The Perfect Harmony between Ears – Podcasts in Higher Education
Education is timeless.
Podcasts are new, exciting, and increasingly popular ways of learning.
Do educational podcasts exist? Yes, but why aren’t they more widely used?
Today, we’ll be looking at how this medium of communication can more effectively be used by students and teachers alike. Meanwhile, we introduce a new open educational resource — the Classic Management Murder Podcast Series.
Why aren’t podcasts used more widely in Higher Ed?
Their main reason is this:
The focus is on synchronous meetings — what we mean by this is that education at every stage has relied heavily (even during the pandemic) on learning in an environment where the student and the teacher are occupying the same space at the same time. The Coronavirus Pandemic has simply digitized this process, but the focus remains on human interactivity and new instructional designs as a key part of formal and informal learning processes.
Whilst there are numerous benefits to synchronous learning that does not mean that asynchronous and decentralised learning — whereby a student can learn on their own, in their own time, and from different sources — does not also enjoy benefits.
In fact, we want to make the case today that decentralised learning via podcasts currently enjoys many benefits that we think makes it a worthwhile endeavour as the pandemic runs its course.
What we have learned so far is that learning does not only take place in the classroom alone. The content developed for your learners can and should benefit also other students and teachers out there in the world.
This is precisely the approach: I want to unravel nothing less than my journey as a teacher, learner, and researcher.
The Benefits of Podcast Learning:
There are many advantages in using podcasts in your learning design:
Recap after lectures — because students have a recording that they can listen to in their own time, this makes it easy for them to recap certain elements they enjoyed or need to learn more about over and over again, in their own time.
Providing additional material — more flexibility with time means that podcasts can be packed with useful additional resources that students can learn at their own pace.
The flipped classroom — part of the new hybrid learning that the pandemic has brought about, ensuring both physical and online students have all consumed the same podcast is a good way of blending the “flipped” class and creating continuity between the two types of students.
As detailed research material — podcasts can be used as part of research assignments in which students should interpret and analyse both qualitative and quantitative empirical data.
A familiar voice — various studies show that if students can learn to recognise the voice of the speaker it will be easier to understand and have other learning benefits.
‘Have your say’ podcasts — students can create their own podcasts to get in touch with other fellow students and with their teachers at the uni.
Of course, that is not to suggest podcast learning is without its drawbacks: no method of learning is perfect, and there is little evidence to suggest that conducting podcasts enhances a teachers ability to teach. It is likely, then, that the quality of learning from podcasts will be inconsistent and depend on the talent of the teacher.
The Top 5 Inspirational Educational Podcasts
We’ve searched far and wide for educational podcasts that we recommend to a student, and are happy to share these below in a by-no-means-exhaustive shortlist of my Top 5 podcasts out there (we recommend enjoying as many podcasts as possible):
Future U — this podcast is all about — you guessed it — the future of education and what it might look like, featuring interviews with influential people in the field.
Teaching in Higher Ed — includes over 200 episodes on the topic we’re learning about today!
EdTech Podcast — if you’re interested in how technology is changing education for better or worse (but mostly better) then this is the podcast for you!
Talking About Organisations Podcast — wonderful conversations on org theory, covering a range of critical topics/readings that define organisation and management studies — Listen in!
History of Philosophy — listeners are taken through the history of philosophy, “without any gaps.” This beautifully crafted series looks at the ideas, lives and historical context of the major philosophers as well as the lesser-known figures.
The Podcast Managing Around
To stay up to date with exciting news about Managing Around — The Podcast About Social Sciences, Culture and Management, you can follow also this bi-weekly educational podcast about Social Science, Culture and Management.
The host of the show is Dr Maik Arnold, Professor for Social Work Management at the University of Applied Sciences Dresden (@ProfManagement at Twitter and Instagram) who talks about pressing issues in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, Social Work Management, Management History and Culture.
Unlike other podcasts, Managing Around takes a transdisciplinary approach and views management phenomena through the lens of social sciences and humanities.
Besides, it is the only podcast, so far, that also covers works and themes in social science poetry. Managing Around is part of the Talking About Organisations Podcast Network – a network that helps to foster, develop, and disseminate research and conversations about management and organization studies and which provides groundbreaking content, easily accessible, and impactful in those disciplines.
The Classical Management Murder Podcast Series
Only recently, I started to create and share Open Educational Resources (OER). OER are another useful tool in the armoury of educators.
Like Managing Around, they are openly licensed so that anyone can use, reuse, share, revise, remix and redistribute them. They are freely available and free of charge.
With the Classic Management Murder Podcast Series, we contribute to this aim.
If you’re a fan of crime, mystery, science, and analysis, then you won’t want to miss this upcoming, compelling podcast series, Classic Management Murder. These short episodes are perfect snippets of educational and intriguing fun that will captivate their listeners and have you vying for more.
With six acts altogether, this series goes into the mysterious murder of Frederick Taylor, and the investigation by researcher-turned-detective Lillian Moller Gilbreth. It begs the mean question of inquiry, regarding the „unfinished business“ that Taylor mentioned before his death. You will also be able to enjoy a lightweight lesson about the classical management schools featuring renowned engineers, researchers, and theorists: Frederick W. Taylor, Henri Fayol, Frank B. and Lillian M. Gilbreth, and Max Weber. While examining these figures and the fictional murder they were involved in, you can also expect this series to give a wonderful listening experience that you’ll want to enjoy again and again!
This innovative podcast series will be published in April 2021. It will be freely available and accessible to the public and accompanied by a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) project to support the development of students’ practical knowledge and transferable skills.
Happy learning!
