The Harvard EdCast

Harvard Researchers Carrie James and Emily Weinstein give the low-down on teens' behavior online. As part of a multiyear study, they surveyed more than 3,500 teens uncovering information about everything from why they sext to how they navigate friendship dilemmas online. What teens do and why is far more complex than many adults give them credit for. As a result, Weinstein and James say that adults are missing key opportunities to truly guide their teens, instead falling back on tired and useless messaging. In this episode of the EdCast, they provide a glimpse into teens' online world and offer strategies for adults eager to connect and help with the young adults in their life.  

Many school districts are beginning to see pandemic learning losses greater than they imagined. It's time to figure out what to next, says Harvard Professor Tom Kane, an economist studying catch-up efforts. He wants districts to be empowered to make the best decision going forward. In his latest research, he's helping districts determine how to plan for these losses and shares what interventions might provide the most bang for the buck. In this episode, Kane shares troubling information about how these learning losses have the potential to shape the future of education and how what we do now can get learning back on track. 

Stewart Kwoh believes education is the best tool to fight back against ongoing anti-Asian American violence and damaging stereotypes. As co-executive director of the Asian American Education Project, Kwoh has been dedicated to developing curriculums and trainings for educators. Despite many of the lesson plans and tools being available for free, Kwoh admits it has taken time for education to embrace this rich history. In this episode, he shares the importance of learning about Asian American history and what are the roadblocks to embracing such a curriculum in our schools. 

Harvard Professor Sarah Dryden-Peterson knows that we can do a lot better for the nearly 30 million refugees in the world. As an expert on refugee education, she says education needs to create better supports for displaced children whose education is disrupted, dominated by exclusion and uncertainty about the future. In her latest research, she shares how governments and international agencies have been hindered in this work and how refugee teachers and students are leading the way to better educational supports. In this episode, she reflects on the current conflict between Russia and Ukraine, and offers insight into what we've learned from other humanitarian crises.

A silver lining of the pandemic, says Harvard Professor Fernando Reimers, was the push for education to innovate. Through the pandemic, Reimers set out to study how education systems around the world sought out innovations, even in places that had few resources. While it was reassuring how many education systems worldwide tried to make changes, Reimers discusses how he saw a dip in that creative ingenuity over time during the pandemic and why. In this episode, he also shares the unique ways that universities collaborated with education systems and how the pandemic impacted global citizens. 

Juliana Urtubey, the 2021 National Teacher of the Year recipient, knows firsthand the importance of valuing all parts of a student's identity. As a first generation, bilingual immigrant, Urtubey brings all parts of herself into the classroom. Today, as a special education teacher working at the Kermit R. Booker, Sr. Innovative Elementary School in Las Vegas, she leans into her diverse classroom and community, fully celebrating it. In this episode, she shares experiences and ideas for embracing student identity, and also how teachers can be better supported in their work.  

Harvard Professor Dick Light has visited 260 college campuses talking to administrators, faculty, and students to figure out what sets a great university apart from an okay one. It turns out there are simple and affordable steps higher education administrators can do to make impactful changes on their campuses. Light has long studied the work of higher education and has plenty of stories to share about what happens when a university gets it right versus what happens when it goes wrong. In this EdCast, he's sharing the secrets of university success and even offers some advice to prospective students trying to decide whether their top choice is a "great" university. 

Since the start of the pandemic, education has grappled with a looming threat of teacher shortages and a mass exodus of teachers. Elizabeth Steiner, a policy researcher at the RAND Corporation, has released two studies in the past year exploring job-related stress among teachers and recently school leaders. She says the changing modes of instruction, changing guidance on quarantining, mask and vaccine debates, and what's happening at home affects educators. They are one of the most stressed and depressed professions. In this episode, she reflects on the study's findings and shares what might help keep teachers in the job.

For the past decade, college enrollments have steadily been on the decline. The pandemic appears to have accelerated such drops with reports of more than a million fewer students attending college today. Chris Gabrieli, the chairman of the Board of the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education, agrees that this decline is a crisis with the potential to affect many different parts of society beyond just a person's future. He talks about how higher education is moving much too slowly to abate these shifts young people are making away from college. In this episode, Gabrieli outlines why we are seeing such declines in enrollment, shares how simple ideas like early college can lure young people back to college, and why we need to act now.

