Serial inspiring teachers to use podcasts in the classroom

Teachers across America are being inspired by the sweeping success of the Serial podcast, and are starting to use podcasts as a learning tool, to “deepen and refresh student learning”. One high school teacher in Washington recently had her English students create podcasts instead of writing assignments: “Just like a paper, a podcast needs a beginning, middle and end…You have to have a hook and an introduction with context. You have to introduce your interviews and you have to be able to decide, what chunk of this interview I'm going to take so it makes sense –? kind of like evidence from a novel that you put in a paper" she says. Students were asked to form groups, then pick from a relevant topic, like illegal immigration or transgender issues, and according to the teacher, making a podcast brought new life to a traditional research project.  

Podcasts are all the rage, and some imaginative high school teachers are introducing their students to the medium in class.

Nancy Branom, an English teacher at Edmonds-Woodway High School in Washington, recently had her writer's workshop class make podcasts.

Her colleague, librarian Karen Rautenberg, introduced her to the popular public radio podcast "Serial." Then, Rautenberg suggested the two do a podcast assignment with Branom's class.

Branom says the outcome was basically a research paper in the form of a podcast.

But it was also a story – because podcasts demand storytelling – and that made the project different from a typical research paper, Rautenberg adds.

Just like a paper, a podcast needs a beginning, middle and end, Branom says. "You have to have a hook and an introduction with context. You have to introduce your interviews and you have to be able to decide, well, what chunk of this interview I'm going to take so it makes sense – kind of like evidence from a novel that you put in a paper."

The students worked on teams to create the podcasts and choose a topic they wanted to cover, like illegal immigration and transgender issues, she says. They had to do research on the topic and find sources to interview.

But before students started recording, they listened to podcasts at home to get familiar with the medium.

Teachers looking for podcasts appropriate for teens may want to check out these suggestions from School Library Journal.

Find out how high school teachers are guiding students into self-publishing.

And teachers who don't want to dive into facilitating a podcast production assignment just yet could have students listen to podcasts in the classroom to work on listening skills, like the teachers featured in this post from Mindshift.

Teachers can also consult this blog by a teacher using "Serial" in class for ideas, or check out this post from Edutopia with resources on using and creating podcasts in the classroom.

Rautenberg, the librarian in Washington, says students mainly used their phones and Chromebooks to create the podcasts. They used an audio editing software called Beautiful Audio Editor, which some students struggled with.

Teachers can rely on their students, she says, since they probably know more about technology then them and can help out other students.

"What happened recently is that technology has progressed enough to put a production studio into the hands of every student. With a smart phone, my students can record an audio podcast or even shoot a documentary film," said John Herman, an English Language Arts teacher at Epping High School in New Hampshire, in an email.

He assigned his sophomore honors nonfiction students an audio assignment. His class podcast is based on the radio program "This American Life," except it's about their small town in New Hampshire, he said.

"One of my goals as a teacher is empower students to become media literate. Back in the day, that meant studying mainstream media messages, but now students can take a hands-on approach," he says. "They actually go out into the community and give people the opportunity to tell their own stories. They solidly connect their learning to the real world."

Branom's students in Washington had to keep a diary and write a reflection on the project. She says her students were surprised at how different the spoken word is from writing.

"It creates a much more emotional punch often than writing does and they were amazed at that," she says. "And that the music and how you have to really hook your listener in, like all those elements that they discovered through listening to podcasts. But I can tell you, across the board, they thought it was amazing."