Assignment 3: Content Area Teaching Ideas

Social Media as an Aid for Social Studies

Byron Johnson
The College of New Jersey
SCED 663

Part 1:
Introduction
Prior to becoming an educator, I earned my MBA and over the years I have had an opportunity to
teach both business and economics classes. America is, for better or worse, a consumer culture and my
students, both at home and abroad, are heavily influenced by our media images, advertisements and trendy
new product designs. One of the most worthwhile units I get to teach is the one concerning marketing. Its
always enjoyable watch my students uncover and evaluate all the myriad of elements that factor into which
products that are both interested in and willing to buy. An introduction to the topic would include looking at
what is known as the Marketing Mix or the 4 Ps : product , price, promotion & placement and I decided to
see how some other teachers were handling the subject.

Websites
http://teachers.net/lessons/posts/1833.html - The Four P's of Marketing - John Ruane
http://www.moneyinstructor.com/lesson/busmarketing.asp - Introduction to Business Marking -Money
Instructor
http://alex.state.al.us/lesson_view.php?id=24824-We All Scream for Ice Cream! A Marketing Plan - Shelley
Pewitt
http://www.bized.co.uk/educators/16-19/business/marketing/lesson/mix.htm-The Marketing Mix - Lesson
Plan - aashwin

Analysis
John Ruane' lesson was unique in that it specified its location of origin and the demographics of his
class. While I would be teaching in an urban environment, his students hailed from a rural one and that may
have an impact on what particular products we choose to use in our lesson. His lesson, like most of the
others I explored, relied heavily on the use of LCD projectors and Power point presentations. Because it is
an elective his students have a high interest level but little background in the subject.

His lesson consists of 4 brief connection activities, each followed by a discussion of the results and a
brief lectures for each topic. Having the lesson broken up in to short micro activities is an a effective way of
keeping the students engaged and constantly involved. During the lecture his students are expected to take
notes, but having the option to create a graphic organizer could help keep the visual learners be better
engaged. His students are charged with naming each P, identifying its qualities and recognize that they all
have the same weights. Because his lesson is geared towards students with above average verbal skills I like
that he also has multiple choice quiz which may ease the anxieties of small number of students with weaker
writing and speaking skills.

Money Instructors lesson is designed to so that the learner will be able to explain and define
various Marketing terms and how they relate to the Business world and demonstrate a knowledge of
Marketing and its valuable benefit to a business. A company blends its pricing, promotion, product
offerings and distribution system (place) in a way that is tailored to reach a specific group of consumers
referred to as their target market. Students start with a prior knowledge based activity, where they
brainstorm a variety of companies they use, and then identify who those companies are targeting. This plan,
designed for grades 7 to 12, would be relatively easy to implement and its best feature is the use of a choice
of assessment methods. First, students could choose a company they frequently buy from. (Example:
McDonalds, Nike, 711, etc...) and then identify that company's target market and its marketing mix. A
second option is that students can create their own company, decide on a target market and develop the 4
components of the marketing mix best suited to reach that market. The former option is more research based
while the latter is more creative.

Shelley Pewitt's We All Scream for Ice Cream! A Marketing Plan. lesson would be taught after
students already had a working knowledge of the 4 Ps. It is a commerce and internet technology lesson plan
that helps students explain the elements of the marking mix and also discusses identifying target markets.
Additionally, it helps students learn about and evaluate components of an effective website. In this plan
students will look at three different ice-cream company websites before engaging in a discussion. Pewitt
says that going through the websites takes the most time, so this would be an excellent opportunity for a
flipped classroom, offering students all the time they need at home to peruse the sites leaving the class time
for collaborative discussion and analysis. Pewitts is the the second lesson to utilize a powerpoint and
projector to go through its main ideas. If technology is available, another excellent tool for differentiation
would be to have the Power Point available online so that students can go back and forth through the slides
as they see fit. This lesson stands as a particularly good resource because at its conclusion there are links to
several pages that address variations for both academic and behavioral problems.

BizEds lesson also takes what students already know about the marketing mix and apply it to
several real life products and services. The focus on services actually makes this lesson unique in that it is
the only one to include physical environment, people, and process, the 3 additional components of the
Extended Marketing mix or 7 Ps. BizEds plan helps students evaluate and make judgments, important
higher order thinking skills. This lesson uses a mind map, laptops, a projector and a powerpoint but before
any of that, it requires that a teacher bring into class a tangible product that everyone can focus on for a
mutual and shared experience. After discussing and analyzing that product as entire class, students will work
on an activity that demonstrate their individual understanding of how the Ps of marketing blend together to
make an effective plan. This lesson expressly states that the educator is not looking for a written submission
but students who are stronger writers and not particularly out going could submit a formal written work to
demonstrate their understanding of the content.

