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EdSurge Podcast

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Rating
★★★★★
4.8
from
96 reviews
Categories
Country
United States
This podcast has
504 episodes
Language
English
Explicit
No
Date created
2015/02/27
Latest episode
2026/09/30
Average duration
24 min.
Release period
7 days

Description

A weekly podcast about the future of learning. Join EdSurge journalists as they sit down with educators, innovators and scholars for frank and in-depth conversations.

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Can Schools Trust AI Features in Edtech Products?
2026/09/30
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. EdReports CEO Dr. Lewis Ferebee and Chief Academic Officer Courtney Allison join Ira Apfel to unpack what their new brief found and what district leaders should ask before signing their next vendor contract. WHAT YOU'LL LEARNAI is blurring the lines between core curriculum, supplemental materials, and standalone grading or tutoring tools, which makes it harder for district buyers to know what they are actually purchasing.Only one of the 10 providers in the EdReports scan cited third party evidence on student outcomes for its AI tool, and only two named an independent evaluator for their AI feature.Courtney Allison, a former New York City middle school math teacher, explains what is at stake when AI content reaches students in real time without a teacher reviewing it first.Lewis Ferebee, the longest serving chancellor in DC Public Schools history, shares the questions he would ask vendors, including whether a teacher can override the AI and whether the evidence covers the version a district is actually buying. STORIES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODEStudy: EdTech Is Rushing AI Integration Before Proving It Work by Ira Apfel STAY CONNECTEDSubscribe to EdSurge newsletters at www.edsurge.com/newsletters.Find the latest education news at edsurge.com/news.Follow EdSurge on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. HOST AND CONTRIBUTORSHost: Ira Apfel, Editorial Director, EdSurge Featuring: Dr. Lewis D. Ferebee, CEO, EdReportsCourtney Allison, Chief Academic Officer, EdReports
Unchecked Assumptions: Fewer Male Teachers and More Baby Slop
2026/09/23
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, sometimes in unsettling ways. This week, Ed Finkel and Adam Stone join Ira Apfel to look at two very different classrooms, one in a school building and one on a screen, where nobody stopped to check the story before deciding it was true. WHAT YOU’LL LEARN Men now make up about 23% of public school teachers, down from 30% in 1988, according to a survey of 145 male teachers commissioned by the Male Educator Network & Policy Institute.Only 25% of the men surveyed said they experienced recruiting efforts aimed specifically at men, but 72% of those who did found those efforts effective.A children’s YouTube channel called Bright Tunes posted nearly 5,500 AI generated videos in under a year, and some of that content shows scenes that do not match reality, such as a school bus catching fire in the middle of a video about colors.The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends a Stop, Wait and Go framework to help parents and teachers evaluate AI generated video content before showing it to young children. STORIES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE As Male Teachers Vanish From the Classroom, Schools Look for Ways to Bring Them Back by Ed Finkel AI Videos Are Warping Early Learning, Teachers Say. Here’s How They’re Responding by Adam Stone STAY CONNECTED Subscribe to EdSurge newsletters at www.edsurge.com/newsletters.Find the latest education news at edsurge.com/news.Follow EdSurge on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, TikTok and Instagram. HOST AND CONTRIBUTORS Host: Ira Apfel Featuring: Ed Finkel, writer covering education and public policy for EdSurgeAdam Stone, education technology journalist
The Reading Reforms That Stopped at Third Grade
2026/09/16
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 the middle school. Then Dacia Toll, who spent years running schools before co-founding the AI literacy platform Coursemojo, describes what she calls the comprehension wall, the point where a middle schooler can read every word on a page and still miss the meaning, and makes the case for AI tools built to ask questions instead of just answering them. