Twitter is the Window into the Modern World of Education

Twitter seems like a silly idea. People can post what is going on in their lives, or thoughts they might have, but only if they limit themselves to 140 characters. Ten years ago, few people would have thought that was an idea that had any merit. However, in the last few years, Twitter has become one of the most popular sites on the internet. On average, there are 300 million unique users on the site every month. Twitter has been used, not just to share tidbits of information from random individuals, but to affect public opinion and even to try to shape political ideology.

Twitter is a website where anyone who signs up can express their thoughts/ideas/opinion whenever they want. They can follow other people, and others can follow them to be alerted when they have posted something, called a tweet. Entire conversations go on back and forth, 140 characters at a time. Unless specified by the poster, the tweet is visible to all, which can sometimes just be silly, but sometimes can be capable of much more. Over the last two years, twitter has served as a sounding board for many people who feel disenfranchised in their countries even leading to national political revolutions. How, then, does this mixture of inanity and incredible importance serve as a professional network of teachers?

Due to the open nature of the Twitter network, anyone from anywhere can use it. This is exactly why it is such a powerful tool for educators. Educators from all over the country, and all over the world even, log on and post information about what they're doing in their classrooms. They provide examples of amazing projects. They ask questions about successful ways to teach certain content. They even have chats centered on specific content material.

Teaching in a school is a somewhat insular profession. You hear from other teachers at your school, and sometimes from people in the district. If you are part of an alumni network or something, you might have a few other connections that could provide you with resources and information. Outside of that, though, you are pretty much on your own. Twitter exponentially expands that network to other teachers, college professors, professional organizations, educational consultants, and others who may have ideas that can help teachers be more effective at their jobs.

There are a few main ways Twitter can be utilized by teachers. It can be a useful classroom tool, providing a means of feedback from students to teachers, also providing a means of communication for teachers to reach students outside of school hours. It is important, though, that teachers can harness the power of Twitter to improve their craft as well. I have only been on Twitter for about five months, but I can detail the things I have gained from being part of this amazing network.

First, it has provided me with outright lesson plans. There have been several times when I have been searching for a better way to teach some content, and I have put it out there in the Twitter-verse, and ended up with anything from ideas for a way to approach it to full lesson plans. Second, there is regularly very good discussion about education in general that contain links to articles or blogs or op-eds that shed light on educational policies around the nation. While some of these may not make me a better teacher, all of them help me become more aware of the world in which I teach and what public education is up against. Lastly, it has connected me with some powerful resources which I now use regularly, and provide to others. The following is a short list of resources and their twitter handles that provide almost daily information that can be used in the social studies classroom.

• Library of Congress - @librarycongress
• US National Archives - @USNatArchives
• National Geographic - @NatGeo
• History in Pictures - @HistoryInPics
• SAS Curriculum Pathways - @SASEducator
• Smithsonian - @smithsonian

These are just some of the groups that regularly tweet resources that have proven very useful in reaching students. As mentioned earlier, there is a regular chat, #sschat, that is centered around the social studies. There are also chats for English, foreign language, and global education. All of these can provide specialized tools and resources for teachers in those areas. All a teacher needs to do is follow the hash tag for their content and they need to have some sort of file on their computer in which to save the resources that are tweeted out daily, so they won't forget about them in a few days.

Twitter has proven extremely fruitful in my own search for resources and I feel it has made me a better teacher. Other educators have clearly found the same thing as it continues to be used as a powerful professional learning network.

References

 About Twitter, Inc. | About. (n.d.). Retrieved May 21, 2015, from https://about.twitter.com/company

 Cillizza, C. (2014, August 13). Is Twitter ruining politics? Retrieved May 21, 2015, from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/08/13/is-twitter-ruining-politics/

How Twitter Shapes Public Opinion. (2014, March 11). Retrieved May 21, 2015, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/03/140311123816.htm

 Marzouki, Y. (2012, September 16). Revolutionizing Revolutions: Virtual Collective Consciousness and the Arab Spring. Retrieved May 21, 2015, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/yousri-marzouki/revolutionizing-revolutio_b_1679181.html

Structured Academic Controversy

The social studies, as an academic discipline, is being relegated to the sidelines across our country, and this is especially true in North Carolina. From Oklahoma to Florida even to Britain and India, the humanities as a discipline have been given the short shrift by those in power. Some of this has to do with asserting that things like political science or economics are not as necessary or important as math or science. Some of this has to do with the notion that you don't need literature to make a bomb. Whatever the reasons, the humanities in general, and social studies in particular are being marginalized and it is negatively impacting students.

