Emma & Tom Talk Teaching

Merry Christmas from us both! For your festive pleasure, we present the 12 days of Christmas in the form of 12 items drawn from our regular topics of 'wellbeing', 'something interesting' and 'something to try' - four of each.It's a slightly more wholesome Christmas special than last year, but hopefully there's something in here for everyone, from substantial academic text recommendations to wellbeing tips and a vintage Tom item in the form of 'the bus factor'.Please do rate and review us if you have a moment. We'll be back on January 10th, when we'll be talking to edu-twitter royalty in the form of Finola and Jane from Impact Wales. See you then! ----------This episode was recorded in studio D0.18 at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed campus on 19th December 2019

For our final episode of the Christmas term, we welcome an award-winning researcher to our humble studio! Bethan Rowlands joined Cardiff Met from our friends at the University of South Wales at the start of this year, and promptly won a BERA award for a poster presentation on raising awareness fo dyscalculia. Dyscalculia is, as Bethan describes it, dyslexia with numbers, and is very much the poor relation of the much better-known condition of dyslexia.Bethan explains to us the personal journey which led her to find out more about the condition, the dawning realisation that it was almost unheard of for a pupil to be diagnosed with it, and her work raising awareness in the student teachers that she works with.If you think you might have dyscalculia, or as a teacher you want to know more about it, you can contact the British Dyslexia Society (yes, they do dyscalculia as well!), or check out the authors that Bethan names in the end credits.We'll be back one more time in 2019 for our festive episode. See you then! ----------This episode was recorded in studio C0.25 at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed campus on 17th October 2019

We’re looking at literacy again today, and particularly what seems to be a perennial problem: the engagement of boys with reading. Our guest is Paul Warren, a former primary headteacher who now advises schools across a wide area of south Wales, and who is in the final stages of a PhD investigating this very area. His approach is to use comics to engage young pupils with stories, and he’s got plenty of interesting things to tell us about his findings, as well as about how rewarding it is to find things out for yourself through action research in the classroom.Paul also brings us some nice ideas for the wellbeing slot, plus a book recommendation for anyone who wants educational research explained in clear terms (which is pretty much all of us!).Paul’s book recommendations for this episode were:Coe, R. et al., 2017. Research methods and methodologies in education 2nd ed. Los Angeles: SageMcCloud, S. (1994). Understanding comics: [the invisible art]. New York: HarperPerennial. ----------This episode was recorded in studio B1.12 at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed campus on 22nd July 2019

We're back on the road, and have finally got some pupils on the podcast! For this episode, recorded back in July (hence the frequent references to the summer holidays, now a distant memory), we popped down the road to Eastern High School in Cardiff, taking over a room in their shiny new building to interview four special guests.Georgina Saunders was mentioned in one of the regular slots back in season 1, and now gets the chance to appear in person to tell us about how she pulled off the impressive feat of being the student teacher who took forty pupils to the Hay Festival to develop their love for all things to do with reading. She's joined by Eastern High's librarian, James Emery, who was a vital part of the team who brought it all together. They've got plenty of tips for anyone who can see the value for pupils of putting on something like this, but can't imagine how they'd survive the experience! For good measure, we've got two wonderful pupil guests who went on the trip, who tell us about everything from LGBTQIA+ literature to gothic fiction, the joys of tidying the library and the lovely smell of new books.If you want to find out more about the Hay Festival, their website is at www.hayfestival.com. Huge thanks to Eastern High School (EasternHigh.org.uk) for hosting us for the recording of this episode and making our four guests available.The books recommended in this episode were The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach, Circe by Madeline Miller and How to Teach English Literature: Overcoming Cultural Poverty by Jennifer Webb.Please do let us know what you think with a rating or review in your favoured podcast app (why not subscribe while you're at it?) - or find us on Twitter @ethayer_cmu and @thomasbreeze. You can also find Georgina at @Saunders__G ----------This episode was recorded at Eastern High School, Cardiff on 16th July 2019 

