Podcasting Students' Perspectives

Remember when I talked about utilizing the flipped classroom model in my teacher education courses?  Well, I decided to make the most of my journey into technology integration and ask my students what they thought about how our semester has gone so far.  Since we only have two weeks of the Fall 2013 semester left, I thought it was the right time to get feedback on my research into the world of flipped teacher education courses.

First, I sent a message to all of the students in both of my social studies methods courses to ask for volunteers to be interviewed on my podcast.  Yes, I know what you are thinking---volunteers will undoubtedly be overwhelmingly positive in their responses because I know who they are AND I give the grades.  However, I have a good relationship with my students, and I do believe they understand my desire for constructive, truthful feedback so I can adapt this model for the future. For those who volunteered, I sent the interview questions beforehand, so they could be calm and prepared without many overly-long pauses and "ums" thrown in.  Armed with my questions, a script (I HAVE to be prepared....just to think through the process, not to actually read word-for-word), and my podcasting equipment (Google Hangouts--minus the video---and podcastpeople.com), I was excited and ready to go!  This would be my first foray into the podcasting world as well.

Side note:  By the way, I plan on writing a whole different blog post about using Google Hangouts and PodcastPeople.com to produce podcasts, but for now, I will focus on the highlights of my students' feedback.

The three podcasts in full are embedded at the end of this post.

Student Responses
Students' reactions to the flipped classroom model were overwhelmingly positive as I correctly predicted above, but their detailed answers are very perceptive and worth mentioning.  Ranging from skeptical to not much experience at all to pretty comfortable, my students' attitudes toward technology ran the gamut of possible answers, so for each of them to end this semester with a higher comfort level and a determination to integrate technology into their own future classrooms was nothing short of phenomenal.

Listening to the students' responses, you will hear about the merits of peer collaboration, student-directed learning, individualized learning, and student engagement.  They also discuss how technology integration added depth to lessons, enabled them to utilize higher order thinking skills in class, and created excitement and passion about content---which, let's face it, are not ways that pre-service elementary education majors usually talk about social studies content, right?

This experience has definitely surpassed anything I could have dreamed when I made the decision to take the leap of faith and change the pedagogical approach in my teacher education courses.  Please listen to the podcasts below, ignoring my amateurish podcasting snafus, as my students share their heightened level of comfort with technology, specifics about the value of projects completed in the courses, and new positive outlook on using technology in their own future classrooms.  They also share the challenges faced throughout the semester and suggestions for professors who plan to utilize the flipped classroom model in their own teacher education courses.

I want to especially thank Beka, Hannah, and Mary Catherine for taking time to give this valuable feedback and participate in my podcast interviews. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules right before Thanksgiving Break.

For those teacher educators who are reading and listening, please consider which aspects of this model might work in your own courses.  Think about the student engagement and outcomes that are possible.

Happy listening!  Leave a comment about the podcasts and any questions you might have.
Jennifer

Caution:  The quality of the first podcast is not superior.  It helps to turn up the volume substantially to hear Beka as she shares.  Her responses are worth it.