I co-convened the Neuroscience Fundamentals (NEUR2201) course for the first time in 2020, taking over as the convenor from 2021 to present. NEUR2201 is a stage 2 introductory course to neuroscience. 

Due to the pandemic, the 2020 iteration of the NEUR2201 course had to flip to a complete online delivery. To support students’ perception of community as well as their learning, I initiated, designed and delivered weekly podcasts after having heard a colleague describe the positive student feedback from the use of podcasts in their course. I found this proactive strategy and ‘personal voice’ contact via podcasts boosted my ‘teacher presence’ (Shea et al., 2006). Many students validated the usefulness of the podcasts, e.g. ‘I really like the podcasts weekly…to keep up with where we should be at’ (myExperience, 2020), with subsequent cohorts also praising the podcasts, e.g. ‘…short podcasts…helped me keep on track’ (myExperience, 2021).

Moodle analytics from the 2021 cohort showed that 78 of 79 students (98.7%) listened to the podcasts a total of 463 times, i.e., on average each student listened to 5.9 podcasts (8 podcasts in total, 73.8%). Encouraged by the students’ engagement with the podcasts, I continued to record these in the subsequent years. Data from the 2022 cohort shows that 88% of the students listened to 4.6 / 5 podcasts (92%). The interest and value of the podcasts were still high in 2023 with 89.5% of the students listening to 4.05 / 5 podcasts (81%). The higher proportion of students listening in 2021 might be attributed to the course switching from blended to online only mode due to the Sydney lockdown in early July. Furthermore, there was an overall increase in the myExperience mean score for ‘I felt part of a learning community’ from 4.70 (2020) to 5.52 (2021), which has sustained over time (5.55, 2022; 5.24, 2023).

Shea P, Li C, Pickett A (2006). Internet and Higher Education, 9(3), 175-190.