Teaching with Twitter; or, Adventures in Student Engagement

If you had told me three years ago that I would someday not only be using Twitter in my classes, but that I would also be writing a blog post on what an incredible experience it’s been, I probably would have told you a thousand reasons why that couldn’t possibly be true.  I wasn’t very adept with technology, I didn’t have the time, students probably wouldn’t be into it, etc.  The list would have gone on, I’m sure.

Yet here I am.

This is my second year of incorporating the social media platform in my classes, and doing so has been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made as a teacher.  Why?  The level of student engagement in these classes is the highest I’ve ever seen, and–as a result–students have been performing exceptionally well.

There are lots of ways to use Twitter in the classroom.  Some, like my Mason colleague Mark Sample (who will–sadly for us, happily for him–be moving to Davidson College after this semester), utilize Twitter for individual assignments like live-tweeting a film.  Others use Twitter over the course of the semester for the purposes of student engagement.  I have done both, but I have used Twitter mostly to further students’ discussion of the texts we are studying in class.

I began the process of integrating Twitter into my classes last spring when I taught a general education Western Literature class, and I’ve continued to use it this semester in English 320: Literature of the Middle Ages.  Here is the section of my syllabus where I talk about Twitter:

The social media site Twitter has been gaining tremendous currency in the academic world as an instrument for sharing information, commenting on issues related to higher education, addressing issues in one’s particular field, etc.  As such, it has achieved acclaim for its use as a pedagogical tool to extend the work of the classroom.  We are going to use Twitter in this course as a complement to our other activities and to augment the analytical work of the class.  Beyond its relevance to the coursework, though, you are encouraged to explore the site as to its possibilities for professional networking for yourselves.  Certainly follow me (@joshua_r_eyler) and the other members of the class, but also follow leaders in your field.  Make connections!

Although we will sometimes use Twitter in the classroom, the bulk of your Twitter activity will take place outside of class.  You will be required to tweet a minimum of five times per week.  The only guidelines for tweets are:  1) they must have something to do with the class (i.e. a response to the reading, a link to a related article, a question, etc.); 2) they must be substantive; and 3) they must be respectful.  In addition to reading your tweets on a regular basis, I will be using an online archiving tool to keep track of Twitter activity.

You must use the hashtag #LitMA320 in your tweets so that they register as being a part of our class discussion.  Any tweets that do not incorporate this hashtag will not be counted, because the website will not record their activity.

I will hold a Twitter tutorial on the second day of class to answer any questions you might have.

This Twitter activity will be graded on a pass/fail basis.  If you tweet the requisite number of times (5 tweets per week X 15 weeks = 75 total tweets), then you will receive an A for this assignment.  If not, you will receive an F.

The students have really embraced this assignment in ways I never could have predicted.  It’s turned out to be both an extension of class discussions, which is what I originally envisioned, and a place to explore medieval literature, culture, and society in ways that we might never have broached in the classroom.  For example, students tweeted a lot about the discovery of Richard III’s skeleton in an English car park.  This led to a vibrant discussion in the next class, which probably would have never occurred had the tweets not piqued the students’ interests.  Please check out our hashtag, #LitMA320, if you would like to see more of the discussion that has unfolded over the course of the semester.

I also incorporated a more specific Twitter activity during our study of Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale.  In lieu of a more traditional discussion, I asked students to do this:

1.  Describe your overall interpretation of the Knight’s Tale.  You can use up to 3 tweets for this, but no more.  Concision is the key here!  If you want to connect information from one tweet to the next, use the + sign at the end of a tweet.

2.  In no more than 5 tweets, discuss the evidence (including line numbers) you would use to justify this interpretation.

3.  Use an additional 5 tweets to comment on other colleagues’ arguments.

Note:  Be sure to use our #LitMA320 hashtag on all of your tweets.  The hashtag will also help you to locate the work of your colleagues.

Students had a lot of fun with this, and the results were phenomenal!  I was so impressed with the sophistication of their insights.

In short, it’s fair to say I’m a definite convert.  I plan to use Twitter in all my classes (including graduate student professional development seminars), and I hope to try new approaches to assignments as well.  I have discovered just how powerful the platform can be as a learning tool, and–as a teacher–that’s more important than anything else.

