For today’s episode, we’re bringing you a panel discussion about equity and diversity in the classroom, which was originally broadcast live on YouTube as part of our PGCE programme. 

Our panel of experts, Dean Pymble from Show Racism the Red Card, Marc Lewis from Ysgol Gyfun Cymraeg Plasmawr, and Mark Williams from Cardiff Met, joined Tom and our colleague Lisa Fenn in the studio to answer questions from our student teachers. 

We hope you find the discussion interesting and useful!

Huge thanks to our panel and also to our colleagues from the MSc Sport Broadcast programmes here at Cardiff Met who helped us get on the air.

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Originally broadcast live from studio B2.15 at Cardiff Metropolitan University’s Cyncoed Campus on 19th January 2024. 

Those of you who listened to our epic Christmas special in December will remember Tom reading out a stream of tweets from Dr Emily MacLeod, who had just completed her doctorate about teacher recruitment. Well, now we have Dr Emily in person, speaking to us down the line, to delve deeper into the fascinating study she undertook which seeks to understand what motivates (and demotivates) people to become teachers. 

Using a massive treasure trove of longitudinal data from the ASPIRES project at the Institute of Education, Emily takes us through some of the really interesting things she’s found out, and what the implications might be for the ever more difficult task of recruiting new members of our wonderful profession. 

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Recorded at Cardiff Metropolitan University’s Cyncoed Campus on 28th February 2024

Welcome to our not-very-light Easter holiday special! As ever, we bring you some random things to liven up your school holiday, and as usual for our Easter special we’ve ended up with something a bit less than fluffy…

Nevertheless, we hope you find it interesting, useful or just a break from our usual service!

Emma’s three things:

• Getting Started with Key Concepts
• Taking a stand against the pedagogy of professional decline
• Things fell apart: the most mysterious deaths

Tom’s three things:

• Fighting Choirs
• Thousands of AI authors on the future of AI
• Zombie leadership: dead ideas that still walk among us

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Recorded in studio D0.12 at Cardiff Metropolitan University’s Cyncoed Campus on 20th February 2024

It's always a special podcast episode when we get our student teachers into the studio, and today's discussion is no exception! Just after Christmas this year, we spent an exciting couple of weeks digging into the details of our expressive arts subject disciplines, and the potential for making powerful connections between them.

Today, some of those student teachers are here to tell us and our listeners what they found out! Chloe Griffiths and Tianna Hancock (PGCE secondary drama), Serena Hancock (PGCE secondary art and design) and April Pinch (PGCE secondary music) tell us what they've come to know about their own subjects, each other's subjects, and the pleasures and pitfalls of bringing them together.

For our listeners in Wales, hopefully this is a great working example of the sort of meaningful conversations that areas of learning and experience (AoLEs) can have when designing a curriculum, and for our listeners further afield it's interesting to consider how this might enhance your own practice and understanding.

It's also a brilliant insight into how knowledgeable, perceptive and passionate our student teachers are - we're very lucky to work with them! Huge thanks to them for giving up part of their hard-earned half term to come in and record with us.

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Recorded in studio B2.15 at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed Campus on 12th February 2024.

Artifical Intelligence: is it going to revolutionise learning and the world of work? Or take our jobs and then kill us all? We've had our eye on doing an episode on AI for quite a while, but needed a guest who would give us an education angle and avoid the sensationalist stuff... step forward Karl Jones from Cardiff Met's School of Technologies! Karl was previously in Initial Teacher Education with our colleagues in Trinity Saint David, Carmarthen, so knows his way round a classroom as well as a computer. He joins us in the studio to discuss what teachers need to know about AI, where it can help, what the traps are, and how they should open a discussion with pupils about what's a legitimate application for everyone involved. 

Thanks to Karl for coming in, and this feels like a topic we'll be returning to more than once in the coming few years!

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Recorded in studio B2.15 at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed Campus on 29th November 2023

Today we welcome back our colleague Dr Anne Hodgson, who's here to talk to us about adverse childhood experiences and trauma-informed practice in schools. It's a wide ranging discussion with some hard-hitting facts about the challenges facing many of the children in our classrooms. As Anne says, being informed about the impact of these adverse factors is everybody's business, and we can all make a difference.

Thanks to Anne for joining us again!

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Recorded in studio B2.15 at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed Campus on 20th November 2023

For this episode we welcome (and bow down to) our colleague Kerry Bevan! Programme leader for PGCE secondary languages, but also still a practising languages teacher in school, Kerry recently completed her thesis for the National MA Education (Wales) programme and stormed to a mark in the 90s for her research into perceptions of decolonising the languages curriculum.

