Schools and districts that ignore TikTok lessons are doomed to fail

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If you talk to 200 teachers across the country today and ask them to describe their challenges in the classroom, you're likely to get 201 different answers. And that makes sense: As systemic as some of the problems facing our education system are, each school, class, and student is unique. Yet through all of that, perhaps there is one constant, shared experience that is as universal as pencil number 2. Tik Tok. Yes, TikTok has become the new American pastime for millions and public enemy number one for many teachers, parents, and some lawmakers across the country.

Today's students are more distracted and disengaged than ever, as they spend an average of 95 minutes every day only on TikTok. Meanwhile, 80 percent of teachers nationwide are inform Critically low student engagement, meaning a lack of connection to the material, methodology, or both. But TikTok, and social media in general, continues to garner curiosity and attention, and it's not just about dance videos: Indiana science teacher. @ChemteacherPhil It has an audience of more than 3 million followers on the application. Is there a lesson in that?

Instead of extinguishing the fatalistic scroll at its source, educators should lean on it, learn from it, and apply the conclusions to their curriculum.

No one is suggesting we add TikTok to the list of back-to-school supplies, but modern curriculum developers are watching and learning from TikTok to produce content that is more engaging, and individual teachers should too.

In 2021, TikTok proclaimed that “relevance is the new reach.”

That's what every social media company understands very well: the more relevant a piece of content is to a user, the more likely they are to consume and interact with it. By integrating real-world content relevant to their students' lives, educators can bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and its practical application. Students can see and experience the relevance of what they are learning, which can have a profound impact on their motivation and understanding.

There is a whole school of thought on this. Phenomenon-based learning involves leveraging real-world scenarios and observations in learning to help students better understand their environment and discover the steps needed to solve problems and answer complex questions. It can be as micro as a class staring at a bag of popcorn or as macro as linking recent weather events to a discussion about climate change. Or, if you are Maynard Kereke (Hip Hop MD), is using a viral Rick Ross video as a teachable moment about camels.

But the conduit is as important as the content.

Variety is the flavor of life and its classrooms. If traditional teaching methods that rely on textbooks, lectures, and memorization have proven anything, it's that there is definitely no one-size-fits-all solution. The lesson for educators is clear: to truly connect with our students, we must diversify our teaching methods and keep the learning experience fresh. By taking a multimedia approach, we not only cater to different learning styles but also tap into our students' inherent curiosity. We do this by abandoning lectures and embracing experiments, multimedia, debates, and hands-on activities that resonate with most students.

Over time, this dynamic instruction cultivates critical thinking skills that enable students to view problems from multiple angles, discern between reality and fallacy, and evaluate the credibility of information from a variety of sources.

This leads to a culture of experimentation, creation and research.

When a teacher brings these approaches together in the classroom, an environment is created where students feel encouraged to try ideas, make mistakes, and ask questions. Try, fail, learn, repeat. By fostering an atmosphere where trial and error are celebrated as crucial steps on the path to growth, we empower students to become active participants in their own learning journeys. Inquiry-based learning encourages students to ask questions, seek answers, and explore the world around them. It raises the belief that it is okay not to have all the answers at once, that it is okay to discover them, to reconstruct them using fragments of your own understanding and lived experiences. It is a process of discovery, curiosity and resilience. That's what it means to learn.

Let's be clear: there are serious privacy, security, and potentially even health issues with almost every major social media product to deal with. But ignoring the elements that make them so attractive to young students is not keeping up. When we create classrooms where students thrive, learning becomes an adventure. As technology continues to evolve, educators have a unique opportunity to create dynamic and effective learning environments. Taking a page from the TikTok playbook and replicating its best parts in the classroom brings students and teachers together in the middle, while fostering student curiosity, engagement, and success.