Pinterest Assignment for the Social Work Classroom
A few years back, my colleague, Dr. Lisa Baker at Samford University’s Department of Social Work, and I collaborated on a study about a technology-meditated assignment that we developed for a Human Behavior and the Social Environment (HBSE) course. Our goal was to breathe some new life into a stale assignment. In this post, I want to share how we approached the development, assessment, and dissemination of our study related to this tech-mediated assignment.
Assignment
We used the social media platform, Pinterest, to create an assignment with two purposes: 1) help students to learn about key concepts from the HBSE course, and 2) encourage students to develop skills with social media to promote life-long learning and learn content for the course. We developed the following learning objectives for the assignment:
- Research, critically assess, and link external sources of information with required course material.
- Integrate and develop a professional use of self in a public environment.
- Develop a professional repository of resources and information that could bridge content across the curriculum and into field education.
The directions for the assignment are as follows:
Students are required to create a HBSE Pinterest page (www.pinterest.com) that will be used to “pin” items that relates to content throughout the semester. Please note – if you are already on Pinterest you will need to create a different Pinterest account specifically for this class. While I am sure your personal account is interesting, I probably do not need to know what about your clever chalkboard sayings, wedding plans, cute puppy pictures or greatest desserts made from chocolate). Students should view the Pinterest boards as a collection of resources which may be added to over time to develop their professional knowledge base.
- Create a Page labelled with the semester and your (i.e. Fall2015) followed by your last name
- Follow me on my Pinterest page: https://www.pinterest.com/baker9623/_saved/
- Create a board for each of the course learning modules.
- Pin content to each of the boards that illustrates at least 2 concepts from each Learning Module. Each board must contain at least five pins total with one pin from each of the following categories: a) information/education (provides information or education about the topic suitable for professionals or the general public), b) advocacy or support (provide information about human rights issues, advocacy agencies or how to advocate for a vulnerable population-related the topic), and c) practice resource (services or resources that would be helpful)Each pin must include a photo and hyperlink to the original content and have a comment that explains the linkage to the Learning Module. Pins may include podcasts, web sites, pictures, web pages, etc. Please view my board for examples. I have included a board for Learning Module 1, however, you should start with Learning Module 2. Pins may include podcasts, web sites, pictures, web pages, etc.
- From other students’ boards, identify a concept from each learning module that you did not illustrate on your own board. Re-pin as least three pins related to this concept. These pins can be from one or multiple students, but the concept must be the same. Provide a comment on each one of these pins about why you are re-pinning and your brief assessment of the concept and/or content of the pin. Pinterest boards should be completed by the end of the corresponding Learning Module.
- After completing all the required boards and pins, write a self-reflection about the experience of using Pinterest as a tool to assess and collect resources related to the content of this course. Write between 300-500 words that address the following questions:
- What: What process did you use to identify pins for your Pinterest boards?
- So What: How was your experience of using Pinterest different from what you expected?; What did you like/dislike about using Pinterest for this assignment?; What did you learn about human behavior in the social environment as a result of this assignment?; and/or Did you learn a new skill or clarify an interest as a result of this assignment ?
- Now What: How can you use your Pinterest boards in your future practice as a social worker?; and/or What would you like to learn more about using Pinterest of other social media as a social worker?
Along with these instructions, we provided students with links to the Pinterest Help feature on how to establish a Pinterest account, create pins and boards, and how to follow other users. Since some students already had an established account for personal use, we provided additional instruction on differentiating between personal and professional accounts and distinguishing what content was appropriate for the different boards. We also incorporated this assignment into class discussions about how to use social media professionally such as how to develop a professional online presence, what content is appropriate for social workers to post on social media, and how to use privacy settings with social media.
In terms of time, we estimate that it took us about 3 hours to set-up the assignment for the students and that students needed about 10-12 hours to complete the assignment over the semester. Additionally, the technology required by students to complete the assignment was typical of other assignments – a computer, tablet, and/or smartphone.
This assignment can easily be incorporated across multiple courses in a sequence. Students could create a Pinterest board about almost any topic or could use be used to create a study guide for licensure exams. The next time I teach a course on diversity and inclusion, I plan to ask students to create a board about a culture different from their own, and then find someone who identifies with that culture from outside the class to review for feedback. This is a modification from a group presentation assignment that I learned from Dr. Cassie Simon during my days as a doctoral student at the University of Alabama’s School of Social Work.
For grading, have students submit a copy of the URL address to their board in Canvas, our learning management system. We used this rubric to assess student performance on the assignment.
Assessment
To assess the effectiveness of this assignment to achieve learning outcomes, we conducted an online post-survey that students could complete for extra credit, which was approved by our institutional IRB (#E141111004). The survey included Likert scale responses as well as open-ended questions for qualitative feedback. Here is the survey.
While the assignment appeared to promote overall learning about the HBSE concepts from the course, the more interesting finding for me was that students recognized the value of using social media to engage in professional development. I think this is a key skill for social workers as the amount of evidence-informed knowledge is ever-growing. Not only do social workers need to keep up with the latest trends and data, but we also need a way to manage all the information. Having Pinterest Boards can be one part of a larger professional knowledge management system.
Dissemination
To share our findings from this pilot study, Lisa and I presented at the Annual Conference for the Association of Baccalaurate Program Directors (one of my favorite conferences) in 2016. I wrote this blog post about the presentation:
And then our article was published in 2017:
This blog post completes our efforts to share this work. By providing more details about the assignment, we hope other educators can adapt a Pinterest assginment for their own courses.
Have you done similar research with your own technology-mediated assignments? If so, I would love to hear about your study in the comments below. If you are interested in replicating this study with your own assignment, please reach out and we will share more details of our process.
How to cite this post:
Hitchcock, L.I. (2020, September 16, 2020). Pinterest Assignment for the Social Work Classroom. Teaching and Learning in Social Work. https://laureliversonhitchcock.org/2020/09/16/pinterest-assignment-for-the-social-work-classroom/