Teaching Student Athletes

I had an interesting conversation on Twitter last week with @Abigail_Scheg and wanted to write a short post as a kind of follow-up.  Dr. Scheg was at the Conference on College Composition and Communication and was attending a panel on student athletes.  One of her posts in the backchannel of this panel said this:  ”Speaker 2: Student athletes are not just ‘basic writers’.”  Although I was not at the conference, I was following the Twitterfeed, and I immediately responded by saying, “Indeed. Athletes are just like any other group of students. So many variables here too: size of school, division, etc.”  Our conversation went on briefly for a bit, and I wanted to share some of my thoughts here.

As a former athlete, this is a hot-button issue for me.  Too often, athletes can be lumped together as one all-encompassing (and usually, the popular opinion goes, low-performing) group.  Nothing could be further from the truth, especially because there are so many differences in programs, schools, sports, etc.  Even on my own Division III wrestling team, we had good students, mediocre students, and not-as-good students, and this was at a college that certainly privileged academics more than athletics.  To assume, then, that athletes are a monolithic group that all approach learning in the same way is as fallacious as assuming that about any group of students.

It may be true that athletes learn differently from other students, but all students learn differently, so that could also be an easy red herring.  One possibility for effectively teaching athletes, though, is to use their vast domain knowledge (sports) to help them understand difficult course concepts.  I have taught many athletes in my career and used analogies and situations from their own sports to help them with course material.  I once taught a basketball player, for example, in a composition class.  He was having a difficult time with the logic of his argument and the organization of his paper.  After several attempts using traditional methods, I framed the question in terms of designing plays that would be successful on the court.  It didn’t work right away, but the student did start to see how he could use the parameters of logic he accesses every day in practice and apply it to his writing.

This is one example from my own experience, and I would love to hear how others approach teaching athletes.  In general, though, I will say that domain knowledge may be an untapped resource for working with these students

 

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Beyond Critical Thinking: Helping Students to Become Ethical Thinkers

Critical thinking–everyone knows students need to know how to do it, yet everyone defines it differently.  It gets mentioned as an outcome for higher education with amazing frequency, but there is very little in the way of consensus as to what it looks like or how to embed it in our pedagogy.

Many books and articles have been written about critical thinking, so you would think that we could pin a few things down regarding its meaning.  Do critical thinkers understand how to negotiate multiple points of view and to construct a response using evidence?  Yes.  Do critical thinkers, as Stephen Brookfield suggests in Teaching for Critical Thinking (2011), question their assumptions regularly?  Yes.  Can critical thinkers create a variety of hypotheses to explain a phenomenon and then analyze the validity of each?  Yes.*  Is critical thinking all of this and more?  There is no doubt about it.

The result of this multiplicity of meanings is that critical thinking, as a concept, has become so watered down and overly generalized that it is not very effective as a metric to gauge our students’ learning.  Perhaps, then, it is time to ask a new question:  WHY do we want students to develop critical thinking skills?  We, of course, want them to live happy, healthy, productive lives, and applying critical thinking skills to their personal decisions should aid in this pursuit.  But isn’t part of the answer that we also want them, in their professional lives, to make ethical decisions in their interactions with other human beings, global resources, the economy, etc.?

Because Mason’s new president, Ángel Cabrera, has devoted much of his career to being a leader in developing programs focused on responsible management education, we have been talking a lot about ethics here.  I think it is very important that we connect this discussion to our pedagogy.  I would like to see us shift our focus from teaching critical thinking to cultivating ethical thinkers.

Here is my formula for how that could happen:  Teaching ethical reasoning skills (which would involve much of what we commonly consider “critical thinking,” but is a more specific application of those skills) + acquiring global awareness + engaging with diverse groups + developing empathy = Cultivating ethical thinkers and actors.

Let’s take the last three parts of the formula first.  I’m not exactly sure how empathy is learned (I’m definitely not an expert in psychology), but attaining global awareness and engaging with diversity of all kinds–either in the classroom or in co-curricular activities or both–can certainly help students to think outside themselves and to endeavor to see things from other perspectives.  These kinds of experiences can also teach them about worldwide injustice and intolerance and non-western frames of reference, both of which can aid in the development of an empathic worldview and an ethical habit of mind.  General education programs at many universities already require classes focused on global issues, multicultural education, and/or diverse perspectives, so there are mechanisms in place to build a solid foundation for ethical thinkers.

The ethics piece of the puzzle is a bit trickier to implement.  Certainly some majors already have ethics courses on the books:  business majors, nursing majors, and–perhaps–some science majors are the most common.  But what about majors that do not feature these kinds of courses?  How do we ensure that ethical issues are being taught across the curriculum?

