From Private to Public: Using Authentic Audiences to Support Undergraduate Students’ Learning and Engagement
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.20343/teachlearninqu.12.2Keywords:
undergraduate education, authentic audience, Wikipedia, Twitter, student engagementAbstract
The purpose of this article is to explore the use of authentic audiences in higher education to support undergraduate learning. To explore the results of integrating authentic audiences in higher education, we present a collective case study in which the use of authentic audiences was employed in separate undergraduate courses at two different higher education institutions in the Eastern and Midwestern United States (N = 75). In one case, Wikipedia was employed as an authentic audience and in the other case, experienced secondary educators as well as Twitter were embedded. The goal of implementing authentic audiences in both settings and courses was to increase student engagement and foster critical thinking. Results suggest that integrating authentic audiences through these means can enhance undergraduate students’ engagement and learning and may serve to capture, but not necessarily foster, students’ critical thinking. Concurrently, an instructor’s pedagogy must also align with tenets associated with authentic audiences, including a commitment to a co-construction of knowledge and the purposeful selection of authentic audiences who are engaged, willing to partner, and have the necessary expertise and resources to contribute to students’ learning.
Read the corresponding ISSOTL blog post here.
References
Ambrose, Susan A., Michael W. Bridges, Michele DiPietro, Marsha C. Lovett, and Marie K. Norman. 2010. How Learning Works: Seven Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons.
Ball, Deborah Loewenberg, and David K. Cohen, editors. 1999. “Developing Practice, Developing Practitioners: Toward a Practice-Based Theory of Professional Education.” In Teaching as the Learning Profession: Handbook of Policy and Practice. San Francisco: Jossey Bass Publishers.
Creswell, John. 2012. Educational Research: Planning, Conducting, and Evaluating Quantitative and Qualitative Research. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.
Dewey, John. 1938. Experience and Education. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company.
Ditta, Annie S., Carla M. Strickland-Hughes, Cecilia Cheung, and Rachel Wu. 2020. “Exposure to Information Increases Motivation to Learn More.” Learning and Motivation 72: 101668. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lmot.2020.101668. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lmot.2020.101668
Emel, Susan Redding. 2018. “Creating a Speech Choir: The Bounty of Authentic Audience Experience for Students.” Journal of Communication Pedagogy 1(1): 58–63. https://doi.org/10.31446/JCP.2018.11. DOI: https://doi.org/10.31446/JCP.2018.11
Gere, Anne R. 2019. Developing Writers in Higher Education: A Longitudinal Study. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.10079890. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3998/mpub.10079994
Godfrey, Paul C., Louise M. Illes, and Gregory R. Berry. 2005. “Creating Breadth in Business Education Through Service-Learning.” Academy of Management Learning & Education 4(3): 309–23. https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2005.18122420. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2005.18122420
Greenfield, Jessica, Vivian M. Finch, and Stacey Margarita Johnson, 2017. “Networked Learning: Students as Producers, Curators, and Consumers of Authentic Resources on Campus and Abroad.” In Engaging the World: Social Pedagogies and Language Learning. Boston: Cengage.
Guo, Pengyue, Nadira Saab, Lysanne S. Post, and Wilfried Admiraal. 2020. “A Review of Project-Based Learning in Higher Education: Student Outcomes and Measures. “International Journal of Educational Research 102: 101586. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2020.101586. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2020.101586
Herrington, Jan. 2005. Authentic Learning Environments in Higher Education. Pennsylvania: IGI Global. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-59140-594-8
Herrington, Jan, Thomas C. Reeves, and Ron Oliver. 2010. A Guide to Authentic e-Learning. New York: Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203864265
Hitchcock, Laurel Iverson, Todd Sage, Michael Lynch, and Melanie Sage. 2021. “Podcasting as a Pedagogical Tool for Experiential Learning in Social Work Education.” Journal of Teaching in Social Work 41(2): 172–191. https://doi.org/10.1080/08841233.2021.1897923. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/08841233.2021.1897923
Hunter, Peggi E., and Nisha D. Botchwey. 2017. “Partnerships in Learning: A Collaborative Project Between Higher Education Students and Elementary School Students.” Innovative Higher Education 42(1): 77–90. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-016-9363-x. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-016-9363-x
Jopp, Ryan. 2019. “A Case Study of a Technology Enhanced Learning Initiative That Supports Authentic Assessment.” Teaching in Higher Education 25(8): 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2019.1613637. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2019.1613637
Kill, Melanie. 2011. “Teaching Digital Rhetoric: Wikipedia, Collaboration, and the Politics of Free Knowledge.” DOI: https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0024.17
Digital Humanities Pedagogy: Practices, Principles and Politics. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers.