Teachers should always practise what they preach, and we firmly believe that the holidays are a great opportunity to do just that! So we want everyone to make time for a break from whatever they do in the hard-working world of education. In true teacher style, we've provided you with a resource to assist!It's a small but perfectly-formed episode following the 'blogs, tweets and stories' format that was so successful in the Easter break last year, and we'd like you to listen while doing something restorative - whether that's a walk, a bit of sofa time or a trip to the coffee shop, we don't mind!On with the show, then: Tom has a piece from the Guardian which encourages us to use a Japanese technique to get real about how many things we should be doing at once. Emma has a tweet with something to try which gets the parents on board, and then we move on to the stories, givign Tom his customary opportunity to sail close to the wind. Grabbing the opportunity with both hands, Tom makes yet another attempt to get the podcast taken down permanently with a story about a rogue supply teacher. Please ensure any small, innocent children (or adults) are safely out of earshot! Emma, meanwhile, introduces a teacher-related tale from our friends at And Then What? The Podcast All About Stories which reminds us to laugh at ourselves. You can find the original material here:Overwhelmed with your to-do lists? Try this simple solution - Oliver BurkemanWhat a lovely week - @MissKP10Substitute teacher goes rogue - New York Post (apologies for crediting this as the Washington Post on the recording!)And Then What? - The Podcast All About Stories Have a wonderful half term break and we'll be back in a fortnight with a pair of episodes looking at literacy. See you then! ----------This episode was recorded in studio B1.12 at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed campus on 17th October 2019

We've got a very special treat for you this episode - an exclusive half hour interview with none other than Professor Graham Donaldson, author of the Successful Futures report in 2015 that made 68 recommendations for reform of the education system in Wales. His name is used as a shorthand for the new curriculum that was finally published in draft in the summer of 2019, and somehow, we're still not sure how, we managed to grab an extended interview with the man himself. In it, we discuss how the report came to be written, what it's like being the lightning-rod for endless Twitter debate, where our lovely student teachers fit into the picture, and - of course - how Professor Donaldson himself looks after his wellbeing.The interview itself was recorded in a conference venue that was being packed away around us, so please forgive us for the background noise!Huge thanks to Professor Donaldson for his generosity. Thanks also to the coffee shop employee who didn't throw us out when we turned our table into a temporary studio to record the opening and closing segments of this episode.We'll be back for half term with something for the holidays. See you then! ----------This episode was recorded at the Park Inn Hotel, Cardiff (and Starbucks, The Hayes, Cardiff!) on 3rd October 2019

Today we're joined by primary specialist Sian Davies-Barnes to consider a recent report by the Education Endowment Foundation entitled Improving Behaviour in Schools. We love the EEF because they crunch a lot of research, make it clear and accessible and give us several points of entry depending on how busy we are!This episode is particularly aimed at our student teachers who are just starting their first placements as it goes out, but is equally useful for early career teachers, or anyone looking to distil the wide range of information around behaviour into something manageable.Check out the EEF's report at https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/tools/guidance-reports/improving-behaviour-in-schools/ or follow them on Twitter at @EducEndowFoundnThanks to Sian for dropping by our studio. Don't forget to tune in next time, when we have an interview with a very special guest indeed...! ----------This episode was recorded in studio C0.25 at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed campus on 30th September 2019

