A change of government has not changed the government’s power to intrude upon the autonomy of providers of higher education, which is constrained chiefly by its being limited to the financial. Government can also issue guidance to the regulator, the Office for Students, and that guidance may be detailed. Recent exchanges give a flavour of the kind of control which politicians may seek, but this may be at odds with the current statutory framework.
As Secretary of State for Education, Gillian Keegan sent a Letter of Guidance to the Office for Students on 4 April 2024. She stated her priorities, first that ‘students pursue HE studies that enable them to progress into employment, thereby benefitting them as well as the wider economy’. She also thought it ‘important to provide students with different high-quality pathways in HE, notably through higher technical qualifications (HTQs), and degree apprenticeships’ at Levels 4 and 5. These ‘alternatives to three-year degrees’, she said, ‘provide valuable opportunities to progress up the ladder of opportunity’. As a condition of funding providers were to ‘build capacity’ with ‘eligible learners on Level 4 and 5 qualifications via a formula allocation’. The new Higher Technical Qualifications were to attract ‘an uplift within this formula for learners on HTQ courses’. ‘World leading specialist providers’ were to be encouraged and funded ‘up to a limit’ of £58.1m for FY24/25.
The change of Government in July 2024 brought a new Secretary of State in the person of Bridget Phillipson but no fresh Letter of Guidance before she spoke in the Commons in a Higher Education debate on 4 November, 2024. Recognising that many universities were in dire financial straits, she suggested that there should be ‘reform’ in exchange for a rise in tuition fees for undergraduates which had just been announced. That, she suggested, would be needed to ensure that universities would be ‘there for them to attend’ in future.
However, commentators quickly pointed out that Phillipson’s announcement that there would be a small rise in undergraduate tuition fees from £9,250 to £9,535 a year would not be anywhere near enough to fill the gap in higher education funding. The resulting risks were recognised. When the Office for Students reviewed the Financial sustainability of higher education providers in Englandin 2024 in May 2024 it had looked at the ‘risks relating to student recruitment’ by providers in relation to the income from their tuition fees.
Phillipson was ‘determined to reform the sector’. She called for ‘tough decisions to restore stability to higher education, to fix the foundations and to deliver change’ with a key role for Government. Ministers across Government must work together, she said, especially the Secretary for Education and the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology in order to ‘deliver a reformed and strengthened higher education system’. This would be ‘rooted in partnership’ between the DfE, the Office for Students and UK Research and Innovation’.
“… greater work around economic growth, around spin-offs and much more besides—I will be working with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology on precisely those questions.”
In the debate it was commented that she was ‘light on the details’ of the Government’s role’. She promised those for the future, ‘To build a higher education system fit for the challenges not just of today but of tomorrow’. She undertook to publish proposals for ‘major reform’. There were some hints at what those might include. She saw benefits in providers ‘sharing support services with other universities and colleges’. Governing bodies, she said, should be asking ‘difficult strategic questions’, given the population ‘changing patterns of learning’ of their prospective students. The ‘optimistic bias’ she believed, needed to be ‘replaced by hard-headed realism’. ‘Some institutions that may need to shrink or partner, but is a price worth paying as part of a properly funded, coherent tertiary education system.’ She saw a considerable role for Government. ‘The government has started that job – it should now finish it.’
Like her predecessor she wanted ‘courses’ to provide individual students as well as the nation with ‘an economic return’. She expected providers to ‘ensure that all students get good value for money’. Other MPs speaking in the debate pressed the same link. Vikki Slade too defined economic benefit in terms of the ‘value for money’ the individual student got for the fee paid.Laura Trott was another who wanted ‘courses’ to provide individual students as well as the nation with ‘an economic return’. Shaun Davies asked for ‘a bit more detail’ on ‘the accountability’ to which ‘these university vice-chancellors’ were to be held in delivering ‘teaching contact time, helping vulnerable students and ensuring that universities play a huge part in the wider communities of the towns and cities in which they are anchor institutions’.
Government enforcement sits uncomfortably with the autonomy of higher education providers insisted on by the 2017 Higher Education and Research Act. This Act created the Office for Students as ‘a non-departmental public body’, ‘accountable to Parliament’ and receiving ‘guidance on strategic priorities from the Department for Education’. Its ‘operations are independent of government’, but its ‘guidance’ to providers as Regulator is also heavily restricted at s.2 (5) which prevents intrusion on teaching and research. That guidance may not relate to ‘particular parts of courses of study’; ‘the content of such courses’; ’the manner in which they are taught, supervised or assessed’; ‘the criteria for the selection, appointment or dismissal of academic staff, or how they are applied’; or ‘the criteria for the admission of students, or how they are applied’.
This leaves the Office for Students responsible only for monitoring the financial sustainability of higher education providers ‘to identify those that may be exposed to material financial risks’. Again its powers of enforcement are limited. If it finds such a case it ‘works with’ the provider in a manner respecting its autonomy, namely ‘to understand and assess the extent of the issues’ and seek to help.
Listed in providers’ annual Financial Statements may be a number of sources of funding to which universities may look. These chiefly aim to fund research rather than teaching and include: grants and contracts for research projects; investment income; donations and endowments. The Government has a funding relationship with Research England within UKRI (UK Research and Innovation). UKRI is another Government-funded non-departmental public body, though it is subject to some Government policy shifts in the scale of the funding it provides through the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.
Donations and endowments may come with conditions attached by the funder, limiting them for example to named scholarships or professorships or specific new buildings. However they may provide a considerable degree of financial security which is not under Government control. The endowments of Oxford and Cambridge Universities are substantial. Those made separately for their Colleges. may be very large, partly as a result of the growth in value of land given to them centuries ago. Oxford University has endowments of £1.3 billion and its colleges taken together have endowments of £5.06 billion. Cambridge University has a published endowment of £2.47 billion, though Cambridge’s Statement for the Knowledge Exchange Framework puts ‘the university’s endowment ‘at nearly £6 billion’. Cambridge’s richest College, Trinity, declares endowments of £2.19 billion.
The big city universities created at the end of the nineteenth century are far less well-endowed. Birmingham had an endowment of £142.5 million in 2023, Bristol of £86 million. Of the twentieth and twenty-first century foundations, Oxford Brookes University notes donations and endowments of £385,000 and Anglia Ruskin University of £335,300. The private ‘alternative’ providers of higher multiplying in recent decades have tended to have a variety of business and commercial partnerships supporting their funding. Categories of funding provided by such gifting remain independent of Government interference.
The Review of Post-18 Education and Funding(May 2019) chaired by Philip Augur stated ‘Principles’ including that ‘organisations providing education and training must be accountable for the public subsidy they receive’, and that ‘Government has a responsibility to ensure that its investment in tertiary education is appropriately spent and directed’. ‘Universities must do more to raise their impact beyond their gates’, Phillipson said, so as ‘to drive the growth that this country sorely needs’ including by ‘joining with Skills England, employers and partners in further education to deliver the skills that people and businesses need’.
