Chapter 1: Developing the Podcasting Course

We began work on WILD5950 (Special Topics in Wildlife: Podcasting) eight months before the 16-week course launched in fall 2022. Central to our goals were guiding questions:

• How will we teach this course through active learning methods?
• How do we nurture adult learners?
• Can students create both a short and long podcast in 15 weeks?
• What resources^[1] do we need? What about the students?
• How can we apply project management ideas in course development?
• What does the class outline look like?
• What are we missing?

We used a pattern of work familiar to most instructional design teams; the subject matter experts (Jack and Gino) created content, while the instructional designer (Dee) laid out the course and considered learning design principles. Our two key theoretical underpinnings were andragogy and active learning.

Andragogy

To us, andragogy means the art and science of good teaching for adult learners. We considered Malcolm Knowles’ (1980) six principles of adult learning for the theoretical foundations of the course:

Learner’s need to know: Adults want to know the reason why they are learning something and learning must be purposeful.

Prior experience of the learner: Adults use prior experiences as a basis and foundation for learning. They use this experience to build connections between what they already know and new information they encounter.

Self-concept of the learner: Adults want to be responsible for their education and involved in the decision-making processes.

Readiness to learn: Adults want to learn information that has immediate relevance. It should be applicable to their lives and their work.

Orientation to learning: Adults want to engage in learning that is problem-centered and goal-oriented.

Motivation to learn: Adults are internally motivated to learn and they are self-directed learners.

We incorporated these principles in specific ways:

• Student choices (topic, group members)
• Reasons for scaffolded work (to demonstrate the multi-step approach to each step of podcasting)
• Encouragement to choose podcast topics relevant to the students’ interests
• Aside from deadlines, freedom to direct process procedures

Active Learning

Active learning is an essential component of graduate and undergraduate education in the 21st century university. The Center for Teaching and Learning at Vanderbilt University describes active learning as strategies that engage students in the construction of their own knowledge, with higher-order thinking, reflection, and metacognition. The University of Georgia identified active learning in the undergraduate classroom as its Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) for the 2022 SACSCOC (Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges) reaffirmation. This, plus our own teaching philosophies, made active learning central to our plan for this course.

With an active learning approach, students do things, make things, and build things. They do not listen to a lecture and take a test. Instead, they produce deliverables or solve existing problems. As Brewer and Smith (2011) note, active learning is:

• Interactive
• Inquiry-driven
• Cooperative
• Collaborative
• Relevant

We mirrored these components by several student activities in the course:

• Giving peer feedback to at least three others on their podcast work
• Listening to and reflecting on the “podcast of the week,” not only noting things they liked, but things they found problematic
• Working on groups on the long podcast
• Discussion of how podcasting can help wildlife resource stakeholders
• Guided practice
• Reflection on soft skills needed in podcast production

Course Timeline

We developed a timeline in the course where students created pieces of podcasts as deliverables, graded items. Most of the assignments “built up” to the first major submission, the individual short podcast. These included:

• One short, individual podcast (2-3 minutes), middle of course
  • Draft script (feedback from instructors and students), early in course
    • About 200 words
  • Practice with review techniques (how to give feedback to other students), beginning of course
  • Audio practice (recording, editing, remixing), early in course
  • Peer reviews of short podcasts, middle of course
• One long, group podcast (grad students served as group leaders, 3-5 minutes)
  • Complete work with a logo, end of course
  • No scaffolded assignments, but instructor was available for questions and ideation

Weekly Modules

Each week, students attended class face-to-face or via a Zoom connection if they were doing fieldwork. Classes were 50 minutes and followed materials available in a weekly module available online.^[2]

Sample module materials and organization:

• Introduction
• Slide Deck:
  • Starter quote for reflection
  • Topic of the week (i.e. creating an intro)
• Podcast of the week
  • • Most were embedded in the online content using a Spotify or other embed code
    • Weeks 1-5 asked a trio of reflection questions related to the quality of the podcast (lessons learned about the audio, intro, outro, and so on).
    • Weeks 6-15: Students could use a feedback widget built into the LMS (Learning Management System), Brightspace by D2L, to offer thoughts on the given podcast.
• Reminders about deliverables/assignments (LMS had a global course calendar)
• In-class activity:
  • Practice interviews
  • Writing an intro/outro, then pair/share for feedback
• Resources and Ways to Know More

