Reading: Using Podcasting to Facilitate Student Learning: A Constructivist Perspective

Summary

The case study is from 2011 from a South African university.

Two case studies developing an approach for podcasts to enhance student learning. The case studies involve two groups of postgraduate students enrolled on a blended course over two years. Students were given discretion on how and when to listen to the podcasts. In Case 1, the podcasts were integrated into the pedagogy. In Case 2, they were loosely integrated. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted. Access logs were also used for insights into the frequency of use. The findings suggest that students were confident using podcast for academic purposes. Within a constructivist learning environment, students were afforded control and flexibility, space for reflection and self-paced learning.

The thesis of this paper is that listening to podcasts on mobile devices could cognitively scaffold learning, converging students’ social and entertainment spaces into the learning space.

Definitions

constructivism – students construct understanding through experience, integrating new information with existing knowledge

constructivist teaching methods – learners are actively involved in processing meaning, as opposed to passively receiving information

ubiquitous technologies – technology commonly available and accessible to most in a particular community

interpretive approach – researchers view participants in a study as active knowledge constructors

Notes

• Podcasts are accessible due to ubiquitous technologies: mobile phones, tablet devices
• Educators can converge social and entertainment uses of mobile devices to scaffold student learning and foster deep engagement with content
• Van Hooft (2008) suggests mobile technologies enable students to be mobile, connected, and digitally equipped.
• Ubiquitous technologies can share, distribute and enhance engagement with both content and knowledgeable human agents. (van Hooft, 2008.)
• Podcasts are useful for situating learning and contextualising knowledge. (van Hooft, 2008.)
• Podcast as an extension of the learning space for students, and a way to engage with peers on content through social media
• Podcasts have been used at the University of Cape Town since 2007!
• Benefit of podcasts for ESL students (Ng’ambi, 2008).
• Four types of podcast in education: archive of lectures, additional course content, supplemental course content, student created podcasts.
• Harris and Park (2008) contend early adoption of podcasting focused on technology, with little emphasis on pedagogical principles.
• PodCred (Tsagkias, Larson, and de Rijke, 2010.): framework to assess the quality of credibility of podcasts.
• Effective academic podcasting (Edirisingha, Salmon and Nie, 2008.) guide with ten steps to implement podcasting in academic settings.
• Knowledge constructivism emphasises the centrality of cultural and social factors in cognitive development
• ‘Making meaning from listening to podcasts is an active reflective process which requires students to bring prior knowledge to the process’ (p.183.)
• Methodology: Using student narratives of their experiences to understand how podcasts were useful to their learning
• Reflective learning approach taken by students in the project

Case Study 1

• Teaching strategies: guest lectures, group tasks, student-led seminar, reflective blogs
• Pedagogy: podcast coupled into pedagogy, constructive learning approach, lecturer and student generated podcasts, daily blog reflections
• Podcasts were highly used in this case study

Case Study 2

• Teaching strategies: guest lectures, group tasks, student-led seminar, reflective blogs
• Pedagogy: podcast loosely coupled, constructive learning, lecturer and student generated podcasts, daily blog reflections, podcast to accompany research paper at end of module
• Use was lower in this case

• Student-generated podcasts enabled students to use ‘high-level cognitive processes’ as they had to construct the knowledge to deliver a podcast
• Themes from interview data: critical engagement, extending the learning space, technical skills, memory aid, reflection, informal and traditional settings, bandwidth, awareness
• Students could replay to jog memories and solidify understanding
• Students made use of ‘odd bits of time’ (commute e.g.) to review learning through podcasts
• enabling “new flexible virtual spaces without walls or time constraints” (Armstrong & Franklin, 2008, p. 22)
• Some context specific issues: Internet allowances in South African campuses
• Benefits: scaffold meaning-making process, formulate questions to direct further learning, facilitate critical engagement with content (i.e., provide cues to enable purposeful listening to podcast)

Key Quotes from Data

“… you can listen whilst you are walking or you can listen…the
period between… when I’m in between places is lost time”

(05MU/3 – 4)

Reflection

• Being able to learn in your own time and space was critical for effective learning

References

Armstrong, J., & Franklin, T. (2008). A review of current and developing international practice in the use of social networking (Web 2.0) in higher education. York, England: Franklin Consulting.

‘Constructivism (Philosophy of Education)’. In Wikipedia, 30 January 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Constructivism_(philosophy_of_education)&oldid=1272933062.

‘Constructivist Teaching Methods’. In Wikipedia, 24 January 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Constructivist_teaching_methods&oldid=1271630101.

Ng’ambi, D. (2008). Podcasts for reflective learning. In G. Salmon & P. Edirisingha (Eds.), Podcasting for learning in universities (pp. 132 – 145). Berkshire, England: Open University Press.

Tsagkias, M., Larson, M., & de Rijke, M. (2010). Predicting podcast preference: An analysis framework and its application. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 61(2), 374 – 391.