Social Media as Teaching/Learning tool

Prepared for presentation at

The 10th Annual National Economics Teaching Conference San Diego,

California November 6th, 2014.

There is a famous Chinese adage

“Tell me and I will forget, show me and I will remember, involve me

and I will understand”

INTRODUCTION

Challenges of economics instructors, striving to perfect the art of our

teaching, teaching economics is the number one

criteria for assessment of faculty performance

teaching economics to non-econ majors.

FRESHMAN STUDENTS MINDSET

economics is an abstract often a boring subject

passive teaching leads to the perception that what students learn is conceivably irrelevant to real-life cases

ECONOMICS SOLELY FROM TEXTBOOKS

Teaching strict economic concepts, relying solely on textbooks do not resonate with students

Theoretically, these concepts may be rich but poor when it comes to practical applications and real life applications.

There are some elements of learning that cannot be acquired by students from lecturing alone

They are best grasped through practice, trial and error, problem solving, case study, open discussion, and etc.

Accordingly, instructors must create alternative opportunities for students to apply their theoretical knowledge in a suitable environment.

ECONOMICS A HYBRID APPROACH

While there is no universal method that works best for all students, some methods have worked better for me.

There are a few pedagogical methods that I believe can make teaching more effective, rewarding, and a pleasant experience for students.

I believe good teaching must be rich in terms of both “content” the “delivery” method.

TWO ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF GOOD TEACHING: CONTENT AND DELIVERY SYSTEM.

Content Strong Poor

Delivery

Strong Excellent Mediocre

Poor Lackluster Awful

WHY USE SOCIAL MEDIA

A digital native is a person who was born during or after the general introduction of digital technologies and through interacting with digital technology from an early age, has a greater comfort level using it.

These students may also be referred to as the "Net Generation" where their exposure to technology begins at birth

WHY USE SOCIAL MEDIA

Effective use of online resources may strengthen both elements of good teaching: content and delivery

It, however, requires a good knowledge of available tools like social media

The more we learn, the greater is the possibility of their utilization in higher education and the improvement in student learning.

According to a survey results Facebook is the fastest growing tools in education

WHY USE SOCIAL MEDIA

Everyone is using it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0EnhXn5boM

KEY CHARACTERISTICS OF FACEBOOK

1 Billion people have a Facebook account, 50% login on any given day

The average user has 150 friends 2.7 Billion “Likes” every day 43% of users say they have rejected a candidate

because of something negative they have found on social media

250 Million pictures uploaded every day Career Builder reports that 80% of potential

employers will do an online search using a candidate’s name.

Understandably, courses in areas of social science are more amenable to the use of online resources than courses in natural science like mathematics, chemistry, or computer science.

Survey results show an increasing number of faculty members in social science are already using social media like Facebook in classroom

Whatever is the real purpose for which Facebook was created, its application has been extended into new areas such as, marketing, recruiting, information delivery, solicitation, and promoting public discourse, fomenting public action, and of course teaching/learning.

Online resources are inexpensive to utilize, and often free

Social media has some of the characteristics of public goods like global “non-excludability”

No dress code! Real World: No shirt, no shoes, no service

Virtual world; no clothes, come in!

Not all of us have a favorable view when it comes to the use of social media, even those who use it acknowledge its limitations and the possible drawbacks

Whereas, there is no perfect substitute for in person communication in classroom, when we have to teach large classes to busy students, it will be necessary to use the additional tools to facilitate not only students involvement but also to get to know them better.

The use of social media can leverage the instructor's ability to share relevant materials that that cannot be effectively and economically shared

It should also be emphasized that social media like Facebook can serve just as another tool of teaching to supplement the traditional class experience.

WHY SOCIAL MEDIA?

There are many pivotal economic issues, with profound implications on the US economy, such as poverty, economic inequality, healthcare costs, infiltration of market forces into unlikely sphere of our life, and the fair and sensible operation of capitalism that must be brought into students’ attention.

It is imperative to economics professors to bringing such issues into their classroom and engage their students in debate an open and interactive forum.

THE RATIONALE FOR USING SOCIAL MEDIA, ADVANTAGES

Some students are too shy to express themselves in classroom and in person, often, they will be unfairly punished for not being able to express themselves

There are also many students, who are knowledgeable on the subject matter of economics courses, however, traditional evaluation methods like test taking alone do not measure their knowledge and their analytical ability adequately.