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN Megan Kuhfeld's NWEA research shows the same decline at the 10th percentile of middle school reading scores across three separate assessments: NWEA's MAP Growth, i-Ready and NAEP, drawing on data from more than 20 million K-8 students.Dacia Toll's "background knowledge problem" means two students with identical reading skills can perform two full grade levels apart on the same text, depending on how much they already know about the topic.K-3 literacy laws mostly stop at third grade and many didn't take effect until 2022-2024, so they miss students who are already behind by the time they reach middle school.An individual struggling reader typically needs two to three years of above-average growth to catch up to grade level, and building a system that catches every student takes even longer.There's a meaningful difference between "indulgebots," AI tools that just answer a student's question, and purpose-built instructional AI that responds to a wrong answer by sending the student back to a specific sentence or paragraph to work it out themselves. STORIES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Reading Scores Continue to Drop for Many Middle Schoolers by David Weldon AI Can Help One of K-12's Biggest Challenges: Middle School Reading by Dacia Toll STAY CONNECTED Subscribe to EdSurge newsletters at edsurge.com.Find the latest education news at edsurge.com/news.Follow EdSurge on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. HOST AND CONTRIBUTORS Host: Ira Apfel Featuring: Megan Kuhfeld, PhD, Director of Growth Modeling and Data Analytics, NWEADacia Toll, Co-Founder and Co-CEO, Coursemojo
Two Student Questions, Two Teacher Responses
2026/09/09
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 ChatGPT, how am I supposed to know that?" and what it revealed about students quietly outsourcing their own thinking. Then Beth Yirga describes the eighth grader who asked her, "If AI will do everything, then what's the point of learning?" and how that question sent her looking for answers outside of education entirely. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN Melinda Medina cites a Brown University economics class where students averaged nearly 96% on a take-home midterm, then under 49% once the professor switched to an in-person proctored exam, a trend she now sees echoed in her own classroom.When Melinda's 11th graders were asked how author Kate Chopin uses irony, one replied that she'd used ChatGPT instead of working through the text, a moment Melinda says worried her less as cheating and more as a sign students no longer wanted to engage with productive struggle.Beth Yirga's question came from an eighth grader during a planning meeting for a new career exploration program at Freire Charter School Wilmington, and it sent her to the Women Who Code Summit in New York, where she was the only K-12 educator in a room of more than 500 people.Beth is building an "identity year" for students, pairing AI literacy with outdoor hikes, a trip to the opera, and a visit to the state capitol, on the belief that students need to know who they are before they can direct any tool toward a future worth having. STORIES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Protecting Student Cognition in the Age of AI by Melinda Medina The K-12 Silo Won't Survive AI, But Our Relationships Might by Beth Yirga STAY CONNECTED Subscribe to EdSurge newsletters at edsurge.com.Find the latest education news at edsurge.com/news.Follow EdSurge on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. HOST AND CONTRIBUTORS Host: Ira Apfel Featuring: Melinda Medina, English and Special Education Teacher, Brooklyn, NYBeth Yirga, Assistant Head of School, Freire Charter School Wilmington, DE
Two New Rules, Two Teacher Workarounds
2026/09/02
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 pre-K and kindergarten teachers about the guidance that excludes them, and civics teacher Dan Clark explains why he thinks Missouri got its phone ban wrong. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN The American Academy of Pediatrics updated its screen time guidance for the first time in a decade, but the update is scoped around children and adolescents and offers little direction for pre-K classrooms.Pre-K and kindergarten teachers are relying on tactile, low-tech strategies, such as forming letters out of Play-Doh, to reinforce face-to-face interaction instead of defaulting to screens.Missouri's new law bans any portable communication device on a student's person from the first bell to the last, which cut off students working on a community advocacy project from the platform they knew best how to use.We explore if blanket phone bans skip the harder work of teaching digital citizenship, comparing the debate to longstanding arguments over whether schools should still teach cursive. STORIES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Early Childhood Education Teachers Grapple with Screen Time by Adam Stone The Case Against the Classroom Cellphone Crackdown by Dan Clark STAY CONNECTED Subscribe to EdSurge newsletters at edsurge.com.Find the latest education news at edsurge.com/news.Follow EdSurge on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. HOST AND CONTRIBUTORS Host: Ira Apfel Featuring: Adam Stone, Education and Technology JournalistDan Clark, Eighth Grade Civics Teacher, Missouri
Does New Federal Edtech Guidance Go Far Enough?
