Using Twitter to Promote Student Engagement, Critical Thinking and Professional Development

1. Teacher Education Division Council for Exceptional Children 2011 Using Twitter to Promote Student Engagement, Critical Thinking and Professional Development Nancy J. Aguinaga, Ph.D. Southeast Missouri State University

2. Overview • Introduce the fundamentals of using Twitter • Discuss how Twitter can develop critical thinking and communication skills in students • Introduceresearch on the impact of using Twitter in my teaching on student engagement

3. Familiarity In general In education

4. Twitter defined • Microblogging • 140 characters • Communicate to your followers and follow those you choose • Once you sign up to follow someone, you receive their messages instantly on your smart phone or on your Twitter webpage • Exchange of thoughts • Messages can be sent to all followers or to specific followers as public or private tweets

5. Why Twitter for the classroom? Easily accessible Free Digital natives Transparency, professional Encourages participation and communication Collaboration Meaningful content Feedback Assessment

6. Digital environment • Any-time, any-place learning • Critical thinking • 140 • Community of Learners • Exchange of ideas

7. Pre-Service educators Bulletin board Increase, maintain engagement Communication skills Current events, resources

8. In-service educators • Initial Support • Real-time feedback • Ongoing Mentoring • Professional Development

9. MY RESEARCH QUESTION Does the use of twitter increase student participation? Increase participation, Increase learning

10. How I am using Twitter • I invited half of my students (in one online class)to follow me and each other • Periodically I will post a question or a thought on topics we are covering • Announcements • Quick FAQ’s • FYI Forum with same info for entire class

12. Data collected • Number of electronic interactions I had with students in both groups, and the number of electronic interactions they had with each other • Questionnaire (anonymous) completed by students regarding their perceived level of connectedness to me and to other members of the class • Pre (4 weeks) and post (10 weeks)

13. Number of student initiated electronic interactions Ten weeks Including e-mail, forum, twitter Twitter Group (19) • Me • 67 • Each other • 29 Non-twitter group(18) • Me • 38 • Each other • 16

14. Questionnaire – connectedness to classmates and professor? Anonymous – pre given before random groups selescted Demographic Info: Age range, Geographic location, Undergrad , grad, other, # of online classes taken before Lickert :1= very unconnected, 2=somewhat unconnected, 3=neutral, 4= somewhat connected, 5=very connected 8 Survey items

15. Survey responses (pre-post)

16. implications

17. More communication, more connected 2010 Pew Research Center • 52% of world population under 30 yoa • 75% of this generation uses social media in U S • Community of Learners • Carry on conversation outside of class • Research has frequently shown that greater participation correlates with better academic performance (Barkley, 2010)

18. Lessons learned Create a group in TweetDeck to keep class contacts somewhat separate Invite all classes to follow Effective – not invasive (FB)

19. Questions/Thoughts Thank you Be green and prosper!