Extending Student’ Discussions Beyond Lecture Room Walls via Facebook

Abstract

When face-to-face lecture sessions and classroom seminars are conducted during hours and days that are not convenient to students, the level of student active engagement and participation is considerably reduced.  In this situation, the use of Social Networking Sites can be an alternative to get students much more engaged by taking the course-related discussions beyond the confinements of lecture room walls. During the second semester of academic year 2013-2014, a “secret” Facebook group was created and forty-eight Master’s students, from the University of Rwanda-College of Education, were invited to join this group and use it as an after-class discussion venue. Using data collected through a survey questionnaire that was sent to students at the end of a semester, we show that Facebook group may indeed serve as a tool that can promote student engagement, collaboration, and sharing of ideas well after face-to-face seminars and classroom lecture sessions. Nonetheless, the findings also show that getting students to use a Facebook group for academic purposes does not happen immediately as results of mere request or announcement. The process needs to be accompanied by further intrinsic and extrinsic measures to motivate students and get them actively engaged in course-related constructive and accurate discussions held via a Facebook.

Keywords: Computer-managed instruction, Social Networking Sites, Facebook, Teaching and Learning, students’ discussions, Web 2.0 environment, Technology