Teaching thread. One of you wonderful people gave me the bold idea of using podcasts (the creation of one) as an assignment. Whoever you are, I can't thank you enough. I'll admit, there were times were I worried I was CRAZY to assign something like this, but it has worked out
wonderfully! Let me say, for the 1st time in my teaching career, I am hearing the academic voices of ALL my students. I have finally found a format that all students seem comfortable and capable in. I had a feeling it was working well, bc I wasn't receiving any freak out emails
as they came due, but they are even better than I expected. Now, you may be wondering, exactly, what did I have them do? Well, these are intro to amer gov students. I had them work in pairs on topics after I gave them a list of about 25 topics and they chose their top 3. Their
goal was to produce a 30 min pod on a public policy issue that includes 2 interviews w outside "experts" on the topic. AND to start off, I gave each team an assigned article on the topic so they would have quality, credible factual info to base out from. I then used elements of
the @nytimes podcast teacher's toolkit to teach them about podcasts (most had never listened to one) and how to make a good one. It really didn't involve much! I also didn't have out-sized or unreasonable expectations on the production-end of the podcast. If they spliced in
audio clips from the news, or music, great, it made the pod cool, but if they didn't that was OK too. But the great part was that bc they were talking only to their partners and to their computers, they came completely out of their shells & they learned! I could literally hear
them learning! Plus, I can grade them while driving, or cleaning. Its a win-win. Can't wait to adapt this now for my major courses too.