When Gloria Ladson-Billings set out in the 1990s to adapt critical race theory from law to education, she couldn't have predicted that it would become the focus of heated school debates today.In recent years, the scrutiny of critical race theory – a theory she pioneered to help explain racial inequities in education – has become heavily-politicized in school communities and by legislators. She says it has been grossly misunderstood and used as a lump term about many things that are not actually critical race theory. The University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor discusses the current politicization and tension around teaching about race in the classroom and offers a path forward for educators eager to engage in work that deals with the truth about America's history. 

 Before the pandemic hit, Harvard Professor Stephanie Jones and Lecturer Emily Hanno were already tracking young children's development as part of the Early Learning Study at Harvard. As the pandemic began unfolding, they started to see shifts among the thousands of families and children participating in the study. Families reported a rise in temper tantrums, anxiety, and a poor ability to manage emotions, especially among the young elementary-aged children participating in remote learning. These findings may not come as a surprise to the many families who dealt with remote learning during the pandemic. However, Jones and Hanno say children's well-being and these experience matter now even as we inch toward a possible endemic. In this episode of the EdCast, they talk about how educators and families need to invest in social emotional learning before learning loss or lost classroom time. They share ways to support educators facilitating classroom experiences for children that allow them to process the experiences they've had. They also offer easy strategies for families to check in with their young children's well-being.  

Many parents want to raise kind and compassionate children, but in today's world it can be difficult to figure out how. Traci Baxley, an associate professor at Florida Atlantic University, is a mother of five children and believes parenting can be a form of activism. She is the author of "Social Justice Parenting: How to Raise Compassionate, Anti-Racist, Justice-Minded Kids in an Unjust World." In this episode of the EdCast, she shares ideas for how to create an environment where kids can see themselves as part of a bigger family and offer support to take action in the world.  

What is driving an increase in college completion rates? It's not student characteristics or higher student enrollments, says Jeff Denning, an associate professor at Brigham Young University. Denning, an economist noticed the increasing trend started in the 1990s, and upon looking deeper discovered grade inflation is driving numbers up. In this episode, Denning explains this change and what it might mean for higher education. 

COVID has challenged many education systems worldwide. This is especially true for developing countries that faced significant learning issues prior to COVID. How far did COVID set these education systems back? How can countries like Brazil move forward? Claudia Costin, the founder and director of the Center for Excellence and Innovation in Education Policies at Getulio Vargas Foundation in Brazil, discusses how COVID has impacted education in Brazil and offers a path forward.

Math class doesn't seem the likely place to practice gratitude, but Michael Fauteux discovered that it had the power to change it. While teaching a 9th grade math class, Fauteux begin implementing moments of gratitude and soon started to see impacts on student learning. Through Fauteux's non-profit GiveThx that uses digital thank you notes and research based lessons to nurture mental health and improve academic success, he's sharing the practice in classrooms around the country. Since its launch in 2018, there have been over 300,000 gratitude notes sent by over 20,000 students. In this episode, he discusses what motivated him to launch the nonprofit and how gratitude can help student social emotional learning and more. 

Christopher Emdin wants schools to be a place that embraces a whole student's identity. For far too long, public education has been stuck in a time where it was not designed for all students, especially students of color, he says. Emdin, an associate professor at Teacher's College, has long focused on issues of race, class, and diversity in education. Now, he's proposing a new educational model to help teachers and students celebrate rachet identity in the classroom. He reimagines schools where educators use authenticity as a driving factor in their work. In this episode, Emdin shares his philosophy of being rachetdemic, how educators can become rachetdemic, and why it matters.  

What are children learning about climate change in American schools? That question set award winning journalist Katie Worth to uncover how climate change education is being taught. As part of her research, she visited several states, talked to teachers, scoured text books, and spoke to students and their families. It turns out climate change education is just as contentious in the classroom as it is in politics. In this episode, she shares points of friction happening between teachers within the same schools and how students are often unable to connect environmental disasters in their own communities with climate change. Additionally, Worth discusses how the fossil fuel industry sometimes plays a firsthand role in children's education. She shares the potential repercussions of raising a generation of children unable to understand the effects of climate change on their world. 

Mistakes are supposed to be part of learning. However, Maleka Donaldson knows how we convey mistakes and respond to them as educators can significantly impact a child's learning experience. Donaldson is an assistant professor at Smith College where she studies teacher-student interactions and responding to mistakes in early learning. In her book, "From Oops to Aha: Portraits of Learning from Mistakes in Kindergarten," she examines instruction in the classrooms of four public school kindergarten teachers showing the varied ways these interactions happen, and how factors beyond the teachers' control shape their approaches to teaching and contribute to structural inequities.       