2026/08/26
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 EdSurge to break down what the new Dear Colleague Letter gets right, what it leaves out, and what happens now that Washington has handed implementation to the states. They agree the letter marks real progress, but they do not agree on how much it accomplishes. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN The Dear Colleague Letter draws a clear line between recreational and instructional technology use, giving school leaders new language to push back against blanket bans, but it also leans on randomized controlled trials as a measure of evidence, a standard Brittany Miller says moves too slowly for how quickly edtech itself changes.Ten states already run statewide outcomes based contracting efforts, including a new Michigan law tying fifty million dollars in tutoring funding to results, which Miller points to as proof the model is working even without a federal mandate behind it.Jean-Claude Brizard argues schools should demand third party certification rather than commission their own research, compares scattered anti-technology sentiment to the anti-vaccine movement, and calls on school and district leaders to reclaim the public narrative around edtech.Both guests agree the guidance leaves out direct support for the teachers, principals, and superintendents actually implementing it, and both point to procurement, not classroom policy, as the real lever for turning the letter into practice. STORIES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Department of Education Issues Long-Awaited Edtech Guidance for States and Districts by EdSurge Staff STAY CONNECTED Subscribe to EdSurge newsletters at edsurge.com/newsletters.Find the latest education news at edsurge.com/news.Follow EdSurge on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. HOST AND CONTRIBUTORS Host: Ira Apfel Featuring: Jean-Claude Brizard, President and CEO, Digital PromiseBrittany Miller, Center for Outcomes-Based Contracting
Assignments, Invoices, and the AI Fix
2026/08/19
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 powering that same technology, tracing the invoice that lands on a district's desk long after the contract is signed. Together, their stories ask what schools are really paying for when they bring AI into the building. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN Michael Hernandez used vibe coding, describing an idea in plain language and letting AI write the code, to build the Cheat Vulnerability Index, a free tool that scans an assignment and flags where it is exposed to cheating.Michael identifies three traits, originality, personal connection, and purpose, that he believes make an assignment resistant to cheating.Mi Aniefuna reports that United States data centers used about 176 terawatt hours of electricity in 2023, roughly 4.4% of the countrys total electricity consumption.Mi points to a Stanford review of more than 800 studies on AI in K-12 education, only 20 of which met the bar for rigorous, causal-impact research, even as adoption keeps outpacing the evidence. STORIES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Story 1 I Used AI to Build AI-Resistant Assignments by Michael Hernandez Story 2 Can Schools Afford an AI-First Future? by Mi Aniefuna STAY CONNECTED Subscribe to EdSurge newsletters at www.edsurge.com/newsletters.Find the latest education news at edsurge.com/news.Follow EdSurge on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. HOST AND CONTRIBUTORS Host: Ira Apfel Featuring: Michael Hernandez, Educator and AuthorMi Aniefuna, Public Health and Behavioral Sciences Researcher, EdSurge
Supporting Early Childhood Educators
2026/08/12
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 Global, brings that same philosophy to how five year olds encounter AI, starting with conversation instead of screens. Both guests land on the same idea from different angles: good tools fail without good follow-through. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN Nicol Russell points to a study out of NIEER at Rutgers that found teacher retention increased 23 percentage points when curriculum, assessment, and coaching functioned as one connected system rather than separate tools.Russell draws a line between teacher exhaustion and burnout, and she recommends that program leaders protect a set block of time each week where teachers have complete control over how it is used.Dr. Nneka McGee led a session at ISTELive that pairs Play-Doh with generative AI, using the activity to teach young learners about anthropomorphism while building creative thinking and questioning skills.McGee recommends introducing AI to young children through conversation rather than devices, citing both her own research on early learner readiness and guardrails like COPPA that already limit generative AI use for this age group. STORIES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Story 1 We Talk About Whole Children. What About Whole Educators? by Nicol Russell Story 2 AI for Young Learners (Jump Start Guide) by Nneka McGee STAY CONNECTED Subscribe to EdSurge newsletters at edsurge.com.Find the latest education news at edsurge.com/news.Follow EdSurge on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. HOST AND CONTRIBUTORS Host: Ira Apfel Featuring: Nicol Russell, Chief Academic Officer, Teaching StrategiesDr. Nneka McGee, Founder, Muon Global
Is AI Policy Just Guesswork?
