Are you a teacher with students who have limited access to wifi or laptops? Are you running out of ideas to keep your kids engaged in high quality, fun learning? The Listenwise News Bites podcast combines NPR news stories selected for young listeners with instructional activities. Listen on wifi, or download for an easy, offline way to engage young learners with fun news, weird news, and some serious news. Find this new podcast on Apple Podcasts today! For more age appropriate and engaging news lessons go to: www.listenwise.com

Student Podcast PODCAST

Listenwise News Bites Promo

This episode features 3rd grade teacher David Green (dgreen@nscds.org) and his students from North Shore Country Day School in Winnetka, Illinois, just north of Chicago. David has been creating audio with his students for 15 years, long before it was called podcasting! For this service learning project, David and his students visited the Lakeview Food Pantry in Chicago to explore the problem of hunger. Listen to hear David’s expert tips for a successful podcasting project, with commentary from host and former public radio reporter, Monica Brady-Myerov. You can listen to their full episode here.

Episode 16: A Service-Learning Podcasting Project

In this podcast, 5th graders from Jordan/Jackson Elementary School in Mansfield, MA explore the different lives of their classmates by conducting interviews with each other and with their teachers. They cover topics ranging from what food they eat for breakfast, to their favorite classes, to the best part of coming back home from school. Teacher Rayna Freedman had her students work in groups and asked them to pick 15 words from their vocabulary program, and that led to a lot of creativity. You can also listen to the students full episodes here.

Episode 15: ‘Day in the Life’ with Podcasts

In this episode, we hear from students at Crow Agency Public School, located on the Crow Reservation in Montana. Fifth grade teacher Connie Michael was inspired to make this podcast with her students after working with teachers at the Smithsonian Museum of the American Indian, where she learned that students across the country had significant misconceptions about life on a reservation. Connie wanted to give her students the opportunity to debunk these myths and stereotypes, and she welcomed the opportunity of the the NPR Student Podcast Challenge to share their personal experiences and make their voices heard. Listen to their full podcast here.

Episode 14: Debunking Myths and Stereotypes through Podcasting

In this episode of the Student Podcast PODCAST, you’ll hear from the 2019 NPR Podcast Challenge middle school winners from Bronx Prep Middle School! Teacher Shehtaz Huq helped a group of 8th grade girls create “Sssh! Periods,” in which they explored the taboo topic of menstruation. Listen to hear how they went about creating their first-ever podcast and ended up winning the NPR competition, beating out 5700 entries submitted from 25,000 students. Their podcast emulates an NPR-style reported story, and includes the voices of seven student podcasters: Kathaleen, Raizel, Litzy, Caroline, Ashley, Jasmin, and Kassy. Their podcast weaves in personal anecdotes with statistics on period poverty, period shame, and the pink tax. Listen to their full podcast here.

Episode 13: NPR Podcast Challenge Middle School Winners

This episode comes from the classroom of 5th and 6th grade teacher Kate Fischer from the Hyde Park School in Cincinnati, Ohio. Looking to get into podcasting for the first time with her students, Kate she offered an extra no-credit assignment for students to create their own podcast. One student, Anna Kunkel, took on the challenge, and used her podcast to explore ‘Bias in the Media’, a challenge she has personally faced in her own research projects. Listen to hear clips from Anna’s podcast, with reflections from her teacher on the project, and tips & tricks from our host, Monica Brady-Myerov. Anna’s full podcast is also available here.

Episode 12: Podcasting to explore 'Bias in the Media'

In this episode we go deep into the meaning of words and hear from ELA teacher Mary Beth Steven’s students as they dig into the etymology of vocabulary terms such as ‘kerfuffle’ and ‘hippopotamus’. Mary Beth tried podcasting with her students for the first time last year, using a Zoom brand audio recorder, and editing in Audacity. Her sixty-six students were split into groups of 4-5, created a total of 15 podcasts for their classroom series ‘One Word at a Time’. You can listen to the full series here. In this episode of the Student Podcast PODCAST, you will hear clips from the series, with reflections from Mary Beth on her experience creating this podcast series with her students.