In the same Commons debate of 4 November Ian Roome, MP for North Devon, was confident that in his constituency ‘universities work in collaboration with FE sector institutions such as Petroc college’. Petroc College offers qualifications from Level 3 upwards, including HNCs, higher-level apprenticeships, Access to HE diplomas, foundation degrees and honours degrees (validated by the University of Plymouth) and ‘in subjects that meet the demands of industry – both locally and nationally’. Roome saw this (HC 4 November 2024) as meeting a need for ‘a viable and accessible option, particularly in rural areas such as mine, for people to access university courses?’ Phillipson took up his point, to urge such ‘collaboration between further education and higher education providers’. Shaun Davies spoke of the £300 million the Government had put into further education, ‘alongside a £300 million capital allocation’, invested in further education colleges’.
However in an article in the Guardianon 4 November 2024,Philip Augur recognised that ‘the systems used by government to finance higher and further education are very different’. ‘Universities are funded largely through fees which follow enrolments’, in the form of student loans of £9,250, now raised to £9,535. ‘Unpaid loans are written off against the Department for Education’s balance sheet’. At first that would not be visible in the full government accounts until 30 years after the loan was taken out. Government steering had become more visible following the Augur Report, with the cost of student loans being recorded ‘in the period loans are issued to students’, rather than after 30 years.
By contrast the funding of individual FE colleges is based on annual contracts from the Education and Skills Funding Agency, an executive agency of the DFE for post-18 education. They may then spend only within the terms of the contract and up to its limit. The full cost of such contracts is recorded immediately in the public accounts. This makes a flexible response to demand by FE colleges far from easy. Colleges may find they cannot afford to run even popular courses such as construction, engineering, digital, health and social care, without waiting lists for places. The HE reform Phillipson considered in return for a rise in tuition fees had no immediate place in FE.
Government funding control maintains a pragmatic but very limited means of means of giving orders to universities. This depends on regulating access to taxpayer-funded student loans. The Office for Students measures a provider’s teaching in terms of its ‘positive outcomes’. These are set out in the OfS ‘Conditions’ for its Registration, which are required to make a provider’s students eligible for loans from the Student Loans Company. Condition B3 requires that a provider’s ‘outcomes’ meet ‘numerical thresholds’ measured against ‘indicators’: whether students continue in a course after their first year of study; complete their studies and progress into managerial or professional employment.
The government’s power to intrude upon the autonomy of providers of higher education continues to be constrained, but chiefly by its being limited to the financial, with many providers potentially at risk from their dependence on government permitting a level of tuition fee high enough to sustain them.
GR Evans is Emeritus Professor of Medieval Theology and Intellectual History in the University of Cambridge.
The cost of college has been a hot topic for a while now, and even though some studies suggest the net cost of college has been falling post-COVID, it’s clear that sticker prices have not been.
And because the overwhelming majority of college and university students in the US attend public institutions, that’s a good place to start the discussion.
This is data from IPEDS, showing published cost about 530 public, four-year institutions that award the bachelor’s degree, excluding community colleges that have been creeping into that category over time. Each dot represents an institution, and the data are from 2009, 2016, and 2023 to show long-term trends. The dots are colored by geographic region.
The data are displayed four ways, from left to right and default to published Tuition and Fees: Resident, Nonresident, the premium nonresidents pay (in dollars), and the premium not residents pay (as a percentage of what residents pay.) You can change this to show just tuition or just fees by using the control at the top right.
You can also filter to a single state, if you wish, to get a sense of how that state things about tuition.
The green-shaded Highlight boxes at right will allow you to make either one institution, one region, or one state standout, without filtering the other data.
The data are displayed in a box-and-whisker format: The shaded boxes cover the middle 50% of the range, with the dividing line the 50th percentile. The rest of the data are mostly contained within the boundary created by the top bar and bottom bar, with outliers being shown above or below it. These are not enrollment weighted.
As always, I happy to hear what you got out of this. Leave a comment below or send me an email.
In the ever-evolving landscape of social media, platforms rise and fall as quickly as trends shift. Twitter, now known as X, has undergone significant changes, from its approach to verified accounts and content insights to the way it handles ad space. This volatility has paved way for competitors to emerge, and among them, Threads, but now Bluesky is rapidly gaining traction in the digital atmosphere.
Recently surpassing 15 million users, Bluesky has positioned itself as a serious contender in the micro-blogging arena, offering users a fresh take on short-form content, photo sharing, video creation, and community-based content.
What is Bluesky?
Bluesky is the first app to dethrone Twitter at the top of app store charts. Founded in 2019 by former Twitter employees, it was initially developed to complement the platform we all know but has since carved out its own identity. After operating on an invite-only basis through 2023, Bluesky is now fully open to the public. This was vital to the growth of the platform, as they attempted to appeal to users wanting to “flee” Twitter/X for a different space to share insights or cat memes.
At its core, Bluesky focuses on community-driven sharing, allowing users to interact in familiar ways—through likes, replies, reposts, and follows.
The Advertising-Free Zone
Currently, Bluesky operates without any advertising, offering a purely organic experience for its users. While this will likely change in the future, the ad-free environment has contributed to its appeal among users seeking a more authentic and less commercialized space. Users want a space where they can gather information or converse without the never-ending interruption ads that have come to populate X and other platforms. Users know ads will eventually be introduced, but the joy of new social platforms is how authentic and organic the space feels. It is a way to build authentic and personal connections in a completely curated feed, which is what users are looking for in a new space.
Unique Features That Set Bluesky Apart
The most revolutionary feature is Bluesky’s decentralized model. Users can host their servers, storing data independently and setting their own rules, much like the structure of Discord. Here are a few of the other Bluesky features that make the platform stand out for many users:
Content Detachment: Unlike other platforms, users can detach their accounts from content when it is reshared or quoted by others, giving them greater control over their posts.
Zero Tolerance for Hate Speech: The platform is committed to fostering a safe environment, with a dedicated team actively monitoring content for hate or extremist behavior.
Greater Control: BlueSky offers users the ability to control their feeds, and even manage multiple streams of content. Users can set up custom feeds or join public feeds tailored to topics of their choosing.
Additionally, Bluesky allows users to create unique domain-based handles (e.g., @username.sky), providing a distinctive identity for individuals and organizations alike. Universities could use .edu handles to strengthen their community presence and allow outsiders to know instantly where the server will focus.
Threads or Bluesky: Which Platform Should You Choose?
Both. It would help if you grabbed those handles when you can. Even if you don’t plan to post right away, it is a good plan of action to have them in your marketing department’s back pocket. You want to avoid becoming part of those challenges where others have your user and will make you purchase it. Think about the efforts you wish to make. What is the University’s voice for this style of media? Do you want to share updates and insights or try the latest catchphrases to meet your students? It could be a combination of all of this and figuring it out, seeing how your students interact, and making content to fit their needs. Threads right now does provide more insight, but it has yet to find it’s right footing within the world of short text. Bluesky seems to be excelling on that front.