I have two suggestions. 1) Philosophy is, in many respects, the disciplinary home to ethics courses, so we could bring the philosophy departments at our university into general education more intentionally.  My experience has been that it is often the “Intro. to Philosophy” course that serves to fill general education requirements rather than courses that deal overtly and substantially with ethics.  Let’s add ethics courses to the mix then.  This is something that is definitely achievable, and I have a hunch that philosophy departments will not argue about the increase in enrollment.

2) The Humanities and the Arts, more generally, have much to contribute if our goal is to help students develop ethical habits of mind.  Every time students read about Odysseus choosing between Skylla and Charybdis in an English or classics course; every time a history class studies Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the atomic bomb; and every time art students are confronted with the case of Damien Hirst, who once killed 9,000 butterflies in the course of making work for an exhibition, they are engaging in the ethical reasoning process.  They have to work through a wide variety of issues, gather evidence, and make arguments using an ethical frame of reference.

These are only a few examples, of course, but I think that if we can move the conversation away from the vague platitudes of critical thinking to the more specific realm of ethical thinking, then we can create at least one pathway forward for higher education that would benefit both our students and the world around us.

*In fact, my Mason colleague Gheorge Tecuci has designed a computer program to help students develop this skill.

What I Have Learned about Teaching from My Daughter

As the parent of a six-month-old, I have learned about a lot of things recently.  I’ve learned how to change a diaper in situations that were less than ideal for accomplishing this normally mundane task; I’ve learned how to function on very little sleep; I’ve learned (or, rather, confirmed) that my wife is a superhero; I’ve learned that once babies learn how to roll around they like to do it A LOT; I’ve learned that the sound of your own child’s laughter can change your perspective in fundamental ways.

Unexpectedly, though, I have also learned a few things about teaching from my daughter.  I thought this would happen at some point, but I didn’t think it would occur so early in her life.  Although she is still months away from being able to speak, observing her every day has made me think about the classroom in new ways.

Let me illustrate:  We have a red coffee cup that I like to use because it holds more coffee than our other cups (see above for what I’ve learned about sleep).  My daughter is very curious about this cup.  She stares at it, reaches her hand out to touch it, rubs it (when it’s not hot), and tries to grab it.  She does this with many things around the house, frequently attempting to put them in her mouth as well.

For her, learning is about necessity:  ”That’s an interesting looking cup.  I need to touch it RIGHT NOW.”  It is about relevance:  ”I wonder if that funny red cup is important for my daily needs.”  It is about trial and error:  ”I have judged this cup and determined that it is not of immediate significance.”  I like that I can see this process playing out every time I drink from the cup.

What has been revelatory for me, however, has been the completely unbridled curiosity I have witnessed from her in these moments.  I have been wondering lately how, as a teacher, I could spark the same kind of intellectual curiosity in my students–about the Middle Ages as opposed to, say, red cups.  We were all children once, and surely we haven’t entirely lost this sense of curiosity that was once the driving force of our daily lives.

How to find it, though?  How to tap into it?  I’m full of more questions about this than answers, but there must be a way to teach that allows everyone to reach back through the years and become the curious individuals we once were.  Part of this probably has to do with making the material necessary and relevant, and the literature on teaching and learning has had a lot to say about these elements.  But what about curiosity?  There must be a way to cultivate this in our students or, at least, to help them find it all over again.

What do you think?

Reflecting on the Necessity of Empathy

Although I certainly mentioned empathy in a variety of settings last year, I am having conversations with faculty and graduate students about it quite a bit at CTFE events this year.  I’m not sure why it seems to be coming up so often, but it is striking how frequently I find myself talking about empathy as the foundation for effective teaching.  By this I mean that good teaching ultimately comes from understanding that we are all human beings, that students bring their lives with them into the classroom, that people sometimes have tragedies both small and large that impede their learning process, that there is a time for rigidity and a time for compassion.  Ken Bain has a great chapter on empathy in his award-winning What the Best College Teachers Do, and many others have written on the subject, so I don’t claim originality here.  I just think it can sometimes be too easy to forget, especially in the midst of a hectic semester, that teaching is fundamentally a human enterprise.

I am always careful to note that being empathetic does NOT mean lowering your standards for learning in any way.  It simply means that we are teaching people, not numbers, and we need to allow this to inform our practices.  We need to learn names, listen to students’ ideas, and give them space for constructive failure in a low-risk environment.  Empathy also allows us to be more fully attuned to the myriad of learning styles our students bring to our classes, so we are more successful teachers when we are empathic.

