An Irish perspective on education for all who value teaching
Inside Education - a podcast for educators interested in teaching
Claim This Podcastby Sean Delaney
5.0(5 reviews)
308 episodes
Updated Bi-weekly
Accepts GuestsHas SponsorsLocation 🇮🇪
61
Podcast Authority
BetaGoodBased on show quality, social media presence, reviews, charts, and more
Quality58
Social0
YouTube72
Engagement89
Podcast Overview
An Irish perspective on education for all who value teaching
Language
🇺🇲
Publishing Since
3/21/2012
Unlock The Full Podcast Authority Score Report
See how your podcast performs across key metrics
61
Podcast Authority
BetaGoodBased on show quality, social media presence, reviews, charts, and more
Quality58
Social0
YouTube72
Engagement89
8
Excellent Areas
0
Good Performance
11
Growth Opportunities
excellent
Episode Length
39 minutes
Performing excellently!
needs improvement
Publishing Consistency
Every 16 days
Recommendations available
Unlock the full report to see detailed tips
+16 More Metrics
Unlock comprehensive insights including:
- • YouTube presence analysis
- • Social media reach metrics
- • RSS compliance scoring
- • Podcast 2.0 features
- • Technical standards
What's Included in Your Full Report
Detailed Analytics
- Complete breakdown of all 19 authority metrics
- Personalized recommendations for each metric
- Industry benchmarks and comparisons
- Technical RSS feed analysis and compliance scoring
Growth Strategies
- Step-by-step action plans for improvement
- Quick wins to boost your score immediately
- Pro tips from successful podcasters
Get your free podcast insights report
See how your show performs across every key metric
Instant delivery
No spam
Attract Better Guests
High authority scores make your podcast more attractive to industry leaders and influencers who want to appear on credible shows.
Secure Sponsorships
Sponsors look for podcasts with proven authority and engagement. Your score demonstrates your podcast's value to potential partners.
Grow Your Audience
Understanding your strengths and weaknesses helps you make data-driven decisions to expand your listener base effectively.
Reach the team behind Inside Education - a podcast for educators interested in teaching
Verified contact details for this show aren't on file yet — sign up to get notified when they land.
Recent Episodes
June 24, 2026
Inside Education 438, Professor Devin Kearns on Teaching Reading (24-6-26)
My guest on this podcast is Professor Devin Kearns from North Carolina State University at Raleigh. He was in Ireland for the inaugural Right to Read conference, which was held in Dublin on Saturday, 21 March 2026. Among the points we discussed in the podcast were the following: What happens in the brain (generally and simplistically) when a competent reader in first, second or third class reads: (i) sound information is processed; (ii) print is matched with or connected to speech and print and (iii) memories for the words is stored. Why the brain effort/activation in the temporal parietal region is much more active for readers with typical achievement than for children with reading difficulties. Why dyslexia is not a visual-processing problem (even if it feels that way to some people). Developing readers, even those with no reading problems, will still sometimes spell letters backwards in second grade. Children with dyslexia need good instruction on how to read words i.e. intensive instruction focusing on phonics and decoding; they don’t need a visual processing intervention (such as a colour overlay). But, if you do use an overlay, a blue one is better than a red one! The importance of teaching children about letters and the sounds they make. Teach them to read and spell words with them and give them lots of practice reading words that have those patterns in them. You don’t need something “multi-sensory.” Data does not suggest that writing letters in sand or shaving foam help children with dyslexia learn sound-letter relationships. Readers with dyslexia may have similar brain processing patterns as novice readers. Morphemes – longer units of letters such as “-tion” – are chunks of words that you can work with. For readers with dyslexia, knowing and using morphemes reduces the size of the task. Teachers can have an influence in shaping children’s brains to work in particular ways. But he does not believe that an extensive understanding of the workings of the brain is necessary for teachers. How can a teacher know if they’re practising the “science of reading” in their classroom? Teachers need to be thoughtful about the quality of information they receive, even from initial teacher education or professional development experiences. Find honest brokers – people you can trust to tell you if things are scientific or not. For example, for a long time people believed that phonological awareness needed to be developed without letters. The data suggest that focusing on the sounds as they relate to letters might be superior to focusing on sounds in isolation. See the work of Professor Melissa Stalega. Settled questions: Children need to learn how to decode. Devin makes a distinction between