Photo by Kevin Chang on Flickr.
This semester marks the first time I have taught an undergraduate course in Social Media Technology. Throughout the semester we have been reading and discussing various aspects of social media. We started the semester off reading the incredible story of Danielle Smith’s stolen family photograph. We read about Oreo Cookie’s marketing coup during the Super Bowl. We learned about Kathy Sierra and the Internet Trolls and we discussed the Like a Girl viral video. We learned about the new realities of marketing on Facebook, and we also saw the power of Facebook as a tool for reconnecting a former teacher with a student who helped to get him fired. (We actually had a conference call between our class and the teacher and his student.) We read about how one person was fired over one stupid tweet and the whole world knew about it before she did. We had a guest speaker come visit our class, Mr. Grant Griffiths of Headway Themes. In short, we have covered a lot of ground so far this semester.
Then, to gauge our progress, we borrowed a page out of Howard Rheingold‘s playbook and the students wrote essay questions to be used on their mid-term exam. I have never really tried having students write their own exam before, but I really like the philosophy of sharing control with students like this. Students were asked to write three questions and we pooled them together. Then from that list, I chose the following questions to help narrow things down, and added some additional thoughts from me on certain questions in italics. Students are to respond to four questions, three from my list and one more question of their choice from the original, longer list.
- What is social media?
- Social media can be used more than just
professionallysocially. How? (I really liked this question, but the default for social media would seem to be social rather than professional. In other words, please discuss how social media has evolved beyond how the original designers might have envisioned it to be used.) - Why do you, or do you not use social media? (what are some of the benefits and pitfalls of making this personal choice?)
- How does social media affect us and our identities?
- Explain how someone has used social media to make their career. (While it would be perfectly acceptable to describe an example from class, describing something new we haven’t already discussed would be really impressive.)
- What is considered proper etiquette when using social media in your working environment? (In what ways can we we make distinctions between our professional and personal online identities? Is it a good idea to do this? Why or why not?)
I am really looking forward to seeing how they respond to these writing prompt questions. I also would enjoy hearing from other educators seeing this. By adding my own commentary, and even modifying one question, did I violate the spirit of having them write the questions? Have you ever had students write their own exam questions before, and if so how did it work? In what other ways do you share control with students in your classes?
Mr. Genereux, I am an Elementary Education major at the University of South Alabama. In high school one of my history teachers did the same thing. We were allowed to write one question each and then he displayed them on the board for us to vote on. The top ten questions were selected and he wrote the rest of the exam for us. We could select, in addition to his questions, two questions from the top ten list. My class really enjoyed having a say in what we were tested on. Now, as I am an Education major, I am learning that having students write questions shows if they have learned what they needed to learn. I feel it encourages students to want to learn when they feel they have a say in what they are tested on. I hope your class enjoyed participating in writing their exam.