Within the Scanlan Center for School Mental Health, University of Iowa College of Education professors Kari Vogelgesang and Mark McDermott have begun co-hosting their own podcast to discuss topics related to teacher wellness and challenges in education.
Jake Mayer, the student success and engagement coordinator for the School of Journalism and Mass Communication, said podcasts as a media format are accessible for anyone and can provide widespread, direct information about important topics.
“I think podcasts have the potential to be very informational and very approachable for a lot of people,” Mayer said. “Most education podcasts, in particular, are pretty rigid in what they plan to talk about. I think it’s very important to include conversational aspects in educational podcasts if it fits.”
The “EDUcation Unscripted and Xplored” podcast aired its first two episodes in January and is available on the Scanlan Center for School Mental Health website, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.
The first episode, “Why We’re Going Off-Script: Who We Are And Why This Matters,” was released on Jan. 7, and the second episode, “Literacy as a Wellness Predictor: How Reading Skills Shape Lifelong Outcomes,” followed on Jan. 30. Both episodes were around 35 minutes long.
The first episode served as an introduction to the podcast, where the co-hosts discussed the evolving process of education and shared perspectives on how their teaching careers have changed over time.
The second episode featured Leah Zimmermann, a clinical assistant professor in special education at the UI. Vogelgesang, McDermott, and Zimmermann discussed how literacy extends beyond classroom performance and plays a vital role in health and wellness.
These episodes come at a time when podcasting is becoming an increasingly popular tool for discussing education topics. According to December 2023 statistics from Learning Revolution, 533,493 active podcasts were recorded last year. Education accounted for 12.7 percent of podcast listens, alongside genres such as Society & Culture at 14 percent and Business at 9.5 percent.
While many education podcasts focus on education models, personalized learning, and technological impacts, this new podcast emphasizes educator wellness, literacy instruction, challenges in rural education districts, chronic absenteeism, and other broad topics.
Episodes are recorded monthly in the UI’s Lindquist Center and feature educators from across the nation who bring awareness and foster open, productive conversations about solving these varied challenges.
“We really are going to be inviting people from across the nation onto the podcast,” said Vogelgesang, who also serves as the director of professional development at the Scanlan Center for School Mental Health. “Some of it may be a little controversial, but I think it’s great to get into spaces and chat through some of these topics together and make sure that all sides of the story are told and let people make their own decisions with facts that are delivered.”
McDermott, who also serves as the associate dean for undergraduate education and educator preparation, noted that students, educators, administrators, and parents can all connect to the topics discussed in the podcast.
“What Kari and I are thinking is this isn’t just for people who teach teachers, or it isn’t just for people who are working as teachers,” McDermott said. “It’s hopefully something that all of those people from different perspectives can connect with education in different ways and can be interested in what we’re talking about.”
The co-hosts gather discussion ideas from surveys sent by the Scanlan Center for Mental Health to teachers and school administrators throughout Iowa to address specific needs and challenges that different districts face. Additionally, an intake form from the Baker Teacher Leader Center is provided for listeners to share their own needs and challenges.
“Once we identify those topics coming from those different sources, we sit down, and we go through a guideline in terms of a script,” Vogelgesang explained. “We don’t really stick to that script all the time. We do have an idea about ‘These are the things we really want to make sure that we discuss or talk about at some point in time.’”
Vogelgesang hopes that through the podcast, listeners will gain insight into how various concerns related to education can be addressed.
“I think that’s what we’re wanting for this podcast is to really make everybody feel welcome,” Vogelgesang said. “Each member of a community—parents, neighbors—are all so important and play a role in the overall health of the students and everything that happens in and outside of the schools. So this isn’t just for teachers, it’s really for everyone.”
https://dailyiowan.com/2026/02/03/ui-professors-begin-new-podcast-to-bring-awareness-about-education-challenges/
