are not true,...
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The Reading Reforms That Stopped at Third Grade
The lowest-performing middle school readers aren't just behind, they're falling further behind every year, even as reading scores recover elsewhere. On This Week with EdSurge, NWEA's Megan Kuhfeld shares new research that explains why the K-3 literacy laws that fixed early reading aren't reaching...
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Two Student Questions, Two Teacher Responses
Two Voices of Change Fellows had the same kind of moment this year, when a student comment that could have been brushed off as attitude turned out to be a warning sign. On This Week with EdSurge, Melinda Medina explains what happened when a student answered a literature question with "I use...
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Two New Rules, Two Teacher Workarounds
New guidance was supposed to help teachers make sense of screen time. New laws were supposed to keep phones out of the way. On This Week with EdSurge we look at what happens when teachers are left to make sense of rules that were never built with their classrooms in mind. Adam Stone talks with...
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Does New Federal Edtech Guidance Go Far Enough?
The Department of Education just issued its first major classroom technology guidance in years, urging schools to judge tools by outcomes rather than screen time. Digital Promise president and CEO Jean-Claude Brizard and outcomes-based contracting expert Brittany Miller join This Week with…
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Assignments, Invoices, and the AI Fix
This week, two guests trace the true cost of AI, one in the classroom and one behind the scenes. Michael Hernandez explains how he taught himself to code so he could build a free tool that flags weak assignments before students ever think about cheating. Mi Aniefuna follows the electricity…
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Supporting Early Childhood Educators
What does it actually take to support the adults who shape our youngest learners? Nicol Russell, chief academic officer at Teaching Strategies, argues that early educators deserve the same intentional investment as engineers, not treatment as replaceable hires. Dr. Nneka McGee, founder of Muon...
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Is AI Policy Just Guesswork?
Today on This Week with EdSurge, we look at AI policy from two very different vantage points. One guest spent a year coding AI policy from more than 100 school districts across the country. The other helped write her own district's policy from the ground up. Listen as they both explore what…
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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...
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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…
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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…
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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,...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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...
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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.
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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...
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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...
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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…
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Inside an Effort to Build an AI Assistant for Designing Course Materials
Over the past few months, a group of educators has been designing and testing a system that uses ChatGPT to serve as an assistant to instructors as they build courses for students. One key point of the series of design workshops is to learn how educators can make the most effective uses of AI…
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Rebooting Internet Access Programs to Address the ‘Homework Gap’
As pandemic relief funds run out — which helped many students connect to the internet to keep up with their studies — there’s a danger that the “homework gap” could suddenly widen, argues Nicol Turner Lee, director of the Brookings Institution’s Center for Technology Innovation, in a new book.
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How Rising Higher Ed Costs Change Student Choices. (Doubting College, Ep. 6)
The high cost of college is changing how high schoolers think about whether or not to go. A new book, “Rethinking College,” argues for changing the narrative around higher education to be more welcoming to gap years, apprenticeships and other alternatives to college at a time where a degree is so...
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How a Returning College Student Advocated to Improve a Fledgling Online Program
A student who was just a few classes shy of graduating from Morehouse College was excited to try its new online program designed for students trying to finish their degrees. It turned out to be a more challenging process than he expected. Here’s how he helped to improve the program for himself…
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AI Chatbots Reflect Cultural Biases. Can They Become Tools to Alleviate Them?
A professor has been running an unusual experiment looking for signs of racial and gender bias in AI chatbots. And he has an idea for developing new guardrails that can check against such bias and remove it before it is shown to users. See show notes and links here:...
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When the Teaching Assistant Is an AI ‘Twin’ of the Professor
Two instructors made AI chatbot versions of themselves to help teach their classes, and they say class discussion improved as a result. But some teaching experts worry about the long-term implications of bringing in robot teaching assistants.
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The Power of the 'Grit' Narrative in Education. Bootstraps Ep. 7 (Encore Episode)
It’s still popular to prize students who have “grit,” who overcome tough odds to succeed. A book by Alissa Quart called “Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves from the American Dream,” looks at why this narrative is so hard to shake — and proposes more community-minded alternatives that could…
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Power, Prestige and the World's Most Famous Scholarship. Bootstraps, Ep. 6 (Encore Episode)
The Rhodes Scholarship was designed to forge a network of people who would go on to rule the world. So who gets this opportunity? And how is the oldest and best-known graduate scholarship dealing with the legacy of its founder, who used ruthless and racist practices to build the diamond empire…
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Breaking Up With the SAT. Bootstraps, Ep. 5 (Encore Episode)
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?…
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The Tyranny of Letter Grades. Bootstraps Ep. 4 (Encore Episode)
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? This first ran in 2021.
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The Strange Past and Messy Future of 'Gifted and Talented.' Bootstraps, Ep. 3 (Encore Episode)
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…
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Who Deserves a Seat at the Nation’s 'Best' High School? Bootstraps, Ep. 2 (Encore Episode)
What a debate about the admissions process at one of the best public high schools in the country says about who should get what in education. This first ran in 2021. Find out more on this episode and the rest of the series at: https://www.edsurge.com/research/guides/bootstraps-a-podcast-series
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Can You Really Just 'Pull Yourself Up' in Education? Bootstraps, Ep. 1 (Encore Episode)
What the odd and surprising history of 'pulling yourself up by your bootstraps' says about educational equity. This is the first episode in our Bootstraps podcast series on merit, myths and education. This first ran in 2021.
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What If Banning Smartphones in Schools Is Just the Beginning?
As momentum grows to limit smartphone use in schools, some educators say that the education system can do even more to counter the negative health effects of social media. One award-winning teacher has changed his lessons and the way he teaches to try to help students learn to better focus — even...
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Should College Become Part of High School? (Doubting College, Ep. 5)
As more students question the value of college, more high schools are bringing college options into their walls. In the latest installment of our Doubting College series, we visit a high school where students can earn a two-year degree without leaving the building, and where students can also get…
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Should Chatbots Tutor? Dissecting That Viral AI Demo With Sal Khan and His Son
Should AI chatbots be used as tutors? Sal Khan, founder of Khan Academy, has become one of the most vocal proponents of the idea, and he and his son are featured in a recent demo of ChatGPT’s latest version. But some teaching experts say tutoring should be reserved for humans who can motivate and...
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How Instructors Are Adapting to a Rise in Student Disengagement (Encore Episode)
Professors are finding that they can’t just go back to teaching as they did before the pandemic and expect the same result. It takes more these days to hold student attention, and convince them to show up. This week we’re rebroadcasting this episode that was reported from the back of large…
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What Brain Science Says About How to Better Teach Teenagers
One author who spent years researching what brain science says about adolescent learners says their behavior shouldn’t be seen as “deviant” or “immature,” but as a “time of possibility.” And this researcher, Ellen Galinsky, has strong feelings about how to address phones and social media in...
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
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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EdSurge Podcast
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How many episodes does This Week with EdSurge have?
This Week with EdSurge currently has 505 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is This Week with EdSurge about?
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...
How often does This Week with EdSurge release new episodes?
This Week with EdSurge releases new episodes frequently with a large back catalog of 505 episodes. Check the episode list for recent publication dates.
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Who hosts This Week with EdSurge?
This Week with EdSurge is created and hosted by EdSurge Podcast.
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