For generations, students have known that the classroom is the place to go for instruction. This has been true for both university education as well as Christian/religious education. In larger classrooms, the instructors are limited in their ability to interact with a large number of the learners. Twitter offers a creative way to facilitate interaction during and beyond the class session. Consider the example of Dr. Monica Rankin, Professor of History at the University of Texas at Dallas:
Purdue University has taken the idea a step further by launching Hotseat, which seeks to incorporate not only Twitter but also other forms of social media in an attempt to “transform the learning environment into a microdiscussion platform in and out of the classroom.” You can read more about it here or here or view a basic introduction:
So What?
If you teach students in a large classroom environment, you should assume that some are sharing their thoughts via social media. Rather than simply acknowledging this new behavior, how are you leveraging it to benefit student engagement during class, enable discussions that continue beyond the class session, and improve educational outcomes?
For those who are intimidated by the idea, I encourage you to begin with Twitter. At the most basic, simply provide your students a hashtag for all class related discussion and participate in the discussion.