In the series Small Changes in Teaching , there is a link to an activity with Twitter that could easily be adapted to the class I TA for. The Twitter activity for the author’s class has the students tweet three sentences or phrase they find to be outstanding each week. However, they may not repeat any material that has already been used. They must also include a hashtag for the class so they can find everyone’s tweets. For the purpose of the author’s class, it is a repository for excellent writing that the students can visit. For my purposes, I would modify the assignment and require students to tweet popular press articles that relate to the topics covered in class. With the idea being they have to be able to apply the concepts covered in class to real world situations. There could be further work done in having to pick an article and then turn in short summary of how that article relates to the topics covered. I would use the activity in a similar fashion as the original activity. I would like the students to create a space that shows how relevant the ecological processes covered are to aspects of our everyday lives.
I would also highly recommend reading the Small Changes in Teaching series. It offers a lot of simple things to do that could lead to better outcomes in the classroom.