Eroding the perceived importance of the social studies is carried out in critical thinking. Are multiple choice tests teaching students critical thinking skills? Clearly they are not. One of the best ways to teach these critical thinking skills necessary for the 21st century is through the social studies, and more specifically, teaching social studies through a Structured Academic Controversy (SAC).
many ways. One of these ways is through standardized testing. States, districts, and schools place higher importance on subjects that have high stakes tests attached to them. If you eliminate the high stakes tests attached to social studies, you lower the degree of importance placed on them by most stakeholders. One of the things on which businesses in the US place a lot of emphasis is

SAC was developed by David and Roger Johnson out of the University of Minnesota. The purpose is to provide an alternative to debate with an either/or structure, but rather recognize controversy as something that doesn't need to be solved, per se. In this way, students learn to come to compromise without worrying about winning or losing. They also learn to recognize other points of view as being correct without abandoning their own perspective. Not only does this foster correct historical thinking, but the ability to take multiple points of view and synthesize new ideas is exactly the kind of critical thinking skill modern businesses would love to have in their employees.

How does SAC work? The teacher starts with an overarching historical question; one that does not have a simple answer and one that can be argued either way. Next, the teacher prepares documents to support both view points on the historical question. There will need to be three to four documents per side of the controversy. Some ideas for where to find the documents are listed below:

• Textbooks
• Library of Congress
• US Archives
• Stanford History Education Group
• Other specific websites dealing with the particular historical question

The students are then split into groups of four. Within each group of four, they will be broken down into two pairs. Each pair is given one set of documents. The documents will tell conflicting stories. The students take time in their pairs to read and discuss the documents, and then come up with their response to the historical question, citing evidence from the documents. Once both sets of pairs have had a chance to complete this, they come back together.
Then one pair presents their response to the question citing the evidence that backs them up. The other pair does not refute their perspective, but rather restates the first pair's opinion and their point of view, making sure that they were understood. Then the second pair presents their opinion with their evidence and the first pair restates for understanding. Once both pairs have presented, then they work towards reaching a consensus on the historical question. If no consensus is reached, then the two pairs need to clarify where the differences lie.

In his article about using this technique, George Jacobs refers to many of the benefits of using this sort of cooperative controversy in the classroom. First, it forces students to think, rather than just focusing on memorization of historical facts.Second, it increases the students intrinsic motivation. The goal would be that the students would be excited to come to their own conclusion from the evidence rather than just have the information told to them. Third, it increases the need and desire to cooperate. When most businesses today focus on how well employees can collaborate on teams, this should be a skill that is highly emphasized in schools. Fourth, it helps students accept ambiguity better. Sometimes, there is no undisputed "right" answer, and students ability to work within that ambiguity will increasingly help them think critically. 

In our present economic state, the demand for highly skilled workers who can think critically is out there, but much of our population is unprepared. Unprepared because we have spent the last 20 years focusing on multiple choice tests and only considering those subjects that might provide some sort of
strategic advantage over our presumed enemies. It is time to shift towards helping students think critically, and further their cognitive abilities and social studies classes, if taught correctly, can foster these skills better than most other disciplines.

References

Delany, E. (2013, December 1). Humanities Studies Under Strain Around the Globe. Retrieved May 14, 2015.

 Fallon, N. (2014, December 3). Is Your Team Missing This Important Business Skill? Retrieved May 15, 2015, from http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/7532-critical-thinking-in-business.html

Jacobs, G. M. (2010). The Academic Controversy Technique: Towards Cooperative Debates. Online Submission,

 Strauss, V. (2011, July 25). Teachers in a bind: Tests don’t measure critical thinking. Retrieved May 15, 2015, from http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/teachers-in-a-bind-tests-dont-measure-critical-thinking/2011/07/25/gIQAz84fZI_blog.html

 Teaching History.org, home of the National History Education Clearinghouse. (n.d.). Retrieved May 15, 2015, from http://teachinghistory.org/teaching-materials/teaching-guides/21731