Learning from Students

As this school year approaches, I've decided that this will be the year of actively learning from my students.  I know, I know this may seem like a thing that we all just do and there is no need to talk about it but I've chosen to put it into action.

This year I'm going to implement a new reminder system in my classroom. This system is one my students are already familiar with. It's one that they use on a regular basis. Twitter.

This year I've decided that maybe its not about teaching my students new and inventive pedagogy. Maybe it's about using that time I would have spent teaching them new procedures to actually teach. Why not use a venue they already know and understand?

The plan is to use Twitter (a social media outlet that my students already use in their personal lives) to send out reminders and even extra goodies, like relevant articles and videos.

Twitter is the perfect outlet for this kind of thing. Firstly, there is the privacy factor. Twitter allows users to set there tweets to "private", so only approved followers can see them. Secondly, you can send students links to anything you want to show them but don't have time in class. Lastly, students don't have to login to an "educational" site; they can see your class tweets right beside people like Justin Bieber and their boyfriend.