Edsurge On Air

First-year teachers already face many challenges. The job is unpredictable, and for newcomers, that can be intimidating. Over the summer, EdSurge interview teachers whose first years were interrupted by COVID-19 last spring. On today’s podcast, we hear from three of the teachers we spoke to about the highs, the lows and the lessons learned from their first year teaching—face-to-face and from a distance.

On this episode we look at what colleges can do to keep students on track even during the health and economic crisis of the global pandemic. We recorded this conversation live at the LearningMan virtual conference hosted by Arizona State University last month.

The college textbook publishing industry is offering colleges a new kind of deal: Order digital course materials in bulk at a discounted rate, then pass the savings on to students, who are automatically billed for subscriptions to online versions of their textbooks. These arrangements, often called “inclusive access” programs, tend to stir up controversy—and sometimes even lawsuits—when colleges adopt them. On this episode of the EdSurge Podcast, we examine why that is.

Jamaal Bowman started his career as an elementary school teacher. Then he became a high school guidance counselor and dean of students. After that, he founded his own public middle school in the Bronx and served as its principal for 10 years. In what has been called a stunning upset, the progressive Bowman defeated a 16-term incumbent in the U.S. House of Representatives. On the heels of his victory, Bowman spoke with EdSurge about the perspective he hopes to bring to Congress, what it will take to reopen schools safely and the role of educators in addressing systemic racism in America.

When the pandemic hit, the traditional final exam just didn't seem to fit the moment for one physics professor. So she decided on a community-service project instead, and says it has made a more lasting impact on students than any blue book would have. She's one of several educators replacing final exams with "epic finales." (One even involved trained chickens.)

Information literacy has long been hard to teach—let’s face it, the landscape of online platforms changes so fast these days. And during this COVID-19 pandemic, it can seem harder than ever to sort out reliable information from falsehood, rumor and conspiracy. This week we're talking to two experts working to help educators and others sharpen their info literacy and critical thinking skills.

A new book, The Merit Myth, argues that selective colleges have become places that block social mobility, and instead “fast-track the elite to ever higher status.” One of its authors, Anthony Carnevale, makes the case for why higher education needs to be more accessible.

Zipporah Osei is a first-generation college student who wants to fill in knowledge gaps about navigating colleges for others like her. So she started an email newsletter called First Gen. The project can help educators and school and college leaders get a clearer picture of what the college experience is like for those who have no family experience with higher education.

In the 1960s and '70s, an experimental form of teaching made a big splash at colleges. It was called PSI, or the Personalized System of Instruction. And it's largely forgotten, says Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, author of a new book on the history of college teaching in America. Here's what today's colleges can learn from the fad.

The coronavirus pandemic is the latest example of why math literacy is key to daily life, as people struggle to understand health statistics and attempts to "flatten the curve." Our guest this week, Conrad Wolfram, says that the education system has done a terrible job preparing us to live in a world where number crunching is more important than ever. He has a new book out this week called The Math Fix: An Education Blueprint for the AI Age. In it, he proposed a new way for schools to think about math education, and what even needs to be taught and why.

Parenting is a tough job in the best of circumstances. And if you’re anything like me, it’s been even harder in the age of COVID-19, with the new role of helping students go through their online classes. Now that we’re more involved, are we doing it right? Are we too permissive or too helicoptering? In short, what does that ideal balance of parental involvement actually look like?

Micheal Wesch is a rare professor who is a celebrity on YouTube. He’s made education videos that have gotten more than 10 million views, and Wired magazine once gave him an award for his innovative viral videos. He is also an award-winning classroom teacher. But he hates being on camera, and was initially reluctant to teach online. These days he's sharing his tips to help other professors work to better connect with students remotely.

As this chaotic and unexpected semester comes to a close, we wanted to know how well this online teaching went, and what it felt like from the instructor point of view. Was it as good? Did the students seem to learn as much? So for this week's podcast, we talk with two college professors who debrief about how the partially remote semester went.

Should colleges be giving students a partial refund on tuition since their campuses were forced to shift teaching online for the COVID-19 pandemic? Students around the country say yes because they say that online is not as good as what they signed up for. But is college just like any other service, like dry cleaning or going to a restaurant? What are students paying for, and what are colleges really selling?

You've probably heard of the "10,000-hour rule" popularized by author Malcolm Gladwell, which says that it takes that much practice to gain mastery of a complex subject area. The professor who Gladwell cites as the basis of that rule, Anders Ericsson, says things are a bit more complicated than the popular author explained.

In this time of pandemic, when schools and colleges have shifted teaching online to slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus, more and more teachers find themselves making videos for their students, and more students are turning to educational videos online. So for this week’s podcast, we decided to reach out to one of the masters of making educational videos, John Green, for his advice and thoughts on education during this unprecedented time.

Today we’re talking to two students facing financial challenges, as part of our series about how COVID-19 is impacting education. One is an undergrad struggling to balance his studies and a precarious financial situation at home, and the other is a grad student with six-figure debt with a surprisingly upbeat view of his situation.

There's a new global effort called Corona Diaries. This simple but elegant website invites visitors to record a short audio clip answering one of three prompts: How was your day? How has your life changed? Or What’s troubling you right now? Even though people could talk about any aspect of their lives during COVID-19, a large percentage of the clips come from either parents struggling to homeschool their kids while schools are closed, or educators trying to make sense of this time.

The largest library in the world is the U.S. Library of Congress, and each year it invites one teacher to serve as a Teacher in Residence. This year that's Jen Reidel, and she's been at the Library of Congress researching, writing and seeking out primary sources that K-12 teachers across the country could use in their classroom lessons. Here's what she's learned.

One house in Massachusetts is suddenly brimming with remote learning. With seven family members all trying to keep their studies going while their schools or colleges are closed, it's an accidental experiment about how different students are reacting to emergency remote instruction.