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WORTHINGTON — Communication with the community from Worthington Middle School is important to us. This year, we added yet another new way that the MS is communicating with students and families.
Mrs. Pedersen, our FACS teacher, was willing to start a Middle School podcast called “From the Middle” featuring some of our students as hosts. This is a very exciting way for us to communicate with our community and have our students involved with this communication. Their peers are hearing them broadcast and it eliminates “feeling embarrassed” because it is just audio and students aren’t on video. We want our community to know and understand what is all happening at Worthington Middle School and how much fun we have here!
In our podcasts, our students talk about upcoming events, concerts, sports, menus, special acknowledgments, student and staff interviews, and relevant happenings (notes from principals, features from each of our instructional departments and more). When we interview students, the eighth grade primary hosts come up with interview questions. We want them to be relevant to the time, but not scary, so anyone would feel comfortable answering them.
The eighth grade group has a three-page list of topics they would like to cover on the podcast, so we try to hit some of those each episode. For example, they’d like to do a follow-up interview with Ms. Baartman and the Good News Calls of the day, talk to Nurse Kayla about ways to stay healthy, hear from the Tech department on iPad tips, and speak to the custodians about some of the stuff they see or find throughout the school.
Our primary hosts are currently interested eighth graders who come to Mrs. Pedersen during Independent Study. These students have their homework done and have passing grades. They have an interest or enjoy doing the recording, planning, producing and speaking. These same students are interested in editing episodes, but we haven’t gotten to that step yet.
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We have guests that we recruit, usually featuring a different grade each episode. Mrs. Pedersen also formed a Schoology group that consists of about 50 students in grades 6-8 that want to be a part of the podcast at some point throughout the year. She posts recruitment messages on Schoology and they come during the allotted time.
From the Middle can be found on most podcast apps, such as: Spotify , Amazon Music, Podcast Addict, and our Buzzsprout Host Site: https://fromthemiddle.buzzsprout.com . Every episode is posted on our Schoology page, as well as the School District’s Facebook Page.
We love that the students do not realize they are learning something new that isn’t in the classroom and is informative to all involved! From the Middle — listen to the latest soon!
