Learning and teaching as communicative actions: A mixed-methods Twitter study

Our paper examines the design of a course that utilized the real-time information network Twitter to spark reflective thinking and communication based on classroom topics. A major goal was to increase discourse amongst students and enhance learning through encouraging student time on task. The innovation followed guidelines set forth in the Learning and Teaching as Communicative Actions theory to augment student learning experience via more active communication and increased content sharing among students, towards a goal of building a social learning community. In this mixed methods study, we found diverse student perceptions of the use of Twitter; both very positive views of the tool as a means of supporting discourse and those views of the tool having little benefit to student’s own learning. The female students in this study, perceived the tool to significantly more support the social learning community in the interactive environment than did male students.