Recount a challenge and how you handled it.
One challenge I worked through was facilitating a district-wide podcasting workshop for teachers across multiple disciplines.
The core challenge wasn’t the idea of podcasting; it was the resistance and overwhelm that comes with introducing new technology into established teaching practice. Many teachers were interested, but unsure how it fit into standards, workload, or their day-to-day instruction.
I designed the workshop using the SAMR model as a guiding framework, thinking about how podcasting could move from simple substitution and augmentation, like using podcasts as an alternative to reading, to deeper transformation through modification and redefinition, where students are creating their own audio work.
The issue was that I tried to cover the entire spectrum in one session, for a very diverse group of educators. It became too much, too fast, and I could feel the cognitive load in the room.
At the time, I handled it by over-scaffolding the experience, breaking tools into step-by-step processes, providing templates, and focusing on making everything as accessible and low-risk as possible so teachers could leave with something usable.
In reflection, I would redesign it into two distinct workshop tracks. One focused on teachers using podcasts as a learning text where students listen to podcasts for information acquisition as a supplement or alternative to reading and research. The second focused on student creation of podcasts, where learners synthesize and present their learning through audio.
And I would further structure each of those into a 101 and 102 sequence, so teachers could first build comfort with implementation before moving into more advanced, student-led applications. That sequencing would have better supported both confidence and true pedagogical progression.