Podcast - Announcement

New podcast series brings prominent researchers and practitioners together to support robust learning and thriving in schools and communities

The Knowledge Exchange will feature monthly conversations that highlight core concepts behind a comprehensive approach that can be adapted to each unique setting and learner.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

WASHINGTON (Sept. 25, 2025) —Knowledge-Exchange.net is launching a new podcast series featuring over 100 prominent researchers. Their work covers a comprehensive range of issues and applied approaches that foster robust learning, thriving, and equity in schools.  These ideas are being used to create inclusive and supportive environments promoting deep and engaged learning. The series of 35 in-depth episodes is sponsored and distributed by a consortium of education and youth development organizations committed to applying evidence to improve practice and outcomes for all children and youth.

The first episode of The Knowledge Exchange: Using the science of learning and development to promote thriving and learning will be available at www.Knowledge-Exchange.net beginning in early October. The episode features Michael Feuer, the dean of GW’s Graduate School of Education and past president of the National Academy of Education; Gloria Ladson-Billings, a scholar of culturally relevant pedagogy and past president of AERA; Bob Wise, a former Governor of West Virginia and CEO/President of the Alliance for Excellent Education (All4Ed) and Scott Palmer, a co-founder of EducationCounsel and national advisor on large-scale reforms. The episode features a discussion of a set of papers commissioned by the National Academy of Education to explore and address education inequities in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

This podcast discusses how the COVID-19 pandemic magnified long-standing educational inequities, and what research tells us about building systems that foster deeper learning, well-being, and thriving. It will explore the importance of supportive conditions for learning—including family and community engagement, mental health, and culturally relevant pedagogy—as well as the role of civic education in sustaining democracy. The conversation highlights the interplay of policy, politics, and pedagogy, the guidance provided by the science of learning and development, and the urgent need to design equitable, future-ready education systems in the face of ongoing social, political, and technological change.

Participants for the next three podcasts include: Sophia Rodriquez (NYU),  Sarah Woulfin (University of Texas, Austin), Odis Johnson (John Hopkins University), Joseph Bishop (UCLA), John King (Former Secretary of Education and SUNY), Linda Darling-Hammond (Learning Policy Institute and Stamford University), Karen Pittman (Knowledge to Power -Catalysts), Robert Painta (University of Virginia), Mary Helen Immordino-Yang (University of Southern California), Stephanie Jones (Harvard University), Jim Pellegrino (University of Illinois, Chicago), and Carol Lee (Northwestern University).  For a complete list of sessions and presenters, please go to the website.

The podcast will be available on Apple, Spotify, and the Knowledge Exchange website with supplemental materials. Listeners will learn about the critical role of supportive conditions for learning, why culturally relevant pedagogy makes a difference, and how civic education is essential for sustaining democracy. Drawing on the science of learning and development, the episode highlights both the challenges and opportunities for creating equitable, future-ready schools and community organizations.   

This series is jointly developed by researcher, scholar, and author David Osher, noted researcher of non-traditional learning environments Karen Pittman, and education policy leader Richard Long. As host, Osher, who has supported implementation of practices to support thriving, learning, and development in schools and communities across the nation and with the team that synthesized research across multiple disciplines and on the science of learning and development, and co-authored Equity-Centered Thriving with Karen Pittman, draws upon his seminal research on the conditions for learning and well-being, as well as what he has learned from learning environments across the country.

More information on the project developers, presenters, and commentators can be found at www.Knowledge-Exchange.netor by email at info.on.KnowledgeExchange@gmail.com.

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The Knowledge-Exchange.net podcast series is sponsored by: the Stuart Foundation, National Academy of Education, William T. Grant Foundation, The Learning Policy Institute, the EASEL Lab at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, Education Collaboratory at Yale, The Science of Learning and Development Alliance, The Institute for Educational Leadership, Youth Today, and the Alliance for Youth Thriving-Knowledge to Power Catalysts.