BRAD OLSEN
Senior fellow, Brookings Institution, Washington DC
Professor of education emeritus, University of California, Santa Cruz
Email: Bolsen@brookings.edu
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Read Olsen's 2025 commentary on How to avoid past edtech pitfalls as we begin using AI in education
"Artificial intelligence—both reactive AI and generative AI (including large language models)—may be categorically different in kind, degree, and impact from prior digital revolutions, but we can still predict some implications for its upcoming use in scaling education impact. This blog sets the context and offers some learnings from the recent past."
Public lecture (April, 2025): Scaling Promising Education Initiatives Locally & Around the World
Had the pleasure of visiting Brookings Mountain West/University of Las Vegas, Nevada, recently. Amid a busy week of discussions about education policy, scaling, and the teaching profession, I had the opportunity to give a talk, drawing from the GPE-KIX, Brookings-ROSIE research.
Check out the talk and the great Q&A here.2026: Read the newly released research report on Unlocking the potential of middle-tier education governance for scaling impact in low- and middle-income countries. Olsen B. et al (2025). Washington DC: Brookings Institution.
Most recent book: Teaching for Success (2016, 2nd ed.)
Olsen's book, Teaching for Success: Developing your Teacher Identity in Today's Classroom, 2nd edition (2016, Routledge Publishers) provides a professional learning experience for prospective, new, and experienced educators on how to recognize, adjust, and maximize the many ways your personal self and professional self become integrated in your teaching identity.
FreshEd podcast episode (2023) with Brad Olsen on Government Decision-making for Education Around the World:
Will Brehm: "Today we dig into the ways in which governments in low- and middle-income countries make decisions on education. What interventions work and which should be scaled? My guest is Brad Olsen. As he shows, these questions are a lot more complex than we might think..." Find the episode here.And click here for the accompanying research report: Government decision-making on education in low- and middle-income countries: Understanding the fit among innovation, scaling strategy, and broader environment
Will Brehm: "Today we dig into the ways in which governments in low- and middle-income countries make decisions on education. What interventions work and which should be scaled? My guest is Brad Olsen. As he shows, these questions are a lot more complex than we might think..." Find the episode here.And click here for the accompanying research report: Government decision-making on education in low- and middle-income countries: Understanding the fit among innovation, scaling strategy, and broader environment
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