Running header: TWITTER CAN BE USED TO IMPROVE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT A Discussion of How Twitter can be used to Improve Student

Engagement in the Classroom. Megan Weems University of Maryland University College

TWITTER CAN BE USED TO IMPROVE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT Abstract This paper explores three articles that research the relationship between Twitter and student engagement. The remaining two articles discuss the benefits and challenges of utilizing Twitter to encourage student engagement. Junco, Helbergert, and Loken (2010), conducted a study on how integrating Twitter into a first year undergraduate course could increase students grade point averages (GPA). Higdon, Reyerson and McFadden (2011) performed a study where Twitter was utilized to improve student engagement during in-class

film screenings. Higdon, Reyerson, and McFadden (2011) conducted a study where Twitter was used in combination with Wordle to improve student engagement. This paper examines how Twitter can be utilized to improve student engagement while comparing the benefits and costs of utilizing this tool.

TWITTER CAN BE USED TO IMPROVE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT A Discussion of How Twitter can be used to Improve Student Engagement in the Classroom.

Every teacher strives to achieve the sometimes-elusive goal of engaging students in the classroom. According to Dunlap and Lowenthal (2009), student engagement refers to the time and energy students devote to educationally purposeful activities and the extent to which students participate in activities that lead to their academic success. Teachers can achieve this goal by using the social networking site Twitter to allow students to collaborate with their teacher on the instructional process. Twitter is a free, social networking site that acts like a micro-blog, allowing users to write brief posts of one hundred and forty or fewer characters (Junco, Helbergert & Loken, 2010). A survey, conducted at the 2010 Consortium for School Networking Conference, found that fifty-four percent of school districts never Tweet. Those that do tweet use it mainly to communicate with large groups such as parents, students, and the community at large. Though Twitter is useful for communicating with the community, it has a variety of uses in the classroom (Shein 2012). Twitter users use the hashtag, #, symbol followed by a keyword or phrase, to categorize their Tweets and make them easier to find in a search. Hashtags are a very useful resource for the classroom. For example, through the use of hashtags, students can use Twitter to post responses to questions, research topics, bookmark webpages etc. Through these abilities, students can use Twitter to contribute to the learning process (Shein, 2012). Lets say an English class is reading Night by Eli Wiesel. The teacher asks the students to tweet a summary of the first chapter with the hashtag #NightWWII. Students could then use Twitter to discuss the important elements of the book. During the class

TWITTER CAN BE USED TO IMPROVE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT discussion, the teacher asks the students to compare the actions of Nazi Germany towards the Jewish people and the actions of the United States government toward Japanese Americans during World War II. If the students are unaware of the actions of the U.S. towards the Japanese, the instructor can ask students to research Japanese internment camps. When the students find an explanation that they believe their peers would find

useful, they share it by posting it to the class discussion. In this example, students have had a class discussion that allows all to be heard, even those who may normally be too shy to participate. The teacher has the ability to check student understanding of the preliminary chapters. Since each student should be posting to the discussion, the teacher is able to monitor every students understanding, not just the understanding of the students who volunteer to speak. Finally, by having the students research internment camps and post their findings, the teacher is not only expanding students knowledge, they are giving the students the opportunity to take ownership over their education. Twitter can also be utilized as a bookmarking tool. A class of students can research a topic together, posting relevant resources with a hashtag so that their classmates can access them at a later time. Its a way of creating a permanent bookmark that can be accessed at any time, any place. A teacher can also use Twitter to have students from different class sections collaborate on assignments. For example, an instructor can use Twitter to post student work and have other classes or teachers vote on which is the best (Shein, 2012). The benefits of Twitter are not limited to students using hash tags. Twitter also allows students the opportunity to reach out to experts in the fields of their interest. The ability to speak to an expert gives students an opportunity that they may not have

