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Continue reading →: What If We Have Been Improving the Wrong Education?
Education Is Too Important to Leave Unchanged — Post 1 I have often been asked: Which country has the best education system? My response is usually another question: Best for what? Producing high test scores? Sending students to prestigious universities? Developing unique talents? Preparing competitive workers? Or cultivating people capable…
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Continue reading →: Giving Learning Back to Learners: Time, Space, and Autonomy in the Age of AI
A summary of an article published in 2025. Schools do not only decide what students should learn. They also decide when, where, how long, with whom, and often how students should learn. A prescribed curriculum fills the timetable. Pedagogy organizes how that curriculum is delivered. Activities determine what students do.…
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Continue reading →: AI Won’t Transform Education Unless Schools Change
I wrote this article about two years ago and here is a summary. Artificial intelligence has arrived in education with extraordinary speed. Since the release of ChatGPT, schools have been flooded with conferences, workshops, books, and advice about how teachers and students should use AI. But much of this conversation…
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Continue reading →: The Courage to Act: Confronting Resistance and Creating New Possibilities for Learning with AI: Reflections from a Global Courageous Minority Meeting | October 2026
This is a summary of the 2nd meeting in October of the Courageous Minority group. I have kept it long because it shows what our members are doing and thinking, which I hope can serve as excellent examples for others. Educational transformation is difficult. Even when teachers, school leaders, and…
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Continue reading →: Changing Education from Within: Practical Possibilities and Constraints in the Age of AI
Reflections from October Global Courageous Minority Meeting 1 on Oct. 18. Transforming education in the age of artificial intelligence requires much more than recognizing that schools need to change. It requires action. But taking action within existing educational systems is not easy. Teachers and school leaders face curriculum requirements, assessment…
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Continue reading →: Why Education Is So Hard to Change—and How Real Transformation Might Begin
I am converting some of my long academic articles into short blog posts using AI. Here is another one. Education is constantly changing. Schools adopt new technologies. Governments rewrite curriculum standards. Teachers learn new pedagogies. Assessment systems are revised. New programs promise creativity, personalized learning, student agency, and 21st-century skills.…
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Continue reading →: AI and Education: It Is Time to End the Grammar of Schooling
I am converting some of my long academic articles into short blog posts using AI. Here is another one. Since the arrival of ChatGPT, discussions about artificial intelligence in education have exploded. Teachers are being shown how AI can generate lesson plans, provide feedback, create quizzes, tutor students, and personalize…
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Continue reading →: AI Won’t Transform Education Unless Schools Change
I am converting some of my long academic articles into short blog posts using AI. Here is the first one. Since ChatGPT appeared in late 2022, artificial intelligence has swept through education. Conferences, workshops, books, webinars, and professional development sessions now promise to show teachers how to use AI to…
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Continue reading →: Beyond Meritocracy: Why Education Should Cultivate Human Interdependence
I am converting some of my long academic articles into short blog posts using AI. Here is the first one. For generations, education has been built around a seemingly reasonable idea: meritocracy. Students who demonstrate more ability, work harder, and achieve more should receive greater opportunities and rewards. Schools operationalize…
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Continue reading →: Fast AI, Slow Learning: Reflections from September Courageous Minority Meeting
This is a fascinating meeting so I have just asked ChatGPT to summarize it without much modification. It is a long post, but definitely worth reading. At our most recent Courageous Minority meeting, we returned to a question that has become increasingly difficult to avoid: If AI can do so…
More about Yong Zhao
Dr. Yong Zhao is a Foundation Distinguished Professor in the School of Education at the University of Kansas. He previously served as the Presidential Chair, Associate Dean, and Director of the Institute for Global and Online Education in the College of Education, University of Oregon, where he was also a Professor in the Department of Educational Measurement, Policy, and Leadership. Prior to Oregon, Yong Zhao was University Distinguished Professor at the College of Education, Michigan State University, where he also served as the founding director of the Center for Teaching and Technology, executive director of the Confucius Institute, as well as the US-China Center for Research on Educational Excellence. Additionally, he worked as a professor of educational leadership in the Faculty of Education at University of Melbourne and senior researcher at the Mitchell Institute of Victoria University in Australia. He was a visiting Global Professor at University of Bath and a visiting scholar at Warwick University in the UK.
Selection of Books
