How I use social media in teaching Part I: Twitter

In an earlier post I discussed why I use social media in teaching: as a pedagogical tool, and for my own professional development. In this post (the first in a series on how I use social media in teaching) I focus on how I use Twitter.

Until recently, I have not had much luck in using Twitter as a teaching tool within the classroom. In 2011 I experimented with Twitter as a backchannel for students in a small 300-level (third year) anthropology class. I set up a class account, which I used, and embedded the Twitter stream in Blackboard for everyone to see. I tweeted during lectures to show them the difference between thick and thin tweets (as David Silver describes it) and encouraged them to set up their own Twitter accounts. I designed in-class activities that involved composing 140-character questions and tweeting them to the authors of the films and articles we were watching and reading at the time. (The authors were all anthropologists I followed on Twitter, and I checked with them beforehand to make sure they were happy to receive and respond to student tweets.) I also monitored the class account and class hashtag during and outside lectures so I could respond to any student queries or comments.

Despite my efforts, it did not take off. The students just weren’t into it. As one student put it, they felt that Twitter was for “old people” like me.

Today I still embed my Twitter stream in Blackboard (using my own account rather than a class account) but I don’t encourage students to set up their own accounts or tweet questions to me during class. Instead, I talk about Twitter during lectures and draw their attention to my Twitter stream to model how I use this form of social media as an anthropologist. Most of the time they are astonished to find that I follow hundreds of anthropologists on Twitter and that we tweet about things other than what we had for lunch.

I have had more success with Twitter at Honours level. As I mentioned in a recent post, students live-tweeted from our recent Anthropology and Agency Honours Student Conference. They seemed to enjoy the experience and the interested generated within the wider academic community about their research (which they are keen to collate into a journal and make publicly available later this year).

For me, Twitter is most useful as a way to find out about current research, to engage in conversations about teaching practice, and to source new lecture material. In future I might try using Twitter to “co-construct” lecture content (an approach described by Daniela Retelny, Jeremy Birnholtz and Jeffrey Hancock), but based on my past experiences I think this would be best suited to a smaller, 300-level or above class.

There is quite a bit of information available on teaching with Twitter (e.g., Teaching with Twitter by Stephanie Hedge on Inside Higher Ed, and this guide on Web 2.0/3.0 Teaching from Dartmouth College Library). I am keen to hear how others – especially students – use Twitter in a university setting. What has worked for you? What hasn’t worked?

Making Twitter work for your students (theteachingtomtom.wordpress.com)
Using Twitter with your Students (oupeltglobalblog.com)

Why I use social media in teaching

I used social media a lot while I was working on my PhD. I visited blogs dedicated to the joys and pains of thesis writing (such as The Thesis Whisperer), used the Twitter chat channel #PhDchat to connect with others working off-campus most of the time like I was, and surfed YouTube channels looking for interesting videos related to anthropology. I came across a short video called A vision of students today by cultural anthropologist Michael Wesch which revolutionised the way I thought about social media and why I should use it as a teacher.

I sought Wesch out on other social media platforms and was struck by his approach to new media and philosophy of anti-teaching:

“Anti-teaching is about inspiring good questions. Since all good thinking begins with a good question, it struck me that if we are ultimately trying to create “active lifelong learners” with “critical thinking skills” and an ability to “think outside the box” it might be best to start by getting students to ask better questions.”

Wesch goes on to note that many students – especially those in large introductory classes – rarely ask ‘good’ questions and instead ask questions like ‘what do I need to know for this test?’ I have heard this a lot and it always makes my heart sink a little. I know studying is hard, especially when you have to juggle full-time study with work and family committments, but to me this question feels like another way of saying ‘I want to make sure I don’t accidentally learn too much so please tell me exactly what you want to see in my work.’ Wesch’s strategies for encouraging ‘good’ questions – especially his World Simulation for first year cultural anthropology students – resonated with my own teaching philosophy, which is based on educationalist Paulo Freire’s approach.

Today social media is an important part of my teaching practice. I use social media as a pedagogical tool to take learning beyond the classroom, teach transferable skills, encourage reflexivity and critical thinking (by having them look at how and why they use platforms like Facebook), and to model how anthropologists can use social media. (I’ll talk about how I use social media in another post.)

I also use social media for my own professional development. It is a great way to learn about what other anthropologists are doing in the classroom, to source new ideas and teaching materials, and to engage in online conversations about teaching anthropology. It is particularly good for networking and I have had conversations with Mike Wesch about adapting his World Simulation for the large first-year cultural anthropology class I teach at Victoria University.

I am curious about the reasons why others use social media in teaching. Why do you use it? Why don’t you use it? I’m sure I could learn a lot from your practices!

VUW Anthropology Honours Student Conference 2013

I am currently coordinating one of the Honours courses in VUW’s Cultural Anthropology Programme. In it, the students design and carry out an independent research project on a topic of their choice. Part of the assessment involves them giving a seminar about their work. This year the students will present papers based on their research in a 1-day Anthropology and Agency Honours Student Conference.

Why a conference?

In other courses the students make hour-long presentations (often in pairs) to one another on various aspects of their work. Since they will become quite proficient in making long presentations by the end of the year, I decided to see if they wanted to do something a little different and run a conference instead.

I love going to conferences and have also spoken about my research at less formal events (such as Rotary and Save the Children meetings). I believe that it is important for anthropologists to be able to speak about their work in a range of public settings and thought it would be fun for the students to get involved in organising their own conference.

My teaching goals for this conference are:

to complement the oral presentation skills they are developing in other courses
to provide them with further career training
to provide them with an opportunity to try out their ideas and gain feedback on their work in a constructive forum
to showcase what our Cultural Anthropology Honours students are doing to other students and staff.

How we organised it

I pitched my conference idea to them after the mid-year break. Everyone seemed keen so in July we decided on a date, time, and conference theme. Although no two research projects are the same, we had noticed in earlier class discussions that a number of people were addressing the concept of agency in some form, so this seemed like a good theme to loosely link the papers.

Students will present 15-minute papers in panels of three followed by a 15 minute panel discussion where the audience will ask questions of the presenters. This format seemed less scary for first-time presenters, and panel discussions can be a good way to draw out connections and links between the papers.

The students all sent me abstracts which I collated into a booklet to distribute at the conference: Anthropology and Agency Honours Student Conference Abstract Booklet. Some also volunteered to take on the role of session chair, which involves making sure everyone keeps within their allotted time and facilitating the discussion. Through this conference students will gain experience in:

writing abstracts
conference organisation
writing and presenting short papers
answering questions ‘on their feet’
asking thoughtful, constructive, critical questions of their fellow presenters
tweeting updates with the #AAHSC hashtag (for those so inclined)

The VUW Anthropology Society has organised a post-conference gathering at Hunter Lounge. (The VUW Anthropology Society is also on Facebook.)

Related articles