Bringing Social Media into the Classroom
We’ll admit that we’re ready for the nice spring weather. But, we haven’t only been experiencing snow flurries at CGS this winter. Over the past few months, there’s been a regular flurry of tweets mentioning @BUCGS with photos of our students having fun while doing their science lab work. It was also a fun surprise to see students tweeting about urban ecology during one of the snow days this past semester. So, we sat down with the faculty member behind it all, CGS Natural Sciences and Mathematics Professor Sam Hammer (@SamHammer), to learn more about how he’s using social media in the classroom.
CGS: First, tell us what inspired the idea to use social media during class. We’ll admit, using social media in a natural sciences course takes some creativity.
SH: Sometimes students are shy about communicating in class, especially in science classes. I wanted to expand the ways in which to connect with students– more conversation, more feedback, more flow of ideas– so I thought I would try Twitter. Since a lot of students seem to “live” on their devices this seemed like a good “natural habitat” where we could engage.
CGS: How are you using Twitter to connect with students?
SH: Sometimes, I ask students to tweet me a response to a question I pose during lecture. After class, I respond to their tweets, which often leads to substantive conversations and lots of exploration of ideas. During labs, which I designed to encourage as much student engagement as possible, people tweet me with their progress on their work. Often, this includes photoraphs, which makes it both a visual and verbal environment. I can tweet right back with a positive comment! I also use Twitter to comment on the awesome in-class energy. Students see those tweets and retweet them, which builds a really positive culture.
CGS: What social media channels have you been using? Why have you chosen these channels?
SH: I primarily use Twitter, but I also use Storify, Flickr, and blogs. Storify is a great way to summarize the activities surrounding a class or lab. I don’t collect all student tweets there, instead I choose a few to highlight what we did and tell a story about it. I work out a lot of ideas for my labs in one of my blogs, where I explore teaching and learning. I also ask students to read some of these posts and respond to me, you can see their detailed comments under some of the posts.
I use the latter two to encourage more detailed written responses from students, because Twitter obviously has the character limit.
CGS: How have students taken onto it? Do you think it’s enhanced their learning experience? Does it ever detract from the classroom experience (i.e., students using social when it’s not part of the lesson)
I asked my students to quantitatively address a series of questions about my primary teaching goal, which is engagement in class. From their responses it looks like their engagement is very high (I can share the statistics with you if you’re interested). Our use of social media seems to enhance that engagement.
As for distractions, I have to say that I trust my students as adults and I trust their learning process. They are well able to monitor their own work and stay on track. There are professors who will not allow devices, including laptops into their classrooms. I would rather not restrict the learning environment. Distractions are a part of life. I think we need to encourage responsibility and trust that our students will act accordingly.
CGS: We saw you tweeting with students on a recent snow day. Tell us more!
SH: We are studying urban ecology this semester; a huge, complex topic that can be interpreted in a variety of ways. Given the snow day and classes being cancelled, we were missing a lecture on substantive, foundational material. So, as a Plan B, I sent a note out to my students early that morning, asking them to read and tweet me on one of several readings in our Blackboard site. Rather than being “sage on stage,” Twitter gave me the chance to get some great conversations going with students, and for others to track the conversation and learn from their classmates. It wasn’t how I initially intended to deliver some of the important concepts, but it worked pretty well and we merrily tweeted our way through the drifting snow!
CGS: Any advice on how can other teachers begin to think about integrating social media into their course?
SH: It’s up to the personal style of every professor. Some people don’t feel comfortable with social media and I respect that. It’s only a tool—not an end in itself. It’s really that whether you use technology or not, so much of teaching has to do with gauging where students are in their learning—observing your students closely, picking up on their energy levels, etc.
In order to get the best response rates, I am extremely intentional in the planning process: I outline what I want to get out of each tweet, and what I want to put into it. I also use it in moderation. Asking students to tweet me during every lecture might risk loosing the novelty of including social media as part of the course. I also try to respond to every student who tweets me, not during lecture, but during down time at home. This is a great way to start conversations and get to know students and their ideas better, but it also calls for a time commitment on my part.
There are so many ways to use social media. Here are some starting questions I would pose to a colleague interested in bringing social media into the classroom:
- What social channel(s) are you comfortable using? What do you like about it? Do you feel comfortable using it with students?
- How would you like to see social media enhance your students creativity? Critical thinking? Observational skills? Communication? Do you think it can spark enhanced engagement in your course?
- Can students use it in an unencumbered way? For example, at the beginning of the semester I ask students to invest time in signing up for twitter, flickr, and my blog site, and to follow me in all three. Once students have made this commitment it’s relatively easy to get in and use the sites. I do not want to impose “learning how to get into the site” on my students. If they can’t use it quickly and easily I don’t want to make them delve into it. So even something easy like twitter takes a bit of time to get into. And don’t expect that students “know how” to use social media. They may be fluent in Facebook but may not have ever used twitter. And most have never used flickr.
Bottom line: To identify opportunities in bringing social media to your course, outline what you want to get out of it as a faculty member, and what you want your students to get out of it. Then have fun.