What Does Bluesky Mean for Universities?
Bluesky’s rise signals a shift in how people want to consume media. Twitter/X has faced criticism for its unpredictable algorithms, ad policies, and evolving identity. In contrast, Bluesky promises a return to chronological timelines, community-building, and user-driven experiences. It is saying all the right words to users, and it will be interesting to see if it can keep its promises.
For universities and brands, this is a chance to establish a presence on a platform designed for engagement and conversation. Early adoption could secure valuable handles and position organizations to connect with students, parents, alums, and stakeholders in a more meaningful way. Bluesky’s community-first approach means content should be both informative and approachable, bridging gaps and fostering connections. Universities, for example, could use the platform to quickly share updates, create dialogues, and build a sense of belonging among their audiences.
How Will Bluesky Impact the Digital Landscape?
Bluesky is more than just another social media platform; it’s a reflection of changing user expectations. As it continues to grow, universities and brands should take note and prepare for a potential shift in how they communicate in the digital space. With its decentralized foundation, focus on community, and fresh approach to micro-blogging, Bluesky is paving the way for a new era of social media.
At EducationDynamics, we pride ourselves on staying at the forefront of social media trends. We are committed to exploring how organic platforms like Bluesky can help institutions engage new students and cultivate thriving online communities. For ongoing support and insights, connect with our organic social team and elevate your strategy.
Dr. Andrea Rexilius joins me on The Social Academic to talk about her new edited anthology, We Can See Into Another Place: Mile-High Writers on Social Justice (The Bookies Press and Bower House 2024). This innovative, multi-genre anthology brings together writers and faculty from the Mile-High MFA Program at Regis University in Colorado.
In this featured interview, Dr. Andrea Rexilius joins me to talk about social justice, radical imagination, and the power of storytelling. Read Andrea’s bio.
In this interview
Meet Andrea
Jennifer: Hello everyone. Welcome to The Social Academic. This is Jennifer van Alstyne and we are right after Election Day [USA]. So there are a lot of feelings and emotions out there. And even though this episode isn’t gonna air for a little while, the topic we are talking about today is social justice.
Andrea: Sure. Thank you Jennifer. Good to see you. I am a professor and writer living in Denver, Colorado, teaching at Regis University in the Mile-High MFA and Creative Writing Program. I think that’s all I’ll say.
Jennifer: Great. I’m curious because you’ve reached out to me about this episode and I’m wondering what prompted this anthology? What made you decide to bring together these faculty, these writers from the Mile-High program together into one collection?
Andrea: Well, they’re such interesting writers. They’re varied in terms of their genre, their aesthetic, which is also representative of the program that they were all teaching in. But a lot of them, there’s about 20, 21 of them in the anthology, and they don’t all always overlap. So I wanted to kind of, since they’re all part of that same conversation, teaching similar students working with the Mile-High MFA program at various times over the last nine years. I just wanted to put them a little bit more in conversation with each other, especially some of them that hadn’t crossed paths before, just to celebrate all of them together and share their work with, I think some of them probably looked each other up, but just to share their work with one another and with the public, with everybody else, because there’s just tremendous writing coming from all of them.
Jennifer: Yeah, the collection was tremendous and emotional and almost fraught with language that really pulls you in.
I’m curious, the anthology brings together a lot of genres, like multi-genre anthology. What made anthology and book the right format for sharing these stories?
Andrea: Yeah, I think in terms of anthology, it was kind of unusual to gather a kind of multi-genre format for an anthology. They’re traditionally fiction or their creative nonfiction or their poetry. A lot of writers only maybe read in one of those genres. A lot readers only read in one of those genres. We also have a graphic narrative, a comic strip in here. We have some playwriting.
And so all of those different ways of kind of conveying ideas seemed interesting to gather into one publication and to sort of begin to maybe break down some of those barriers across genre. There’s more and more interest in hybrid writing and reading hybrid materials, but something that actually celebrates genre distinctions and also genre overlap seems like an important thing to sort of add to the literary conversation.
Jennifer: I felt like your essay at the start, the introduction was so powerful in terms of shaping, the openness and the hope and the tenuousness that writers can achieve through storytelling. I found myself transported into each one of those writer’s forms. It felt like I was jumping from poetry to play to that, the graphic one, it was just overwhelming in the sense that I hadn’t really considered so many voices on this subject in the genre-bending kind of format. It was a different kind of experience to me compared to other things that I’ve read about social justice that I’ve watched about social justice this year. And it felt more powerful because of that. Like the collective of voices and the difference in genre made it more meaningful and impactful for me.
Did you find that when you were putting together, the different sections, and the layout for the book?
Andrea: Yeah, absolutely. It was really interesting because initially what kind of bound the writers together was their overlapping relationship with the MFA program. But I also just wanted to create an artifact of that kind of archive. All of those voices that were part of that community at the Mile-High, which is still continuing on, but that’s the first nine years of it. And I didn’t have the theme so much in mind when I first started gathering things. I wasn’t sure, is this something I’m just going to make as a kind of PDF that I make available to the community? Or, am I going to try to seek out a publisher, and put it into the larger world?
Pretty early on I had begun gathering some things and in the process of gathering them, I started shopping around some local presses in the Colorado area to see if it might be something they’d be interested in. And as sort of a long answer to what you asked me. But as I was shifting into, “Okay, it’s actually gonna be published by a press, it’s going to be a book that is available to anybody. It’s not just sort of in-house community. I started noticing patterns in the early submissions. And that’s where the theme began to develop from.
Also, seeing like how some of the poems communicated with the fiction, just the little overlaps and detail that were coming in were really interesting. That’s how the [Young Adult] interview got in there as well. ‘Cause there were so many writers, like Stephen Dunn’s piece, Addie Tsai’s piece, Lori Ostlund’s piece, where they’re talking about experiences in high school or as young adults and how writing impacted them, why they became writers and avid readers, and what their experiences to were with reading. They weren’t always delightful.
Jennifer: Yeah.
Andrea: So that started to kind of naturally grow out of the process of gathering those submissions.
Jennifer: I’m curious, who do you feel should really read this book? Who should go out and buy a copy or buy it for someone that they know or love?
Andrea: I mean, on the day that we’re recording this, I would say everybody should go read this book. I mean there’s many different representations and iterations of what we mean by social justice in the book, you know? It speaks to social economic stuff. It’s speaking to race relations, all kinds of different power dynamics speaking to neurological difference, the environments. It’s just a wide swath of what we think about when we are collectively, socially trying to enact justice for ourselves and our daily lives. But it also, like, the thing that I think about when I come to social justice is the idea of ‘radical imagination.’ And the idea that the mind, the interior, I quote Emily Dickinson at the beginning of the book, I love, I’m a poet, so I’m always referencing her, but she has a line, ‘The brain is wider than the sky.’ So this idea that like the mental space, the interior space is larger than this external world. It can imagine anything.
