S6E8: Using TikTok to Inspire and Support Students

Teacher and Examiner Ruth Brewer shares how she uses TikTok to support her students’ English studies.

In this episode, Ruth talks about:

• What inspired her to start using TikTok to create bite-sized learning

• Examples of content she creates to help students review and prepare for exams

• The impact her TikTok account @steertosuccess has had on students

• What to keep in mind when creating educational content for social media

To see examples of Ruth’s videos, visit her TikTok page at @steertosuccess

To watch this episode with closed captions, click on the video below or scroll down to view the transcript.

Transcript

Laura: TESOL Pop season six, episode eight. Hello and welcome to TESOL Pop; the mini podcast for busy teachers. My name is Laura, and joining me today to talk about using TikTok to inspire and support students is Ruth Brewer. Ruth is an English teacher and GCSE examiner living and working in Dubai.

In today's episode, we will talk about using TikTok as an educational tool to inspire and support students. Ruth will share her story in setting up her TikTok channel ‘Steer to Success’, which focuses on providing bite-sized study tips and inspiration for teenage students. Ruth will share her creative process in creating content, as well as top tips for using TikTok as an educational resource.

Ruth, I think a good place for us to start would be to learn more about what motivated you to step into the TikTok space and experiment in using this as an educational tool.

Ruth: So I thought about it for a long time and I've had loads of different ideas, but all of them sort of fell, I stumbled a bit with them. because I live and teach in Dubai and some of them sort of like a bit tongue-in-cheek, but I obviously have to operate within the absolute parameters of cultural acceptability and professional acceptability where something might be seen a little bit more, in a funny way, in the UK, I would hate to cause any sort of offence.

Ruth: And then it got to the exam season. In the run-up to exam season and a lot of my students, not just in my own year 11 class, but in my form, I have a year 11 form and I can see that the exams are really daunting and I could also see that we were running out of time and I discussed it with a few of them because I had the idea. I thought I could just start making little videos and a lot of the stuff that we don't often have time to teach in class, such as comma splicing or we do teach you how to use the semicolon, how to use a colon.

Ruth: But perhaps things that they learned at primary school like verb now agreement or most commonly misspelt words, that sort of thing that I just didn't. I was running out of time before the exams because the exam is so content-heavy now with it being a closed-book exam, especially English literature.

Ruth: They have to learn the quotations. The pressure is really, really on. And so what I did was I spoke to some of my student and I said, '‘Oh, is this going to be really cringe?'‘ Because I had lots of reservations about how it would go down with them. And then one of my students summed up really well and they just said. '‘But yeah, it would be a little bit cringe for us at first because we know you, but we don't cringe when we see other teachers online. It's only because we know you. We know you're our teacher, and then we'll get over it.'‘ And that was really eye-opening. And then, to be honest, they were really supportive and they taught me so much where I get ideas from, from the students. They ask me things.

Ruth: It's been so useful not only in helping as a GCSE results which will be there, but that like the videos I've made now, they'll be there next year, they'll be there for years to come. But my own students who they struggle with certain things, they said to me, I'll make you make a video on there and I didn't quite get that. But you just go over there and obviously there are things out there, but I've just tried to make it in a fun, engaging way and also a way to reach more students.

Ruth: That's what I found as well, especially with the [Live] sessions that I run the night before exams. For students who can't afford a tutor or maybe haven't been able to secure one because they're in high demand the night before an exam - I was there to just add a bit of reassurance.

Ruth: And it's also why I made a TikTok the other day about, I think, the key is at providing quality education is about making students feel comfortable and for some students, TikTok’s a really safe space for them; it's something that they invest their time in because they get a lot out of it and, and they love being on there.

Ruth: And if they get somewhere, they love being and I think they're likely to learn better. Like you learn better around the people you're comfortable with. You learn better in environments you're comfortable in. With so many students with barriers to learning, anything we can do to deconstruct those barriers, I just think for me that's invaluable.

Laura: I'm really excited to actually share a few examples of your content with listeners who are tuning into this episode. Would you mind indulging us a few examples of the type of videos you've made recently for your students?

Ruth: So some of them are content-based. So, like in the run-up to the literature exams, I share details about Jekyll and Hyde. I love English, and I know a lot about the text. So there was one clip that I shared about an interpretation of one of Hyde's actions, and it's not a lot of people know about this. It's actually scholars have written about it, and there's quite a lot of papers out there, but it's not commonly taught at GCSE. And so many students messaged me the next day or came up to me after the exams. The case of students at my school, saying ‘Miss, I included that!’

I also do things to do with spelling more recently because the language exam is coming up; I've been giving them three words a day that they can add to their creative writing. A couple of days ago, I took 17 words from Taylor Swift's songs because I know loads of teenagers I love Taylor Swift and she's a master wordsmith, so I took 17 words from Taylor Swift songs they could use in their own writing.

I also tried to mix it up a little bit with the wellbeing and mindset stuff. So after the exams I did a video that was really well received, just saying... Look, I come from a family where we don't often say that we're proud of each other very much, but no matter how you feel, you did that. I'm so proud of you. And I want you to hear that from somebody.

And as teachers, we never know what students bring into that exam hall. There's so much going on behind the scenes that we don't know. And I want students to recognize that the majority of teachers, if not all teachers, know that, and they know that about them. And we're so proud of them for the hurdles and the barriers that they overcome. And we don't say it enough.

So I've used it as a platform to say those things, to be kind to themselves and to just sometimes take a step back to get a bit of perspective. So, yeah, different number of reasons. I've been using, the ways I've been using, I should say.

