R&D Unplugged

In this episode, Jean Vassoyan explores a fundamental question in machine learning: how can we design “teacher” algorithms that effectively guide “student” agents?

Using a broad and abstract framework, he connects fields such as Curriculum Learning, Active Learning, and Reinforcement Learning, showing how they share a common mathematical foundation aimed at optimizing learning.

Applied to human education, this approach becomes Adaptive Learning, intelligent tutoring systems that personalize instruction for each learner. By viewing machine and human teaching through a unified lens, Jean invites us to rethink what it truly means to be a teacher and how this role can be defined and formalized in quantitative terms.

Empowering students: how to make digital transition an opportunity for inclusive education?

Empowering students is the cornerstone of inclusive education. To do this, we look at inspiring situations to understand the conditions and context that help teachers grow into inclusive practice. We ask what travels and what needs tailoring – what can be replicated, what must be adapted to local conditions and context, and what should not be copied. In particular, we will address the ambivalent role of digital technology: it can lock in inequities or, when guided on purpose, expand agency and support the sustainability transition.

More about our guest
Muriel Epstein is a researcher in the educational sciences at the EMA laboratory (Ecole Mutations Apprentissage) at CY Cergy Paris University, and is affiliated with the SAMM laboratory (Statistical Analysis and Multidisciplinary Modeling) at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.

After working on school dropout and spatial segregation, her research focuses on digital technology as a possible lever for transforming schools toward greater inclusion. She is particularly interested in the risks of “crystallization” associated with digital technology and in the potential evolution of teachers’ roles and professional stance. She also works on methodological issues and on how qualitative and quantitative methods can be combined in social science research.

Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) affects roughly one child in every classroom. As common as dyslexia yet far less recognized, DCD can significantly impact a child’s daily school experience.

In this episode, Caroline Huron sheds light on the unique challenges faced by children with DCD and explores practical ways to support their learning and inclusion. Drawing from cognitive science research and real-world classroom practice, she highlights how collaboration between researchers, teachers, and children themselves leads to more inclusive and effective educational environments.

The jobs of the future are uncertain, and education is evolving fast. As we move beyond the industrial model toward competency-based learning, how can we empower human-centered education?

In this episode, we explore with Nathan Roberson how advancing 21st Century Competencies - like creativity, collaboration, and critical thinking - can make education truly transformative. He shares insights from Beyond Education’s development of innovative tools to assess and support these future-ready skills.

While the path ahead is full of tensions, it also holds immense opportunity. Together, we imagine an education system that not only prepares learners for work, but helps them shape a more sustainable and compassionate future.

In this episode of R&D Unplugged, we explore together with Prof. Shawn Ginwright how institutions can better support young people who have experienced harm. While trauma-informed care is a vital framework, he shows why it can be incomplete - often creating blind spots that limit healing. Blending research with personal stories, Dr. Ginwright highlights how racial and social inequality compound trauma and why a new vision is needed.

He introduces Healing Centered Engagement, an approach that expands beyond trauma-informed care by shifting systems from harm, discipline, and punishment toward restoration, hope, and well-being. This episode invites educators, practitioners, and policymakers to reimagine institutions as spaces not just of intervention, but of renewal - where resilience, joy, and thriving become possible.