So when it feels like something, when possibilities are shutting down, I think the most powerful thing you can do is just remember that you have your own imagination. You can envision a different way forward. You can still be disappointed. You know we still have all of our emotions in relation to these things, but being able to maintain and hang onto that hope and awareness that like it’s always yours. It’s always in you. You always have that power of the interior and the mind to think differently than what the external world might be kind of crushing you into thinking and feeling and being.
Jennifer: Ooh, that was powerful. I needed to hear that too. I’m like crying. I’m like, what do I have tissues near me? And I don’t. But what I really gravitated toward from what you said is the word, ‘hope.’ Like the imagination can create hope. It can create futures that we haven’t experienced or thought of. It can be world opening. How do you hope this book can inform or provide an entrance into some kind of change or transformation?
Andrea: Yeah, that’s a good question. I mean, I’m gonna quote a couple things and then talk about the final section of the book.
Jennifer: I love that
Andrea: My frameworks at Emily Dickinson again, “I dwell in possibility” because I think so much of diminishment of hope is feeling that the possibilities are becoming fewer and fewer. But again, that idea of radical imagination, if we can imagine something different than what we are being told must happen, or that there’s this kind of non-linearity, there’s always a possibility for something to shift or to swerve. And the more we think toward that possibility, I think the more empowered we stay.
And then this Toni Morrison quote was so important in thinking about putting together this book. She says, “Don’t let anybody convince you this is the world is, and therefore must be, it must be the way it ought to be.” That speaks similarly, I think to the Emily Dickinson piece about possibility that nothing has to be any particular way. Sometimes it’s that particular way.
But knowing that we still have so much inside of us that can speak out, that can share our experiences, that can voice things that the dissent from the powers that be, I mean, hopefully we retain that powers. I mean, people go underground, they make zines. We get the word out in whatever way we need to. And right now there’s this book, the last section, we move into questions for the reader that kind of bring you into this state of reflection and get you in touch with your own ideas and imagination.
So, what would you like to give voice to? How do you survive and thrive when everything feels like it is on fire? That’s a great question for today.
Jennifer: Today’s the day for that one. Woo.
Andrea: And probably in the coming days and first of the year, that’ll be a great one to speak to. What is your hope for re-imagining of our societal and cultural future? What actions would help us move individually and or collectively toward that re-imagined future? So finding ways to bring those spaces, those radical imagination and those imaginings into external action, to starting small, making it grow larger, finding people to share your voice with who, who have similar thoughts and feelings, putting it in a book form, reading something where other people speak to that.
Jennifer: A lot of professors, faculty members are listening to this podcast. And I’m curious, is this a book that would fit well in like a classroom discussion? Is this something that can or should be taught?
Andrea: Yeah, I mean, absolutely. I think it would be great for high school, for college or book clubs for all kinds of reading groups because they’re part of the multi-genre aspect too. There’s something in it for everybody. If you’re not super into reading essays, there’s a comic. If you don’t love poetry, there’s short stories. If you aren’t into any of that, there are some interviews with why young adults, authors at the end.
There’s places for you to do your own thinking and writing and responding to whatever was in the book. It’s meant to be engaging in that way, to invite people to participate in the conversation of the book, and to add their own voice if they think something’s missing from it, if there’s something, that they wanna add, all of those openings are are there. And it would be great.
I think too, just thinking about in a classroom setting, thinking about how the different genres and pieces in here speak to these topics as well. What unique things happen formally in short story or poetry or essay. So yeah, thanks for asking that.
Jennifer: Now, as editor, maybe you don’t have like favorites, but I’m curious if you have one or two pieces you could share with us that especially faculty members might find a spark, or something that really draws them in.
Andrea: Yeah, I mean, you mentioned Steven Dunn and I think his piece in here is just absolutely brilliant. And he is speaking about his experiences in English class and then feeling left out of that conversation, feeling like it’s a conversation just for white people. He’s only reading stories written by white authors and is being told that his voice is incorrect, that he needs to correct his grammar, his way of being, his way of speaking. And I think that’s another thing like that this book demonstrates to some extent, through the genre, but also part of what we were all trying to do in the program together with students was just let every let people know like, you can be who you are.
So in order to be a good writer, you have to speak, you have to get in touch with what, who you actually are and what you actually want to say. And that’s when the writing becomes the most powerful. You shouldn’t be trying to conform your voice to anybody else’s. And I hear that in Steven’s piece and Addie Tsai’s piece.
There’s a lot of interesting reflecting in a lot of the pieces too: David Heska, Wanbli Weiden is writing this essay about his grandmother who was in a Native American boarding school that are infamous for, cultural obliteration and all kinds of horrific things. And she has this nostalgia for the boarding school.
He’s kind of reckoning with that, and sort of wondering why, answering why she might have that nostalgia in really interesting, complicated ways. And the ending of that piece I think really speaks to that reckoning with his grandmother’s state of mind and why she might have had that nostalgia and what other of nostalgia she had. I don’t wanna spoil the ending, but that’s one of my favorites because it.
Jennifer: I loved that piece.
Andrea: Yeah.
Jennifer: I’d be happy if you’d be open to reading something. That sounds great.
Andrea: I’ll read maybe a little bit from Steven’s piece that I was talking about. More beige. All right. I dunno what happens. Okay. It’s a snow day here. I usually am wearing bright colors, but I’m engaged. So this book to, or the piece from Steve Dunn, it’s from a book that he is working on called Travel With Nas, and he is co-writing it with a bunch of his friends and family members, which is, so it’s a collaborative project. He recently published another book, Tannery Bay, which he co-wrote with Katie Jean Shinkle. So that idea of sort of conversational collaborative writing comes through in his work in general too.
Jennifer: I love that.
Andrea: This is Intro / An Excerpt from Travel with Nas by Steven Dunn.
“I grew up in a small town in West Virginia: Kimball (population 500). I read a lot before going to middle school, but outside of textbooks and newspapers, I read only one book from the ages of 12-21. I’m a novelist now, a Creative Writing professor, and I write book reviews.
Reading only one book was partly an institutional fault, and partly my fault:
Partly my fault because I cared more about math painting and maps.
Partly an institutional fault because of poverty. And we were assigned only one little funky ass book throughout middle and high school, The Old Man and The Sea. We watched Of Mice and Men,Grapes of Wrath and Little Women. I hated English classes because they were mostly about correcting our language by prescribing us with ways to speak. We learned that the generations of language we celebrated in, cried in, analyzed with and joked in was wrong. And the books were about white people and white problems and white triumphs and white hopes and white dreams. So I was like, ‘Fuck English and literature and all that white bullshit.’ I was right and I was wrong.
I was wrong about English and literature because of course Black people have been writing literature about us, I just didn’t know shit about it, And them white folks ain’t care enough to teach it. I was right because I was listening to rap. And I was wrong because I was listening to rap.”
—Steven Dunn
Jennifer: Oh, Steven Dunn’s words are so powerful. I love that he’s interested in collective writing and also that he posts about the writing that he does on Facebook. So even if you’re not, the book’s not out yet, but like, I feel like I know a little bit more about Nas and about his process of writing it because he’s open to sharing it.