No instructor is perfect, of course, and it can be a struggle to teach this way sometimes.  Indeed, it is a process that waxes and wanes over the course of a career.  I know that I certainly have many moments where I wish I had been more empathetic for my students.

Still, I am convinced that empathy is at the heart of good teaching, and I hope to keep spreading the word…

CVs and the Academic Job Market: Bite-Sized Graduate Student Professional Development

A significant percentage of my current position at George Mason University is devoted to facilitating graduate student professional development workshops and initiatives.  Because the academic job market is now in full swing, I find myself talking to groups about application materials more and more these days.  In individual consultations, in small groups, and in Mason’s “Preparing for Careers in the Academy” program, my mantra is always the same:

• Do not go on the job market before you are absolutely ready.  It takes so much out of you cognitively, emotionally, and physically that you are being unfair to yourself if you go on the market before you have a reasonable chance of success.  This “reasonable chance” looks different for everyone, though, so it’s important to consider a variety of factors.  I have developed a job market readiness checklist (PDF) that might be of some use.
• You can really only control two parts of this process: 1) your decision regarding to which schools you will apply as well as your research on these institutions, and 2) the excellence of your application materials.  Everything else is out of your hands, from the composition of the search committee, to the needs of the department, to those you are competing against.  Focus on what you can control and try to take a broader view of everything else.  In other words, to twist the George Constanzaism–it’s not you; it’s them.
• The CV is probably the most important of all the job application materials, even though it is the least flashy.  I wrote an essay for The Chronicle in April outlining why I think this is true.

Those are just a few of what I think are the most important bite-sized nuggets of job market tips.  I’m happy to help and to answer any questions at any time.

What I’ve Learned about MOOCs

This week I took part in a wonderful, collaborative experiment called MOOC MOOC (check out the Twitter hashtag #moocmooc to follow all the action), which was billed as a meta-MOOC where we would think about the possibilities and limitations of Massively Open Online Courses.  It definitely lived up to its hype, but it was so much more than this too.  I think a ton of ideas came out of this project–some of which have to do with MOOCs, but others of which have bearing on the future of higher education itself.  We were given one final assignment:  to reflect on our experience in MOOC MOOC.  Here’s what I’ve come up with:

What a MOOC Is

If I learned anything it is that MOOCs live or die based on the amount of collaboration and participation you find in the course.  This one was full of collegial participation.  I thoroughly enjoyed the Google Doc assignment on day 2, the mini-MOOC in which people joined me on Day 4, and the group brainstorming we did yesterday.  We all came together to think out loud, construct ideas, compose hypotheses, and simply try to figure things out.  This is a rarity, even in academia, and the sense of common purpose really buoyed us as we wandered into uncharted (for the most part) territory.  Our intrepid facilitators did a terrific job in setting up this fertile environment in which this atmosphere could develop.

As I wrote in my part of the Google Doc on day 2, MOOCs have the potential to fulfill an educational ideal that goes all the way back to the ancient Greeks:  an open forum for the production of knowledge to which all are invited as long as they share the goal of developing ideas.  If MOOCs survive in their current form, I think it will be because they have filled a need felt by many who want to get together (virtually, in this case) to simply think, bounce ideas off of each other, and try to solve problems.

What a MOOC Is Not

I say above that *if* MOOCs survive it will be because of this participatory community, but I’m still not entirely convinced that they will last, at least not as they are currently conceived.  MOOCs and universities today are intertwined, but I think one needs to be extracted from the other.  As long as MOOCs are being sold as the “next big thing in higher education,” their future will be limited.  The realities of accrediting bodies, curriculum committees, politics, plagiarism, and good sense will prevent them from bearing any university credit, which is what would need to happen in order for them to go anywhere in higher education.  MOOCs could have a very bright future as their own thing, driven by like-minded thinkers, independent of higher education.  And I truly believe we need spaces like MOOCs where this kind of activity can occur.  I just don’t think they should be linked to our institutions of higher education.  In the end, they are two separate things with separate goals.  To mix them together is to do an injustice to both.

I have gained a respect for MOOCs that I did not have before I took part in the #moocmooc project.  What remains for me, I’m afraid, is the belief that they need to grow and thrive independent of colleges and universities.

So what is “the next big thing in higher education” then?  I have a radical idea.  Let’s stop trying to reinvent the wheel and instead look hard at the ways in which we can design the best, most innovative, and absolutely exceptional learning experiences in our current classes, whether they be face-to-face, hybrid, or online.