A prevailing trend that I see in all of these lesson plans, and one that I use myself, is the use of the
prior knowledge to form a connection to the new subject material. Unless you live in a completely rural
environment, the elements of marketing are around you every day. The business teacher has to make the
students aware that they already have a strong understanding of marketing as soon as the class begins.
Another trend is the use of projectors and graphic organizers as opposed to the white board. These items
helps students stay engaged in their places but gives them a central point to return to if they lose focus.


Graphic

Part II
Define
I am not a huge fan of social media. I think we spend to much time plugged in and checked out from
the world around us, but as we have discussed in class, our role as educators is not to spend all of our energy
thinking about where we came from but instead to focus on where the world is going so that we can help pre
are out students for it. This year I began to allow more devices in class and I struggled to make sure that
they were being used for educational purposes and not for viewing movies and playing games. I persevered
and in the end I found that the devices had a variety of uses. Near the end of the year experimented with
using some Facebook as a tool for getting my 12 member high school class to collaborate and build questions
for an autobiography interview project they were working on. It was successful and it led me to search for
finding on the trend of use of Social Networking Sites as educational tools.

Social media is a phenomenon of Web 2.0, which is a site (or ap) in which content is created, shared,
manipulated and forwarded on. Online resources definitely have their place. TCNJ has SOCS and CANVAS
where we can access materials, resources, contact our professors and submit assignments. But I still had
reservations about Facebook as I deemed it to the totally recreationally and regularly inappropriate.

The sites is the most populous of its kind with over 950 million users. Since nearly everyone is on it
and its easy to use, educators are starting to seek guidelines for how to use it to increase collaboration,
information sharing and critical thinking. Researchers Ana Rosaodo-Feger and M. Khurrum S. Bhutta
conducted an experiment on the use of social media site to encourage student engagement and participation
in an introductory Operations Management course. They found that students were very comfortable with the
website but there was a great deal of variance on who felt comfortable using it as an educational tool.

Orlando R. Kelm, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, placed social media in a broad
theoretical context of social constructivism. He points to a large body of research that states that knowledge
is something that is constructed with a social context and that learning is done best when happens in groups
rather than alone. He begins with an anecdote about when he used a blog as an additional resource while
being a guest lecture at a university that normally didn't allow students to use laptops in class. His
experience was successful and he points out that people are often reluctant to try to integrate new strategies
in learning and once they do they find that students are already ahead.

He presents Lfstrm and Nevgis list of how the use of innovative technologies applies to
constructivist principles:
1. Learners construct knowledge as a collaborative activity.
2. Learners benefit from the cognitive process of working towards a goal.
3. Learners use previous knowledge to build on new knowledge.
4. Thinking, emotions and action lead to empowerment, commitment,and responsibility.
5. Learners actively and purposely set cognitive objectives.
6. Learners collaborate by sharing knowledge with other members of a community,
engaging in dialogue and receiving feedback.
7. Learners reflect on the process and understand the implications.
8. Learners connect learning to the context of the real context of the real world and
transfer knowledge to new applications.

Researcher Jenny WANG and her colleagues compared the effectiveness of an interactive Facebook
instructional method to a non-Facebook method on the basis of grades and engagement. She asserts that the
rise of social networks is consistent with the idea that humans are inherently social and support
communication between users is of major importance to us. Wang reports that the most popular activities are
liking and commenting with approximately 3.2 billion instances of these activities happening per day.

In conducting her research she refers to Chickering and Gamsons 7 principles for improving
undergraduate education which all related to student engagement:

encourage contact between students and faculty,

develop reciprocity and cooperation among students,

encourage active learning,

provide prompt feedback,

emphasize time on task,

communicate high expectations,

respect diverse talents and ways of learning

By creating a private Facebook group instructors were able to meet all of these principles.
Information was disseminated online, students participated in discussions, commenting on and liking each
others responses, they contributed documents and media and the teacher was able to quickly respond to their
needs. This online resource, held in conjunction with their regular class, led to an increase in the grades and
levels of engagement as compared to the control group. The students had higher affinity rates for their
professor, their peers and the institution as a whole.

