International Journal of Education and Social Science (IJESS)

This paper examines the effectiveness of combining Socratic Seminar with Twitter Technology in a Classroom Management Teacher Preparation Course using various classroom scenarios to increase the Teacher Candidates’ motivation, engagement, and ability to recognize ways to manage an effective classroom and various teacher and student behaviors. This research occurs in a classroom management course in Delta State University's Undergraduate Elementary Education Program located in Cleveland, Mississippi. The instructor does not deliver the instruction through lecture but uses an engaging teaching strategy called Socratic Seminar integrated with Twitter which is a free online news and social networking service. This paper addresses the purposes and educational uses of Socratic Seminar and Twitter as utilized in this study and expands on the author’s previous Socratic Twitter Seminar research. The researcher uses a Survey Research Design to identify whether students feel that they are more motivated and engaged in class discussion when participating in a Socratic Seminar integrating Twitter and whether this participation increases the Teacher Candidates’ pedagogy in classroom management. The findings from the analysis of the survey questions show that using Socratic Seminar integrating Twitter does have a positive effect on Teacher Candidates’ motivation, engagement, and pedagogy in classroom management when discussing scenarios consisting of various teacher and student behaviors.