Using social media for academic support and engagement

Abstract

For over a decade at the University of Minnesota, I use social media tools in my introductory global history course to improve engagement and final grades. Students and I work as partners in using the tools to engage them more in the class, prepare for exams, and develop these skills for other courses. Our approach is guided by the principles of Universal Design for Learning. We remove barriers so all students can access exam preparation resources and they have options to validate their knowledge gained in addition to traditional exams. Students report satisfaction with the usefulness of the resources and evaluation studies document effectiveness in raising final course grades. This article shares practical steps to use no-cost and low-cost social media applications to accomplish these purposes.