Online presence as an author
Jennifer: Actually, that kind of brings me into my next question. I’m curious about your online presence as an author. What’s it like to be a faculty member and a writer, and just like a person who your personality is like quite vivacious in the sense that it’s so memorable. How do you craft all of that online and show kind of your personality when you are in online spaces?
Andrea: Oh, wow. That’s a great question. I’m pretty introverted. Pretty like, I feel like it’s hard to know how that comes across. But I think of my social media, the way I curate it, because we’re all sort of curating it to some extent. I’m trying to maybe express my academic self on there, posting about books, about readings, sharing events with students, trying to kind of build that community with the MFA students and everybody in the Front Range, bringing different communities that I’m part of together. I’m teaching at Lighthouse Writer’s Workshop, a community creative writing place, and also at a Regis University. So sort of colliding some of those folks at times. And then I have my sort of like more artsy poetic life where I am doing some volunteer classes at this farm in Lafayette [Colorado] that some of my friends run.
Jennifer: Really?
Andrea: They have a little, they have a farm share. It’s called Community Farm
Jennifer: That’s so cool.
Andrea: And there’s an art lab. So I had a former student of mine donated a bunch of arts supplies, and so it’s just overfilling with art supplies. So I’ve been hosting like collage and mask making parties there.
Jennifer: Ugh, that’s amazing. Mask making parties. I’m so jealous. So Dr. Rexilius and I know each other from Naropa University at the Jack Kerouac School back when I was in my MFA program. So I’m so excited we’re having this conversation now, but I am super jealous of these art classes. That sounds so fun. And I love What I see from you on social media is a lot of your artistic side. Like I remember your moth costume, your masks. Like I love seeing that part of who you are in online spaces for sure. What about as an author, we talked about like what you do for your community.
Andrea: Right. Right.
Jennifer: What’s it like talking about yourself as an author online? That one’s really fun [Andrea holds a mask to her face].
Andrea: Talking about myself as an author, I probably should do more of that because I tend to keep my process pretty low key. I don’t share about my writing process as much. I share more about the end result. I might share more about my creative process. I share more of the kind of masks and art making that I’m doing visual art making.
Jennifer: Yeah.
Andrea: But if I have something finished published, then I tend, I’ll share that.
Jennifer: Nice.
Andrea: Yeah. But I like to keep my process a little bit more to myself because I like to have it untouched by other opinions.
Jennifer: Oh, I’m so glad you shared that. That’s a really nice perspective. It’s not so much as private as protecting it almost.
Andrea: Yeah.
Jennifer: Like protecting your process. That’s beautiful. Oh, thank you for sharing that with me. I’m curious, is there anything you really dislike about social media or about being online?
Andrea: I don’t like social media.
Jennifer: You don’t like it at all? That’s totally fine.
Andrea: When you asked, I was like, ‘oh!’ I just panicked. I was like, do I have a presence? I do because I’m the Director of this program, I have a presence to be online for that. I do have different sort of pages that I manage. So different hats that I put on. I post more of the artsy personal stuff on my own page. That’s me. But it also, part of me is that community aspect. And then I have some program specific pages where, it’s maybe a little more professional or like posting, sharing work by the authors, in this collection sharing student work. As much as I know if people tell me about it, but it’s fine.
Jennifer: That’s always part of the process.
Andrea: Yeah. I don’t wanna… I try not to spend a lot of time scrolling on social media.
Jennifer: Yeah.
Andrea: But yeah, I guess I like, the part of it that I do like is it does connect so many aspects of my world over the years that otherwise would have, many of them I think would have, disappeared from my life entirely. Like friendships in high school, things like that. And it is really nice to sort of just see what people are up to. Even if I’m somebody that I was best friends with when I was 16 or something just to see, get a glimpse of their life.
Jennifer: I saw a childhood friend of mine who I haven’t talked to in, oh my gosh, a couple decades maybe, just had a child. And I was so touched for her, like we don’t talk, but it still felt meaningful to me. So you don’t like social media and you have actually a strong online presence compared to a lot of faculty members because you’re wanting to be part of that community and wanting to bring together communities as well. That’s really interesting.
Andrea: Yeah, I always think if I didn’t have this job, I would leave Facebook, but I’m still there.
Jennifer: Oh, that’s interesting. Yeah. You’re still there. That’s true. Well, you gotta have somewhere to share your masks.
Andrea: That’s right. Yeah. I might keep it just to share the masks. I say I would leave, but I probably just share weirder things.
Jennifer: Right, a little bit leaning more into your personality. Exactly.
Jennifer: Now academics who I’d say don’t consider themselves writers are listening to this, and I want them to go out and buy your book. I’m also curious, like if they are interested in leaning into more social justice lenses or social justice audiences, even for their writing. Is there somewhere you recommend they start? Maybe if this is their first time leaning into that area? I’d say they’re academics who maybe don’t consider themselves writers, even though they do quite a bit of writing.
Andrea: Well, there’s lots of amazing literary conferences of all sizes and topics and themes. There’s a couple of things that I would note. Like in Denver, there’s a really great conference that The Word Storytelling, A Sanctuary runs. They have a conference called Margins. And so it’s an audience primarily of people of color who are writers. Talking about all types of different things. Some of that overlaps social justice. And I think that idea, radical imagination too, is this sort of holding equally everybody’s voice and making space for everybody’s voice to be heard. And maybe even making more space for the voices that are typically more marginalized. So that place would be a good place to start. There’s also a website called Writing the Other that is for writers and thinking about the publishing industry and how to, thinking about representation, appropriation, those kinds of issues, and how to navigate those as writers which I think also relates writers, academics, social justice, kind of entwines with all of those things. And then looking at this anthology has so many amazing authors in it. You can read any of them. Read interviews by them. They’re on podcasts. They’re doing online interviews. They have amazing things to say creatively, critically, academically. So there’s 20 people right there who have your back and can, who are also really open and friendly and up for answering questions. I shouldn’t speak for all of them, but reach out, see if they’re willing to engage. They definitely do a lot of them do classroom visits. They are used to sort of doing interviews and podcasts and things like that too.
Jennifer: Oh, that is so cool. I want everyone to go out and get your copy of We Can See Into Another Place. This is an important anthology, especially for academics like you. Oh, it made big difference when I read it, and I hope it does for you as well. Andrea, is there anything else that you’d like to touch on, talk about before we wrap up today?
Andrea: I think we got everything. Thank you so much for having me. It was really lovely to see you again and have this conversation with you.
Jennifer: Oh, I’m so excited to share your book with everyone and to feature you on The Social Academic. Thank you so much.
Dr. Andrea Rexilius is the author of Sister Urn (Sidebrow, 2019), New Organism: Essais (Letter Machine, 2014), Half of What They Carried Flew Away (Letter Machine, 2012), and To Be Human Is To Be A Conversation (Rescue Press, 2011), as well as the chapbooks, Séance (Coconut Books, 2014), To Be Human (Horseless Press, 2010), and Afterworld (above/ground press, 2020).