teaching words by sight and sight memory. We need to think about how much phonics we teach. If there is a programme available that does the things you need to do, use the programme and think about how you can make the programme work for your children. How his own experience of teacher education inspired him to become a teacher educator. A teacher can take a scientific approach to teaching. Morphology – study of meaningful parts in words. Help you assemble words and assemble the meaning of words. If you teach students about these, it will improve their vocabulary and their reading. Children can learn morphemes such as -ing, -ed etc. Children should preferably be asked to look for small words in big words after they have learned some morphemes they can look for. Evaluating the teaching of reading: Is the teaching responsive to the children in the classroom? Are the practices being used good for this context? Is the teacher using explicit instruction methods at the outset to introduce children to new skills and strategies? Are they gradually giving the children opportunities to use those skills and strategies independently? His views on using artificial intelligence large language models in reading instruction now and his vision for usin
April 29, 2026
Inside Education 437, Professor Pam Snow on Teaching Literacy (29 April 2026)
My guest on this podcast is Pamela Snow, University Distinguished Professor from La Trobe University in Australia. She was in Ireland for the inaugural Right to Read conference, which was held in Dublin on Saturday, 21 March 2026. Among the topics discussed were: Why functional literacy is insufficient for full civic engagement What it means to be literate Students from some groups disproportionately underachieve in literacy The challenge of being critically literate in the world today Why teaching a knowledge-rich curriculum is essential to help students discern authentic news sources Why reading is a public-health imperative “Once you get to school, everybody should be exposed to high-quality explicit instruction delivered by knowledgeable teachers” “Low literacy achievement in the first three years of school really casts a very long shadow. We know from international research that if you’re behind in reading … after your first three years of school, only twenty per cent of children catch up. Instead of teachers choosing “their own adventure” they need to use proven methods of literacy instruction that work at scale to help all readers, especially those likely to be lower achievers. The difference between “balanced literacy” (grew out of whole language ideology – associated with people like Kenneth Goodman) and structured literacy (structure-explicit reading instruction – mapping speech and text as the “on-ramp to the comprehension freeway.”) Inquiries were held into poor levels of reading following the emphasis on “balanced literacy”: National Reading Panel in the United States (2000); National Inquiry into the teaching of literacy in Australia (2005) and in England, the Rose Report (2006). Finding was that whole language was not working at scale. English is a rule- and pattern-governed language when you understand etymology. “Reading is not biologically natural and we need to teach in a way that doesn’t leave reading to chance. We need to be bringing all children along by giving them the essential code knowledge that they need.” What it means to say that phonics is a constrained skill and essential but unconstrained skills (such as the size of your vocabulary; ability to work with active and passive voice) are also required to read competently. The importance of background knowledge for readers, depending on their age and stage. Background knowledge can help a reader see nuance, inconsistencies and inaccuracies in a text. What a knowledge-based curriculum looks like in practice. John Sweller and cognitive load theory. Something has been learned when it’s in long-term memory. Why “discovery learning” is an unjust and inefficient approach for many children but is still advocated to student teachers in many initial teacher education programmes. Pre-teaching that might occur and how it is different for fiction (e.g. metaphor and simile) and non-fiction (a lot of vocabulary, for instance). Influences on her thinking about literacy include Professor Kevin Wheldall, Professor Max Coltheart, Dr. Louisa Moats, Professor Linnea Ehri, Professor John Sweller, and Professor Jeanne Chall. Education has done a poor job of knowledge translation, in contrast to other fields such as medicine, engineering and aviation. See Nidhi Sachdeva’s Substack post on this topic here. She seeks “levels of evidence” – an article published in a peer-reviewed journal is a start but is not enough. She looks for rigour, how a research sample was recruited, how terms were defined, what was done, if it was an intervention study where the intervention came from, how well it was implemented and if there were fidelity measures. She also wants to know about the experiences of the teachers and what parents think of an intervention. Frequently a probabilistic approach needs to be taken. Teachers need to be critical consumers of research, using strong critical appraisal skills. Education has a tendency to adopt fads and fashions. No regulatory body in e
