Creating a classroom that is all your own is among the most rewarding tasks that all teachers must face. Whether it’s gearing up for your first September or just preparing for the new quarter after years of experience, being an educator brings its own unique set of challenges and no one person has the correct answer on how to tackle all of them. Therefore, we humbly present here seven podcasts that are full of useful insights and fascinating pointers that may give you some inspiration to bring into your own classroom.
Hosted by Tom Whitby and Nancy Blair, #EdChat Radio serves as a weekly roundup to the widespread Twitter discussion spurred by the podcast’s eponymous hashtag. The show’s hosts are unafraid to grapple with some of education’s hardest hitting issues, such as the usefulness of report cards, the ability to educate all students with or without standardized tests, and the concept of formative assessment. The podcast’s pace of releasing an episode every week has seemingly slowed down of late, but with more than 170 episodes already in the books, you should have no problem obtaining knowledge from the show’s archives.
Angela Watson’s Truth for Teachers
Angela Watson’s Truth for Teachers podcast is designed on a seemingly personal level with teachers specifically in mind. Serving as a companion piece to Watson’s Cornerstone for Teachers website and narrated by Watson’s soothing tone, the show offers encouragement, reassurance, and tips on being the best teacher you can be for the benefit of your students. Watson typically releases a new episode every Sunday in order to energize teachers for the coming week, though she does take a hiatus from new episodes twice throughout the year to focus on her classroom and other priorities.
Jennifer Gonzalez draws on her years of experience in the classroom to create this podcast that covers a wide variety of tips and tricks for teachers in modern classrooms. The episodes within cover everything from practical ways to maintain a safe, efficient space for students, to the best technology tools to use or try, to bigger picture topics surrounding the system such as education reform. To this end, Gonzalez occasionally brings on guests that can provide further insight into the given episode’s topic. The podcast is not seemingly released on any sort of schedule, so be sure to subscribe and check in periodically for the newest episodes.
The well-known Radiolab podcast isn’t expressly tailored for educators, but it is all the same an intriguing and engaging way to expand your mind outside of the classroom. Many of Radiolab’s episodes explore extraordinary stories of the human condition that ask its listeners to reflect on what it might mean within the scope of their own lives. Hosts Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich elicit these insights through interviews from people of all walks of life and cover topics such as the psychology of heroics, the effectiveness of brainstorming, and have even touched on educational topics like combating negative stereotypes in the classroom. This podcast will challenge your mind and will hopefully inspire you to pass on the lessons to your students, whether explicitly or implicitly.
Efficiency is the name of the game in this podcast series, as Vicki Davis -- aka the Cool Cat Teacher -- delivers short, to-the-point episodes five days a week. The idea behind The 10-Minute Teacher Show is that teachers are really busy and may want to get some quick tips or ideas without having to commit too much time away from the classroom. In each episode, Davis explores a different facet of the education world through interviews with many prominent names from around the community. Many episodes contain helpful tips gained from experience in the classroom, while others contain broader topics relating to education from across the spectrum. If you’re looking to get a quick, informative helping of teaching advice, this is the podcast for you.
If you are an educator who heavily implements G Suite and other Google tools into your classroom, the Google Teacher Tribe Podcast is a wonderful compliment to your lesson plan. The series, hosted by Matt Miller and Kasey Bell, explores the full range of Google products and how they can be used in new and creative ways to expand the capabilities of digital learning in your classroom; you may think you know everything about how to use Google’s catalog, but you are bound to learn something new here! Additionally, Miller and Bell often bring on guests that can speak to the usefulness of these methods and shed some more perspective on teaching in the 21st century classroom. As Google continues to grow, so too can your knowledge of how to use it to further your teaching methods.
The Creative Classroom with John Spencer
A relative newcomer to the scene, The Creative Classroom, hosted by former middle school teacher and current college professor John Spencer, takes on a more outside of the box approach to talking about education. Spencer believes that classrooms should be “spaces of imagination and wonder,” so each edition of the series is dedicated to methods for how to get your students thinking beyond the boundaries of the school walls and thinking more independently. Topics in this podcast include how to draw inspiration from the natural world, how to boost student engagement, and how to get students to ask better questions. Teachers looking to add some spice to their lesson plans should give this series a try.
Article By: Doug Greenberg
