Emma & Tom Talk Teaching

Merry Christmas! In a quirk of the release schedule, this one's coming out on the big day itself, so we hope you enjoy the traditional spectacle of two lecturers in the last stages of complete exhaustion, wittering on about some random things that seemed interesting or amusing at the time. We've got it all this year: from a pair of academic papers to a humorous twitter account; from book quotes to music. There are plenty of nods to the big story of 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic that changed the course of all our lives. But there are some tenuous links to education, plus some big news about the podcast for 2021. We hope you've enjoyed our many and varied offerings this year, and there are plenty of interesting conversations already in the can for the rest of this season. Please do spread the word about the podcast, and do drop us a review on your favoured podcast platform if you get a moment. Have a wonderful break, and we'll be back in January 2021 with a fresh new look. Thanks for listening and merry Christmas! PS... if you want to see the video version of the out-takes that Tom shared towards the end, go here (sorry, Emma!): https://youtu.be/gvWcyiAJgiE   Best wishes from Emma and Tom     -------------------- Recorded at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed Campus on 17th December 2020  

It's high time for another book review, and our podcast pair have reached for the latest work by Daisy Christodoulou. Tom still lives in a safe house under an assumed identity after being less than effusive about the famous Seven Myths About Education a while back, so here's hoping he can redeem himself with some much happier thoughts about Teachers vs. Tech, an amazingly timely book given the global pandemic that ensued shortly after its publication. With help from some audio extracts from the famous Cardiff Met ITE staff book club, Emma and Tom explore some of the issues raised by Christodoulou as she presents a thought-provoking look at the vexed question of where education and technology could be a marriage made in heaven, and where the pitfalls lie for those who are too wedded to the shiny toys. Our short slots all come from a single article - The Binge Breaker, published in the Atlantic. Check it out here: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/11/the-binge-breaker/501122/ Meanwhile, Tom's additional wellbeing tip is to ban all power tools from campus, as yet another recording is disrupted by the sound of distant pressure-washing by the seemingly ever-present hordes of people who are drawn to fire up their machinery as soon as a microphone is switched on. Check out Tom's possibly violent forthcoming publication Lecturers vs Power Tools, available soon.   -------------------- Recorded at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed Campus on 22nd September 2020

It's time for another addition to our new strand of episodes loosely entitled 'ethics in teaching', and for this we've called upon the expertise of Rachael Morgan-Jones. Rachael has had a very successful career teaching music in schools where an enormous number of cultures, languages, faiths and backgrounds come together. She's here to argue that there are exciting opportunities to make a difference and broaden our own minds as teachers, and gives us some specific examples of how this can work in her specialist subject. We hope Rachael's specific experience serves as a great stimulus for all of us from our different subject specialisms to look at how we work with the many different cultures and backgrounds that our pupils bring to the classroom. See you in a fortnight, and huge thanks again to Rachael for her time and expertise!     ---------- Recorded at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed Campus and remotely on 24th September 2020

This week we've got a guest from our friends at the University of South Wales - it's Professor Brendan Cropley, who is a professor of sport coaching. The world of elite sports has plenty to tell those of us in education about reflecting on our performance, so we asked Brendan to join us on the line to chat about his work. Brendan has a wealth of down-to-earth advice for any of us engaged in reflection, whether as an experienced teacher or someone who's new to the profession. We hope you'll find plenty to inspire and motivate you to take a step back from your practice in order to make those all-important steps forward. As ever, our short slots provide us with some thought-provoking take-aways, including Brendan's secret musical talents, and a book review from the front line of the NHS. Join us in a fortnight for more!   ---------- Recorded at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed Campus (with remote guest) on 7th October 2020

Congratulations, fellow education specialists - we've made it to October half term! We're doing our bit for the Welsh lockdown and have fired up the remote recording gear to bring you our latest offering from our houses (so please accept our apologies for the odd glitch in the sound quality). Since we're at the half-time break in a very long and very strange term, we thought this would be another good time to model excellent practice by letting our hair down and putting something out that's a little lighter and looser than usual. As ever, Emma brings the substance, with a couple of book extracts and a tweet thread that muse on the nature of being a teacher. Tom brings us a blog, a heartwarming tweet about his previous life in the classroom, and the usual random news story with only the most tenuous link to education. If you want to read any of the material from this episode, here are the links, in order of appearance:   Myatt, M. (2020) Should it stay or should it go? Available at: https://www.marymyatt.com/blog/should-it-stay-or-should-it-go (Accessed: 27/10/20) Clanchy, K. (2019) Some Kids I Taught and What They Taught Me. London: Picador Saunders, G. (2020) This year I have a lively Y9 class... [Twitter] 2 October. Available at https://twitter.com/Saunders__G/status/1312164724209938432 (Accessed: 27/10/20) Saunders, G. (2020) ...late night musings continued... [Twitter] 3 October. Available at https://twitter.com/Saunders__G/status/1312165642166960128 (Accessed: 27/10/20) Garrigan, M (2020) This memory popped up on Facebook... [Twitter] 16 October. Available at https://twitter.com/mandiegarrigan/status/1317027878358425603 (Accessed: 27/10/20) Franklin, A (2020) Swearing parrots removed from public view at popular Lincolnshire attraction. Available at https://www.lincolnshirelive.co.uk/news/local-news/lincolnshire-wildlife-park-swearing-parrots-4554933 (Accessed: 27/10/20) Mackesy, C. (2019) The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse. London: Ebury   ---------- Recorded remotely on 21st October 2020

