Professor Yong Zhao

Educational change pioneer, distinguished professor, and creative. University of Kansas and Melbourne Graduate School of Education.

About

Zhao was born in China’s Sichuan Province. He received his B.A. in English Language Education from Sichuan Institute of Foreign Languages in Chongqing, China in 1986. His first foray into education was as an English provision teacher in China for six years. He travelled to the US to Linfield College as a visiting scholar in 1992. He then began his graduate studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1993. He received his master’s in education in 1994 and further his Ph.D. in 1996. He joined the faculty at Michigan State University in 1996 after working as the Language Centre Coordinator at Willamette University and a language specialist at Hamilton College.

He currently presides as the Foundation Distinguished Professor in the School of Education at the University of Kansas and a professor in Educational Leadership at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education in Australia. 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 Centre for Teaching and Technology, executive director of the Confucius Institute, as well as the US-China Centre for Research on Educational Excellence. He is an elected member of the National Academy of Education and a fellow of the International Academy of Education.

Yong Zhao’s groundbreaking work over the last thirty years has not gone unrecognized. He has received numerous awards including the Early Career Award from the American Educational Research Association, Outstanding Public Educator from Horace Mann League of USA, and Distinguished Achievement Award in Professional Development from the Association of Education Publishers. One of the most influential scholars alive today, do not miss this opportunity to experience his expertise first-hand.

Publications

Professor Zhao is a prolific writer of over 30 books and more than 100 articles, a brief selection would include:

– World Class Learners: Educating Creative and Entrepreneurial Students (2021)

– What Works May Hurt: Side Effects in Education (2018)

– Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Dragon?: Why China Has the Best (and Worst) Education System in the World (2014)

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