Opening the Doors to a Global Classroom: An International Social Media Collaboration in North American Colleges & Teachers of Agriculture, Special Issue: Globalization: Implications for Teaching and Learning in Post-secondary Agricultural Education

McGarry-Wolf, Marianne; Higgins, Lindsey and Torres, Ann M. (2013) 'Opening the Doors to a Global Classroom: An International Social Media Collaboration in North American Colleges & Teachers of Agriculture, Special Issue: Globalization: Implications for Teaching and Learning in Post-secondary Agricultural Education'. Teachers And Teaching, 57 (3a):40-44.

Abstract

A social media platform (ValuePulse) linked California agribusiness undergraduates in a marketing class to students in a marketing course in Ireland. The social media platform was used to create a combined group allowing students in both classes to contribute to discussion board posts on current news articles related to marketing. Instructors from each course alternatively posted articles. A survey tool was used to gauge student perceptions of the experience. Results were compared to a control group of California undergraduates using the same social media platform to discuss articles related to their courses, but without the international contingent. Survey results show an increased level of engagement by the international collaboration group. A greater proportion of students in the international collaboration said they learned from their classmates comments on the discussion board (73% to 86%) and said that they found the experience rewarding. These results are consisten with prior studies on the internatonalization of higher education classrooms and suggest vast potential associated with the incorporation of technology-aided global classrooms.

Funder

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Publisher

North American Colleges & Teachers of Agriculture

Rights

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Ireland

cbn

Collections

Marketing (Scholarly Articles)