Learning Active Citizenship using IPADS, Political Blogs and Social Media Professor Bryony Hoskins, University of Roehampton

Learning Active Citizenship using IPADS, Political Blogs and Social Media 1.The module: Active Citizenship and political socialisation 2.Social theories of learning 3.Evaluation of effectiveness of module

Active Citizenship and Political Socialisation Professor Bryony Hoskins (3rd year sociology module, 9 students, 5 IPADS)

Module profile: Active Citizenship and Social Change Learning outcomes By the end of this module, you will be able to: Explain the concepts of citizenship and political socialisation Identify and critically reflect on inequalities in political engagement according to social class, age, gender and so forth Analyse and critically reflect on campaigns for social change and implement successful strategies Using research evidence, state a position, argue and defend that position in the form of blogs, social media tools and presentations Be politically active in campaigns for social change

Module profile: Active Citizenship and Social Change Teaching methods IPADS Access and choice regarding current political campaigns and political blogs Social media participation in communities beyond the classroom Socrative quizzes so everybody is engaged in the classroom Access to resources stored in moodle Political blogs The module will focus on developing the skills to write political blogs using WordPress Also more conventional lectures and class discussions

Module profile: Active Citizenship and Social Change Employability On this module you will be encouraged to develop a range of skills and attributes that will help to enhance your employability. - In particular you will develop your campaign skills on i. blogging ii. use of Wordpress for blogging ii. use of social media iii oral and written communication skills iv using research evidence to argue a position These skills are particularly sought after by NGO’s, government and many business lobby groups.

Assessment: Political blogs The module will be assessed by 3 elements: blogs (60% of total), social media campaign (20%) and campaign presentation (20%) Political Blogs total 60% Blog 1: Young people and political engagement 800 words (20%) Blog 2: Inequalities and political engagement 800 words (20%) Blog 3: Gender and/or sexuality and political engagement 800 words (20%) The marking criteria for blogs (out of 20); Explain clearly the relevant concepts of citizenship and political socialisation (4 Marks) Identify and critically reflecting on inequalities in political engagement according to either social class, age, gender or sexuality (whichever is the topic of blog) (4 Marks) Using research evidence, state a position, argue and defend that position (8 Marks) Correct length, style and presentation for a political blog (4 Marks)

Applying knowledge to their own experiences

Assessment: Social Media Social Media Engagement total 20% Marks (use of twitter, Facebook and Instagram) The assessment will be based on practical implementation and engagement in your campaign. Each blog posted online in WebPress in the week requested (3 marks/blog total = 9 marks) Posting a minimum of 3 social media posts for each blog (total 9 posts) (3 marks/blog total =9 marks) Posting 2 social media posts regarding other students blogs (1 mark/post with a maximum of 2 marks) All posts relevant to the module will count unless they are offensive and/or contravene human rights. Evidence will need to be submitted in the form of a diary of the social media posts with either photos, screen shots or links to the post on the internet

Assessment: Social Media The student all said that they appreciated this but it is hard for me from their posts to see how effective this really was

Assessment: Campaign presentation Campaign presentation The assessment will be based on the ability to; State a position on the political issue (4 marks) Use evidence when arguing this position (8 marks) Defend a position when asked questions (4 Marks) Quality of communication skills as specified in the oral assessment criteria for the Sociology programme including keeping to time (4 marks) The presentation should last a maximum of 5 min and be on the topic of one of the three blogs that you have completed (students can choose which one).

Learning political engagement Using social theories of learning as applied to political engagement Becoming political Developing a sense of political identity and belonging to a political community The process of building confidence and political self-efficacy within a community of practice Communities: classroom, university, beyond- numerous political communities that exist Wenger : Situated learning, Practice & Meaning making Hoskins, B., Janmaat, J.G., and Villalba, E. (2012) Learning citizenship through social participation outside and inside school: an international, multilevel study of young people's learning of citizenship. British Educational Research Journal, 38, (3), (doi: / ).Learning citizenship through social participation outside and inside school: an international, multilevel study of young people's learning of citizenship.doi: /

Learning political engagement To achieve this; Situated learning IPADS enable use of real world & current examples of political blogs & use of social media Students had a range of choices of topics when reading political blogs Students encouraged to reflect on their own life experiences when writing the political blogs Social Practice/ learning by doing They experimented with being political – Posted their political blogs directly live into the blogosphere – Social media posts invited the wider communities (mostly their friends) to read and participate Meaning making Co-construction of knowledge through plenty of discussion Sharing blogs between peers Posting social media posts on their peers blogs Campaign presentations Hoskins, B., Janmaat, J.G., and Villalba, E. (2012) Learning citizenship through social participation outside and inside school: an international, multilevel study of young people's learning of citizenship. British Educational Research Journal, 38, (3), (doi: / ).Learning citizenship through social participation outside and inside school: an international, multilevel study of young people's learning of citizenship.doi: /

Evaluation of effectiveness Student feedback Roehampton instrument Socrative questionnaire

Student Feedback Quality of teaching Assessment and feedback Organisation/Management Overall Satisfaction Disability support

Particularly relevant scores Subject made interesting Sufficient opportunities to participate & ask questions

Written feedback Good alternative from some of the essay based modules and it helped build skills that can be used in other settings Fun, engaging and informative Encouraged active engagement and new ways of learning Interesting to learn about very relevant and important topics. It gave me a lot more interest in the topic

Employability skills

Evaluation: IPADS IPADS All students responded positively about using the IPADS – ‘it is very interactive. – It also made things easier if the lecturer wanted to show us links online which had been made easier through Ipads.’ – 1 IPAD per student

Evaluation: Blogs All but one student (8/9 89%) enjoyed the experience of writing blogs – it was enjoyable and different to other activities I had previously done at university – It was an innovative way to write an essay, fun and different – it made me think more about the topic. – it was also quite personal instead of having to write a typical formal assignment – helped with my writing skills and found it interesting

Evaluation: Social media/WordPress All students responded positively about using WordPress All the students responded positively about using social media loved getting the word out to lots of people Enjoyed it but found it difficult to spread the word

Evaluation All but two student (7/9 78%) said that they had become a lot more interested in politics from taking part in the module

My evaluation of use of IT The IPADS reliable Sometime the network connection was slow Difficulties sharing devices – they really needed one each in particular when learning WordPress Needed IT department support with WordPress Not all students are digital natives

Learning Active Citizenship using IPADS, Political Blogs and Social Media Conclusion: 1.Caution results only for a class of 9 students, no control group and small classes are easier to engage students anyway 2.Use of IPADS, Political blogs & Social media can be effective in learning political engagement 3.In particular when combined with social theories of learning