She earned an MFA in Poetry from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2005), and a PhD in Literature & Creative Writing from the University of Denver (2010). Andrea is the program director for Regis University’s Mile-High MFA in Creative Writing. She also teaches in the Poetry Collective at Lighthouse Writers Workshop in Denver, Colorado.
Millions of current and prospective college students were let down last year when the federal rollout of the new FAFSA form was badly bungled and delayed for months. The fallout from the resulting chaos and uncertainty was well-documented and widespread, including a drop in over 5 percent in first-year enrollment for fall 2024 linked at least in part to the FAFSA problems.
But now, there is some good news for students, their families, and the institutions working hard to ensure that low- and middle-income students have a path to higher education.
While we have been harsh critics of the Department of Education’s failed FAFSA rollout, it is important to recognize when they’ve done well. The department committed to making the new FAFSA form work as intended for the next academic year—and they not only have accomplished that, but they have also done it faster than promised, and faster than many expected.
Education Secretary Miguel Cardona announced Nov. 21 that after four successful rounds of beta testing, the 2025-26 FAFSA form is now available to all students and families. While we would have preferred for the 2025-26 FAFSA to have been available on Oct.1, we applaud that the department’s announcement came 10 days ahead of the promised Dec. 1 date, and the system appears to be performing as expected. In addition, this fully opens the gateway to the other benefits of the new FAFSA form, including allowing hundreds of thousands more individuals to access Pell Grants, the cornerstone of college affordability for so many students.
This success is mirrored by a rare bipartisan moment in Congress that underscores how important it is to get federal student financial aid determinations to low-income students as early as possible. During the lame-duck session of Congress–and despite the partisan polarization and acrimony of the election season—the House and Senate approved and sent to President Biden legislation aimed at streamlining the application process for federal student aid by making Oct. 1 the official FAFSA launch date each year.
ACE and other higher education associations identified how critical this change in date was, and Congress listened. The FAFSA Deadline Act, introduced earlier this year, gives students and families more time to make crucial financial decisions and institutions adequate time to provide clear and transparent aid offers. We pushed Congress to move the legislation as quickly as possible, and lawmakers acted quickly—and in a bipartisan manner—to approve it.
Passage of this legislation is a vital step toward improving access to financial aid, particularly for low-income students. Ensuring a properly functioning FAFSA form is another.
There has been much consternation, rightfully so, about the flawed FAFSA roll out, and the consequences remain serious. All of us—the government and colleges and universities—will have to work hard to bring back the students who were not able to attend college this year because the financial aid system failed them.
Campus leaders can do their part by ensuring that current and prospective students are well informed about the FAFSA and how to best navigate the new form and process. In its Nov. 21 announcement about the release of the 2025-26 FAFSA, the department also included an array of resources that institutions can share with students and their families and college counselors.
In a difficult political climate, it is great to see both the legislative and executive branches of the federal government working in tandem to better support low- and middle-income students. These twin successes are extremely important and long overdue. We’ll keep urging policymakers to build on this progress in 2025, and we know that our institutions will do their part as well.
If you have any questions or comments about this blog post, please contact us.
Dave posted on LinkedIn about a recent podcast catcher app update which has both of us looking at our listening habits for this year so far. I didn’t realize that Marco had put out an Overcast update until Dave tagged me in his post. Like Dave, Overcast is my favorite podcast app. Here are some reasons why:
Playlists: I can organize my favorite podcasts and hone in on just what I’m in the mood to listen to at a given time. My categories include: Priority; Business + Economics; News; Politics + Law; Productivity; Teaching, etc.
Smart speed: As Dave mentioned in his post, it is a subtle shift that adds up over time.
Queue: There are one-off episodes that I’ll want to be sure to listen to, but I may not want to subscribe to all future episodes of a given podcast. That’s easy to accomplish by setting up a queue playlist in Overcast.
Dave highlighted what podcasts he pays for, which means that they can be listened to ad-free. We both like that we can support the makers of the shows in that way. I pay for the following shows: Accidental Tech Podcast (ATP); Mac Power Users; Sharp Tech, The Talk Show; The Political Gabfest (via a Slate subscription); and Hard Fork and The Ezra Klein Show (via our New York Times subscription).Now that the election is over, I imagine that my top podcasts will change and that over the next year will wind up being:
Hard Fork: Often humorous exploration of the intersection of technology, culture, and the future.
The Ezra Klein Show: A phenomenal interviewer and writer discusses politics, philosophy, and culture. Ezra knows how to have rich conversations with people who agree and disagree with his views.
Mac Power Users: They keep me challenged in a good way to get the most out of my Mac and other Apple products and bring joy to my life.
Teaching in Higher Ed: Listening to my own podcast makes me seek to continue to get better as an interviewer. Plus, I can deepen the learning from having interviewed someone when I can relax more and consider what actions I may want to take from the conversations.
Some favorites don’t come out as often as other podcasts that I listen to, so won’t show up on my top listens. I also devote time to almost all of Tom Henschel‘s The Look and Sound of Leadership podcast (which only airs once a month), many of Dave’s Coaching for Leaders episodes, and John Biewen‘s Scene on Radio.
It was wild to me to see how many more hours Dave listened to podcasts than me so far in 2024 (and something tells me I’m not going to catch him by the year’s end). Some of that is likely attributable to Dave running 3-4 times per week and always listening to podcasts during his workouts via his Apple Watch (phone free). Me? I mix things up in my exercise practices by often doing walk ’n talks with friends over the phone, or doing Apple Fitness workouts (which are such a great way to infuse music that I love into my exercise).
What podcasts are you listening to most these days?
A 2024 National Education Association poll found that 90% of teachers support prohibiting student cell phone use during instructional hours.
Devon Espejo did not enter the teaching profession to spend her time policing cell phones in her classroom. An art teacher at Santa Marcos High School in Santa Barbara, CA, she has watched as phones and social media have tightened their grip on her students.
Educators are deeply concerned about the impact social media has on students’ mental health and believe those negative effects are another reason to limit access to phones at school. However, is the relentless, intolerable, and exhausting disruptions that have made their presence untenable.
“It takes up too much time. I don’t want to be the phone police,” she says. “I want to teach.”
Protecting the learning environment
Santa Barbara educators took their case to the district, and the district, eventually, listened. In the 2024-25 school year, Santa Barbara Unified School District (SBUSD) enacted a new cellphone policy called “Off and Away” that requires all high school students to park their phones in “cell phone hotels” — numbered pouches hanging either on classroom walls or over doors — before they sit down in class.
For educators in the district and an overwhelming majority nationwide, these restrictions are welcome and overdue.
A 2024 National Education Association poll found that 90% of teachers support prohibiting student cell phone use during instructional hours. Seventy-five percent favor extending restrictions to the entire school day.
A 2023 student survey by Common Sense Media found that, on a typical day, the average student receives hundreds of notifications on their phone, about a quarter of which arrive during the school day.
