{"id":8007,"date":"2011-10-18t13:17:14","date_gmt":"2011-10-18t19:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/?p=8007"},"modified":"2011-11-01t14:15:57","modified_gmt":"2011-11-01t20:15:57","slug":"twitter-as-an-enabler-of-critical-thinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/\/www.imrbdigital.com\/2011\/10\/twitter-as-an-enabler-of-critical-thinking\/","title":{"rendered":"twitter as an enabler of critical thinking"},"content":{"rendered":"
this is a guest post by corbette doyle, a lecturer in leadership, policy & organizations, and steph milne, her ta. in addition to her ta role, steph recently earned her undergraduate degree and is currently a second-year graduate student in lpo.<\/em><\/p>\n this thursday, october 20th, at 4:00 p.m., corbette and steph will be discussing their use of social media in teaching as part of vanderbilt’s “digitalvu” month. the session will be here at the cft, and rsvps are requested<\/a>. update: the discussion with corbette and steph can be viewed here<\/a>.<\/strong> <\/a>corbette (the teacher): <\/strong>ever teach a course you think is fascinating but the students don\u2019t seem to agree? that\u2019s where i found myself after last semester, so i decided to completely revamp my course on leadership. my goal? find a pedagogy and\/or tools that would increase critical thinking and student engagement. i settled on an approach featuring case studies, but knew that wasn\u2019t enough to guarantee the lively discussions i envisioned.<\/p>\n <\/a>steph (the student): <\/strong>coming from a large public university, with class sizes in the hundreds of students, i will be the first to admit that i have sat in class and not \u201cheard\u201d a single word the professor was saying. a passive, lecture-based class where attendance and participation are optional is just as dreary for professors as it is for students. cases, although a viable solution to overcoming the passive lecture, are not a definite slam-dunk. for cases to be successful, students must actively link the case story to previous coursework and theories\u2026 admittedly, not all students make the connection.<\/p>\n corbette: <\/strong>a huge fan of the value of asking good questions (in the spirit of ken bain’s keynote<\/a> at the cft’s recent 25th anniversary), i decided to replace my prior \u201centrance ticket\u201d strategy for the course (i.e. clicker questions on assigned readings) with a requirement that, before each class, the students post a question that applied course theory to the case to be discussed in that class. students would then vote on the questions they wanted to tackle in class.\u00a0 my goals? encourage higher order thinking by asking them to apply the readings in advance of the class\u2014and engage them by giving them some control over the discussions.<\/p>\n the harder part was finding technology that met my goals without frustrating the students or me! i considered turning technologies newest clickers<\/a>, which allow text-message-like responses; the discussion groups on oak; and twitter. all three had problems for my purposes\u2014and then i came across a review of a twitter application called hootcourse<\/a>. viola\u2014solution identified!<\/p>\n i then tested several alternatives to clickers to allow the students to vote on their favorite questions by texting in the answer from their phone. i haven\u2019t found the perfect solution yet, but am currently using poll everywhere<\/a>, which is free for up to 30 respondents and accepts responses via text or web applications.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n steph: <\/strong>having a course with an \u201centrance ticket\u201d for every class is not the norm in undergrad. reading the syllabus and seeing that you have to post a question on the readings before every<\/em> class may initially seem daunting to students. tweeting the questions though, certainly makes this task more appealing and accessible to students. at the end of the semester, i am positive students will understand the purpose of the \u201centrance ticket\u201d and appreciate how much more they have learned because of it.<\/p>\n the discussion boards on oak are difficult to navigate, particularly reading through posts in a sequential manner. for students, this makes it challenging to respond to posts.\u00a0 for a ta it makes it hard to mark the quality of discussion, as it is frequently disjointed. public accountability is limited by the fact that students must click on their peer\u2019s post to read it \u2013 the content is not readily available. hootcourse provides an easy-to-use platform and allows students to engage with course material through media tools with which they are already familiar.<\/p>\n <\/strong><\/p>\n a fair amount of classes use clickers to poll students. from what i\u2019ve gathered, students are certainly not opposed to using clickers; they like to be engaged. however, it is an added cost and they have to remember<\/em> to bring the clicker to class. poll everywhere has students text the answer. it is similar to a clicker but with one very important difference \u2013 have you ever seen an undergraduate student leave home without their cell phone?!<\/p>\n corbette: <\/strong>to get started, i logged into hootcourse using my twitter account<\/a> (facebook is the other option) and clicked \u201ccreate a new course.\u201d\u00a0 this created a link i was able to copy and paste into oak with instructions to log on via twitter or facebook. (students can remain anonymous by creating a fictitious twitter account and giving me that name.) only students who have the link can access the hootcourse course site.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n i post a topic on oak and students have until 7:00 a.m. the day of class to post their questions as 140-character tweets. steph then selects six tweets for each class, including some that address topics i want to discuss in class. i post those in class and students pull out their cell phones and vote via poll everywhere. the top three questions are the ones we discuss during class. at the end, i give a mini-lecture on any key topics we didn\u2019t get to.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n steph:<\/strong> selecting the tweets for discussion is a balancing act between choosing the most interesting and engaging tweets and ensuring all students have the opportunity to have their questions discussed. to ensure fairness, i read through all the tweets (once they have all come in at 7:00 a.m.) and note any tweets that stand out as discussion points for class, as well as any tweets that integrate and apply course material. when choosing tweets, i refer back to the lesson plan to ensure the selected tweets guide the class appropriately. i also grade the student tweets. grades range from 0 (missing, plagiarized, unfamiliar with material) to 2.5 (excellent, above and beyond).\u00a0 most students demonstrate critical thinking and average a grade of 2 (expected). the tweets chosen for discussion often receive the highest grades.<\/p>\n corbette:<\/strong> hootcourse offers several advantages that make it attractive for classroom use including the following: a view of all tweets that end in question marks, a \u201cstudents\u201d dashboard that tracks activity by student, and a \u201cclassroom mode\u201d that is perfect for projecting tweets real-time in class (ideal for a backchannel<\/a> strategy).<\/p>\n
\n<\/em><\/p>\nthe problem<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n
solutions identified<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n
how it works<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n
why it works\/the benefits<\/em><\/strong><\/h3>\n