MILWAUKEE — Dr. Simon Howard prepared for a different world, a virtual one in which he would have to teach. 

“When I’m teaching classes face-to-face, I like to have students break off into groups, I like to use a lot of visual imagery,” he said.  “I started to think how I was going to reproduce all of that in a virtual learning format.”

The social media app TikTok blew up in popularity during the pandemic. Dr. Howard even considered downloading the app himself.  

“I came up with a rap about being in quarantine and I was like TikTok is the perfect place for this, but I couldn’t justify downloading TikTok for that sole purpose,” Howard said.

Then, he had an idea.

“Why not use TikTok for learning in the classroom,” he said. “It’s a perfect medium for students to curate their own content, demonstrate their knowledge of concepts and ideas and do so in an entertaining way.”

That’s exactly what he did. The psychology professor at Marquette University gave his students three TikTok assignments. They would use the platform to create videos, explaining the concepts they were learning in class. They’d present the final product to their peers and write response papers to their fellow students’ videos.

“The TikTok video assignment was completely different than anything I’ve ever done,” said student Danielle Rockett. “I loved it and it really drew me into the concepts he was trying to teach.”

“It helped us really understand what we’re learning and also have a multimedia approach to our class and have it be much more engaging rather than study this, take down these notes,” said student Charlene Soltes.

Howard said he has received nothing but positive feedback on his TokTok assignment idea and is considering making it a permanent staple in his lesson plans, post-pandemic.