“Students are so reassured by that sound. They’re flipping it over and looking at the screen without even realizing that they’re doing it,” says Noelle Gilzow, a science teacher in Columbia, MO, where a new restrictive cell phone policy was introduced in middle and high schools in 2024.
It is a step more schools are taking. Cell phone bans never went away, but prior to the pandemic, many districts were looking for a middle ground. Current trends, however, suggest that any lingering patience with the devices has faded.
“We’re definitely seeing more schools tighten up their policies,” says Elizabeth Keren-Kolb, professor of educational technologies at the University of Michigan. “The question is how far these bans should go.”
Considering all perspectives
Currently, these bans or restrictions are limited to the classroom, where, says San Marcos English teacher Frank Koroshec, there really isn’t any convincing pedagogical reason to allow student access. “We have other resources in classrooms — iPads, Chromebooks — so I don’t think we need phones in the classroom for learning.”
Still, when designing and implementing a new policy, the voices of all stakeholders must be considered, says Victor Pereira, co-chair of the Teaching and Technology Leadership Program at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education. “You need to listen to everyone. This is a complex issue, and all those folks come with very different perspectives.”
Many parents’ fear that they will not be able to reach their children during an emergency has fueled some opposition to more ambitious cell phone restrictions.
Ken Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services, cautions that cell phone communication during emergencies can increase safety risks. “During a lockdown, students should be listening to the adults in the school who are giving life-saving instructions, working to keep them safe,” Trump explains.
So far, parent support for the restrictions in place at San Marcos High has been encouraging, and educators there report that the learning environment has improved since “Off and Away” went into effect.
There are some holdouts among the parents, says Espejo, “but if they were to sit through a class with kids who have access to their phones and then sat through one where phones were not allowed, they would endorse it. It’s like night and day.”
Early childhood educators are responsible for the positive development, health, and well-being of many children, making critical the appropriate use of technology in those settings.
Michelle Kang
CEO, National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)
Alissa Mwenelupembe
Managing Director of Early Learning, NAEYC
When we were children — and even when our own children were little — educational television shows like “Sesame Street,” “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood,” and “Reading Rainbow” provided time-limited relief for busy parents and an opportunity for children to learn.
Now, screens are ubiquitous as adults carry them in pockets and purses, and the content coming from those screens has changed considerably to become more interactive, brighter, and more likely to encourage continued engagement with the screen. It’s no longer as straightforward as turning off the corner television set.
The research on children and technology is ongoing, and the American Academy of Pediatrics has declined to set recommended screen time hours for children — not because unlimited screen time is good, but because not all screen time is equal.
For parents, this presents an individual challenge, but for early childhood educators, it is magnified across a whole program, where teachers are responsible for the positive development, health, and well-being of many young children at once.
What is appropriate?
A guiding rule is that the use of technology in an early childhood education setting, whether in a center, home, or school, should be in service to developmentally appropriate practices around learning.
That takes professional judgment by early educators who, through expertise and experience, can identify the value of incorporating active, hands-on technology into activities based on the readiness of the children and whether it will support their learning. That also means early educators must have appropriate training, support, and digital literacy themselves.
Any technological engagement by children should support creativity and/or cognitive and social development. Special consideration should be given to how it can help create equity, particularly by using translation and assistive technology supports to engage with multi-language learners or children with identified disabilities.
One great example of technology use in a preschool classroom was from a teacher who shared a story with the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) of assigning a classroom job of “journalist” to one of the preschoolers in her integrated special education classroom. The child would document the day by taking photos on a tablet, and then report on one of the pictures during the closing circle. It’s interactive, sparks conversation, inspires creativity, and is adaptable to different developmental levels.
What are some guidelines?
NAEYC and the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children’s Media issued a technology and interactive media position statement in 2012. While it is on the docket for a renewal and refresh, the fundamentals still hold even as technology has advanced.
Early childhood educators should:
Select, use, integrate, and evaluate technology and interactive media tools in intentional and developmentally appropriate ways, giving careful attention to the appropriateness and the quality of the content, the child’s experience, and the opportunities for co-engagement.
Provide a balance of activities in programs for young children, recognizing that technology and interactive media can be valuable tools when used intentionally with children to extend and support active, hands-on, creative, and authentic engagement with those around them and with their world.
Prohibit the passive use of screens in early childhood programs for children younger than two, and discourage passive and non-interactive uses with children ages two through five.
Limit any use of technology and interactive media in programs for children younger than two to those that appropriately support responsive interactions between caregivers and children and that strengthen adult-child relationships.
Provide leadership in ensuring equitable access to technology and interactive media experiences for the children in their care and for parents and families.
There is no one-size-fits-all way to address technology in early education programs, even and especially as technology expands to include AI. However, well-prepared and supported educators using their professional judgment will remain the critical link between children and safe, effective engagement with technology.
Our panel of experts discusses the biggest challenges facing educators today and how educational technology can help — if used properly.
Melinda French Gates
Philanthropist, Businesswoman, Author
What is the biggest challenge you see educators facing today, especially women educators?
The worst thing you can do is put a lot of pressure on yourself to fit in. I know because I’ve been there. What I learned is that I was much happier — and much more effective as a professional — when I found my own leadership style. My advice to anyone in that position today is this: You will succeed because of who you are, not in spite of it. In the meantime, surround yourself with people who believe in you and will bring out the best in you.
What would you tell today’s educators to help them ignite a passion for STEM subjects in the next generation of female innovators?
The best educators understand that many girls are interested in STEM subjects — and many girls are really good at STEM subjects — but they get interested in them at different times and for different reasons. For example, because girls don’t always get the same early exposure to STEM that boys do, their interest tends to develop later. While boys often get into tech through video games, girls are more likely to develop an interest in the subject when they see it as a way to solve real-world problems. Educators can help by introducing STEM to girls early, bringing these subjects to life, and telling the girls in their classes, “Hey, I think you’d be good at this.”
Sean Ryan
President, McGraw Hill School
What is the biggest challenge you see educators face today?
The social context in which teachers operate poses immense challenges. Educating a child — though all are natural learners — has become more complex in recent years; more complex than I’ve seen in my entire education-related career. Poverty, social media, gun violence, ideology, belief systems, and the unrelenting advance of technology mean that what worked yesterday might be less relevant today, and what we might need tomorrow is harder to discern. That’s why as a curriculum and technology provider, we must stay in close contact with educators to ensure that we remain a worthy, agile, and, most importantly, trusted partner.
Where do you see the adoption of education technology headed in the next year?
Education technology has been deployed in a piecemeal fashion to serve a variety of specialized needs. Together, the promise is immense. Separately, confusion and frustration can ensue. The key, in my view, is systems integration to create an increasingly coherent digital learning environment that complements the physical classroom. However, this takes time. I’m less interested in new features and functionality and more enthusiastic about what happens to the teacher’s workload when core, intervention, and supplemental solutions work in harmony to ease the teacher’s burden. There will be progress next year, but it will be of an evolutionary nature, not revolutionary. You might not even notice it.
