EdSurge Podcast

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." This is an encore of an episode that originally ran in July 2020.

On this week's episode, we look at how colleges talk about diversity—and about why they embrace it—and how that language ends up affecting students.

What is going on inside the brain as students sit in classrooms? That has always been something of a mystery. So what if you could strap on an EEG machine on students in a classroom setting and analyze brain waves during learning. Researchers are increasingly doing just that, and doing other research at the intersection of Mind, Brain and Education.

There's plenty of anxiety these days about what the internet and smartphones are doing to our brains, memories and attention spans. But what does learning science say about how technology is impacting the human memory, and about that plays out in teaching? EdSurge talked with Michelle M. Miller a psychology professor at Northern Arizona University and author of a forthcoming book, "Remembering and Forgetting in the Age of Technology."

As a high school student, A.D. Carson dreamed of becoming a rapper. And he has, in a way he hopes will inspire others. After being a K-12 English teacher and now a professor, he created the first rap album to be published by a university press.

What the odd and surprising history of 'pulling yourself up by your bootstraps' says about educational equity. Introduction to our new Bootstraps podcast series on merit, myths and education.

Many colleges aren’t asking for SAT and ACT scores this year, and students often can't tour colleges to see what campus is like. A new podcast by a high school senior in New Jersey gives candid reflections on what the college application process is like during the pandemic.

So what do today’s students, whether in K12 or in college, need to know to be prepared for the world they’ll graduate into? That's the topic of a new book by Stephanie Krauss, called Making It: What Today’s Kids Need for Tomorrow’s World. EdSurge connected with Krauss to ask her about her book, and how it was shaped by her own educational journey.

When Norwich University started the spring semester with an outbreak of COVID-19 cases, the campus went on strict lockdown. The university's president, Mark Anarumo, decided to take the unusual step of moving into a dorm on campus, to get a better sense of the mental health effects of social isolation—and it led him to rethink the approach to future pandemic response.

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.