Education
José Cossa taught in Vanderbilt’s leadership, policy, and organization department the last few years. José regularly gives his students the option to produce a podcast in lieu of a traditional research paper, and his students often take him up on the opportunity. This past spring, José was teaching in Vanderbilt’s international education policy and management program, or IEPM, and four of the students in his graduate-level course on Africa and education put together a seven-episode podcast as their final project. The four students—Kelley Lach, Kenta Nagasawa, Sabirah Oniyangi, and Shashank Poudel— drew on course readings and class discussions to plan their podcast and identify guests to interview. They spoke with several African students on campus, as well as Vanderbilt faculty with relevant expertise, to explore such topics as the history of education in Africa, early childhood education, technical and vocational training, and more. The students’ podcast, which they called IEPM African Education, stuck to an interview format for most episodes. Choosing the right interview subjects is critical to this format, and the IEPM students selected some really lively subjects for Episode 6 of their podcast, which we’re sharing here on VandyVox. This episode features three African students currently studying at Vanderbilt, including one of the podcast hosts, reflecting on their educational experiences in Africa and elsewhere. Their stories connect with many of the themes explored on earlier podcast episodes and in José Cossa’s course. Links IEPM African Education podcast: https://soundcloud.com/user-468245252/tracks José Cossa’s website: http://mozambicanscholar.blogspot.com/ José Cossa on Twitter: https://twitter.com/zeca72