Teaching Assistants' Training Program

Sara Mazrouei, TATP Sciences Trainer
Sandy Carpenter, TATP Humanities Coordinator

Social media has become a permanent feature of many students’ lives outside of the classroom. As social media use continues to rise, teachers can engage students with social media and online technologies for innovative active learning techniques in classrooms. Two examples of such media are Twitter and blogs. Twitter can be used to generate discussion and interest in different course topics, as well as respond to students and perform course administrative duties. Blogs can provide a form of course evaluation since they provide an alternative platform for low-stakes writing and feedback. Given these pedagogically-centred uses of social media, this workshop will present strategies for using different forms of social media, in particular Twitter and blogs, for increasing in-class participation and informal active teaching tools outside of the classroom.