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How AI-Generated Podcasts are Revolutionizing Student Learning
Introduction
Recently, Eric and I started exploring the use of AI-generated podcasts in education. We want to share what we’ve learned about the potential of these tools to revolutionize learning. If you don’t want the back story and just what to experience an AI-generated podcast now, take a listen to this NotebookLM-generated podcast. This topic comes from an ethics book I’m working on for release later this year. Directly below the podcast is the text for the topic in a drop-down toggle. Compare and contrast the text with the podcast. If you’re intrigued read on to learn the brief history of this cool innovation and how we’re using it at Massage Mastery to enhance student learning.
Massage Values and Ethics
In Topic A (What is Ethics?), we learned that values are the judgments we make about what is important, useful, and good. We know that our values directly influence our ethics. If we value something, we have a positive attitude towards it, are open to it, and treat it respectfully. If we don’t value something, we have a negative attitude towards it, are closed to it, and treat it with indifference or even disrespect. The next time you feel open or closed to someone, something, or a situation, think about how your attitude relates to your values.
What Are the Values of the Massage Profession?
When we examine the massage profession in its entirety, five core values emerge. While each person may value additional aspects of the massage profession, our school curriculums, code of ethics documents, and standards of practice generally illuminate these essential ideals.
- We Value People and Healthy Relationships
- We Value the Human Body
- We Value the Power of Structured, Professional Touch
- We Value Highly Skilled Massage Therapy
- We Value Our Role as Massage Therapists
So, whether you work in a massage clinic, chiropractor’s office, spa, or home office, you’ll likely share these values with other massage therapists. Likewise, whether your focus is Swedish massage, myofascial work, Asian bodywork therapies, or orthopedic massage, you’ll resonate with these values. Let’s look at each of these values in more depth.
#1: We Value People and Healthy Relationships
The first thing people typically say about us as massage therapists is that we are compassionate, kind, and caring people who make strong connections with others. We naturally value people and healthy relationships. First, we value our clients for recognizing the beneficial nature of massage, committing to improving their health and physical condition, sharing their physical pain, and striving to heal.
Many massage therapists feel honored to have the opportunity to support clients in achieving their treatment goals and feel gratitude for being part of a client’s journey to wellness.
As massage therapists, we value positive relationships with our massage colleagues and other health care professionals, knowing that these related specialists share our awe of the human body and a desire to help people.
We also value healthy, positive relationships because we know that constructively interacting with people is therapy in itself. Therefore, we pay attention to our boundaries, endeavor to communicate effectively, listen to others, show interest in others, treat all people with kindness, respect human rights, and aim to support people in achieving their goals.
#2: We Value the Human Body
Have you ever heard yourself saying things like this to your friends? “There are around 100 trillion cells in the human body. Did you know that? There are more cells in your body than stars in the Milky Way!” or “Have you ever thought about what happens when a muscle moves?” or “Do you know how many elements it takes to make a human?”
Most of us are in awe of the human body. We feel a sense of wonder, amazement, surprise, and excitement every time we contemplate its functions or feel muscles soften under our hands. Therefore, we strive to learn all we can about anatomy and physiology, especially the musculoskeletal system. We also pay close attention to the client’s health intake process and carefully rule out contraindications to keep clients safe. We learn to adapt our work to each client’s unique health picture.
This consciousness of the human body as a miraculous gift underlies our sense of responsibility, commitment to clients, and pride in our work as massage therapists.
#3: We Value the Power of Structured, Professional Touch
Massage therapists know that touch (like food, water, or shelter) is essential for normal and optimal human development.1,2,3 The benefits of touch don’t fade as people age. 4 Touch—be it from a romantic partner, friend, or professional therapist—is associated with positive physiological and psychological outcomes.
Research shows that professional, structured touch reduces cortisol levels, increases oxytocin levels, improves immunity, reduces blood pressure, balances brain chemicals like serotonin and dopamine, and reduces feelings of loneliness, social exclusion, and depression.5,6
The power of touch is the massage profession’s highest value. We’ve had the privilege of feeling muscles change, witnessing pain reduction, and seeing the re-establishment of freer movement patterns. We value touch because we understand the spiritual nourishment that comes from contact with another human in an ethical and professional manner.