It's episode 2, and Dr Judith Kneen is still with us for the second half of this double-bill. We're discussing our ongoing research into how to combine subject disciplines in the expressive arts (though plenty of this will be relevant for those working in other subject areas too). In season 1 episode 5 we described how we jumped in with both feet, trying out some bright ideas with our students with mixed success, and came away with the strong impression that we needed to do some reading.Fast-forward to this year, and we've done a systematic literature review of all things cross-curricular, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary in the expressive arts, and have come to some interesting conclusions about what creates those all-important 'powerful connections' that we need to make in order for our learning to be meaningful, and for the subject disciplines to be well-served.In the course of today's deep discussion we explain what we found, present a taxonomy of cross-curricular approaches in the expressive arts, and give some concrete examples of what meaningful (and less meaningful) approaches might look like in the classroom.For our regular slots, Emma has a quote from the mighty Albert Einstein himself, Tom wants us all to admit to being a bit of a shambles, and there's a suggestion about tracking your time to find out where it all goes.If you want to read some of the articles that fed into our literature review, check out the references below. See you next time! ReferencesBarry, A. & Villeneuve, P. (1998) ‘Veni, Vidi, Vici: Interdisciplinary Learning in the Art Museum’, Art Education, 51(1), pp.16-24.La Porte, A. (2016) ‘Efficacy of the Arts in a Transdisciplinary Learning Experience for Culturally Diverse Fourth Graders’, International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education, 8(3), pp.467-480.Maria, K. (2015) ‘The Use of Project Method in Teaching Arts’, Review of European Studies, 7(11), pp.159-165.Pruitt, L., Ingram, D. & Weiss, C. (2014) ‘Found in Translation: Interdisciplinary Arts Integration in Project AIM’, Journal for Learning through the Arts, 10(1).Risner, D. (2015) ‘Interdisciplinary Teaching Artists: Moving Dialogue’, Journal of Dance Education, 15(1), pp. 33-38.Roucher, N & Lovano-Kerr, J. (1995) ‘Can the Arts Maintain Integrity in Interdisciplinary Learning?’, Arts Education Policy Review, 96(4), pp. 20-25.Stavrou, E., Chrysostomou, S. & Socratous, H. (2011) ‘Music Learning in the Early Years: Interdisciplinary Approaches Based on Multiple Intelligences’, Journal for Learning through the Arts, 7(1).Wenner, G. (1976) ‘Interdisciplinary Approaches to Teaching and Learning: Where do the Arts Fit?’, Art Education, 29(7), pp. 4-8.Wiggins, R (2001) ‘Interdisciplinary Curriculum: Music Educator Concerns’, Music Educators Journal, 87(5), pp. 40-44. ----------This episode was recorded in studio B1.12 at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed campus on 2nd July 2019 

We're back! It's season 2, and we've decided that the best way to get over the fear of dusting off the microphones and recording a new episode is to call upon the ever-reassuring Dr. Judith Kneen, who is now approaching the status of regular guest and national podcast treasure.Judith has stopped by to discuss her recent research into how primary and secondary schools are faring with their work to pioneer the new curriculum for Wales, and especially the expressive arts Area of Learning and Experience (AoLE), though plenty of what she says will be relevant to other subject areas too. 'Pioneer schools' were chosen by the Welsh Government to have a go at some aspects of the new curriculum, so they're interesting subjects for research as they get to grips with concepts such as making powerful connections between subject areas.Judith has lots of interesting things to report about how differently things are going in the primary and secondary age phases, the opportunities and challenges presented, and where things are going next. This will segue smoothly into episode 2, in which we'll discuss with Dr Judith what we've been doing in terms of preparing student teachers for the challenges of teaching in a cross-curricular way.We also get the chance to give our revamped regular slots a run-out, and Emma has a podcast that gives ample material for all three slots! If you want to check it out for yourself, it's The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish.If you like what you hear, please rate, review, subscribe and tell your friends! You can find us on Twitter at @ethayer_cmu, @thomasbreeze and @judithkneen respectively. See you next time! ----------This episode was recorded in studio B1.12 at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed campus on 2nd July 2019

We're coming back to your podcast feed very soon! Emma and Tom's PGCE Podcast will return for Season 2 on Friday 6th September. We'll have all the deep discussions about teaching that you need to see you through your Friday commute or the weekend, plus regular tips for wellbeing, things to try and pointers to interesting things we've read, heard or watched.If you haven't subscribed already, you can catch us wherever you get your podcasts. Please rate, review and tell your friends. See you soon!