The Networked Faculty and Student Engagement: The Case of Microblogging to Support Participation in a Human Resources Management Postgraduate Course

Abstract

This chapter stems from the need to focus on the inherent interplay of faculty and student engagement while studying the impact of social media in higher education teaching and learning. The discussion is specifically concerned with the role and affordances of microblogging in the rethinking of the teacher/student relationship and in blurring the boundaries of academic contexts. The chapter examines an early experimentation of Twitter use to foster and monitor participation by the master students enrolled in a Human Resources Management class in an Italian university. The pilot is discussed referring to lessons learned from a range of accounted empirical cases and relevant studies on microblogging for teaching and learning in academia. A special focus addresses both a revised notion of academic scholarship and engagement, prompted by emergent profiles of networked faculty, and debates about the multiple ways of conceptualizing student engagement in the current academic cultures and contexts, being challenged by an increasingly complex digital landscape and by a varied typology of learners coming to university. As conclusion, issues related to the range of alignments to be taken into account when adopting social networking services in a higher education context are suggested as cues for an ongoing discussion.

Citation

Esposito, A. (2013), "The Networked Faculty and Student Engagement: The Case of Microblogging to Support Participation in a Human Resources Management Postgraduate Course", Wankel, C. and Blessinger, P. (Ed.) Increasing Student Engagement and Retention Using Classroom Technologies: Classroom Response Systems and Mediated Discourse Technologies (Cutting-Edge Technologies in Higher Education, Vol. 6 Part E), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 109-142. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2044-9968(2013)000006E007