Module Topics

• Week 1: What is Podcasting? (Icebreaker, introductions, podcast of the week)
  • Podcast of the Week: No, Deer Aren’t Colorblind (NDA Deer Season 365)
• Week 2: Podcast Styles and Topics
  • Podcast of the Week: Owls, Nature’s Hunting Machine (The Wild with Chris Morgan)
• Week 3: Script Writing, part 1 (Draft script due)
  • Podcast of the Week: Rob (Heavyweight)
• Week 4: Script Writing, part 2
  • Podcast of the Week: Feral Hogs (Reply-All)
• Week 5: Sound Engineering (In-class review activity due)
  • Podcast of the Week: Suppressed (Fireline)
• Week 6: Creating Audio (In-class audio activity due)
  • Podcast of the Week: Benefits of Prescribed Fire (Deer University)
• Week 7: Software (Submit first edition of short podcast)
  • Podcast of the Week: Sol One: Arrival (Red Frontier)
• Week 8: Post-production and editing (Short podcast due)
  • Podcast of the Week: The Last Stand (Timber Wars)
• Week 9: Peer discussions of short podcast (Audacity assignment due)
  • Podcast of the Week: Boy in Photo (Reply All)
• Week 10: Interviewing as the wildlife profession (Peer reviews of short podcast due)
  • Podcast of the Week: Jimmy and Mark (Heavyweight)
• Week 11: Interviewing agency experts (Work on long podcast, meet with group)
  • Podcast of the Week: The Secret Life of Trees (The Wild with Chris Morgan)
• Week 12: Guest speaker (Work on long podcast, meet with group)
  • Podcast of the Week: Ursinology (Ologies)
• Week 13: Logo design (Work on long podcast, meet with group)
  • Podcast of the Week: Negative Mount Pleasant (Reply All)
• Week 14: Work/collaboration on long podcast (Turn in rough draft of long podcast for feedback)
  • Podcast of the Week: The Wildlife Super Dog (The Wild with Chris Morgan)
• Week 15: Wrap-up, long podcast due
  • Podcast of the Week: Coyotes and Their Impact on Deer Populations (NDA Deer Season 365)

Troubleshooting

When a course is taught for the first time, instructors will inevitably find flaws and aspects they wish to change. In this instance, student feedback indicated that they needed:

• Additional clarity on firm due dates
• More in-class time to collaborate with peers
• Additional suggestions on how to structure time management for podcast development

Evaluation

In this course, the instructors wanted to have both “completion” assignments and “graded for quality” assignments. There were also optional opportunities to get feedback on both podcast assignments before the final editions were due. All assignments were submitted via the LMS. The course assessments developed as follows:

• Draft Script, Week 3: Completion (0/100: If turned in, full points)
• Present and Review a Podcast, Week 5: Completion (0/100: If turned in, full points)
• Audio Practice, Week 6: Completion (0/100: If turned in, full points)
• Short Podcast Draft, Week 7: Completion (0/100: If turned in, full points; this was an opportunity for feedback and was optional)
• Short Podcast, Week 8: Scored 0-100 according to rubric^[3]
• Using Audacity, Week 9: Completion (0/100: If turned in, full points)
• Peer Podcast Review, Week 10: Completion (0/100: If turned in, full points)
  • Form provided to students for guidelines
• Long Podcast Draft, Week 14: Completion (0/100: If turned in, full points; this was an opportunity for feedback and was optional)
• Long Podcast, Week 15: Scored 0-100 according to rubric^[4]

Process and Improvement

At the end of the semester, we sought to engage in a process of double-loop learning and reflection (Tagg, 2007). That is, not only did we want to look at student feedback for us, we also wanted to examine our assumptions throughout the course and consider specific points where we could have implemented changes that would have improved content and assisted the students. We identified the following assumptions that could be improved upon:

• Students turning in work on time (need to be clearer about late policies)
• Student leadership (this is not always a comfortable role for all students)
• Time constraints for everyone (both students and the instructors)

In addition to making improvements in the course content itself, we also would like to incorporate the following activities for student engagement:

• Introductory survey about podcasting experience to guide instruction
• Students being involved in the creation of the rubrics for the short and long podcasts
• Finding ways to share the podcasts to non-class members, with student permission

As expected, we believe the next time this course is taught, the student experience will be even more positive and productive.