In today's discussion, Kerry tells us about the subject-specific issues around a white, Euro-centric approach to languages, and what her research told her about new teachers' perceptions of the problems and potential future advances that could contribute to Wales's ambition to be an anti-racist country.

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Recorded in studio B2.15 at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed Campus on 20th November 2023

We always like a good collaboration here on Cardiff Met's initial teacher education (ITE) programmes! Today we welcome to the studio our colleague Sioned Dafydd, and podcast veteran (from all the way back in season 1, no less) Sarah Cason from Palmerston Primary School. Since she joined us last time, Sarah has been upgraded to headteacher, and has a key role in partnership with Cardiff Met, creating the best possible experiences for our student teachers.

The project, funded by two regional school improvement consortia (CSC and EAS), aimed to improve people's understanding of Wales's very aspirational, holistic professional standards for teaching and leadership (PSTL), but ended up giving us wider insights into how professional dialogue helps new members of the teaching profession to learn and develop.

Hopefully, whether you're in Wales or further afield, you'll get useful ideas and pointers about setting up really meaningful professional dialogues which make the complex work of teaching accessible, and open up paths to improvement for new teachers. If you find this useful in your own context, why not give us a shout - we're @talkteachingpod on X (or Twitter as we can't stop calling it) and would love to hear from you.

You can find all the project videos at https://youtube.com/@sharedunderstanding

This episode can be watched on YouTube over on our channel: https://youtube.com/@talkteachingpod

Podcast artwork: Beth Blandford (blandoodles)

Music: Cameron Stewart

Editor: Tom Breeze

Studio Manager: Adrian Rapps

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Recorded in studio B2.15 at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed campus on 12th November 2023.

Happy new year! Despite Emma and Tom both being performing arts specialists, we've never had an episode on the podcast about dance. Having recently met and collaborated with National Dance Company Wales, we didn't want to miss an opportunity to invite them to our studio to talk all about this very special art form.

Paul Kaynes and Maris Lyons from NDCW talk to us about what makes dance unique, the challenges and opportunities of incorporating dance into the curriculum, and how NDCW support schools with exciting events and resources to dip their toe into what can be an intimidating subject to some.

You can find the company and their resources at ndcwales.co.uk and their performances at the Dance House in the Wales Millennium Centre and on tour around the country and the world!

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Recorded in studio B2.15 at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed Campus on 7th December 2023

Merry Christmas one and all! Yet again we find ourselves between Christmas and New Year, hopefully enjoying a well-earned break. And for the sixth time we have entered the studio with a total of twelve (one for each day of Christmas) weird and wonderful gifts for our listeners. 

This year we have everything from poetry to scary sounds, from the joys of solitude to a nostalgic unsung hero of music, to join you while you recharge the batteries or set out on some nice long walks to blow away the cobwebs. We hope you enjoy this extra-long light episode, and wish you all the best for a restful break and a happy new year. 

You can watch us recording this episode on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/DLhu7LRIq88 - and we make good use of the shiny new big screen, so if you haven't checked out our vide versions yet, take a look!

PS - we have truncated Anna Lapwood's recording from the Albert Hall to try and stay on the right side of 'fair use' copyright provisions. If you want to hear the whole thing, you can watch on YouTube here.

Best wishes from Emma & Tom 

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Recorded in studio B2.15 at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed Campus on 13th December 2023

As an initial teacher education (ITE) institution, we spend a lot of our time thinking about mentoring student teachers, especially how to support our school-based colleagues who undertake this vital role. Our colleagues in the regional school improvement consortia think about it too, especially with their responsibility for mentoring newly-qualified teachers (NQTs).

One consortium, Central South Consortium, carried out an appreciative enquiry to try and get hold of the very best mentoring practice out there in South Wales, and that's what we're talking about in today's episode. Joining us in the studio are Lucy Donovan from CSC, and Sharne Watkins from Cardiff Met.

What is an appreciative enquiry? How can I be a great mentor? Is mentoring student teachers and NQTs different? Have a listen and find out, and then get yourself straight to the CSC website to have a read!

You can listen to this episode wherever you get your podcasts, or watch us in action on our YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/@talkteachingpod

Podcast artwork: Beth Blandford (blandoodles)

Music: Cameron Stewart

Editor: Tom Breeze

Studio Manager: Adrian Rapps

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Recorded in studio B2.15 at Cardiff Metropolitan University's Cyncoed campus on 11th November 2023.