Nowadays, students get most of their information from social media, than from any other sources, to write a paper or conduct a research.

Raising students’ awareness of contemporary issues by allowing them to participate in a debate on an open democratic equal opportunity platform.

Facebook is a multifaceted platrorm that allows students to not only share information, but also photos, videos, and links.

Facebook allows students to get to know each other better through their profile thus creating a more friendly atmosphere for sending messages and exchanging other information.

Facebook also teaches students who to express themselves responsibly in a cordial manner, tolerate, and respect one another.

Unlike traditional media that are like a one-way relationship, social media are like a two-way street.

They are unique in terms of their live global connectivity, traditional tools do not have such capabilities.

Using Facebok is practically inexpensive compared to traditional methods.

Comments are always there in virtual world, you do not lose them as we do the paper comments are often lost and you can easily lose track of them.

Facebook allows others (non students) to participate in underlying debate. Although some instructors are critical of this idea, I consider it as an advantage.

These people that might be experts in a field, like medical doctors and lawyers, can provide professional opinions that benefits students.

larger classes might create obstacles to effective interaction, the use of Facebook helps to alleviate this problem.

Responding to incentives, the extra points serve as a reward to students that stimulates their active participation

even though this project was not mandatory. It was especially a good opportunity for those busy students who missed some classes, a quiz and/or a homework, and sincerely wished to improve their overall grade.

POSSIBLE DRAWBACKS

Some may argue that social media like Facebook may not be suitable for college courses since it does not have the necessary rigor.

Getting too close to your student, by often becoming their friends on Facebook is a matter of concern for some but not necessarily so especially as they become former students

Some believe that schools should have a policy concerning the previous point.

The most important concern is about “privacy” and “integrity” online

Some students may not use social media, do not a Facebook account. You may force them to do something they may nor want to do.

Possibility of hacking May create extra work for instructor, sifting

through comments, reading, and grading them, and may take too much of your time.

THE KEY RESULTS OF PEARSON SURVEY

According to Pearson Survey, Over 72% of respondents report that “lack of integrity of student submissions” is an “important” or “very important” barrier, and 63%say “privacy concerns” are an “important” or “very important” barrier

Privacy concerns: Risk to the personal privacy of faculty Risk to the personal privacy of students Others outside of class should not be able

to view: class-related contents, class discussions, participate in class discussions

 

Ethical and legal problem, Facebook may claim intellectual property right over the materials posted on its website

Schools may want to control what instructors can post onlie

Poorly written comments may imperil students’ creditability and negativity

IMPLEMENTATION

Different approaches for implementing social media;

I used it as a tool so that students can obtain information, post comments, and provide additional information related to the underlying topic.

Student can use social media only as consumers with no interaction, commenting, or creating of new media required.

Likewise faculty may use social media as part of individual assignments, where each student is expected to act on their own.

Alternatively, students may practice group assignments, where multiple students are expected to work together

Faculty who teach online courses have greater levels of engagement for both personal and professional virtual communities.

THE PROCESS

The use of social media like Facebook for me originated from the fact that I used to post business/economic news stories and articles on my personal page to share information publically and I still do that.

Many of my students studied these articles and often posted comments. Some of them inquired if they can post comments for extra points.

I explain the process in my syllabus and discuss it in more detail usually at the first class meeting each semester

Students are being briefed on the rules, the benefits, and the online etiquette, the extra-point system, the dedlines, and etc.

I review the comments carefully and points are assigned, based on the merit and the relevancy of comments not its length.

The process will be modified each semester based on the inputs collected from students at the end of semester.

HIGHLIGHTS OF PEARSON SURVEY

Wide agreement among faculty is whether the introduction of digital communication into their professional lives has increased their levels of communication, 79% of respondents.

  Nearly two-thirds of faculty surveyed report that

digital communication has increased the number of hours that they worked.

Faculty personal use of social media sites is rather high; 84% use social media sites monthly or occasionally.

A comparison of 2013 with 2012 surveys shows a growth in all three types of use of social media.

Professional use had the largest year-to-year gain, followed by teaching use, then personal use

Faculty in the two middle age groups (35 to 44 and 45 to 54) both have higher rates of teaching usage than the youngest faculty members.

