The Harvard EdCast

• How High-Impact Tutoring Is Reshaping Post-Pandemic Learning Recovery

  In the wake of the pandemic, tutoring has become a central strategy for helping students recover academically but not all tutoring is created equal. Liz Cohen, vice president of policy at 50CAN, has been closely studying the rapid rise of tutoring programs across the country, especially the emergence of high-impact tutoring as the gold standard.“There's a funny thing about tutoring is that there's a lot of flexibility in it,” Cohen says. “So, in some places it might look like other interventions and in other places it might not. But one thing I want to be really clear about just to start with is that high-impact tutoring in particular is not homework help and it is not on demand.” Instead, high impact tutoring is structured, frequent, and aligned to what students are learning in school: at least three sessions a week, 30 minutes or more, in groups of four students or fewer, with the same tutor each time. Research shows that when tutoring is consistent and connected to classroom instruction, students make significantly greater learning gains, especially in early literacy and math.Cohen points to examples like Tennessee, Louisiana, and district leaders in places like Baltimore and Guilford County, where strong funding, clear expectations, and hands-on implementation support led to meaningful results. But scaling tutoring can be complicated. As Cohen discovered and reveals in her new book, “The Future of Tutoring: Lessons from 10,000 School District Tutoring Initiatives,” there’s many details that need to come together for tutoring to be a success. “What I believe is the most powerful part of the story of the high-impact tutoring movement and the tutoring movement at large that's happened in the last five years in America is that it's a human centered story that is in part empowered by tech,” Cohen says. “This is fundamentally a story about humans, and it's a story about the fact that young people in America are very hungry for meaningful relationships with adults, and those can be young adults in high school and college, or they can be older adults too.”In this episode, Cohen tells us what has made high-impact tutoring so valuable, how districts are successfully implementing tutoring, and how it has become more than just as an academic intervention.  

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• Can Universities Teach Us to Talk Again?

  In an era when many Americans believe the country is too divided to come back together, Tufts University political scientist Eitan Hersh believes higher education has a crucial role to play in bridging divides and he’s putting that belief into practice through a new university center devoted to viewpoint diversity.“What do we want from students when they graduate high school or college,” Hersh says. “We want them to be able to engage with lots of different kinds of people in the workforce or in civic spaces, and know how to handle disagreement, and know how to fight for the things that they care about and know how to listen and learn and develop new ideas.”Too often, he says, universities and social networks confine people to intellectual bubbles. However, when students understand how others’ beliefs shape their views, they learn to think critically, listen better, and handle disagreement with more nuance. That philosophy drives the creation of Tufts’ new Center for Expanding Viewpoints in Higher Education, which Hersh leads. The center will host reading groups, workshops, and in-person discussions that encourage open, offline dialogue across disciplines and ideologies. The center’s mission extends beyond events. In fact, Hersh wants to rethink curriculum and teaching practices to ensure dissenting voices and unfamiliar perspectives are part of students’ education. “It doesn't mean that you, as a student change your mind on every issue. But you just realize that these issues are complicated for a reason, which is that there is a lot of gray area,” he says. “And to me, that is quite depolarizing. Because all of a sudden, it takes something that looked like an us versus them story into a story of people with different values and senses of the world reach reasonable, different conclusions.”While “viewpoint diversity” has become a politically loaded term, Hersh sees it as central to higher education’s purpose, not a partisan issue. In this episode, Hersh discusses his hope to rekindle a university culture defined by curiosity, conversation, and understanding.  

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• How Curiosity Can Unlock Learning for Every Child

  Curiosity is one of our most powerful, yet often overlooked, human drives, especially in education. Elizabeth Bonawitz, associate professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, explains that while there’s no single definition of curiosity, it’s best understood as an internal desire to resolve gaps in our knowledge or a wondering about how the world works. That innate drive begins in infancy, fueling our rapid early learning. But as children grow older, especially within structured school systems, that spark too often dims.Through her research, Bonawitz explores how curiosity operates like mise en place for learning preparing the mind to absorb, connect, and retain new information. It activates attention, memory, and motivation, setting the stage for deeper understanding. Studies from her lab show that simple practices, like encouraging children to ask more questions, not only increase curiosity but also improve learning outcomes.“Children who are more curious do better in math or reading scores in school. And that's particularly true for students that come from more under-resourced communities or students that might have other challenges associated with school,” Bonawitz says. “So, curiosity is the great equalizer for education.”But curiosity is not the easiest thing to cultivate, especially in a classroom where barriers like test driven school structures and cultural differences link to uncertainty. The good news is there are things educators and even parents can do to help foster a child's curiosity. In this episode, the EdCast takes a deeper look at curiosity and explores ways to home in on what Bonawitz considers the simple act of wonder. 