Episode 11: Vocabulary Podcasts - Going Deep on a Single Word

In this episode we hear a podcast from the 8th grade class of Amy Fry, ELA teacher at Highlands Middle school in the Ft. Thomas Independent School District in Kentucky. Amy Fry’s class created podcasts discussing works they read and watched on the subject of the Holocaust, such as “Refugee,” by Alan Gratz. The theme of this project was ‘Finding Light in the Darkness’ of the Holocaust. Listen to hear from student Adam Pawlak, who earned an honorable mention for his submission to the NPR Student Podcast Challenge, and was also featured on Democracy and Me. You can also listen to his full episode here: https://www.democracyandme.org/honorable-mentions-from-npr-student-podcast-challenge/

Episode 10: ‘Finding Light in the Darkness’ with Podcasts

This episode features ‘Lead GCISD Students’, a student-run podcast from the Grapevine-Colleyville Independent School District in Fort Worth, Texas. Students from any one of the district’s campuses can submit their podcast on a topic of their choice. Kerissa Bearce, formerly an Instructional Coach for the district, screened the episodes and added an intro and outro. In this episode we hear 3 student clips, one about fandom, one about homework, and finally one about the Constitution. You can listen to the students’ full episodes here: https://www.spreaker.com/show/lead-gcisd-students

Episode 9: Student Run Podcasts for their District

This episode highlights the first podcast project done by Matt Stokes, an 8th-Grade Math/Algebra 1 at the International School of Brooklyn. His class podcast features NPR Style Reporting about fun Math concepts, mores specifically digging into simplifying radicals, multiplying radicals, and converting radicals into exponents. We love that they named it ‘Divide and Conquer.’ Matt’s students Rico Brill and Elliot Thomas-Gregory created this podcast using iMovie technology with other open source apps.

Episode 8: Math Podcasts - Engaging with Math Authentically

This episode highlights Margot Amouyal’s podcast, Yolanda Wilcox González’s student, from the Beaver Country Day School in Massachusetts. Margot is a junior and has been creating a podcast series for her independent study project. We highlight one podcast from her series which was submitted to the NPR student podcast challenge this Spring, earning an honorable mention. Margot explores how the story of refugees can be told in a new and innovative ways by interviewing Christopher Morss, whose family hosted John and Joyce Built, British children evacuated during World War II, and spoke with three sixth graders from Massachusetts about modern and youthful perspectives on refugees and the importance of empowering the voices of the youth after they read the book “Refugee” by Alan Gratz. You can listen to the full podcast here. Here is the link to Monica’s DIY podcasting studio here.

Episode 7: Retelling Stories in New and Innovative Ways

In this episode hear a podcast that sounds just like the introduction to the Serial podcast. Former high school ELA Teacher, Michael Godsey initially wanted to share his excitement for the Serial podcast with his students and their love for podcasting blossomed through that. This was Godsey’s first podcasting project and he has since brought more audio stories into his teaching which has had a tremendous and visible effect on the students' level of engagement, critical-thinking habits, and writing skills. Listen to the full published podcast on soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/mrgodsey/stranger-serial-introduction and find some of his podcast lesson worksheets on teachers pay teachers: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Serial-Podcast-Lesson-Plans-Printable-Worksheets-S1-Episodes-1-12-5-Units-1760961

Episode 6: Emulating Real Podcasts, Like “Serial”

In this episode hear a podcast created by a student club from Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Eastvale, CA. The students examine the concept of academic identity, where students become so wrapped up in academic achievement that it starts to define them. Teacher Frank Mata was the advisor to the club and says because students were not being graded on this project he thought they were freed creatively. This is Mata’s first podcasting project with students and he sought help from two passionate teachers in his district who co-host an EdChat podcast.

Episode 5: Podcasting with Clubs and not Classrooms

In this episode we go to Cedar Ridge High School in Hillsborough North Carolina and listen to Laura Isenhour's class's podcast discussions. In place of book reports, her Grade 10 English II class worked in groups and recorded their discussions about the non-fiction books they read. Students were given the flexibility to choose the style of podcast they wanted to create. Listen to hear clips from their discussions about I am Malala and When I Was Puerto Rican, along with Laura’s reflections on the project. You can listen to the student podcasts here: https://laura-isenhour.podomatic.com/

Episode 4: Book Reports in Podcast Form

In this episode you’ll head from Dan Kearney, an 8th grade history teacher who did a podcast series on immigration with his students. The series is called FalconCast, and all episodes were researched, written, recorded, and produced by the students at St. Mary's School, an IB World School in Orange County, California. Minka, the student featured in this episode, submitted her work to NPR’s student podcast challenge, where she was a finalist in the middle school category. This episode also explores a grading rubric for classroom podcast projects. Listen to Minka's full episode here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/falconcast/id1439860806

Episode 3: History Lessons in Immigration

This is the Student Podcast PODCAST, a podcast featuring great student podcasts. Each week we highlight student work and hear from their teachers about the challenges and successes of podcasting with their students. We believe elevating students’ voices beyond the classroom and sharing the lesson process will inspire others to get podcasting with their classes!

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Student Podcast PODCAST

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