Like all powerful things, touch can be beneficial or harmful, depending on its application. As massage therapists, we cultivate and value professional, ethical touch that is beneficial, safe, respectful, intentional, knowledgeable, purposeful, skilled, and responsive (see Topic G). Therefore, we practice touch mindfully, ask classmates, instructors, and clients for feedback on the skill level of techniques, set goals for hands-on learning, and practice hands-on skills on a variety of body types.
#4: We Value Highly Skilled Massage Therapy
Competence is the ability to do a job properly, while proficiency is the ability to do a job in a skilled, experienced manner. Finally, excellence is the ability to be effective, reliably achieve defined outcomes, and leave a vivid, lasting, positive impression on the client. Depending on several factors, each of us will be at some point on this spectrum.
Massage therapists with highly refined massage therapy skills demonstrate smooth, snug, effortless draping, the use of a variety of techniques applied with precision on exactly the right soft-tissue structures, proper pacing and depth, thoughtful sequencing of body regions, and an intuitive response to changes in the client’s physical and psychological state. Highly skilled massage therapy leaves clients feeling awed at the transformative power of massage and the musculoskeletal changes in their bodies.
Only some massage therapists achieve true excellence. The rest of us, especially when we first graduate from massage school, are more likely to be competent, and that’s okay. However, if we are incompetent—we don’t do our jobs properly—that’s not okay, and we need immediate remediation to bring our skills up to a minimum standard.
Most massage therapists aspire to develop their hands-on skills and demonstrate this desire through participation in continuing education workshops, peer-exchange study groups, and through regular self-evaluation.
Being good at what we do isn’t something we do to increase our client bookings or earn more money. Instead, we do it because we respect ourselves, care about clients, and value the profession’s reputation.
#5: We Value Our Role as Massage Therapists
Our sense of pride in being massage therapists and part of the massage profession comes from our value for other people and healthy relationships, our awe of the human body, our wonder at the transformative power of touch, and our admiration for exceptional massage therapy skills.
No matter where we are in our journey (student, new graduate, seasoned professional, educator, and so forth), we love to tell people what we do. We love to introduce ourselves and share that we are massage therapists. We delight in seeing people’s admiration and interest because we have chosen an appreciated and respected profession.
From this value for our role as massage therapists, we commit ourselves to acting ethically, professionally, and compassionately. We remain self-aware and constantly grow and evolve in knowledge and skills. We demonstrate confidence and humility as we strive to support each unique client.
As you contemplate the values described here, you’ll likely find yourself thinking about other things you value about clients, touch, and the massage profession. Connecting to our values motivates ethical behavior and helps us set and achieve important career goals.
How do Massage Values Develop?
We learn our massage values from massage teachers, peers, supervisors, mentors, and massage colleagues. Usually, this process begins in massage school. A teacher we respect and trust tells us that something is valuable, important, good, or desirable or that something is worthless, insignificant, bad, or undesirable. Sometimes, consciously or sometimes unconsciously, we adopt the values and attitudes of the teacher.
We also learn by picking up subtle cues from teachers, supervisors, mentors, and colleagues. For example, if we admire someone, we may gravitate towards valuing what we see them valuing. Similarly, we may devalue things that a disliked person values. Even if the item itself is good, we may develop a negative attitude towards it in response to the disliked person.
Example A: A Teacher Enthusiastic About Anatomy
For example, imagine that you have a teacher who is enthusiastic about anatomy. This teacher is also really good at teaching. When you sit in class, you enjoy yourself. The teacher takes pains to make the content fun and engaging and helps you connect the topic of anatomy to your future real-world massage practice.
You graduate from massage school with a value for knowing anatomy and have a positive attitude towards anatomy-related things. In fact, you continue to study anatomy after school and take advanced continuing education classes focused on methods grounded in a deep knowledge of the human body. The values and attitudes of your teacher impact your choices and career in a significant way.