Christina Decarie, a busines communication professor, uses examples of poorly worded posts to get
student to think about the types of perceptions they form of the person who wrote the posts. Invariably the
students thought that the authors were uneducated, unintelligent, unpleasant, aggressive, and generally
undesirable. Instead of holding to the assumption that this will be the default way people will speak on
Facebook (a mistake I might have made) she challenges the idea and uses it as a teachable moment. She also
stressed the idea that, because of social media, geography no longer limits students opportunity for building
connections. She presents social media as a excellent tool for effective self representation and self
promotion.

Finally, Marilyn A. Dyrud discusses how the ubiquitous natures of Social Networking Sites makes it
absolutely imperative to show our children how to use it correctly. She points to the importance of sites like
LinkedIn that are used to manage peoples professional images as well as pages built for nonprofit
organizations to advertise events and connect with volunteers and those for businesses that use media to
push new items, update product information, and monitor feedback
Its out there there. Its not going away and we should help teach students to use SNS responsibly.

Instructional Strategies

The lesson plans that I found closely resemble the way that I have taught the marketing mix. During
my first stint teaching business, I did not have access to an LCD projector but I made regular use of one
while I was in Niger. I think the biggest similarity between my practice and that of these others educators is
our desire to get the students to connect to the content but attaching to to easily relatable products and
services, everyday. The readings on the growing role of social media in the classroom inspired me to make a
few new additions to my practice.

1. I would create a private Facebook group and post the links to a set of Youtube videos on the marketing
mix and its individual components. Students would have to make comments on at least two of the videos
and address at least 4 of their classmates comments. This flipped classroom exercise would help
students begin to engage each other and the course content and give them the basic knowledge that they
would need to participate in a discussion the next day.
2. After having our class discussion I would ask the student to find real world evidence of the Product,
Place, Price and Promotion strategies. Within the private Facebook group I will start 4 conversations for
each of the components and students will find and photograph at least 3 examples for different strategies
within each component. Examples:
1. Place: A farmer selling his vegetables outside of his farm would be an example of a Direct
Distribution Channel. A picture of a Snickers bar at the checkout aisle would count for intensive
distribution
2. Product: A picture of a warranty for a camera is evidence of an augmented project. A bag of flower
with no name would be an generic product
3. Price: A pictures of new product sitting next to similar higher priced products demonstrates
penetration pricing while a 3 for the price of 2 set of deodorant is bundle pricing
4. Promotion: Screen shots of banners in their e-mail accounts are a form of internet advertisement. A
photo of their favorite soccer player wearing a jersey with corporate logos on it an example of the
promotional method, sponsorship.
Students will comment on each others pictures, pointing out mistakes and offering support to classmates
where needed.
3. The students will use the Facebook group to brainstorm a set of questions about how a small business
shapes its marking mix in contrast to a major corporation. During their discussion there are expected to
practice correct grammar and spelling so that they can be prepared for the second part of the assignment.
Once they have a revised and finalized the list, students will seek out local or regional business entities
with a Facebook presence and request an opportunity to interview their owners or managers. Students
will present their findings comparing and contrasting the strategies of small and large business entities in
a written format or as a graphic organizer.

Resources
Youtube: Learn marketing.net Channel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z12SHeOsC68&index=2&list=PL6AF1BE5474F4F496
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z12SHeOsC68&index=2&list=PL6AF1BE5474F4F496
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2JJYyeKOkk&index=1&list=PL6AF1BE5474F4F496

Facebook
Digital projector
Students cameras or smart devices

Decarie, C. (2010). Facebook: Challenges and opportunities for business communication students. Business
Communication Quarterly, December 2010, 449-451

Dyrud, M. A. (2011). Social networking and business communication pedagogy: Plugging into the facebook
generation. Business Communication Quarterly, 74 (4), 475-478

Kelm, O. R. (2011). Social media: Its what kids do. Business Communication Quarterly, 74 (4), 505-520

Rosado-Feger, A. & Bhutta, M. (2013). Student attitudes toward using facebook for education: A survey.
Proceedings for the Northeast Region Decision Sciences Institute, April 2013, 1049-1054.

Wang, J., Lin, C. C., Yu, W. & Wu, E. .(2013). Meaningful engagement in facebook learning environments:
Merging social and academic live. Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education, 14 (1), 302-322.