podcast assignment

--- tags: sarah --- # podcast assignment ## pedagogy: why podacst? This assignment would use the form of the podcast to replace an undergraduate research paper as their final assessment. The basics underlying goals would stay the same: the students will pick a topic to investigate, conduct research on the topic, and present this information with an overlaid argument. The podcast easily allows for multiple perspectives, including alternative arguments and voices. As an assignment, this maintains the basic investigative skills students will need for future academic work, including working with primary and secondary sources; it merely changes the form of content delivery. However, by changing the form, we address 3 critical pedagogical underpinnings: ### 1. Joy in the classroom, excitement from the students Getting students to enjoy what they do in the classroom is effective not only in gaining short-term student participation and buy-in in the classroom, but is also proven to be effective in long-term information retention and building critical thinking skills that can be applied in different situations. **The "essay" as a form of assessment has benefits, but is often tedious for student to create, and time consuming for teachers to grade.** There is no excitement garnered when assigning a traditional research essay: rather, it is a chore. On the other hand, many students enjoy podcasts and consume this type of media in their free time: **by using a *form* more familiar to many of them, the students are not intimidated by the task, and can even get excited about creating a form of media or product they like and think is useful.** ### 2. Accountability for information distribution and a sense of author voice In any field of academic research, issues of academic integrity are of the utmost importance: you must cite sources so your reader knows where information comes from, and how to find it again. However, the ethics of accountability and voice are often not considered at length, but are just as important. **The *form* of a podcast, by nature, is more personal than an academic paper, because the author and other sources and points of view are literally speaking themselves, and not through a disembodied word-processor.** This not only forces the listener of the podcast to engage with the personality of the author and consider that the information presented is given through an authorial lens, no matter how academic. It also makes them consider *who* is speaking. **This also forces the author to take ownership of the information and viewpoints presented** in a way more obvious than in a paper. In a word of fake news and easy information, this is a critical part of academia, journalism, or any type of writing. ### 3. Taking information learned in class beyond the final project The podcast as a form also allows for a more nimble final producst that can be easily accessed and shared after creation. **This also means that not only can students share their product with eachother in a way that is cumbersome with a paper, it has a potentially longer after-life post class. It also makes a product that can easily display, highlight, and celebrate student work.** This can contribute to student feeling like the "learned something" in the class, and serves as a tangible reminder of the "so-what?" question asked about why students are taking a class. ## technical elements * Consider how the students will do the voice recording: will they do this in the LL studios, or on a personal computer? * Will there be a workshop in the LL on mic types and styles of recording? this can also include a tutorial on audio editing, perhaps after students have a small portion of their script ready to be experimented on. **Maybe one of the class's sections could be devoted to script writing, and a follow up section can be a workshop in the LL!** This would not only help the students scaffold their work, but also gives an automatic 2 lesson plans to the TFs in section * what voice/ audio editing system should we use? **audition**, in adobe cc suite: do we have a subscription? **audacity**; free, easy, maybe a little dated? **garageband** on iMac **anchor**, owned by spotify, can be done on a phone or ipad: harder to bring outside recording clips in but an easy general base ### two sessions in the LL will probably be necessary (sections) 1. intro to podcasting moves + getting familiar with the software 2. after workshop, provide them with a write up or links to resources on technical skills 3. workshop material for your project ## content elements * narrative structure and story telling conflict or problem --> resolution or potential options for resolution * evidence layout: primary and secondary sources * a personal element: accountability for voice and information distribution ## formal elements how long will the podcast be? how will we grade the podcast? can we create a rubric? how much will style vs content come into play: this is not all *too too* different from this issue in essay writing ### potential scaffolding have students pick their topic to explore narrow down sources: what are 3 primary sources to use, and consider how you will present this in a podcast; how will you present secondary sources? script writing workshop presentation workshop: issues of tone, pacing, intonation record the raw audio edit! NB while this may seem like a lot of "extra" work, this is actually not at all different to how a good writing process should go: students just often forget that editing is a huge process (and this often shows in their writing!)