Example B: A Teacher Indifferent to Anatomy
Now let’s imagine you have a teacher who is slightly indifferent to anatomy and picked up the anatomy class just to make some extra money. This teacher isn’t necessarily bad at teaching but doesn’t put much effort into making anatomy classes fun and engaging. As a result, you find the class dull and struggle to pay attention.
When you graduate, you feel disinterested in anatomy and don’t think having a deep understanding of the human body is essential for your massage practice. You don’t study anatomy after graduation and avoid continuing education classes focusing on in-depth anatomy knowledge. You think you don’t like or value anatomy when actually you don’t know for sure because you haven’t had the opportunity or experience to learn otherwise.
Values Can Change and Evolve
As you contemplate the values described here and think about your massage education, teachers, and admired colleagues, you may realize that values can change and evolve. Let’s say, for example, that you graduated with indifference to anatomy but then took a continuing education program where the instructor helped you find or deepen your love of structure and function. The continuing education course completely changed your indifference to enthusiasm.
It’s essential to remain aware of the values of teachers, supervisors, mentors, and colleagues so that we avoid being subconsciously swayed by their attitudes. We want to control our attitudes and decide what we value without undue influence.
It’s a good idea to reevaluate our massage values and attitudes at regular points in our careers. Staying connected to our values motivates ethical behavior and helps us set and achieve important career goals. We’ll go through a process to define our values in Lesson 02 (Get to Know Your Personal Ethics).
The Rapid Rise in AI-Generated Educational Podcasts
AI-generated educational podcasts burst on the scene when developers introduced PodSumm, a method for automatically creating podcast-like audio summaries of research text. Instead of spending hours sifting through complex clinical studies, medical students could input references and have an audio summary of the research in under a minute, saving them hours.
Even more exciting is Google’s NotebookLM with “Audio Overviews” that transforms documents into appealing audio discussions between two AI-generated hosts. These virtual podcasters emphasize key points, draw connections between concepts, summarize content, and participate in dynamic conversations making information (even dull information) engaging.
Early Evidence that Podcasts support students
Students found AI-generated podcasts more enjoyable than textbooks. Testing showed they were also more effective than textbooks at improving student comprehension. Students reported that podcasts offer an engaging format, presenting complex information in a way that feels personal and accessible.
Compelling Evidence that Podcasts Have a Place in Education
Traditional educational methods often struggle to keep up with students’ evolving preferences. If we pay attention to students on social media, they’ll be the first to share what works and doesn’t work in education. Soon after NotebookLM’s release, high school and university students gathered their class notes to feed into the program creating class podcasts, which they shared on TikTok and Facebook, giving NotebookLM and similar programs viral buzz.
While we need more evidence of the efficacy of this technology, two early studies provide encouraging results. In one study, students found AI-generated podcasts more enjoyable than textbooks. Testing showed that the podcasts were also more effective than textbooks at improving student concept comprehension.1 Students reported that podcasts offer a conversational and engaging format, presenting complex information in a way that feels more personal and accessible.
A different study with 180 college students found that those who listened to personalized AI-generated podcasts scored higher on comprehension tests compared to those who relied solely on traditional textbooks.2 Researchers found that podcasts can be a powerful tool for deepening understanding and sparking interest in course material.
Learning is most impactful when it resonates emotionally
The AI-Generated hosts used by NotebookLM sound hip and enthusiastic. They illuminate a simple yet powerful truth: learning is most impactful when it resonates emotionally.
Are We Ready to Reimagine Ways to Support and Inspire Students?
Eric started experimenting with NotebookLM by feeding it copy from my textbook Massage Mastery: From Student to Professional. One day, he called from his office, “Listen to this!” Eric turned up the volume on my history of massage chapter, which he had turned into a podcast.
The AI hosts sounded hip and enthusiastic. They made massage history sound fun, and by the end of the podcast, I felt a sense of joy and pride. This feeling was warm and fuzzy but came with a slap in the face. I don’t think many students would describe reading a textbook as a joyful experience. As an author, I aim to clarify essential terms and concepts with the right amount of detail. I try to be clear and structured, but there’s no effort to bring joy.
