Weapons of Mass Instruction: The Creative use of Social Media in Improving Pedagogy

Introduction The Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) of Southern University of New Orleans (SUNO) was established in 2009, to focus on the use of social media technology to effectively capture the attention of their students and engage them in a more meaningful manner in academic courses and programs. The topics discussed during these sessions are not limited to but include questions such as: What are some useful best practices in using technology and social media to improve student learning outcomes? What are the advantages and challenges of the use of social media? How does one maximize the benefits of using social media for positive student learning outcomes while minimizing the limitations, drawbacks and other attendant negatives? The face-to-face sessions include instructors who had some experience in using social media for teaching, instructors who have never used these tools for teaching and others with limited experience who have experimented with using these technologies. All together these instructors form the SUNO Social Media Users Group (SMUG). Members, then, are scattered along the continuum from most experienced users to novice users. Southern University at New Orleans (SUNO), not unlike many small liberal arts universities, prides itself as having a time-honored tradition of teaching excellence. Its relatively small average instructor to student ratio (1 instructor to twenty-five 25 students) makes it possible for instructors not only to know students, but to give more personalized attention when this is required. Thus, though many instructors initially resisted offering fully established online courses and preferred blended rather than stand-alone online courses early in the emergence of social media and online technology, there was no shortage of creativity in the delivery of instruction. The advent of Hurricane Katrina and subsequent storms, starting in 2005 changed the thinking of instructors about quickly incorporating online instruction using social media. In the aftermath of the storm, over half of SUNO's 3,600 students were dispersed from New Orleans, Louisiana to locations throughout the United States of America; some finding refuge in states as far away as Oregon and California and almost every other state in between. The instructors and administration of the University quickly saw the danger of losing these students permanently if they did not reach them and work with them to continue and complete their programs of study. SUNO assumed an aggressive approach to reach, retain, and recruit students by establishing a department of E-learning and implementing an online curriculum. Instructors were trained and encouraged to meet quality standards for rigorous online courses established by the Sloan Consortium and other highly regarded leaders in the field. Instructors who were successful in this endeavor and met the requisite standards were awarded a wireless laptop and monetary incentives to continue innovating. All online students enrolled were required to complete the SUNO online orientation and the online Knowledge and Skills Mastery Test produced by Smarter Measures, to gain fundamental skills for online instruction. At the present time approximately eight years after the 2005 catastrophe many instructors who were initially trained have retired and new instructors have replaced them, thus the need for ongoing training and professional development remains a continuing priority. Social media in the classroom is particularly relevant to the Millennial Generation (18-29 years of age) of students who are digital natives coming to higher education with extensive experience in social media (Wnakel, 2009). This article provides an overview of the use of the social media in teaching. Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter are discussed with examples of how they can be used to foster robust collaboration among learners and enhance instruction. …