Appeal made for educators to embrace TikTok as learning tool
Published:Thursday | August 24, 2023 | 12:10 AMAinsworth Morris/Staff Reporter
As the nation approaches the start of another academic year, Marsha Smith, state minister in the Ministry of Education and Youth, is calling for local educators to teach through the popular social media app TikTok.
While speaking during the annual International Conference on Math Teaching at the Shortwood Teachers’ College yesterday, Smith asked for a raising of hands from teachers who knew how to put their lessons and lectures on YouTube, and only two of around 100 persons present raised their hands.
Smith then said that some local teachers are not agile on social media platforms and are sometimes intimidated by new technologies.
“We know that TikTok is very popular with young people, but do we as educators see this as a channel for learning; for teaching?” Smith questioned the educators.
She added: “I’m being told that there are some persons who now call TikTok ‘TeachTok’, and so when we look at TeachTok, it allows education modules to be broken down into bite-sized pieces - two minutes, one minute or even 30 seconds. This is an art and skill that increasingly, more of us as educators will need to develop as we seek to reach our students.”
Smith encouraged teachers to commit to lifelong learning and be willing to step out of their comfort zone in order to be more effective.
“All of us can agree that the world is changing at a very fast rate in how we communicate, do business, and how we entertain ourselves, and related to this is the recognition that we also have to change the way we teach and learn,” Smith said.
“From us in the education sector, we must also focus our efforts on finding new ways to help our people learn and teach better,” she said.
Embrace STEM
She also called for more Jamaicans, and educators specifically, to embrace science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).
She said that with the digital revolution and the rapid development in the use of information communication technology taking place globally, there is a requirement of basic fundamentals in mathematics, and students need to be comfortable with the subject.
“In that regard, we are also pushing to have more students embracing courses in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and maths, STEM, to be more competitive in the 21st century global economy,” Smith said.
She added that many students in Jamaica are intimidated by mathematics, which is not usual in other parts of the world, and fail to master the fundamentals that would enable them to function at a higher level.
“Mathematics allows us to function at higher levels. It is so important to the development of critical thinking. The Government of Jamaica, through the Ministry of Education and Youth, is seeking to address that problem through the hiring of specialist teachers at the primary level and collaborating with the teacher training colleges through the provision of scholarships to get more student teachers specialising in maths or in developing their skills to teach the subject in a more creative way,” Smith said.
Dr Claudette Barrett-March, acting principal at Shortwood Teachers’ College, said her institution, in making its contribution to ensuring that STEM is embraced more, will begin to offer a STEM master’s degree programme to educators, starting in January 2024.
She said it is a programme designed, developed, and will be delivered by the college’s qualified and competent faculty members.
The fifth International Conference on Math Teaching and Math Workshop, which got under way yesterday and is themed ‘Numbers Matter: Mathematics Education for Nation Building, Economic Prosperity and Community Empowerment’, concludes today.