Abstract
Text messaging has become a standard form of communication between students. However, how texting can be used in higher education as a pedagogical practice has not been fully explored or articulated. This chapter provides critical insight into the value of text messaging as formal and informal communication both between faculty and students and also messaging led by students. Juxtaposing literature on the use of texting in educational environments with practical examples of university teaching in the United States and post-Soviet Kazakhstan, the chapter outlines challenges, benefits, and suggested methods of texting with students in higher education. Framed within concepts of 21st-century learning, multilingualism, and multiliteracies, the author suggests clear benefits for utilizing technology that students commonly use, while also creating an environment valuing students' changing modes of communication which puts less pressure on the traditional academic discussion, and gives a voice to the individual.
TopBackground And Main Focus Of The Chapter
Setting the Global Stage in a Move to Kazakhstan
To back up a bit, let me provide a bit more context for where I am currently working. Since 2015, I have been working in Kazakhstan at a research-intensive university. We moved to the country with our two young children when they were about five months old and four years old. The University enrolls over 4000 students across undergraduate to graduate level, employs faculty from over 50 countries (“NU at a glance,” 2018) and partners with universities around the world to help guide its development. My department, the Graduate School of Education, has a partnership with the University of Pennsylvania and Cambridge University, both of whom provide advice and guidance in the development of our programs and support for dissertation students. In these last few years, we have graduated two sets of Ph.D. students and over 100 MSc and MA students. Historically, the universities in the region followed a Soviet style of teaching which centers on a teacher-centered, hierarchical approach. However, with independence in 1991, pedagogy has been rapidly changing with immense educational reforms to advance teaching practices (Bridges, 2014). The top-down educational reforms require for teachers at public schools to learn new professional knowledge (Yakavets, Bridges, & Shamatov, 2017), such as teaching in three languages (i.e., trilingual reform) and new teaching approaches. At the university level, teachers are often required to follow standard practices set by the State (Prilipko, 2017) with little encouragement or freedom to be innovative (Sarinzhipov, 2013, vi) to address student needs. While the country is moving towards trilingual education, the University itself is an English as a medium of instruction institution.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Plurilingual Individual: The term refers to those who typically grow up within an intersection of languages and culture and have the ability to move seamlessly between them.
Funds of Knowledge: The knowledge students embody that can directly or indirectly connect to formal classroom learning.
Bilingual Education: The use of two languages used formally within an educational context.
Messenger: The proprietary app developed and operated by Facebook, available for use on computers and smartphones.
iMessage: The proprietary app developed and run by Apple, available for use on computers and smartphones.
Experiential Learning: A teaching and learning approach developed within adult education, emphasizing the use of hands-on practical work within/outside the classroom.
Multiliteracies: An approach to learning that situates knowledge as mediated through various multimodal sources such as oral, visual, auditory, tactile, taste.
21st Century Learning, 21st Century Skills, 21st Century Capacities: Commonly used in educational reform referring to the set of skills and/or capabilities students need to be successful as they move from the educational to work sphere.
Multilingual Education: The use of two or more languages used formally within the educational context.
WhatsApp: A standalone app commonly used within international contexts that encourages group communication and individualized responses to texts; available for use on computers and smartphones.