Laura: You've mentioned a few things in terms of like thinking about what your students need, listening to your students. You also mentioned at the start of this episode cultural sensitivity to the setting you're working in. And I thought this would be a good opportunity for us to unpack that a bit more, like the type of things you keep in mind when you're creating content for a very public platform such as TikTok as an educator. Could you give us a few more kind of insights to with the things you bear in mind that could help other teachers who are listening and who are thinking about using public social media platforms in a similar way?

Ruth: I think, obviously for me, I need to think right now, for example, the background is great because it's a recording studio at school. We've got musical instruments, the perfect setting for this podcast; however, with TikTok I'm also really mindful to be aware of your setting. I have more recently used a few backdrops from Dubai, like I've got a couple of videos of the Burj Khalifa in the background. I've done a couple of videos where the beach is in the background, but especially in terms of like my personal sphere, when I film at home, I've got a couple of walls are jazzy wallpapers, I've used those as a backdrop. I don't want to give students too much insight into my world at an appropriate level. I would hate to see a student come up to me at school and go. Oh Miss, I liked your book on blah blah blah...in terms of like I think you have to be very careful with students not to create too much over familiarity.

Ruth: The other day I made a little TikTok about a day in my life as a day in the life of a teacher in Dubai. But again, that was also very authentic because I even said this in the video blog. It's not going to be the blog. It's not going to be the most exciting day. But again, just being really mindful about the things that I include, the background, the clothing that I wear, and the topics I discuss on a couple of the TikTok lives I've done.

Ruth: I've started with some safeguarding housekeeping, just about respectful comments and because as a woman online, that can be problematic. Although I've not actually faced any issues with that, I've not face any inappropriate comments or anything like that I'm very, very grateful for.

And I've also mentioned this about cultural sensitivity because there are a couple of texts that we studied where there are interpretations of the text, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde being one of them, where because of some of the issues that are alluded to and interpretations of those texts, they directly contravene Islamic and cultural expectations and laws here. So I did say I can't discuss that. If anyone were to ask me in comments, ask me questions, I can't actually address that. I have to be respectful of the law and of Islam and that's one of the the sort of things I've had to bear in mind. That's not been an issue at all because we're able to teach very successfully a British curriculum alongside that, just that was just one thing to me to bear in mind.

Laura: It's great that you have that housekeeping as saying expectations and workflows in place just in case. And it's quite often we don't need to use it, but it's great that you've put the thinking in place. So there's is that infrastructure.

Ruth: And just one thing to mention, for anyone I was concerned that I might get like silly comments from students. There hasn't been any of that, though. There's been, I think, two comments in the whole time where I thought, I'm not sure about that. And TikTok picks them up. Really seemingly innocuous things that other people just say. It's just a laugh.

But for me, professionally, I wouldn't want that. There was nothing explicit in terms of inappropriateness. It was just sort of hints or undertones that I didn't like; suggestions that I thought compromise my professionalism. TikTok picked that up and they filtered them.

Laura: For listeners who are inspired today to explore and dip their toe into TikTok or similar platforms, what would be your top tip that you'd like to give as a parting gift to help them get started?

Ruth: Be authentic and be yourself and convey your personality. I think if I look at my videos from right at the beginning, I am quite anxious and nervous and I've got a lot more confident. Sometimes, when I have to - or I'm trying to communicate something very quickly and usually obviously you only have like a minute or three minutes depending on how long you set the time for. I, I think I come across a bit formal, like in the videos where the students respond the most, are where my personality really shines through and I'm having a bit of a joke with students. I think that's fun. And just so I learn more about it, about the app. So yeah, be yourself, be authentic and as I said you can have the comments off at first to gain confidence and also as well.

Ruth: Just be really respectful and mindful of other content creators. I did recently post in the last couple of days. I did recently post a video where I politely disagreed with something that somebody with a very high profile in my subject area in English had posted suggesting how students approach an exam. And it's directly against the advice of the exam board. As an examiner and as a teacher. And I know some of my male students really liked this content creator. I did have to say, hold on a second. Without directly naming them, I said this advice. I have to disagree with, and these are my reasons. The students were kind of all excited saying, '‘Oh, look, there's an argument between two teachers'‘ because they worked out who I was talking about, but other teachers commented, saying, you've handled this very well.

So I think they obviously had the same opinion and you've kind of addressed it in a way that is not doing that other teacher down. And I think that's something to be mindful of as well. I'm not on there to say that I'm a know it all or I know obviously everything. I'm just on this try and do the best by students and support them ahead of the exams. So yeah, that's my advice.

Laura: Thank you so much, Ruth. It's been lovely talking to you today and I feel really inspired to explore TikTok as somebody who is a little bit anxious about it, like yourself at the start of this journey, I feel inspired to check it out. So thank you so much for your time.

Ruth: You're welcome. And just on that note, I think people underestimate the power of it because TikTok populates your home page, not just it's not like Instagram where you have to be following people. Obviously, Instagram has the suggestions page, but nobody really goes on that the main area of TikTok where people scroll is populated by TikTok.

So, my videos - students have found me; my old students at my at my last school found me because I ended up on their it’s called a For You Page for those not familiar with the FYP and I ended up on there for them. I've got in a space of just over a month I’ve had about seven million views, nearly a million likes. One video alone, which just explains, I think, three words that can help students in their exams had over a million views, and that’s just one video alone. And I've got over 22,000 followers, and that's in just over a month. I have no, I do I'm aware that that will obviously drop down when the exams are over. But I think the sort of the ability to reach people and fast and connect with the people you want to connect with is so far outstrips that of any other social media platform that something to bear in mind as well.

Laura: I didn’t realize it had that type of algorithm, so I'm learning so much. Thank you, Ruth. And for the listeners, I encourage you to go and check out her TikTok page or channel. I should say it's called Steer to Success and you can find the link either in the description below if you're watching on YouTube or in the Show Notes if you're listening on a podcast app.

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