Abstract:

In a changing world, Global competition, the Internet, and widespread use of technology suggest that the economy of the 21st century will create new challenges for employers and workers (Stuart & Dham (1999). We argue that 21st century skills have become the rehabilitation prospective for developing curricula. These skills cannot be ignored within the South African philosophy of education. Weimer (2013) claims that a change in teaching strategies has become inevitable and proffers that positive change regarding teaching weighs more towards the teacher than its demand for effort from the students. Considering the change lecturers are faced with, this author further argues: “The literature is not encouraging, but I think there are some fairly straightforward principles that give any new strategy, technique or approach a much greater chance of success. Out of that success will grow the courage and motivation to implement even more instructional changes.”
The University of Johannesburg (UJ), South Africa, have adopted a “learning to be” philosophy wherein the lecturer becomes a facilitator for students to acquire these skills and the field of study becomes the conduit. The essential principles for interwoven skills acquisition, as part of an existing, dynamic curriculum, propose leverage for assessment. More specifically, the question arises on how these skills are implemented during development. Moreover, how are these skills assessed?
This research uses an existing module for Commercial Law 1A and 1B and investigates how social media integration influences learning. Hence, the extensive use of a learning management system (LMS) and Twitter are used to describe efficacy of students’ learning experience. The impact on student learning is described and categorised from data gathered from online questionnaires as well as statistical analyses. The qualitative and quantitative analyses are given and substantiated by following discussions. Ultimately, the impact of the implementation and use of social media in an existing module is revealed and suggestions are given on how skills can be assessed and further developed within this stance.

Keywords:

Curriculum, social media, Twitter, LMS, skills, asessment, 21st century skills, commercial law.