With the increased use of education technology, how can we help keep teachers from burning out and ensure that technology enhances, rather than complicates, their instructional practices?
Teachers have a near-impossible task of educating a class of students with a wide variety of demonstrated performance levels across subjects. The year of a child’s birth is a poor organizing principle. Given that principle is not likely to change any time soon, technology must be deployed thoughtfully to handle the administrative, logistic, and computational work that supports personalization at scale. Automation should absorb time-consuming tasks that teachers are taking home or missing lunch to complete. Let’s empower teachers to get to know their students, to create a vibrant learning environment that goes beyond a universal and rigid scope and sequence with a single subject.
What advice would you give to educators, administrators, and policymakers as they navigate the increasingly complex landscape of educational technology solutions?
Despite daily pressures, try to think long-term. Despite political difference, try to think universally. What is in the best interest of the students today? What is in the best interest of all of us outside of the classroom tomorrow? An educated polity is vital to improving the human experience. We are constantly planting and replanting democracy and the precursors of prosperity in the minds of the next generation. For it to take root, flourish, and grow, there must be constancy of purpose. It’s through the lens of that purpose that we can evaluate new technologies to determine if they serve or, perversely, demand servitude. Technology in isolation is neutral. Only in the context of human wants and needs can we determine if a technology is useful or harmful.
How can K-12 schools address concerns of the digital divide, especially when it comes to equitable access to devices, internet connectivity, and high-quality content?
It begins with measurement. Don’t assume national headlines reflect your local reality. Take time to understand the computing environment across buildings and between the homes of your students. We should neither assume a problem nor that there isn’t one. Once you know the state of things, administrators can go to work with trusted technology partners to close known gaps. Today, with the near ubiquity of devices and high-speed connectivity, there’s no reason to leave anyone out. This requires communication and cooperation between home and school. With respect to high-quality content, take the time to understand the differences between solutions. The lower the quality, the more grandiose the promises.
Since going viral with her “Gen Z history” TikTok series, teacher Lauren Cella is using her platform to advocate for strategically utilizing — not restricting — technology in the classroom.
How did you get started in your career in teaching, and what led you to start sharing your journey on social media?
I didn’t initially plan on teaching. I studied journalism at San Diego State, inspired by movies featuring magazine editors. I later chose history as a minor just for fun. After college, I pursued journalism, but I eventually tried substitute teaching, loved it, and got my credential in history.
During COVID, my students encouraged me to post lessons on TikTok, where I shared content in a humorous, easy-to-understand way. My Russian Revolution video went viral, which led me to keep creating these quick, story-like history lessons. I love reaching people worldwide and making history engaging. My videos are only about a minute long, which helps with attention spans, although I know they simplify complex topics. My hope is these videos spark curiosity, encouraging viewers to explore history further.
What are some emerging trends in technology that you think are shaping the future of education or that you have used in your classroom to engage students?
AI is a major topic in education now, especially around how its used and the ethics of it. Initially, my school blocked ChatGPT but then allowed it when teachers started using it to adapt lessons for different reading levels or languages. In my journalism class, we discussed the ethics of AI. My students agreed it wasn’t ethical to let AI write an article for them, but they saw value in using it to generate interview questions. These discussions highlight that we can’t avoid new technologies — we need input from students, teachers, and administrators to navigate them responsibly.
Companies like Adobe are creating student-friendly versions of AI tools, helping ease the burden on teachers. I also use AI to caption videos, which saves time. Students heading into creative fields need to learn these tools, as AI proficiency is essential. Just as learning to type or use email became necessary, so will understanding AI.
Do you have any advice for balancing the benefits of technology with the need for face-to-face interaction in the classroom?
Teaching during the pandemic proved technology can’t replace teachers. Students need human connection. While tech has its place, it should be used to build specific skills, not just replace traditional methods. For example, students should still use a pen and paper daily, as it activates different brain functions and builds motor skills. Using technology in class should go beyond digitizing worksheets; it should add real value, like using AI in art to analyze creative elements. Ultimately, tech should support, not replace, essential hands-on learning for students’ overall development.
Do you have any tips for teachers looking to stay organized and efficient so they can focus on engaging their students in the classroom?
My biggest advice: Don’t grade everything. It’s okay to assign work as practice without grading it. Focus on priority standards — what students truly need to know — and build multiple assignments into one when possible. Trying to do it all leads to burnout without improving student outcomes. Start small, establish routines, and add more gradually to avoid overwhelming yourself and your students.
Is there any technology that you recommend that helps with the behind-the-scenes side of teaching, like lesson planning and grading?
I recommend using tools like Illuminate and Google Classroom extensions like Brisk and Magic School to manage data effectively. For one-to-one schools, Google offers many helpful extensions, and programs like IXL provide valuable insights. The key is to focus on areas where students struggle most, using data to streamline your lesson planning. With large classes, pulling reports helps make sense of data and can guide your approach without being overwhelming.
Are there any key digital safety practices that teachers should be implementing to protect students online?
It’s challenging when schools block tools like ChatGPT or YouTube, as they can also be valuable educational resources. We’re at a crossroads and need more digital citizenship education to teach students about online risks and the lasting consequences of their actions. Many students don’t realize that certain online behaviors, like sharing inappropriate images, can have serious legal consequences. They’re also vulnerable to scams, online blackmail, and bullying, particularly on group chats and gaming platforms. Parents should be aware that even if kids aren’t on social media, they’re still interacting with others online. We must educate young people on these dangers, as laws haven’t fully caught up to technology. Parents, teachers, and students need to support each other, staying vigilant and reporting harmful situations online just as they would in real life.
Do you have any advice for teachers who are facing burnout or mental health struggles right now?
It’s not you; it’s the system. You’re not doing anything wrong, and you can’t change everything on your own. If you burn out, they’ll replace you, but students benefit from experienced teachers. High turnover isn’t good for schools or students.
Social media can distort reality, making it seem like everyone is angry and divided. In reality, most people are not like that. Social media algorithms promote outrage, which skews our perception of others. Many teachers online appear to have perfect classrooms, but that’s often not the case — they face the same challenges as everyone else. I try to share positive experiences to stay motivated, but I’ve encountered many difficulties that I don’t discuss publicly.
It’s also easy for students to idolize influencers, but most of what they see online is curated and not real. They should focus on real-life skills instead of just consuming online content. Encourage students to engage in offline activities like sports, arts, or social groups to foster real interactions. For example, in my classroom, I limit phone use during free time to promote conversations and social skills.
To support students academically, tools like Canva and Google Classroom can help organize assignments and instructions in one place. This is important because students juggle multiple classes and responsibilities. They need resources to manage their workload effectively, like accessible rubrics and checklists. Technology allows students to take ownership of their learning, especially during emergencies. Teaching them to use project management tools can build important skills. At my school, we even grade time management alongside project quality. Overall, digital organization and project management are valuable skills for students and teachers alike.