2026/08/05
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 happens when a policy leaves the page and is applied in an actual classroom. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN District AI policies fall into five levels ranging from actively promoting AI to outright prohibition, and Jody Britten found that 44.3 percent of the 122 districts she studied land in the conditional, teacher-directed middle level.Only 3.3 percent of districts studied sit at Level 1, actively promoting AI with equity built into the design, while nearly a quarter restrict or ban AI outright.Most districts studied operate in states with official AI guidance, yet only 15.6 percent of those districts actually reference that guidance in their own policy.Tambra Clark found that writing her own district's AI governance policy in Birmingham required retraining her committee first, because knowledge in the room was too uneven to write a single line. STORIES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Story 1 Study: The National AI Policy Landscape in K-12 Education by Jody Britten AI School Policy Database Story 2 Learn about the Voices of Change Fellowship STAY CONNECTED Subscribe to EdSurge newsletters at edsurge.com.Find the latest education news at edsurge.com/news.Follow EdSurge on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. HOST AND CONTRIBUTORS Host: Ira Apfel Featuring: Jody Britten, Interim CEO, AI and Education StudioTambra Clark, Technology Integration Facilitator, Birmingham City Schools
Vinyl, Pencils, and Life Without AI
2026/07/29
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 teacher and EdSurge Voices of Change fellow, joins from ISTELive in Orlando to talk about what their classroom has already decided about AI. Together, they ask what should still take real effort when a shortcut is only a click away. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN Nathan Kraai connects the resurgence of vinyl records to what he calls a signal about how people are actually responding to AI, drawing on Jane McGonigal's trends versus signals framework from her book Imaginable.Nathan also explains why watching 9th graders wrestle with capstone speeches, despite having AI tools that could draft a polished version in seconds, left him hopeful rather than worried.Court Shuller, a National Board Certified educator and reading specialist, discusses how their district in New Jersey has responded to AI by returning to pencil and paper.Both guests weigh in on what students should still be required to do themselves. STORIES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE How a Vinyl Record Resurgence Helped Me Understand the Future of AI in Education by Nathan Kraai We Must Stop Using AI to ‘Level-Down’ Our Students by Court Shuller STAY CONNECTED Subscribe to EdSurge newsletters at edsurge.com.Find the latest education news at edsurge.com/news.Follow EdSurge on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. HOST AND CONTRIBUTORS Host: Ira Apfel Featuring: Nathan Kraai, Director of Innovation and Design Thinking, The Fenn SchoolCourt Shuller, Middle School English Teacher and Reading Specialist
AI Cannot Fake This Kind of Learning
2026/07/22
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 artificial intelligence can produce a credential adjacent skill in minutes. Then Cobretti Williams of the EdSurge Voices of Change Fellowship makes a similar case for writing, where an essay can take months to draft even though AI could produce one in eight seconds. Both guests land on the same idea: skip the time, and you skip the point. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN Bachelor's degree holders earned a median of $81,800 in 2024, compared to $50,600 for high school graduates, a gap of 62%, according to the College Board's Education Pays 2026 report.From 2000 to 2025, workers with only a high school diploma consistently faced unemployment rates at least 2.3 percentage points higher than college graduates, according to a St. Louis Fed analysis.A McKinsey survey of more than 3,000 employers found that skills such as critical thinking and judgment remain in high demand from employers even as AI adoption grows.Cobretti Williams describes how the EdSurge Voices of Change Fellowship helps teachers develop their writing across multiple drafts, arguing that the growth between a fellow’s first and fourth essay only comes from doing the work yourself. STORIES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Why College Degrees Matter in the Age of AI by Rita Finkel EdSurge Voices of Change Writing Fellowship by EdSurge, featuring Cobretti Williams STAY CONNECTED Subscribe to EdSurge newsletters at edsurge.com.Find the latest education news at edsurge.com/news.Follow EdSurge on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. HOST AND CONTRIBUTORS Host: Ira Apfel Featuring: Rita Finkel, Co-President, Armory FoundationCobretti Williams, Editor, EdSurge Voices of Change Fellowship
3 Gaps Stalling AI in Classrooms
2026/07/15
