An Interview with UT Dallas Prof Monica Rankin, creator of “The Twitter Experiment.”
By Ines Schinazi
Perhaps what makes Generation Y’s educational experience most different from the experience of past generations is the overwhelming presence of technology in the classroom, and all the implications this brings.
While cell phones and laptops are often considered to be distractions in school, they can also be powerful learning tools, as demonstrated by UT Dallas Professor Monica Rankin in “The Twitter Experiment.”
Prof Rankin explains that she saw an opportunity to use “…the technology and equipment that students are very comfortable using already, and incorporate that into what we’re doing in the classroom to give them an alternative and a new way to learn.”
The Twitter Experiment makes us think about how technology is “flattening” education. Twitter changes traditional class dynamics, stimulating more dialogue within class, while also allowing for class information to be diffused to a global audience.
Prof Rankin describes her own Undergrad experience as consisting mostly of “…the kind of talking head at the front of the room, addressing a large group of students, and the students passively trying to absorb all that information.” She says, “There was very little interaction between the Professor and the students.”
While there are obviously many problems that come with using Twitter in class, the playing field between Professors and students is leveled, as communication between both parties is facilitated, stimulating a dialogue rather than an ongoing lecture. As Prof Rankin demonstrates, Twitter allows her to achieve a level of class participation that would otherwise be impossible in such a large class.
The “flattening” of education also transcends the classroom walls, flowing into the larger realm of society, making the information discussed in Rankin’s class, available to anyone who can access Twitter. As Cameron Quitugua, one of Prof Rankin’s students, explains, “We’re putting stuff that college students are paying for to learn, out on the Internet, and that college students are researching, out on the Internet, for other people to find. I’m really big on Wikipedia and the ability for you to find whatever you need to know on the Internet. For us to put more History and knowledge out there, through intelligent discussion, is pretty cool.”
In an exclusive interview, Prof Rankin speaks about her experiences conducting the “Twitter Experiment” as well as her thoughts on the growing intersection between Education and Technology.
Image: Professora Monica Rankin
Ines: In the video “The Twitter Experiment” you state that prior to the experiment, you weren’t really familiar with Twitter yourself. So what exactly drove you to incorporate Twitter in your class?
Prof Rankin: That’s exactly right. I had never used Twitter. I had heard about it, but I didn’t know a lot about it. What I did know, was that people could send updates through computers or by text messaging from their cell phones. I was teaching in a classroom that had limited technology already built-in for students. A lot of students would bring a laptop to class, but not all of them, and everyone brings a cell phone to class. Some professors are upset by this, and try to ban cell phones, since they see this as a distraction. But I was thinking maybe there’s a way to incorporate the technology and this equipment that students are very comfortable using already, and incorporate that into what we’re doing in the classroom to give them an alternative and a new way to learn.
Ines: Clearly, Twitter successfully encourages a great deal of student participation. From your experience, why do you think this is?
Prof Rankin: I think there are a couple of things. To be very practical about it, students found it interesting. It was different and I think that attracted their attention to start with. This is something that many of us had never seen in a classroom before, certainly not in a class of this size with 90 students. So I think just having a slightly different approach automatically peaks their interest a little bit. But further than that, I think that our use of Twitter really appeals to a lot of students who might not be comfortable in a traditional classroom discussion setting. In any typical discussion that I’ve done regardless of the class size, usually what you will have is about 10% of the class dominates the discussion. The vast majority of the class may say one or two comments, but they remain pretty quiet. Then you have another 10 % of the class who says absolutely nothing. Well I think that Twitter changes that dynamic significantly and it allows people, who’s strength might not be speaking in front of large groups of people, it allows them to have an opportunity to play to their strengths. It gives them the opportunity to incorporate things they are comfortable with into the learning environment. It changes the dynamic quite a bit. I was really pleased with what I saw happening in the classroom for the most part. I think certainly there are a lot of problems with Twitter. It wasn’t the ideal solution, but I think that with what we had to work with in the classroom, and what we had access to, it was one of the best solutions we could have found for that particular semester.
Ines: You mention how the “140 characters” limits the sorts of comments students can make, but at the same time really forces them to make a concise argument, which they often have trouble doing. However, from your perspective, do you think 140 characters risks making class discussions too superficial, limiting the ideas or topics one can explore?
Prof Rankin: I suppose there is always that concern. I’m not overly concerned about that myself. I think that the new generation, raised with all this technology, have learned to process information, in a way that us older folks don’t really understand. I think that with having a small snippet of information, a lot of people can take that small snippet, and go through a deeper internal process, of understanding it and analyzing it, and kind of picking it apart. I think that I would prefer students have access to a larger character limit. 140 is really quite limiting. I think that allowing them to form more complete thoughts with a larger character limit, would be highly beneficial. But I also think that forcing them to limit those statements to some extent is a really useful exercise. It really helps them form “to the point,” “concise,” arguments. So I’m not overly concerned about it. I didn’t see that it was a problem, especially the way that we combined Twitter with group discussions. I don’t think Twitter alone is going to be the solution, but combining it in various ways, can help get around some of those limitations.
Ines: In the video, many students seem to like the idea of not having to speak up in front of a large class. Twitter offers that comfort since they can just express their thoughts through writing.
However, do you ever worry that as technology increasingly intersects with education, students may lose the ability to convey their perspective “out loud?”
