Celebrating excellence in education: Meet the 2023 Yidan Prize Laureates

Yidan Prize Foundation has announced the 2023 laureates for the Yidan Prize, the biggest award in education.

Shai Reshef, president and founder of the online, tuition-free University of the People, and Arizona State University professor and researcher Michelene Chi, who has developed a framework to improve how students learn, are the 2023 winners of The Yidan Prize.

Meet the 2023 Yidan Prize for Education Research Laureate

Professor Michelene Chi, Regents Professor & Dorothy Bray Endowed Professor of Science and Teaching, Arizona State University

Professor Michelene Chi’s work forms some of the backbone of modern cognitive science. She analyzes and organizes theories about teaching and learning—deepening our understanding of how students learn and how to build teaching practice around them.

Michelene’s groundbreaking ICAP model (Interactive, Constructive, Active, and Passive), offers educators a detailed picture of learning styles—one that synthesizes and explains decades of research in this area. And it gives them a robust framework to foster critical and creative thinking in classrooms around the world, from foundation stages to further education.

Meet the 2023 Yidan Prize for Education Development Laureate

Shai Reshef, President and Founder, University of the People

University of the People is the first tuition-free, non-profit, accredited American online university. Under Shai Reshef’s leadership, the institution offers historically marginalized students a more accessible route to quality higher education—and the employment opportunities that follow.

UoPeople’s ultra low cost model brings together all the flexibility of online learning—at the student’s pace, fitting around life and work commitments—with elements of a traditional university experience. Like small class sizes of just 25, and a dedicated advisor.

UoPeople now serves 126,000 students in 200 countries. Three quarters are from resource-constrained areas with a shortage of university places, refugees, or internally displaced people.