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 Orlando. They dig into the delta between daily use and overall adoption of AI, a sharp drop in student optimism, and a persistent training divide between what leaders believe and what teachers and students actually experience. The conversation also turns to academic integrity and where the policy backlash against AI in schools may be headed next. WHAT YOU'LL LEARNDaily AI use lags far behind overall adoption, with just 33 percent of educators and 27 percent of students using it every day despite nine in ten having tried it.Student optimism about AI dropped 21 points in a single year, a shift Pat links to a predictable trough in the technology adoption curve.Three out of four students and half of educators report no formal AI training, even though seven in ten leaders believe their people are trained.Yongpradit explains why academic integrity worries students and educators for opposite reasons, and what that means for how schools should write AI guidance. STORIES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE2026 AI in Education Report, Published by Microsoft STAY CONNECTEDSubscribe to EdSurge newsletters.Find the latest education news at edsurge.com/news.Follow EdSurge on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. HOST AND CONTRIBUTORSHost: Ira Apfel Featuring: Pat Yongpradit, General Manager of Global Education and Workforce Policy, Microsoft
ISTELive 26: Bans, Microdosing, and the Future of AI
2026/07/08
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 the future of student writing. From burnout to breakthroughs, this recap captures everything that stuck with them once the convention center emptied out. WHAT YOU’LL LEARNWhy current education leaders believe relational intelligence could become education’s most valuable currency in the age of AI.How new research cited at the conference links a steep decline in daily conversation, especially among people under 25, to rising social isolation.Why one Educational Leadership contributor’s approach to AI in the classroom centers on microdosing rather than banning it outright.How district leaders are being encouraged to rethink AI policy by comparing it to another everyday risk millions of teenagers already navigate. STORIES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODEThis is a special recap episode from ISTELive 26 in Orlando where Ira and Sarah reflect on the hallway conversations, speaker presentations, and podcast interviews they enjoyed throughout the week. Featured speakers include: Pat Yongpradit, GM, Education and Workforce Policy at MicrosoftDr. Nneka McGee, Fmr. Chief Academic Officer and Founder of Muon GlobalIsabelle Hau, Executive Director of the Stanford Accelerator for LearningHeather E. McGowan, Bestselling Author, Leadership Expert, and LinkedIn Global Voice for EducationMelinda Glowacki, MAT Supervisor and Leadership Coach for the University of California, IrvineTambra Clark, Technology Integration Facilitator of Birmingham City SchoolsMary Ehrenworth, Author, Speaker, Consultant, from Teachers College, Columbia UniversityPhilip Seyfried, Student, from Teachers College, Columbia University Jessica Garner, Managing Director, Innovative Learning at ISTE+ASCD Court Shuller from the Voices of Change Fellowship STAY CONNECTEDSubscribe to EdSurge newsletters at www.edsurge.com/newsletters.Find the latest education news at edsurge.com/news.Follow EdSurge on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. HOST AND CONTRIBUTORSHost: Ira Apfel, Editorial Director, EdSurge Featuring: Sarah McKibben, Editor-in-Chief, EdSurge
Can an Algorithm Replace a Teacher’s Instinct?
2026/07/01
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 and the educator begins. Then, California high school teacher Gabe Nitro makes a counterintuitive argument: the phone pouches sweeping his district may be swallowing the very instructional time they were designed to protect. WHAT YOU’LL LEARN David Webb built LibraryAid, a personalized book recommendation app, using vibe coding techniques with no prior computer science background, and the tool now tracks approximately 30 factors, including student interests, reading history, and classroom topics, to generate personalized reading recommendations.One student reading two grade levels below placement made three times the average reading progress after the app matched him to a book series he loved, demonstrating both the power and the limits of algorithmic recommendation.A study from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that Yondr pouches had no statistically significant impact on standardized test scores for high schoolers in English, a finding that surprised even teachers who had adopted the pouches.Gabe Nitro argues that phone pouches consume up to 49 minutes of instructional time per school day in enforcement alone, and that the real distraction problem simply shifts to Chromebooks once phones are sealed away. STORIES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE 1. Vibe Coding Sparked a Love of Reading in My Classroom by David Webb 2. I’m a Teacher, and I’m Against Phone Pouches by Gabe Nitro STAY CONNECTED Subscribe to EdSurge newsletters at www.edsurge.com/newsletters Find the latest education news at edsurge.com/news.Follow EdSurge on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram. HOST AND CONTRIBUTORS Host: Ira Apfel, Editorial Director, EdSurge Contributors: David Webb, International school teacher, Jakarta; creator of LibraryAidGabe Nitro, High school teacher, California
Is TikTok Now a Teacher Training Tool?