TWITTER CAN BE USED TO IMPROVE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT otherwise. They can receive feedback on their ideas and then share that feedback with their classmates. When another student sees that their peer has communicated with an expert, it may give them the confidence to pursue speaking with an expert. Students by nature are highly competitive, and being able to see each others contributions may encourage them to strive to produce an even better product (Agherdien, 2011). Twitter can be used for conducting an in-class poll. Polling enhances student engagement and allows teachers insight into students understanding of the concept. Twitter has advantages over the more traditional clicker system. Since Twitter is free and is accessible from a mobile device, it doesnt require schools to invest in the purchase of (and upkeep of) a clicker system. Also, with Twitter polling, students have the option of responding in free form response instead of being limited to choosing A, B, or C. Twtpoll, Polleverywhere, and Strawpoll are options for creating polls with Twitter (Dunlap & Lowenthal, 2009). A study was conducted at a university to test the effects of student Twitter use, for educational purposes, on students semester grades. This study used seven sections of a

first year seminar course, four sections were chosen to be the experimental group that used Twitter during class, and the three remaining sections were the control group and did not use Twitter. Since the students had no experience with Twitter, the experimental groups received an hour-long training session on how to use Twitter. A total number of 118 students participated in the study; the average age of each participant was 18.2 years of age. The students were required to use Twitter for book analysis, discussing an in-class movie, reacting to in-class discussions, and discussing how their service project related to their future career choice (Junco, Helbergert & Loken, 2010).

TWITTER CAN BE USED TO IMPROVE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT Through Twitter, students were able to have in depth discussions about the book they were reading in class. Students were able to have a more detailed discussion of the text than if they were limited to just the class period. This seminar only occurred once a week, which would not allow students much time to discuss the text. Through Twitter, the discussion has no time limit and students could participate at any time. Since Twitter can be uploaded to most mobile devices, students were able to participate in the discussion anywhere. Also due to the ability to make Twitter mobile, students could receive immediate instructor or peer feedback on any of their questions or comments. Fifty-five students out of the experimental group took advantage of the tool to ask questions about the class material. This shows that through Twitter, students are more comfortable posing questions than they would be in a more traditional setting (Junco, Helbergert & Loken, 2010). At the end of the study, the grade point averages (GPAs) of each class section were averaged and then compared. The average GPAs of the Experimental Groups were higher than the control groups average GPAs. Therefore, this study suggests that requiring

students to collaborate in the learning process through Twitter results in improved student performance (Junco, Helbergert & Loken, 2010). ***(INCLUDE CHART/TABLE?)*** When considering a study, it is important to examine the limitations along with the results in order to determine the studys accuracy. Though the experimental and control groups had similar backgrounds, neither group had any African American students. The sample size would need to be larger with a more diverse ethnic background, before it could represent an entire university. Since the study was conducted with first year students, one

TWITTER CAN BE USED TO IMPROVE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT could wonder whether the grade improvement is related to the integration of Twitter, or students becoming more accustomed to the college environment (Junco, Helbergert &

Loken, 2010). In order to achieve some clarity on whether the improvement is related to Twitter integration or student adjustment, the study should be replicated with students who are not in their first year of college. At the University of Minnesota, two instructors conducted a study to determine if using Twitter and Wordle would improve student engagement. The class was composed of eighty undergraduate film students. Students used Twitter during film screenings to analyze themes and arguments made throughout the films. Data for the study was collected through a combination of in-class observation, analysis of the Twitter feed and a student survey (Higdon, Reyerson & McFadden, 2011). Initial analysis of the Twitter feed confirmed that students were persistent in their participation in the discussion of the movies theme. The average tweets per student increased as the students progressed through the course. In general, students engaged in a productive discussion, sometimes peer-to-peer discussions, offering ideas and responding to questions. Students tweets were rated on a three point scale: one for good, thoughtful insight, two for relevant, but not insightful, and three for unrelated or trivial. The study found that sixty-four percent (112 of 174) of posts rated a score of one, while eighty-seven percent (152 of 174) of tweets scored either a one or a two. These results were consistent across the remaining three film showings (Higdon, Reyerson & McFadden, 2011). The student survey showed that a slight majority of students, sixty percent, did not see the learning benefits from using Twitter. Thirty-eight percent of the students felt that they put more thought into the course material because of Twitter, while forty-five percent

