How Twitter gets Students to Participate in Class Room Discussion

This article from mashable shows how students get more engaged during their classes.

As I know from my own experience, usually nobody wants to raise their hand and participate in an active discussion. For some it’s the fear of saying something wrong, some are just to shy even tough they would know the answer, and some are scared of being labeled as a geek. Either way, “Silence” is mainly the only one who takes the lead in an open discussion.

Dr. Monica Rankin of the University of Texas at Dallas took the first step into what could become a world wide trend. She used Twitter to display comments on the main board and give the students a chance to participate in the lecture, without having to raise a hand or to speak up. “It’s just an easy way to answer questions in class without embarrassing yourself and raising your hand in a big lecture hall,” said one student.

Implications

As I know from my own studies, some classes are just so full you have to watch them from a different room. With the new idea of using Twitter, people from other class rooms or even students studying from at home (e.g handy caped people) can actively participate in the classes discussion and receive immediate feedback. This inexpensive way of including every student, could revolutionize the future of the class room dynamics.

A second good thing about using Twitter in the class room is, that students are able to re-read the discussion while learning for the exams. Usually these discussions are lost just after the class has finished but with this teaching method, students can look into the argumentation even after years.