Faculty in the Humanities and Arts, Professional and Applied Sciences, and the Social Sciences use social media for teaching purposes at higher rates than those in Natural Sciences or Mathematics and Computer Science.

However, this difference has narrowed considerably over the past year, as faculty in the Natural Sciences or Mathematics and Computer Science have shown the greatest degree of year-to-year growth (12 and 8 percent, respectively).

  Faculty are relatively sophisticated users of social media—they pick each site based on their specific needs and its function. This report has shown that the pattern of popularity of sites for teaching use is consistently different than the pattern for either personal or professional use.

PEARSON SURVEY

The most often used group of sites for teaching is blogs and wikis, while the sites most often accessed for personal and professionaluse Facebook

LinkedIn is used far less frequently for teaching purposes.

 Podcasts, the second most-used type of social media for teaching, are used at much the same rate for teaching as they are for personal or professional purposes.

MY OWN SURVEY QUESTIONS

Students overwhelmingly provided postive feedback with respect to the follwing question: Continue to use Facebook Relevance of the articles to the subject matter

of this course Contribution to my knowledge of economics Helpful in meeting the goal of this course Almost all of them are opposed to: Make it a requirement

STUDENTS COMMENTS

Many students chose to comment, comments are overwhelmingly positive and sincere. These are some of the more frequently repeated comments:

Also post the articles on blackboard and e-mail because everyone does not have Facebook, so it is hard for them to comment

It may not be appropriate for the instructor to be friend with their students, not frequently though.

 

KEY TOPICS DISCUSSED

I like the opportunity for extra credit, the articles are very interesting helped us practice our skills

the Facebook postings produce excellent insights which I really enjoyed

I engaged Facebook because it allowed us to receive extra credit which also allowed us to learn more information about the material

Some people do not have a Facebook account therefore it should not be a requirement in the future however

The articles were relevant and interesting I enjoyed the course very much , thanks for

great semester, Facebook articles were great the only thing I had doubt with is the extra

credit that I sent comments over Facebook twice and over twice and it didn't receive credit so I printed and brought them in

Keep doing it next semester, example and assignments walked us through

I learned a lot from the articles, they wear interesting and informative grate class

This is good for people who may need some extra points I think using Facebook articles for extra credit is a good

idea because it relates to the material and future education you are nice I like having you great job thanks

I really enjoyed the articles and assignments that went along with them I liked how they were open ended so that could just give our opinions and thoughts about the topic

Your humorous remarks keep the class interesting and fun thanks for the time

I believe that using articles related to economics is a good idea because students get the Real life in formation. However I don't think that Facebook comments should be made a requirement because some people do not want other people to know their ideas and opinions publicly

The idea of having his students comment on relevant articles was a good idea. Commenting on these articles I believe should be strongly recommended, make sure that students understand the subject however I don't believe it should be made a requirement

Not only where the Facebook postings informative but they've their great incentives to earn extra credit

I learned a lot of terminology and definitions that help with reading economics articles. I would have been more interested if you related the power point slides to cases and economic issues and examples

I don't feel it is appropriate for his students to be friend with their professors on social media website. I would just prefer that you put the link on blackboard

Yes use Facebook but may be make and open group. I was not able to comment on some of the articles the Facebook. Articles made the class more interesting by showing us how economics affect us with current examples from current events, does a good job trying to make economics more interesting

I like the idea of using the Facebook articles as extra credit opportunities I would not make it a requirement

Great course tests and quizzes very helpful in understanding the material the Facebook Articles has been extremely helpful as well

I like the fact that we got the opportunity to read the opinions of other classmates I believe that it helped to further discussion, an interesting way to learn about current event and the economy

Very informative class Facebook helps keep it interesting and doing it in the future

If you want to use Facebook, make a page for your class don't use your personal page you can create a page for each class each semester, this way only economic topics can be discussed and not lots of your page feed

This was one of my interesting classes, the only thing is that we did not always use the textbook, so I bought it for no reason

The Articles are great for learning what is happening in the economy because they focused on things we don't really learn in the textbook

Continue to use the Articles for extra points makes Facebook optional not everyone has Facebook account

Facebook gave us the opportunities to use real world examples and discuss them publicly

I think there should be more extra credit assignments like Facebook assignments

not everyone has a Facebook account I think that Facebook is helpful and

contributed to my knowledge however I think that it should be done in blackboard for private I don't really use Facebook