Lave, Jean, and Etienne Wenger. 1991. Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511815355
Lee, Jean S., Sue Blackwell, Jennifer Drake, and Kathryn A. Moran. 2014. “Taking a Leap of Faith: Redefining Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Through Project-Based Learning.” Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning 8(2). https://doi.org/10.7771/1541-5015.1426. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7771/1541-5015.1426
McDowell, Zachary, and Matthew Vetter. 2022. “Wikipedia as Open Educational Practice: Experiential Learning, Critical Information Literacy, and Social Justice.” Social Media + Society: 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051221078224. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051221078224
McNamara, Annette, and Jennifer Englund, editors. 2020. “Creating a Rubric to Support the Development of Authentic Learning Experiences”. Educational Technology Beyond Content. New York: Springer. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37254-5_24
Merriam, Sharan B. 2009. Qualitative Research: A Guide to Design and Implementation. San Francisco: Jossey–Bass.
Miles, Matthew B., Michael A. Huberman, and Johnny Saldaña. 2019. Qualitative Data Analysis: A Methods Sourcebook. (4th ed.). New York: Sage Publications.
Narayan, Vickel, Jan Herrington, and Thom Cochrane. 2019. “Design Principles for Heutagogical Learning: Implementing Student-Determined Learning with Mobile and Social Media Tools.” Australasian Journal of Educational Technology 35(3): 86–101. https://doi.org/10.14742/ajet.3941. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14742/ajet.3941
Nielsen, Kristen. 2015. “Teaching Writing in Adult Literacy: Practices to Foster Motivation and Persistence and Improve Learning Outcomes.” Adult Learning 26(4): 143–150. https://doi.org/10.1177/1045159515594178. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1045159515594178
Schön, Donald A. 1987. Educating the Reflective Practitioner. San Francisco: Jossey–Bass.
Schwieter, John W. 2010. “Developing Second Language Writing Through Scaffolding in the ZPD: A Magazine Project for an Authentic Audience.” Journal of College Teaching & Learning 7(10): 31–45. https://doi.org/10.19030/tlc.v7i10.154. DOI: https://doi.org/10.19030/tlc.v7i10.154
Stake, Robert E. 2006. Multiple Case Study Analysis. New York: The Guilford Press.
Vetter, Matthew A., Zachary J. McDowell, Mahala Stewart. 2019. “From Opportunities to Outcomes: The Wikipedia-Based Writing Assignment.” Computers and Composition 52: 53–64. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compcom.2019.01.008. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compcom.2019.01.008
Villarroel, Verónica, David Boud, Susan Bloxham, Daniela Bruna, and Carola Bruna. 2020. “Using Principles of Authentic Assessment to Redesign Written Examinations and Tests.” Innovations in Education and Teaching International 57 (1): 38–49. https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2018.1564882. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2018.1564882
Vygotsky, Lev. 1978. Mind in Society: Development of Higher Psychological Processes. Cambridge, MD: Harvard University Press.
Wiggins, Grant, and Jay McTighe. 2005. Understanding by Design. Alexandria: ASCD.
Wiggins, Grant. 2009. “Real-World Writing: Making Purpose and Audience Matter.” The English Journal 98(5): 29–37.
Yin, Robert K. 2009. Case Study Research: Design and Methods. Vol. 5. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2024 Erica R. Hamilton, Mihyun Han
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