Higher education needs major change and reinvention to provide more opportunity and social mobility for everyone. This is what Paul LeBlanc hopes to see in the future. As the president of Southern New Hampshire University for 18 years, LeBlanc has led tremendous change including becoming the largest nonprofit provider of online higher education and to offer a full competency-based degree program. In this episode of the EdCast, LeBlanc shares insight into why and how the institution made these groundbreaking changes. He also discusses the future of higher education and a need to get back to some of the initial focus that drove higher education in America – its students and opportunity. 

The school nurse's job encompasses much more than you'd think. Even before COVID, the school nurse was the "health hub" of the school. Yet 25.2% of schools don't even have a nurse. Linda Mendonca, the president of the National Association of School Nurses, discusses the need for school nurses and how they are doing much more than most of us realize. She offers guidance for the school community, especially administrators, on how to make sure your school nurse is a part of important conversations. 

It's a contentious time to be a school board member in America. Michael Casserly, a strategic adviser for the Council of the Great City Schools, reflects on the current state of school board meetings happening around the country. He also provides insight regarding the purpose of school boards, what a board needs to do to function well, and how to manage controversy. 

There's a lot of conversation in education about how to use this summer to make up for lost academic time in COVID. But depending on the student and the situation -- summer school may or may not be the right solution. Catherine Augustine, a senior policy researcher at RAND Corporation, has spent many years examining what makes summer school effective. She advises that while summer school isn't magic, it can also be beneficial for some children. Additionally, she breaks down some of the differences between summer school and extended learning, and offers guidance to families trying to figure out what to do with their children this summer. 

Jessica Lahey wondered how to keep kids from developing addictions to drugs and alcohol. She thought about it in her job as an educator at an inpatient drug and alcohol rehab for adolescents. She also pondered this as a parent and an alcoholic. Lahey knows that preventing substance abuse isn't cut and dry. In her new book, The Addiction Inoculation, she explores substance abuse risks and what parents need to know to keep their children safe.

DC Public School Chancellor Lewis Ferebee was making strides on student academic gains, growing enrollments and creating the positive environment that he wanted for the nearly 50,000 students in the district. Then COVID happened. Like many education leaders, he faced unprecedented challenges to deliver distance learning, properly ventilate school buildings, extend supports and reopen schools. Ferebee shares what it has been like to lead the district though this time and some of the unique steps he has taken, as well as what has worked and what hasn't.

The pandemic has exposed gender inequities that don't often get talked about in education. It doesn't matter whether women work in early childhood, or higher education, or somewhere in between, these inequities play out similarly across the field. Jennie Weiner, an associate professor at the University of Connecticut, studies how to make education -- especially leadership -- more inclusive and equitable. While education has long been a "highly feminized profession," Weiner explains the unique way this has worked against women in the field.  She shares the importance of gender as we work toward an antiracist society and strive for a more just world. She also suggests steps toward change.     

How has the end of adolescence changed or has it at all? Harvard Professor Nancy Hill and Lecturer Alexis Redding set out to better understand changes in adolescent development across generations. When they discovered an untapped archive from the 1970s, they expected to uncover huge changes, especially considering how the world shifted in the past 50 years. Instead they found common ties among the generations. They share how these generational similarities offer insight into how we can better support adolescents at home and in college. They also debunk this idea that today's adolescents are "coddled" and "overparented." 

Systemic racism has deeply permeated all aspects of our schools to the point it's gone viral. Racist curriculum and racist acts of teachers have trended on social media, even though it's long been a problem in schools. Bree Picower, an associate professor at Montclair State  University, says it's more than 'just a few bad teachers' and really a complex problem that needs to be managed on multiple levels from teacher education programs to the classroom. She's a teacher educator who has studied how curriculum choices perpetuate White supremacy and the strategies educators can use to disrupt them.

President Biden's recent insistence that standardized testing should happen this year has been met with reluctance in many states. Harvard Professor Andrew Ho explains the importance of moving forward with standardized testing and what it can tell us about the impact of COVID on students. Ho is a psychometrician who studies educational assessments. He explains why we must consider this more an "educational census" rather than an "assessment" and how to achieve that. He also discusses how much we actually know about learning loss, and how testing may offer insight into targeting supports.