In the first of a series of episodes this year on the loose theme of 'ethics in teaching', we're delighted to bring you an interview with Catrina Kirkland of the Holocaust Educational Trust. This episode is all about how we approach teaching difficult or sensitive subjects, and Cat has a wealth of strategies and thoughts to help us deal with one of the biggest, most sensitive and problematic subjects of them all - the Holocaust. In a fascinating and wide-ranging discussion, Cat explains the importance of the human angle, how to avoid unconsciously reinforcing problematic ideologies and ideas, and gives us an insight into her pedagogical approaches when working with teachers and student teachers. She also reflects on how the new Curriculum for Wales gives us opportunities to make connections that allow subject specialists to support one another to create a rich and deep learning experience for pupils - though you can also try this if you're outside Wales, of course! The Holocaust Educational Trust has a wealth of resources on its website: het.org.uk This episode was recorded during the international Covid-19 pandemic, when travel was restricted, and so Cat joined us down the line from Reading. Apologies for the issues with the sound quality that we experienced during the recording!     ---------- Recorded remotely on 2nd June 2020  

Do not adjust your set: there are some sound quality issues in the first half of this episode, as were recording in three different locations over the Internet. Sorry! This episode was recorded while we were in full-on coronavirus lockdown, and on the line linking Emma and Tom we also have Elizabeth MacGregor. Currently a doctoral student at the University of Sheffield, Elizabeth was described by Cambridge University's John Finney as 'a British philosopher of music education' in the wake of the publication of her article Justifying Music in the National Curriculum. The article is certainly a gripping read and has plenty to say to all of us in education, regardless of whether we're music specialists. Elizabeth has also had a second article published recently: Participatory performance in the secondary music classroom and the paradox of belonging, which is a great example of practitioner research. Over the course of this episode you can hear us enjoy a wide-ranging conversation with Elizabeth. While much of it is rooted in music and the performing arts, the themes are sufficiently broad and important that everyone should get something useful out of it, whether it's questioning how we achieve social justice in our teaching, or taking on board Elizabeth's impassioned call for teachers to engage in classroom-based research. We hope you enjoy it! Elizabeth's articles can be found at: Bate, E. (2020) 'Justifying music in the national curriculum: The habit concept and the question of social justice and academic rigour', British Journal of Music Education, 37(1), pp. 3-15. MacGregor, E. H. (2020) 'Participatory performance in the secondary music classroom and the paradox of belonging', Music Education Research, 22(2), pp. 229-241.     ---------- Recorded remotely on 18th May 2020

With some excitement we find ourselves recording back on our beloved university campus - but outdoors to avoid having too many lines on our risk assessment! With suitably long wires plugged in, our podcast duo tackle the very topical concept of resilience, with the aid of a number of sources that we've mashed up to help us. Having become something of a hot buzzword even before we all found ourselves battling the coronavirus, resilience is a tricky concept to nail down, but very relevant to those of us in an education profession that can test our resilience to the maximum, whether we're at the start of our careers or grizzled old pros. This episode is illustrated with some carefully chosen snippets from the following sources, and we believe we're on the right side of the fair use copyright provisions, but are willing to stand corrected if either the BBC or Harvard want to tell us otherwise! Either way, we'd urge you to visit these sources to enjoy them in full: BBC Radio 4: The Science of Resilience https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07cvhrs Harvard University: The Science of Resilience https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/inbrief-the-science-of-resilience/   Emma's book recommendation is: Eddo-Lodge, Renni (2017), Why I'm no longer talking to white people about race. London: Bloomsbury   ...and her radio recommendation is: Desert Island Discs: Sinead Burke https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000j7q5     ---------- Recorded at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed campus on 11th August 2020    

We're back! And to celebrate the start of season 3 we're back together in person, recording safely outdoors (complete with strange background noises) to bring you a bumper first episode to help you get thinking about your philosophy. As teacher educators, we sit in a sometimes uncomfortable place outside the schools where our students undertake their placements, and it's important for all of us to understand what we're for, what we do and why we don't just point student teachers at a school and let them get on with it. The Universities' Council for the Education of Teachers recently published a position paper setting out the principles on which we work, so we start by chewing that over with our good friends Dr Judith Kneen and Jordan Allers. After that, we respond to a comment by our student teachers themselves that they'd like to know more about our own philosophies as teachers - we've got a collection of short pieces from colleagues around campus, and we explain our own philosophies as teachers. Hopefully this will give you a nice bit of food for thought for the new school year. As we all get to grips with going back to school, having had a lot of assumptions and norms challenged over the past six months, this is a great moment to pause and ask yourself: what's my philosophy? You can find the UCET paper here: https://www.ucet.ac.uk/11675/intellectual-base-of-teacher-education-report-updated-february-2020 Thanks to our colleagues who contributed to today's episode: Jordan Allers, Fiona Heath-Diffey, Dr Judith Kneen and Julia Longville.   ---------- Recorded at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed campus on 11th August 2020  

Just a week to go until Emma & Tom's PGCE Podcast returns for its third season! Here's a little trailer to whet your appetite. Tune in on Friday 4th September for our first episode, in which we discuss philosophies of teaching and teacher education. See you soon!