Abstract:

In a university setting, introductory undergraduate science courses are commonly taught in a large lecture format. Since these classes are lecture-based, there is limited engagement and student-centered activities. In addition, performance in the class is usually based on objective exams. As the semester progresses, professors of these large lecture classes notice dwindling attendance, a lack of note-taking, and poor performance on objective exams. Given these issues in today’s classroom, we embraced these challenges by re-designing portions of Weather and Climate, a core natural science course with 400+ students enrolled each semester.

To improve student engagement and success, we:
1) utilized free, widely-utilized social media tools (i.e., Instagram and TikTok) to collaborate with students and supplement key course components with visual examples;
2) implemented a few small group, active-learning activities for foundational-concept comprehension;
3) introduced a two-stage exam concept that transformed the testing experience into an active learning environment that allows students to participate in peer-teaching and learning while increasing student-instructor interaction.

This presentation will focus on the implementation of social media tools to enhance student engagement and learning.

Keywords:

University education, active and student-centered learning, social media tools for teaching, introductory science.