Prof Rankin: I’m not terribly worried about that. I think that instructors are going to come up with new ways, all the time, to incorporate the various modes of communication. One of the things that we did in the experiment in the classroom, is we actually did have them working in small groups where they were interacting with each other, and then based on what they were talking about in their small groups, that’s what they would “tweet.” So it wasn’t like a classroom of students, completely isolated as individuals, doing nothing but using technology, and not speaking to anyone. There was a lot of face-to-face and personal interaction going on, in their small groups. I was roaming the room the entire time, interacting with the groups as I was going around. So it was kind of a combination of all of these different methods and I think that worked really well. Students could talk to each other in the small group setting, and they could also share their thoughts with a group of 90 people, and do it fairly comfortably.
Ines: As a college educator you prepare your students to enter the workplace. Obviously, the classroom is changing. But how do you think the workplace is changing and does incorporating technology and social media in class help students as they enter the professional world?
Prof Rankin: My impression is that students are going to get far better practice at using technology and social networking than what I can provide in the classroom. I’m certainly not an expert on anything technological or anything having to do with computers or digital media. So the actual “hands on application” of using those kinds of technologies, I think I’m the last person who needs to be training people.
But I do think that what students get exposed to in the classroom are new approaches to using things like this, and new ways to combine technology and Humanities for example, that often times are considered to be at opposite ends of the spectrum. Education is certainly not the only area that’s looking at innovative ways to combine these types of things, and challenge the way that people had traditionally approached these kinds of things. They’re certainly going to face those expectations when they enter the workplace, the kind of “thinking out of the box” and the “looking for alternatives.” So hopefully this exposes them to what some of the possibilities are, and how some people are trying to face those challenges.
Ines: Did you notice any differences in terms of the way female and male students use and interact with Twitter in class?
Prof Rankin: I didn’t actually pay a lot of attention to gender differences. I didn’t do as good of a job as I would have liked in tracking who was using a computer or a cell phone, and we also had a number of students who weren’t comfortable doing either, so they would just handwrite notes. I didn’t think about it early enough in the semester, to actually keep very specific statistics on that kind of information.
Ines: Since you teach History, which is a pretty traditional discipline, did you encounter a lot of resistance, in terms of other Professors or students, as you brought Twitter into class?
Prof Rankin: I wouldn’t really call it resistance on the part of students. I think some students were reluctant to participate in the public forum of Twitter, and others didn’t have the same access to the technology.
Either they didn’t have a laptop that had a wireless connection, or they didn’t have an unlimited texting service on their phone.
I think that a lot of the students who didn’t directly participate opted out of it more for practical reasons, than because they had some fundamental disagreement with what we were doing. But you know, I think others weren’t into social networking and weren’t really comfortable with it, and I think that’s fine.
The reaction I got from other Professors has been mixed. There’s a lot of Professors that have been really interested in it. A lot of my colleagues at UT Dallas have asked for more information and have tried to look at ways to see how they can incorporate similar kinds of experiments in their classrooms. I’ve talked to a number of colleagues at other Universities.
But I’ve talked to other Professors who say that they would want absolutely nothing to do with this kind of thing. That this has no place in the way they conduct their classrooms. And I think that’s fine. I think that’s one of the great things about University Education. Students get access to Professors who use a wide variety of approaches and come at their classrooms with various strategies and variety. So the Professors who are comfortable with it, will start “playing around” with it. Those who aren’t will not, and students will be better off, having those different experiences with those different professors.
Ines: From the Professor standpoint, did you find it at all chaotic or overwhelming to have to field all these Twitter comments in such a large class?
Prof Rankin: I think that it would have been more overwhelming for me, had I not had a really good Teaching Assistant. My TA Megan Malone, was a really integral part in making this successful. She helped to monitor the digital discussion, while we were in the classroom, and while things were unfolding, so that I could be going around the room, and interacting face-to-face with the students. If she hadn’t been helping me “behind the scenes” I think it would have been a very different environment, it would have been much more chaotic, and a lot more for me to handle by myself.
Ines: You make clear how positive Twitter can be in a large class. However, what about using Twitter in smaller classes? Is this something you would consider?
Prof Rankin: I would consider using it for a smaller group. I’ve given it some thought. I think a lot would depend on what we’re trying to do in the class, and what we’re trying to accomplish, and what kind of students are in that class. I’m not using it right now. But I haven’t ruled it out for smaller classes in the future.
Ines: The Twitter experiment makes us think about the ways in which education is evolving. How was your own learning experience in college, most different from the experience of your students today?
Prof Rankin: Well that was a long time ago. But when I was in college there was very little interaction, particularly in some of the traditional courses like my History courses. There was very little interaction between the Professor and the students. Aside from the traditional lecture, [there was] the kind of talking head at the front of the room, addressing a large group of students, and the students passively trying to absorb all of that information. That was the traditional approach, and that was essentially what I was exposed to as an Undergrad. Things are far different today. More often than not, Professors are trying to encourage more interaction from students, a kind of active participation from the students sitting in the classroom, recognizing that there are a lot of benefits to the learning process, as students become more engaged. I think that’s a great advance that Education has made over the last several decades, as more and more Professors are engaging those types of approaches. I think technology will help to facilitate that. Precisely what I was looking for, when I decided use Twitter in the classroom, was to be able to engage 90 students, all at the same time in 50 minutes. And I think the more technology continues to evolve, the more opportunities and options they’re going to be for educators to use technology to help do that.