This paper aims to validate the effects of SNS as one of educational media for discussion-based instruction model for social studies. SNS is considered as one of the most familiar media to students. As utilizing SNS in the discussions classes of socia...
This paper aims to validate the effects of SNS as one of educational media for discussion-based instruction model for social studies. SNS is considered as one of the most familiar media to students. As utilizing SNS in the discussions classes of social studies, this paper could confirm students were actively engaged in the whole process from the preparation of each class and the exchange of feedback after discussion. In addition, these students' participation showed qualitative development gradually. In particular, when the teacher stimulated students' competitive spirits to actively develop their opinions, the discussion class using SNS came to be more energetic beyond expectation. The results of using SNS in the discussion class of social studies can be summarized as follows.
First, the discussion-based social studies class using SNS is effective in the sense that students can improve their appropriate attitude of discussion based on the basic knowledge on SNS softwares. While SNS, including Facebook and Twitter, is filled with baseless information and malicious comments, using SNS in discussion classes is expected not only to bring educational effects, but also to overcome the cultural lag on web-based communities.
Second, by using SNS, students can be more actively engaged in the discussion process, interactively exchanging their opinions. In class using conventional teaching models, students tend to rely on the teacher's one-directional lecture. Even when they have a discussion class, it is usually led by a few active students. However, in class using SNS, much more students develop their opinion more actively, because most of them are familiar with SNS-based communication.
Third, the discussion class using SNS contributes to the improvement of students' democratic awareness. Democratic awareness usually means the capacity of high order thinking, including critical thinking, creative thinking, and problem solving competence. For instance, as verified in Chapter Ⅳ, all the students participated in the discussion class using SNS showed the significant correlations between the improvement of democratic awareness and academic achievement. In addition, students can improve the competence to suggest their various opinions and alternatives on social problems and current affairs through the discussion class using SNS. Once students were familiar with the pattern of discussion class, they tried to do further studies on the discussion topics by themselves. In summary, students can improve their high order thinking and democratic awareness throughout the discussion class of social studies using SNS.
Fourth, the discussion class of social studies using SNS is significant in the sense that it leads to logical-descriptive sentence-based learning methods rather than focusing word memorization. Even though social studies require students to be accustomed to certain concepts before learning more general knowledge, the learning goals should be extended beyond memorizing concepts to reach the ultimate goal of this subject, namely, to cultivate democratic citizens. For that reason, in social studies classes, students should be guided to express their opinions by logical-descriptive sentences. Using SNS can be a good strategy to help students easily follow this process.
Overall, the discussion-based teaching model using SNS helps students to be actively engaged in class, providing sustainable and practical learning environments.