September 15, 2025
Podcast 436, Dr. Conall Ó Breacháin on Teacher Agency and Curriculum Change (15-9-25)
My guest on this podcast is Dr. Conall Ó Breacháin from the School of Language, Literacy and Early Childhood Education in Dublin City University. Among the topics we discuss in this episode are: Differences between 1999 language curricula and the 2016 language curriculum in Ireland (e.g. focus on plurilingualism and the transfer of skills is a noticeable difference in emphasis in the redeveloped curriculum, broad learning outcomes versus learning objectives in 1999). He refers to the work of Jim Cummins who featured on Inside Education in Episode 15 and Episode 16. How learning one language can help the learning of another. Was there a need to change the 1999 curriculum when “it was working fine”? Finding the right degree of innovation in curriculum change. The importance of providing teachers with a timeline for proposed change and a plan for how teachers will be supported around the change. Why teachers typically don’t ask for curriculum change. The most underrated ideas in the redeveloped language curriculum – digital literacy? Plurilingualism? What is meant by the term “knowledgeability,” a term used by Anthony Giddens What teacher agency is. The difference between teacher agency and teacher autonomy A practical example of teacher agency applied to a problem of teaching reading Agency is a conceptual framework to understand how people act in the structures within which they are acting. Ethical and unethical agency Challenges of measuring agency Questions Conall still has about teacher agency How teachers can influence one another in their practice Changing the culture of a school and the role of leadership (wherever it comes from) “Connecting” to a curriculum (current or previous) Associating curriculum with accountability. Analogy: Changing curriculum is like servicing an airplane mid-flight – “It’s not like [teachers] get a six-month sabbatical to get their heads around” a new curriculum before implementing it. The process of writing the dissertation Gert Biesta (qualification, socialisation and subjectification) on Inside Education 356 and Inside Education 357. Catherine Snow on Inside Education 184 and Inside Education 185. Nell Duke Ciaran Sugrue Curriculum and Ideology The difference between educating pre-service and practising teachers. We Cut Corners (http://wecutcorners.net/)
308 total episodes available
Recent guests on Inside Education - a podcast for educators interested in teaching
Guests from recent episodes — sign up to see every guest that has ever appeared on this show.
Sonia Cabell
Guest
Similar Podcasts
Discover related shows you might enjoy
Deep-dive analytics for Inside Education - a podcast for educators interested in teaching
Frequently asked questions
Have a different question and can't find the answer you're looking for? Reach out to our support team by sending us an email and we'll get back to you as soon as we can.
- What is Inside Education - a podcast for educators interested in teaching?
- How often does this podcast release new episodes?
This podcast updates bi-weekly.
- Where can I listen to this podcast?
This podcast is available on 10 platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more. You can also use the RSS feed directly.
- Does this podcast accept guests?
Yes, this podcast regularly features guests.
Legal Disclaimer
Pod Engine is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or officially connected with any of the podcasts displayed on this platform. We operate independently as a podcast discovery and analytics service.
All podcast artwork, thumbnails, and content displayed on this page are the property of their respective owners and are protected by applicable copyright laws. This includes, but is not limited to, podcast cover art, episode artwork, show descriptions, episode titles, transcripts, audio snippets, and any other content originating from the podcast creators or their licensors.
We display this content under fair use principles and/or implied license for the purpose of podcast discovery, information, and commentary. We make no claim of ownership over any podcast content, artwork, or related materials shown on this platform. All trademarks, service marks, and trade names are the property of their respective owners.
While we strive to ensure all content usage is properly authorized, if you are a rights holder and believe your content is being used inappropriately or without proper authorization, please contact us immediately at hey@podengine.ai for prompt review and appropriate action, which may include content removal or proper attribution.
By accessing and using this platform, you acknowledge and agree to respect all applicable copyright laws and intellectual property rights of content owners. Any unauthorized reproduction, distribution, or commercial use of the content displayed on this platform is strictly prohibited.