TWITTER CAN BE USED TO IMPROVE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT

agreed that they paid closer attention to the course because of the Twitter exercise. Overall, the instructors saw greater student engagement and or motivation during the Twitter sessions. One possible explanation for the students displeasure with the Twitter exercise could be that students are more comfortable with a more traditional learning style. The change to Twitter may have made some students uncomfortable, since it was not the format they were used to. In this study, there was no training session on Twitter usage; perhaps students would have felt more at ease had they been properly trained. Another possible explanation was that the students preferred the easier task of simply watching the film, and resented the more challenging task of discussing the films arguments and themes while watching it (Higdon, Reyerson & McFadden, 2011). One of the limitations of this study was that it had a small sample size. Eighty students is not a large enough sample to represent an entire university. Also due to the subject matter of the course, the results may vary if the exercise was repeated in a non-film course. Though the instructors addressed the importance of sending out constructive, educational tweets, some students still sent out personal tweets during a class session (Higdon, Reyerson & McFadden, 2011). However, this is more of a classroom management issue than a flaw in the design of the exercise. After analysis of both the results and limitations of both studies, it is obvious that there are certain elements that need to be in place in order to ensure that Twitter usage is successful in assisting student engagement in the classroom. Students and faculty, both, need to receive training on how to utilize Twitter; it is not safe to assume that students are familiar with the medium. It is important for instructors to clearly state their expectations for how students will conduct themselves on Twitter in the classroom. A discussion of the

TWITTER CAN BE USED TO IMPROVE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT importance of not abusing the privilege of using technology in the classroom is necessary when introducing any new resource into the classroom (Agherdien, 2011). If a teacher

wants students to use Twitter to contact experts they should provide students with a list of professionals who are active contributors relevant to the course, share knowledge, and work with the community (Dunlap & Lowenthal, 2009). Many who criticize using Twitter in the classroom cite a concern over students language use deteriorating due to the short-handed phrases and lack of grammatical order that is often linked to social networking. This issue can be easily addressed if an instructor emphasizes using grammatically correct sentences for Twitter in the classroom, (Agherdien, 2011). Other critiques point to concerns over the questionable content and whether that content has any educational value. This criticism is without its valid points, though Twitter does have many members who are experts in their field, it also contains individuals trying to mask opinion as fact. This provides teachers with an opportunity to reinforce the importance of being critical of informational resources. Explaining the importance of critiquing information is an important lesson for any teacher to address. This is not forcing teachers to do extra work, since this is a lesson that should be occurring in their classroom anyway, especially if their students are using the Internet. The final common criticism of using Twitter in the classroom is that it is easy for students to become distracted or off topic (Dunlap & Lowenthal, 2009). If students are collaborating in the learning process, they should be actively engaged on the topic. As long as teachers keep students active, there should not be any opportunities for becoming distracted. Also there is such a thing as too much of a good thing, Twitter will not be applicable for every lesson. If

TWITTER CAN BE USED TO IMPROVE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT

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Twitter is only used when it is relevant and worth using, students will be more inclined to stay on topic. Teachers can achieve this goal by using the social networking site Twitter to allow students to collaborate with their teacher on the instructional process. Through collaboration, students are able to actively participate in their educational experience. Students are no longer passively being fed information, they are searching for resources, discussing topics, and seeking out experts in the field. The benefits of Twitter for the classroom is not limited to the collaboration process, future studies should look into the use of Twitter as a tool for informatively assessing student understanding.

TWITTER CAN BE USED TO IMPROVE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT References Agherdien, N. (2011). Twitter and edulink: Balancing passive consumption with knowledge creation. Proceedings Of The International Conference On E-Learning, 489-492.

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Dunlap, J., & Lowenthal, P. (2009). Horton hears a tweet. Educause Quarterly, 32(4), Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/horton-hears-tweet Higdon, J., Reyerson, K. & McFadden, C. (2011, March 29). Twitter, wordle, and chimein as student response pedagogies. Educause Quarterly, 34(1), Retrieved from http://www.educause.edu/ero/article/twitter-wordle-and-chimein-student-responsepedagogies Junco, R., Helbergert, G., & Loken, E. (2010). The effect of twitter on college student engagement and grades. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, (27), 119-132. doi: 10.1111/) Shein, E. (2012, Winter). The social classroom: Trying out interactive learning, 145 characters at a time. Scholasticadminstrator.com, http://scholasticadminstrator.com