What We Learned: Our 2025 Era

With the final days of 2025 approaching, we are reflecting on what we learned from the many articles, videos, social posts, and conversations that we produced this year. Here are a few we wanted to share.

We learned people really want to know about AI. Our most popular story published in 2025 featured tips for using AI from grad students and professors. An interview with AI researcher and Assistant Professor Ying Xu was our fifth most-visited page this year. Another popular story explored AI ethics, and a Usable Knowledge story from September of last year about what students think adults should know about AI was actually the most-visited page of 2025.

No, really. AI was everywhere. Even in Askwith Hall. Our most-read Askwith Education Forum recap featured Professor Howard Gardner hosting a conversation about the future of education in an AI-augmented world, while a follow-up Forum explored classroom applications of the buzz-worthy technology. 

We also learned that human stories still matter, especially at Askwith events. Popular non-AI Askwith coverage included a piece about the Department of Education’s “uncertain future,” which detailed how cuts impact the civil rights of students around the country. We also wrote about U.S. Special Olympics chair Tim Shriver’s visit to Appian Way and his discussion on universal dignity, and how pandemic learning loss is still a hot-button issue

The Department of Education was also a popular topic for our podcast series — by a long shot. The Harvard EdCast episode with Professor Martin West that ran in February tackled the beleaguered department’s responsibilities, the misconceptions surrounding its influence, and the historical and political forces that have shaped its existence. To date, that episode has had nearly 70,000 listeners.

We learned that some of the best student and faculty stories happen when we leave campus. One of our most popular videos this year focused on Dinners, Dilemmas, and Debates, affectionately known as 3D, a fun extracurricular where faculty open up their homes to small groups of Ed School students to have thought-provoking conversations around the dinner table and in cozy living rooms, without pressure but with good food.

We learned that we like to write about kids — and use words like kids, children, and students in our headlines. Since the academic year started, we’ve published news, Usable Knowledge pieces, Ed. magazine stories, and EdCast episodes about how to better understand migrant children, why kids do better when they feel they matter, how politics is less partisan when it comes to getting kids off on the right foot, how curiosity unlocks learning for every child in school, lots about students and reading, and a story about how science teachers usually start out as science kids.  

We learned that our alumni readers still like print! In November, Ed. magazine conducted a survey of readers and found that an overwhelming majority — 77% — read the print version of the magazine and that 66% said they would miss print and would read less if the magazine were digital-only.

Speaking of the magazine, we learned that some topics never lose their appeal. Our story on what the federal government is actually in charge of came out in 2017 and is still one of the top-read magazine stories, coming in at #4. A piece published in 2012 on the homework debate — keep homework, get rid of homework — ranks at #6. And our story from 2018 about why it’s critical to think about toilets and sanitation in schools around the world, based on research from then-student Anjali Adukia, Ed.M.’03, Ed.M.’12, Ed.D.’14, is still the magazine’s seventh most-read story.

On our social media channels, the Howard Gardner Askwith about AI was one of our most popular videos on YouTube ever. Images from our commencement coverage topped our Instagram posts this year, while a post about the Harvard Gazette’s profile of Associate Professor Nadine Gaab garnered more than 220,000 views. HGSE’s LinkedIn page continues to grow as faculty and students share our stories. Our most popular post this year, in fact, was a collection of students celebrating their admission to the Ed School!

We also learned it’s never too late to change. In a video profile from this past summer, Joanna Chou, Ed.M.’25, shared that after spending a decade working in the corporate world, she realized she wanted to do something more meaningful. Last fall, Chou enrolled in the Human Development and Education master’s program with a very meaningful goal: help high school students find purpose in their work beyond grades and lectures.

We learned that sometimes a good story gets missed, so here are a few of our favorites that deserve another look: This piece introduces a new “direct admissions” pilot project from Making Caring Common and the state of Tennessee that goes one step further — it also lets students know up front how much financial aid they could get from the colleges that automatically accept them. Our profile of Satyam Mishra, Ed.M.’25, the 2025 winner of the Phyllis Strimling Award, brings in teaching, mythical places, and magic. And a story about new research from the Center on the Developing Child that stresses the importance of having healthy air in school buildings.

Finally, we learned the impact our faculty have left behind on the HGSE community and the world at large. Sadly, the Ed School added a number of stories to its In Memory page this year: Sociologist and thinker Christopher “Sandy” Jencks, the former figurehead behind HGSE’s Urban Superintendents Program Robert Peterkin, and Lecturer Jacqueline Zeller were all mourned and honored in 2025, along with a number of longtime faculty members who departed in the previous few years.