Salk Middle School students in Levittown express themselves through podcast club

Students at Salk Middle School in Levittown converted what was a fun club into a place for them to have meaningful conversations and reach out to other students about school life.

Michele DiLevo, a sixth grade teacher at Salk, launched a podcast club for students last year to provide them with a space to talk about topics they care about. Also known as “The Pod Squad,” students in the club are given the freedom to create podcasts on the numerous topics they’re passionate about, according to DiLevo.

“They’re podcasting about sports events outside of school, they’re podcasting about video games, about Legos, about puppies,” DiLevo said. “Just pretty much anything they want to, they can have a conversation about it, and it just took off.”

Some of the podcasts encourage students to interact with teachers in a variety of entertaining ways. During one podcast, a student began a song and a teacher was asked to finish the lyrics. Another podcast, which DiLevo described as “spilling the tea,” required students to ask teachers to reveal an interesting secret about themselves that students might not know.

“It was just nice for students to be able to get teachers involved,” DiLevo said.

During other podcasts, students interview one another on topics related to mental health and what to do if they're having a tough time. One segment, called “dark answers,” requires students to discuss relatable experiences while navigating middle school, such as test anxiety. DiLevo said students relate better to these experiences when they hear it from a fellow student as opposed to an adult telling them everything will be okay.

“It's a totally different ballgame when you're hearing people that are on your level,” she said.

DiLevo, who is the club’s advisor, said students follow a format to map out how they want to record each podcast episode. They fill out a form, writing down their thoughts, topic and what they are going to talk about for each episode. After the planning phase, students record, edit and then have it published.

The club uses an app, called Spotify for Podcasters, which provides students with an easy-to-use recording and editing process. Through the app, students choose which parts of the recording they want to keep and which ones they want to delete, and even add background music throughout their podcast.

“They’re creating, they’re editing, and then they're publishing it on their own,” DiLevo said. “So it is a pretty extensive process to publish it.”

DiLevo said she’s surprised how quickly the students are picking up on it, and sometimes they will show her something new about the app.

Through her club, students are learning important skills in communication and confidence building, according to DiLevo. She added that students don’t always have time for conversations with peers at school because there's little time in class to talk with fellow students while teachers are carrying out their lessons.

Face-to-face conversations about what podcasts to record have spurred students to use critical thinking skills, making them more comfortable to talk with each other.

“Talking about something that they're passionate about with people that they're familiar with kind of helps push them to be more confident in the way that they talk,” DiLevo said.

DiLevo said students are passionate about the podcast club, and she expressed hope that the content students create can benefit others. For a future project, DiLevo says she would like to reach out to elementary schools in the district to find books in their curriculum and have club members at Salk Middle School record themselves reading it for a podcast, so elementary students can have an audio aid in class.

DiLevo said she wants the podcast club to be a safe environment where students can talk, think and collaborate on things outside of academics. The club provides students the opportunity to socialize and hold conversations with fellow classmates, preparing them for experiences later in life, according to DiLevo.

“It gives them experience with how to have conversations and how they should be formatted, and listening instead of talking over people and how effective it is,” DiLevo said. “I think in a bunch of different areas it can help them excel in the future.”