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• The Rural Promise: Pathways to Opportunity for Every Student

  Dreama Gentry grew up in Appalachian Kentucky, in a community often defined by outsiders for what it lacked. But what she saw was strength, connection, and possibility. Today, as the founder and CEO of Partners for Rural Impact, she’s working to make sure the 14 million young people growing up in rural America can see those same possibilities for themselves.“What I see in Appalachia is that a lot of young folks have lost hope. And they've lost the ability to dream of a future and of a path. And some of that is because their parents also have lost that hope. And some parents are afraid to have dreams for their young folks,” Gentry says. “And I think that's why programs, schools, community systems have to wrap around the whole family and support the whole family in learning how to dream again, holding the hope of a better future, and providing them with those supports.”Despite rural students often graduating high school at higher levels than their peers, they also have lower enrollment rates for college. Part of Gentry’s work is developing that path for students. She explains how “place-based partnerships” are transforming rural schools by bringing together educators, families, and community leaders around one goal: every child supported, from cradle to career.“Career pathways for rural students are the same as career pathways for students in urban areas and other areas. And I think sometimes, we don't make that distinction,” she says. “I think we have a responsibility and a duty, when working with young folks, to help them actualize and develop a dream, a goal that they want to work toward, and then to make sure that they're leaving high school with the skills to achieve that, if possible. And they're college ready. They're career ready. And so, the pathways are unlimited for young people in rural places, just like they are in others.”She says there are many surprising connections between rural and urban education. In fact, Gentry notes how her work with Geoff Canada of the Harlem Children’s Zone changed her perspective. Now, she emphasizes that while the settings may differ, the core work of supporting children and families is universal. Rural and urban educators, she says, have much to learn from one another if they’re willing to move beyond perceived divides and recognize their shared mission to create opportunity for every child.In this episode, Gentry challenges assumptions about rural life, reminding us that the challenges and outcomes facing small towns are deeply tied to the nation’s future. 

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• Teaching Students to Think Critically About AI

  When educators talk about artificial intelligence, the conversation often begins with excitement about its potential. But for Stephanie Smith Budhai and Marie Heath, that excitement must be matched with caution, context, and critical awareness. “AI is a piece of technology. It's not human, but it's also not a neutral thing either,” says Budhai, an associate professor in the educational technology program at the University of Delaware. “We have to be intentional and purposeful about how we use technology. So, thinking about why we're using it. So why was the technology created?” Budai and Heath, an associate professor of learning, design, and technology at Loyola University Maryland, are the authors of “Critical AI in K-12 Classrooms: A Practical Guide for Cultivating Justice and Joy.” Their research explores how bias is built into artificial intelligence and how these biases can harm students if left unexamined. While bias in technology isn’t new — it’s been present in tools as old as the camera — both scholars argue that educators and students must learn to approach AI critically, just as they evaluate sources and evidence in other forms of learning.“What does it mean when we ask children…to partner with or think with a machine that is based in the past, with historical data full of our historical mistakes and also doesn't really explore? It's not looking at the world with wonder. It's looking in this very focused way for the next answer that it can give the most likely possibility,” Heath says. “And I think as learners, that's actually not how we want kids to learn. We want them to explore, to make mistakes, to wrestle with ideas, to come up with divergent creative thinking.” Both Budhai and Heath believe that using AI responsibly in education means grounding teaching in equity and critical engagement. Budhai points to projects like Story AI, which helps young students tell their own cultural stories while revealing bias in generative image tools. Heath’s Civics of Technology project encourages “technology audits,” helping teachers and students uncover the trade-offs and values embedded in everyday tools. In this episode, we explore how to use AI critically in classrooms, and the responsibility of educators to cultivate AI literacy, develop thoughtful policies, and consider broader implications such as environmental impact, equity, and student privacy. 

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