The Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit is pleased to welcome our next external speakers on 2 and 3 May 2024, Pedagodzilla, the pedagogic podcast with the pop culture core, to Aberystwyth University. They are running a very special series of in-person events and CPD sessions on 2^nd and 3^rd May 2024.  

• 2/5/2024 10:00-12:00 Powering professional development with Pedagodzilla 
• 2/5/2024 13:30-15:30 The Aber Takeover  
• 3/5/2024 10:00-11:00 Pedagodzilla Live 
• 3/5/2024 11:05-12:00 Picking Pedagodzilla Panellist Brains 

Staff can book on our CPD booking system. Interested students should contact the LTEU team to be added. 

The Pedagodzilla visit to Aberystwyth starts with an introduction from the team, on who we are, what Pedagodzilla is – and includes us giving away free copies of our newly launched book, Pedagodzilla: Exploring the Realm of Pedagogy. 

The book aims to demystify and disentangle the domains of pedagogy, using the lens of pop culture in a playful and accessible way. The book stems from episodes of the Pedagodzilla Podcast, which has now been running for five years, and has led to collaborations and conversations across the world, conference pieces and journal papers. 

We feel that the book will be useful to anyone interested in education practice – and how theory can inform how we teach. In particular, this book is aimed at practitioners who may be suffering from the common higher-ed occupational hazard, imposter syndrome – giving them an accessible way to use the language of pedagogy to discuss and develop their own practice. We will talk about the book – share a QR code for people to access the pdf – and share some print copies until they run out. 

We then move to a workshop, starting by discussing the development and framework of the Pedagodzilla Podcast as a professional development tool, and then inviting attendees to form groups to ideate their own powerful professional development projects within a framework. We draw it all together with a discussion of the underlying pedagogies, and tips for powering up your own professional development with creativity and authenticity. 

In the Aber Takeover session, we invite attendees to form a team (using self-described roles to break up groups) to design a short segment of a show within a playful structured framework. Groups will record their contributions, which will go into a special Aberystwyth Takeover episode, published on the Pedagodzilla podcast feed. If you’re not a confident speaking or being recorded then don’t worry! This format includes options for non-speaking contributions. 

On the second day, join Pedagodzilla for a recording session! An experiment with our format where we invite attendees to submit their own Pedagodzilla Style ‘pedagogy meets pop culture’ questions, to see if our flustered panellists can somehow blag a legitimate answer within a tight time limit, in a recorded podcast. 

In the final session, we invite the good folk of Aberystwyth to pick the brains of the Pedagodzilla team – HE professionals from high profile universities across the country. Possible topics include but aren’t limited to: 

• Learning Design theory and practice (All) 
• The ups and downs of distance learning (All) 
• Experiential learning in virtual worlds, and the pedagogy (or not) of VR (Mark) 
• Podcasting for dummies (Mike) 
• Education futures, and innovations in pedagogy (Rebecca) 
• Learning behaviours (Elizabeth Ellis) 

About Pedagodzilla 

Pedagodzilla is the pedagogic podcast with the pop culture core, that looks to playfully understand and explore pedagogies and education practice through the lens of pop culture. The Pedagodzilla team will be officially launching their first book, Pedagodzilla: Exploring the Realm of Pedagogy at Aberystwyth. 

Facilitators 

• Mike Collins: Producer and host of the Pedagodzilla podcast, and Senior Learning Designer at The Open University. Mike also provided the illustrations for the book. 
• Dr Mark Childs: Mark is a Senior Learning Designer at Durham University. He has a PhD in Education and was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship in 2021 for his research and teaching using virtual reality and videoconferencing. 
• Prof Rebecca Ferguson: Professor Rebecca Ferguson is an editor-in-chief of the Journal of Learning Analytics, academic coordinator of the FutureLearn Academic Network (FLAN). 
• Elizabeth Ellis: At The Open University, Elizabeth develops digital learning experiences for OU students as well as OpenLearn and FutureLearn.