Think that propaganda is an outdated thing of the past? Well, think again. Propaganda is everywhere -- in the news, entertainment, politics, education, social media and more. Renee Hobbs, a media literacy expert, says it's vital that adults and children better understand how to identify and analyze propaganda. Hobbs, the director of URI's Media Education Lab, and the author of "Mind Over Media," is leading the way in what propaganda education looks like in our classrooms. She shares the history of propaganda education in America, and some of the ways pedagogy can incorporate lessons on propaganda in almost every subject today.     

Developmental Psychologist Susan Engel discusses the importance of nurturing young children's ideas, and why we need to pay closer attention to what they think. Engel, a senior lecturer in psychology at Williams College, has long explored children's curiosity and how they learn to pursue ideas. From a young age, children's obsessions with dinosaurs or puddles or even topics like death are opportunities as educators and parents to nurture their ideas and interests. Engel shares ways for educators and parents to do this type of work, and contends that it's vital in schools and at home. 

What will the future of college be like post-COVID? If one thing is sure, COVID has already significantly altered college admissions. Princeton Review Editor-in-Chief Robert Franek breaks down some of the changes in college admissions like the test optional movement and whether to take the SATs. Franek also addresses how college application rates seem to be trending upward and whether high school juniors and seniors should consider deferring or attending the next few years of college.   

Jarvis Givens tells the history of Black teachers and their covert actions in the classroom during the Jim Crow South. An assistant professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Givens latest research delves into the theory and practices of Black educators, which he calls "fugitive pedagogy," and how it has been passed down from the enslaved and beyond. This changes the deficit lens often taken when discussing Black education in America, revealing a powerful narrative that still impacts educators today.  

The latest research on COVID and schools emphasizes the importance of reopening but far too many schools remain closed. Harvard Professor Meira Levinson discusses how efforts to reopen often stall due to a lack of trust in the school district. Levinson, who co-authored The Path to Zero Report, which provides guidelines on how to safely reopen, emphasizes how even with the best safety protocols, ventilation, and adequate supplies in place that districts face an even bigger issue: how to rebuild trust among the many key players it serves.   

Introducing the new podcast Pivot Out Loud -- stories of education and life in a year of disruption. In this episode, Harvard EdCast host Jill Anderson recounts what it's like staying and working from home with a young child. She shares the struggle of trying to balance her child's academics and play along with working full-time. Listen to more episodes: https://pivot-out-loud.simplecast.com/What does education look like in a world turned sideways? Covid-19 forced teaching and learning to change overnight, transforming what it means to be a student, an educator, and a parent. How did people adapt and adjust? Pivot Out Loud explores — telling stories of education and life in a year of disruption. Hosted by Lory Hough, editor of Ed Magazine, and brought to you by the producers of the Harvard EdCast at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Educator's have always benefitted from self-care, and in today's challenging times, it is especially important. Harvard Lecturer Jackie Zeller discusses the what it means to practice self-care and how it can benefit more than just the educator. Zeller, a licensed psychologist, will be teaching a new course this spring at the Harvard Graduate School of Education on self-care and wellness. In this episode, Zeller discusses the benefits of self-care, ideas for how to create a practice of self-care, and a growing awareness in the education field around supporting wellness. Disclaimer: This piece is meant to be solely informational in nature.  It is not meant to provide professional care or recommendations. This piece includes general considerations, but people should contact their own providers for individualized advice and recommendations. 

Educational sociologist Anindya Kundu recognized that students need more than grit to succeed in school. He studies the role of student agency, and how focusing on student potential can lead to growth and success in life, especially for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. In this episode of the Harvard EdCast, Kundu, a Senior Fellow of Research at Labor Market Information Service, at the Center for Urban Research at The Graduate Center, CUNY, defines agency and offers ways for school leaders and educators to take steps toward developing student agency.   

How does the world solve complex problems like climate change? One answer may be to teach science in more complex and personal ways. Through the research project, Learning in Places, Professors Megan Bang and Carrie Tzou are developing innovative and equitable field-based science lessons. In this episode of the EdCast, Bang and Tsou share ways to make science more personal and how to better connect children's learning to the natural world. 

In this episode, Kristi Nelson, the executive director of a Network for Grateful Living, discusses why some people have an easier time finding gratitude than others, the role of education in being grateful, and how to implement strategies and education in order to cultivate more grateful living. 

