Harness the Power of Podcasts in the Classroom with Listenwise

Podcasts are all the rage right now. 

And for good reason, too. They’re informative, versatile, and ridiculously convenient. According to 2019 research, podcast awareness and listenership has grown dramatically in the past year alone. 

Not surprisingly then, an increasing number of teachers are looking for ways to harness this growing power in their classrooms.

Indeed, podcasts a great way to engage students while supporting a wide range of instructional goals. Podcasts can also help support listening comprehension skills, which are vitally important and closely linked to success in other areas.

Lucky for us podcast-loving teachers, there’s a vast universe of channels and episodes out there to choose from. But let’s face it, we don’t always have time to sift through it all to find what we need. 

That’s where Listenwise comes in. 

Listenwise offers a growing collection of audio stories and standards-aligned lessons for teachers in grades 5-12. Stories average 3-6 minutes in length and are curated from NPR and other trusted sources, so you can always count on finding relevant, high-quality content from journalists and storytellers alike.

You can browse by subject area (social studies, science, and ELA), view a variety of collections organized by theme (coming of age, shaping identity, the American dream, etc), or search by keyword.

I’ve used Listenwise several times now in my 7th and 8th grade ELA and journalism classes. There’s so much content to choose from, and I love that the clips are short enough to incorporate into just about any type of lesson or activity.

Sign up for a free Listenwise account here.

With a free account, teachers gain access to the entire Listenwise content library — thousands of stories with new additions daily — along with suggested comprehension questions and discussion starters.

These companion resources are not only helpful instructional tools, but they’re also huge time savers. The first time I used Listenwise, I was surprised at how quickly I was able to find relevant content and integrate it into an upcoming lesson. You can learn more about that, along with some of my favorite Listenwise stories, here.

Listenwise also offers a Premium account, which unlocks some additional instructional tools and time-saving features. These include lesson plans, interactive transcripts and listening supports, customized assignments, listening quizzes, student accounts and progress monitoring.

Hands down, my favorite Premium features are the listening quizzes and progress monitoring. After students complete a listening quiz, I’m able to see the class average, along with each student’s individual scores, broken down by 8 different comprehension areas.

This data is especially useful because it helps me pinpoint specific focus areas and monitor my students’ progress in these areas over time. I definitely noticed a few trends in some of the skill areas and feel more equipped to tackle them thanks to the reporting from Listenwise.

Listenwise also integrates with Google Classroom, which means I can post audio, assignments and/or quizzes to each of my classes in a matter of seconds. This makes it easy to incorporate Listenwise audio into direct instruction, small group learning stations, and online discussions.

Sign up for a free account and get 30 days of free Premium features.

Listenwise has some great free resources if you’re interested in having students create their own podcasts, too. My advanced journalism students recently started their own podcast, and the student podcasting resources in the Teacher Support Center have been especially valuable.

Watch the video below to learn more about how I’ve used Listenwise in my language arts and journalism classes.

Thank you to Listenwise for sponsoring this post. All opinions are my own.