2026/06/24
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 efficient that it sent feedback to students without him ever reading it, and confronts what that actually means for his role in the classroom. Together, they raise urgent questions about judgment, accountability, and what teaching is really for. What You'll LearnPre-service teachers are forming their professional knowledge partly through TikTok and social media reels, including content from former teachers who left the profession, raising questions about how teacher prep programs should respond.Evi Wusk argues that the information gleaned from social media is already shaping how future teachers think, so the more productive move is to help them engage with it critically rather than dismiss or ignore it.Steven Swanson built a fully automated AI grading tool that sent feedback directly to students without his review, and after a student thanked him for words he never wrote, he rebuilt the tool to put himself back in the loop.Swanson describes specific assignment types where AI grading adds value versus where it falls short, including the risk of missing opportunities to learn who students actually are as people. Stories Mentioned in This EpisodeWhat TikTok Is Teaching Future Teachers That We Aren't by Evi Wusk I Built an AI Grading Tool. Then a Student Thanked Me for Words I Didn't Write. by Steven Swanson Upcoming EventISTE+ASCD Live '26 in Orlando, Florida Stay ConnectedSubscribe to EdSurge newsletters at edsurge.comLatest education news at edsurge.com/newsFollow EdSurge on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube Host & ContributorsHost: Ira Apfel, Editorial Director, EdSurge Guests: Evi Wusk, Ed.D., teacher educator and author of What TikTok Is Teaching Future Teachers That We Aren't Steven Swanson, high school engineering teacher and author of I Built an AI Grading Tool. Then a Student Thanked Me for Words I Didn't Write.

Podcast reviews

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4.8 out of 5
96 reviews
★★★☆☆
nameless none 2026/01/03
So informational!
Hi I am one of the podcast members students in 8th grade I don't want to share his information but hopefully they know who I'm talking about.i found t...
★★★★★
glooch22 2024/03/04
Super solid listen!
Jeff and other EdSurge editors are clearly putting in a lot of effort when it comes to their topics and experts. A great listen for leaders in the edu...
★★★★★
Amy DLC 2023/06/05
One of the best!
I listen to this podcast on my way to work. I love it! As an instructional coach for digital learning, it is like free PD to keep up to date with the ...
★★★★★
DJCurrySpice 2022/04/16
Among the best education coverage
Impressive breadth and depth; matter-of-fact viewpoints; impressive ability to spot current trends while maintaining historical references. A podcast ...
★★★★★
beetlebath 2021/11/08
My go-to resource for educational trends
This show is my top education industry podcast. Jeffrey Young is a gifted journalist and storyteller and approaches his guests with thoughtfulness, hu...
★★★★★
ScottF_5 2021/10/13
Great content for those passionate about education
I’m a regular reader and listener of EdSurge content. This podcast has fantastic content that covers ideas, people and technology shaping the future o...
★★★★★
Frances SL 2021/01/02
Great Podcasts on educational issue!
Really like your Podcasts. There are so many great points from your guest speakers and good questions from the host! Hope you can have the transcripts...
★★★★★
mindofmoser 2020/12/31
Great podcast on higher ed
This is one of my favorite podcasts on higher education. Great episodes and Jeff Young is an enjoyable host to listen to. The pandemic-related campus ...
★★★★★
ChasJMC 2020/12/30
Thoughtful podcast about education
This is a thought podcast about education, training, and workforce education.
★★★★★
dbruff 2020/12/29
Excellent higher education reporting
Jeff Young’s reporting just gets better and better. His pandemic campus diaries series in 2020 was vivid and informative.
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