How much has college teaching really changed in 150 years? Not very much, according to Jonathan Zimmerman, an education historian and professor at the University of Pennsylvania. In his latest book, The Amateur Hour, Zimmerman traces the history of undergraduate teaching practices in the United States and how it has yet to reach a level of professionalization. In this episode of the EdCast, Zimmerman discusses how colleges and universities got to where they are today, and what it might take to change the future of college teaching.

America seems more divided than ever. Paula McAvoy, an assistant professor at North Carolina State University, has long focused her work on helping educators teach young people how to live together in this world. Educators can use the recent presidential election as a tool. In this episode of the EdCast, McAvoy discusses how to make the most of your "political" classroom.

Education research is often disconnected from the reality of practitioners in the field. Carrie Conaway, a senior lecturer at Harvard and an expert on how to apply education research in practice, gets into the details of how to bridge the gap between education research and practice. In this episode, she discusses the way education leaders can use existing education research and also begin to implement their own evidence-based research to figure out what works.

In this encore episode of the Harvard EdCast, which originally aired on February 13, 2019, Tony Jack discusses the consequences of conflating access and inclusion — and the barriers that low-income students face when they get to college -- a situation even more important in the wake of campus closures due to COVID. 

We don't often hear about the 15% of students who attend rural schools. It seems this population is often left out of national conversations about the impact of COVID on education. Mara Tieken, an associate professor at Bates College, is an expert on rural schools and has been helping many rural school districts cope throughout the pandemic. In this episode, Tieken talks about some of the ways rural schools are getting through the pandemic and ideas on how to include rural schools in the national conversation.

Times are troubling for many higher education institutions around the country. With many enrollments down and huge drops in student applications for federal financial aid, it's not just institutions struggling but low-income college goers are facing major disruptions as well. Bridget Terry Long -- the dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education and an economist -- is concerned about every student and how the pandemic may impact their education and futures. In this episode, she speaks candidly about the many challenges facing higher education institutions, college goers, and what it's like to lead an institution during a pandemic.

Many people question the state of democracy in America. This is especially true of young people, who no longer share the same interest in democracy as the generations before them. Harvard's Danielle Allen has long studied what citizens need in order to succeed in democracy and how our social studies and civics education can impact this. In this episode, Allen discusses how we got where we are today, the unique role of education, and what it takes to reinvest in education for democracy.

With many children learning remotely this fall, Sal Khan, founder of Khan Academy – a leader in online learning – knows that it’s a daunting task for everyone involved to deliver the best and most high quality experience. In this episode of the EdCast, Khan shares some of the most effective teaching strategies for remote learning, and how parents can help support online learning at home. He also gives practical tips for how to manage teaching young children online.

Only about 14 percent of Native Americans attend college and many often leave before graduating. TaraJean Yazzie-Mintz has spent much of the past three decades working to improve access to education for Native people. In this episode of the Harvard EdCast, she addresses the barriers to higher education for Native people, and how higher education institutions can do a better job at welcoming and keeping Native people in this space.

The pandemic set off a race for schools to launch remote learning and to keep children from falling behind. But at what cost? In this episode of the EdCast, Harvard Lecturer Uche Amaechi discusses the tension that exists for schools trying to find a balance between continuing education in equitable ways among all students.

With more than 55 million children out of school due to the pandemic, school leaders are facing the adaptive challenge of all time. The challenges go far beyond closures. Harvard Professor Deborah Jewell-Sherman shares what is on the minds of school leaders throughout the country, and advises how they can stay grounded and plan in such a difficult time.

What is the role of schools in teaching students, especially students of color, how to face oppression and develop political agency? Are there ways that some educators succeed in doing this in one school but not in another school? Professors Daren Graves and Scott Seider were eager to find the answers and set out to research five mission-driven high schools over four years. In this episode of the EdCast, they share the ways that educators and school leaders can help young people better understand and challenge racial injustices.

Despite family meal times being hugely beneficial to kids, only about 30% of families manage to eat together regularly. Anne Fishel, executive director of the Family Dinner Project, knows it's not always easy to find that time but it also doesn't have to be so hard. Through her work, she helps families find fun, creative, and easy ways to make meals a reality. As many families adjust to stay-at-home orders from the Coronavirus, there is a silver lining in that now there is time to enjoy a family meal or two.