Think about scrolling by means of TikTok to overview metacarpals, phalanges and the pulmonary trunk earlier than class. Tim Reynolds, assistant professor within the Ithaca School Division of Train Science and Athletic Coaching, began a TikTok account for his college students to just do that.
Reynolds mentioned he began his TikTok account as a result of a few of his college students final semester thought that his dad jokes throughout class wanted their very own platform. After some persuading, Reynolds began posting on TikTok in March 2022, gaining a following of greater than 400,000 folks as of September 2022. He began along with his anatomy dad jokes and has since then moved on to anatomy quizzes.
Reynolds just isn’t the one professor on the school to make the most of TikTok. Peter Johanns, affiliate professor within the Division of Media Arts, Sciences, and Research, additionally has a TikTok account, which he makes use of to focus on completely different expertise positions out there by means of social media.
Based on Interfolio, TikTok has turn out to be a preferred app for educators to include into their lesson plans to unfold data by means of a brand new artistic outlet. Many professors use the hashtag #ProfessorsOfTikTok.
“If I might current content material in a manner that will be absorbed by the scholars, on a platform that they’re in all probability on extra so than different platforms, that will be a hit,” Reynolds mentioned. “I believe conventional instructing types should be tailored to at this time’s tradition, particularly post-pandemic fashions that should be barely completely different than pre-pandemic fashions.”
In his TikToks, Reynolds covers recaps of his class materials. He provides his college students a possibility to obtain further credit score on their assessments by dueting a selected video pertaining to the fabric, but additionally provides his college students a possibility to overview for his or her assessments and assignments every time they’re scrolling by means of TikTok.
Senior Brianna Weiner is an occupational remedy main and mentioned she had Reynolds for 2 of her lessons.
“My preliminary response to his TikTok was, ‘oh my goodness, that is embarrassing,’” Weiner mentioned. “However actually, professor Reynolds is a really devoted and dedicated professor who’s exceedingly wanting to make the educational setting work for all his college students. So the extra I sat on this concept of a TikTok account to encourage studying, it didn’t [come as] a shock in any respect.”
Weiner mentioned that as a result of TikTok has had a big affect over her era, incorporating the platform into her schooling has solely been useful.
“As somebody who’s all the time on their cellphone both for pleasure or for college, including a enjoyable technique to actively study by yourself time is 100% helpful,” Weiner mentioned. “I actually loved utilizing this new platform for studying, it made studying this difficult materials enjoyable!”
Weiner mentioned she wish to see different professors incorporate the platform into their instructing technique.
“As an alternative of spending all evening along with your head within the textbooks, why not adapt to the social norms of the media and make the most of doable academic platforms that exist,” Weiner mentioned.
Fifth-year bodily remedy pupil Emilee Murray mentioned she had Reynolds as a professor for her anatomy class earlier than he began creating his TikToks. Regardless of this, she mentioned she nonetheless watches them to overview for her practicals and assessments.
“I’ll have anatomy questions pop up and I’ll want a fast reminder on sure physique areas and I believed it was tremendous useful as a result of he posted TikToks with dances and completely different sayings that he taught us at school and it was very nice with the ability to go watch these after I wanted to recollect a number of the anatomy,” Murray mentioned.
Reynolds mentioned he loves posting TikToks, however posting them has been fairly a studying curve for him.
“I don’t have social media or communications coaching background when it comes to my schooling,” Reynolds mentioned. “I’ve discovered quite a bit, which is fascinating, when it comes to the TikTok algorithms and what hits and what doesn’t hit.”
Reynold’s followers on his channel consist of many college students and college from the faculty, however the majority of his followers come from exterior the faculty. He mentioned that he has gained essential help from his followers.
“I’ve gained some actually loyal followers and so they’ll touch upon each video,” Reynolds mentioned. “Many individuals had been actually appreciative. Persons are additionally actually imply on social media. So it’s a kind of issues attempting to, like, navigate that and studying easy methods to embrace the optimistic and simply deflect the damaging. However the concept of getting the prospect to have your instructing type, philosophies or approaches to issues be shared, and be obtained properly, has been reinforcing.”
Due to his massive following, he now feels as if there may be added stress to supply good content material.
“There’s an expectation of content material manufacturing that I really feel for myself,” Reynolds mentioned. “There are occasions when I’ve to come back into campus and simply movie tech talks. Since you bought to make content material.”
Though Reynolds continues to be studying some ins and outs, his following has grown shortly and he has long run targets for his platform.
“For those who requested me six months in the past that I’d have 380,000 folks following me, I’d say, that seems like quite a bit,” Reynolds mentioned. “Now I even have the chance to see exponential progress alternatives. I’d anticipate within the subsequent two months to be at half one million followers. I don’t suppose that’s an unreasonable expectation.”
