Abstract

Bioethics educators have access to a wide range of teaching approaches, including online strategies which became familiar to many teachers during the pandemic. As teaching contexts continue to evolve, reflection on which approaches best fit our pedagogical aims in bioethics is timely. As a contribution to this reflection, we report our experience incorporating podcasts into our students’ learning in two Australian universities at Masters level. We describe the potential of podcasts to positively impact learning and student experience. We explore them firstly as substitutions for lectures and secondly as supplements or substitutions for readings. Based on our teaching practice, we discuss the use of both bespoke teacher-created podcasts and pre-existing third party podcasts. We suggest that podcasts can engage students effectively in bioethical issues, model philosophical dialogue, facilitate high quality class discussion, and give learners access to both mainstream experts and less powerful voices in an immediate and moving way.