The Harriet W. Sheridan Center for Teaching and Learning

Teaching with Podcasts

The pandemic has had more and more of us reaching for news, stories, and music that we can listen to on-demand, making podcasts more popular than ever before. But podcasts aren’t just a source for news and entertainment—they can also play a useful role in teaching.

Walking Workshop

Want to listen to this newsletter while driving or taking a walk? You can link to an audio version.

A “podcast” is a digital audio file made available for download on either a computer or a mobile device. It is a portmanteau of “iPod” and “broadcast,” from the days when Apple’s portable digital audio players were popular. An experiment at Duke University is often considered the first major introduction of podcasts into higher education teaching. In the Fall of 2004, Duke distributed free iPods to all 1,650 incoming first-year students for both educational and personal use. A year later, a study found that seventy-five percent of this incoming class used their iPods for at least one course, either for in-class activities or for independent work at home. Nearly 50 courses across the university integrated the devices into their course design, with both student- and faculty-produced podcasts as an element of these courses (Read, 2005).

I decided that for both of my Fall courses...I was going to incorporate podcasts into every single week of the syllabus. I did it because I realized that there was now a way to insert a degree of humanity into my courses where I could acknowledge the pandemic for the students. I could encourage them to get outside and walk while they listen to their podcast. I encouraged them to use this as a time to rejuvenate themselves as they continue learning and engaging with the material at a different kind of register than just reading.

Nancy Khalek Religious Studies

Now, seventeen years later, many instructors at Brown and elsewhere have found that podcasts have become a significant part of their daily lives. A 2020 Edison Research study suggests that seventy-five percent of people ages 12+ in the United States are familiar with podcasts, up five percent from the previous year (Edison Research, 2020). Many instructors at Brown and elsewhere have found podcasts to be a useful tool for teaching and learning. Course-integrated podcasts have been shown to have benefits to equity and inclusion, student collaboration, student motivation, and content retention (e.g. Lonn & Teasley, 2009; Stoltenkamp et al, 2011; Widodo & Gunawan, 2019). Not only are students familiar consumers of podcasts, many already have the basic technological skills required to produce podcasts (Campbell, 2005). Some instructors are also experienced producers of podcasts, having already used this medium to discuss their research with audiences beyond the academy. 

This newsletter will explore two ways to teach with podcasts: through instructor-produced podcasts and through student-produced podcasts. It will discuss a number of ways to use podcasts as a way of increasing student equity in the classroom, and as a way to enhance learning outcomes. It will also offer a number of campus resources for instructors who want to use podcasts in their courses.

Sheridan Center staff are available to support faculty who wish to integrate podcasts into their courses. Email the Sheridan Center or see the Sheridan staff directory to schedule a consultation.

Instructors who are interested in integrating audio production skills for student podcast assignments can reach out to Multimedia Labs at mml@brown.edu for a consultation. 

Thank you to Megan Hall (Adjunct Lecturer in Environment and Society, Institute at Brown for Environment and Society) and the Sheridan Center staff for their input on this newsletter article. Thanks also to Maggie Unverzagt Goddard (PhD candidate, American Studies and graduate proctor, Cogut Institute for the Humanities) for her input and for compiling a list of podcasting resources at Brown.

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Sources

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Stoltenkamp, J., Mapuva, J., Khumalo, Y., & Kies, C. (2011). Rolling out podcasting to enhance teaching and learning: A case of the University of the Western Cape. International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning, 8(1): 1-21.

Widodo, M.R., Gunawan, A. (2019). Investigating the effect of using podcasts on students’ listening comprehension. Lingua: Jurnal Pendidikan Bahasa, 15(1): 35-42.