Integrating Social Media into Teaching and Learning

The alignment principle can be applied to teaching with social media to help ensure that there is coherence between intended learning outcomes and the assessments and activities used to demonstrate proficiency in those outcomes.

Dee Fink’s (2015) Integrated Course Design Model (PDF) is an example of this approach.  The model is structured around the following factors:

• Situational Factors
• Learning Goals
• Feedback and Assessment
• Teaching and Learning Activities

Key Questions
Recall your earlier answer to what you’d like to achieve in teaching with social media, and the tools you would consider using. Upon reading Fink’s article, consider the following:

What are some situation factors to consider?

• e.g., How much knowledge of the subject do students have? Or of the tools being used?

What are the course’s learning goals?

• e.g., Students will be able to use social media tools to create a professional Community of Practice

How can I design feedback assessments to be learning centred?

• e.g., On your group blog, post an executive summary of the article you read. Evaluate 2 peers’ blog posts on the same subject, using the criteria studied in class.
• e.g., In 140 characters or less, tell me about the most important takeaway from today’s lesson.

What kinds of active learning activities will help to attain the learning goals I’ve established?

• e.g., Using the private blog tool in Quercus, reflect on what you have learned so far in this course, specifically (…)