Clear thinking about education’s next turn.
Trending In Ed treats education as a live system shaped by technology, family life, and social change. Its conversations move from origin stories to practical consequences, giving school-world debates enough room to breathe.
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Trending In Ed is an education show for people who think the future of learning is too important to reduce to slogans. It moves carefully. A typical conversation starts with a guest’s professional path, then widens into the systems, incentives, and cultural pressures shaping schools, colleges, families, and work. Recent episodes return often to AI, but the show’s interest is less about novelty than consequence. What happens to reasoning when fast mediocre output is everywhere? How should schools protect manual thinking while still using new tools well? What does parent communication look like when families are already sorting through paper notices, emails, robocalls, and school messages? Those questions sit alongside discussions of math reform, climate education, higher education crisis readiness, and long-range forecasts about population, productivity, and optimism. The show is comfortable with policy language, but it rarely stays abstract for long. Guests are nudged toward examples: a campus issues heat map, a child’s backpack full of school notices, a math problem that reveals creativity instead of one right answer. Live conference episodes bring a more public rhythm, especially the March Madness of Learning Trends conversations from SXSW EDU. The tone can be warm, dry, or mildly urgent, but it usually returns to a practical point. There is a reform-minded streak here, especially in the belief that schools can be hubs for community, opportunity, and clearer thinking. Still, the show tends to resist easy certainty. It is more interested in nuance: technology as thinking partner, optimism as strategy, and education change as something lived by teachers, parents, students, and institutional leaders. For listeners in K-12, higher ed, edtech, or workforce learning, Trending In Ed offers a steady map of the arguments currently shaping the field.
Made for: For educators, school and campus leaders, edtech builders, policy-minded parents, and learning professionals who want context-rich conversations about where education is heading.
What sets it apart: The show connects big trend language to concrete institutional details, moving from AI and demographics to parent inboxes, math classrooms, crisis protocols, and conference-floor debates.
At the intersection of learning, media, and the future of work, join us each week as we sense and discover where the future of education is heading. Join host Mike Palmer, the Founder of Palmer Media, as he engages with thought leaders, pioneers, and entrepreneurs exploring the cutting edge of learning in these tumultuous times.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Trending In Ed makes education's institutional choices legible through conversations about risk, productivity, technology, teaching, and implementation.
Mike Palmer keeps returning education's biggest questions to the decisions underneath them: what schools should teach, how institutions prepare for crises, and where AI can reduce constraints without replacing judgment.
Mike Palmer makes optimism defend itself, then asks AI what it is doing to classrooms.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Jeremy Singer connects AI speed, organizational agility, and evidence-led education media.
Jeremy Singer's path through education technology gives the conversation its practical spine. With 25 years across startups, large companies, sold startups, and nonprofits, he brings the topic back to how organizations actually change.
A SXSW EDU panel that keeps AI, access, and human judgment in the same frame.
Trending in Education's SXSW EDU panel frames classroom technology as a question of human capital, access, and the mood of the moment. Mike Palmer and panelists A.J.
A practical look at how campuses map risk before trouble starts.
This piece gives higher ed crisis management a practical frame, with Jeff Hunt bringing a global communications career shaped by crisis and issues work. It stays focused on how universities can assess readiness, spot gaps, and think through likely trouble before it grows.
A grounded case for teaching math as creative judgment, with school reform connected to stronger communities and a better economy.
The episode frames math education as preparation for a world shaped by technology, uncertainty, and high-stakes choices. Ted Dintersmith builds that case through sharp classroom contrasts: spending hours proving cosine squared plus sine squared theta equals one versus learning…
A clear, fact-led case for treating demographic decline as a reason to rethink work, productivity, and participation.
Forecasting 2100 frames population change as an economic question: what happens when the demographic dividend runs out. Chris Bradley, a senior partner at McKinsey and director of the McKinsey Global Institute, traces how lower birth rates are aging societies and thinning the…
A grounded look at how cost and feedback shape one AI approach to teacher development.
Educational innovation is framed as a practical allocation problem: how schools can give teachers better feedback when coaching is costly, and when time and instructional know-how both affect learning.
A live South by Southwest EDU panel connects AI's classroom limits to access, relationships, and strategic optimism.
Trending in Education's live South by Southwest EDU conversation looks at education through human capital, wider technology access, and the discipline needed to keep optimism grounded. Mike Palmer, A.J.
School leadership notes and a firm case for public schools
Student radio with a community pulse.
Steady counsel for school leaders.
Host Mike Palmer leads a live panel at SXSW EDU with guests AJ Gutierrez, Jasmine Mays, and Justin Serrano to discuss the 'March Madness of Learning Trends' bracket.
David Adams, CEO of The Urban Assembly, joins Trending In Ed to discuss innovation in public education.
This episode features an interview with authors Liz City and Rachel Curtis about their new book on strategic leadership in K12 education, focusing on balancing urgency with long-term planning to achieve ambitious goals.
This episode features an interview with Sunanna Chand, Executive Director of the Reinvention Lab at Teach for America, discussing her background and the innovative work in education.
This episode features an interview with author Scott R.
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The panel opens in Austin as South by Southwest EDU gets underway.
Jeff Hunt brings a global career and a higher ed lens to the conversation.
This episode of Trending in Education announces the Final Four in their March Madness-style bracket of learning trends, featuring a discussion on AI in education and reflections from South by Southwest EDU.
This episode explores how AI and technology are transforming parent-school communication in K-12 education, featuring Anu Vaid, founder of ParentSquare, who shares her journey from a working parent to creating solutions for better family engagement.
Ted Dintersmith, author of Aftermath and filmmaker behind Most Likely to Succeed, tells Mike Palmer that school still rewards routine math while AI can already grade and solve it.
Chris Bradley says AI is most valuable when it makes humans “the wheel,” not when it replaces them.
This episode features an interview with Margaret Wang-Aganya, co-founder of Subject to Climate, discussing how teachers can lead climate education initiatives in K-12 schools.
This episode marks the 700th milestone of Trending in Education and introduces a new sub-feed called Trending in Ed AI, focusing on the intersection of education and artificial intelligence, featuring virtual co-host Nancy.