I couldn’t help thinking I needed to work on teaching positivity, take down my academic edge, and think more about how to bring human connection to my work. The AI podcasters illuminated a simple yet powerful truth: learning is most impactful when it resonates emotionally.
“Somehow, this non-human tool was blending content with the timeless human qualities that inspire students—enthusiasm, empathy, relevance, and connection. I felt overcome by the possibilities. NotebookLM was showing me how to reimagine education.”
Eric fed one chapter after another into NotebookLM while I sat cross-legged on the floor of his office, listening to this new interpretation of my 28 years working in massage education. I started crying. Somehow, this non-human tool was blending content with the timeless human qualities that inspire students—enthusiasm, empathy, relevance, and connection. I felt overcome by the possibilities. NotebookLM was showing me how to reimagine education. I was learning how to share knowledge in ways that better support and inspire students.
Educators must take a thoughtful approach to ai podcast technology
Educators must take a thoughtful approach to AI podcast technology and review every podcast to ensure factual correctness and the proper pronunciation of technical terms. These programs should serve as complimentary materials and not take the place of established methods.
Addressing Concerns About AI Podcasts
Eric and I understand that some educators may be hesitant about introducing AI into the classroom. Concerns about transparency, accuracy, bias, and the potential for misuse are valid.
We aim to take a thoughtful approach to this technology and carefully review every podcast to ensure factual correctness and the proper pronunciation of technical terms like petrissage and sternocleidomastoid. We’ll also make it clear to students and educators that these podcasts are AI-generated, promoting transparency and trust. Moreover, we’ll use podcasts to complement, not replace, established learning methods. They’ll serve as an additional resource that aligns with modern student needs for more dynamic and engaging mediums for processing and digesting information.
AI Podcasts expand education accessibility
AI-generated podcasts bridge the gap between established educational content and the dynamic, interactive formats that students increasingly prefer. They make learning more efficient, effective, and accessible.
Making Learning More Accessible and Enjoyable
At Massage Mastery, we’ve taken a bold step to integrate AI-generated podcasts into our digital textbooks. Beyond making the material engaging, they open doors for more inclusive education. They’re particularly valuable for students with learning challenges such as dyslexia or visual impairments, providing an auditory alternative to written text. This aligns with our mission to create resources that meet diverse student needs. Furthermore, this technology offers immense potential to transform the way students engage with reference material positively. AI-generated podcasts bridge the gap between established educational content and the dynamic, interactive formats that students increasingly prefer.
We’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas as we continue to experiment with this technology. What possibilities do you see for AI podcasts in your learning journey? Share your feedback through the “Contact Us” link in the footer below.
- Almasri, F. Exploring the Impact of Artificial Intelligence in Teaching and Learning of Science: A Systematic Review of Empirical Research (2024). Research in Science Education, Volume 54, pages 977-997, 2024.
- Do, T.D., Shafqat, U.B., Ling, E., Sarda, N. PAIGE: Examining Learning Outcomes and Experiences with Personalized AI-Generated Educational Podcasts. Cornell University, 2024.
- AI-Powered Google Study Tool Sparks Podcast Revolution: NotebookLM’s Unexpected Success and Diverse Applications. The Data Scientist, 2024.
- Cohen, B. There’s a New Hit Podcast That Will Blow Your Mind. The Wall Street Journal, 2024.
- Rogers, R. Google’s NotebookLM Now Lets You Customize Its AI Podcasts. Wired, 2024.
- Saude, S., Barros, J.P., Almeida, I. Impacts of Generative Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education: Research Trends and Students’ Perceptions. Social Sciences. Volume 13, Issue 8, 2024.
- Wood, D., Moss, S.H. Evaluating the Impact of Students’ Generative AI Use in Educational Contexts. Journal of Research in Innovative Teaching & Learning. Volume 17, Issue 2, 2024.
