How to Increase Student Participation and Engagement Using Padlet: A Case Study of Collaborative Discussion in an Animal Sciences Course

In this paper, we present a case study of using an online collaborative tool – Padlet® (www.padlet.com) in two sessions of a course on Animal Rights and Welfare. The animal rights and animal welfare course is divided in two sections: section A (n=40 students) and section B (n = 42 students). Padlets act as a giant online post-it board allowing participants to post text, audio, image, GIF, video, or URL. Padlet® was used during one class in the semester in which students in both sections were asked to brainstorm on the question “What factor(s) would you consider to be able to use animals for entertainment?” with the learning objective of identifying if students recognized and were able to discuss the use of animals for entertainment. Students had five minutes to post their response to the question. Section A was in a general university classroom and students were not required to write their names on their padlet post. Section B was in a technology enabled active learning classroom and students were asked to write their names on their post. The padlets were analyzed using social-cognitive theory, with an emphasis on content and multimedia use. Observations were recorded in field notes, and student feedback and their perception of social community was collected through surveys. Additionally, the instructor’s reflection was recorded on the experience of using Padlet in class. In section A, 6 of a total of 53 posts, and in section B, 17 of a total of 51 posts had multimedia such as image, video, or web URL. Further, all multimedia posts in section B were relevant to the discussion while only half the multimedia posts in section A contributed to the discussion. The use of this free media technology (Padlet®) allowed students to prime their responses simultaneously and thus encouraged discussion with more participants, some of whom do not usually respond in class. Lastly, while no statistical difference was found in student perceptions of social community (Section A = 107.88 ± 18.57, Section B = 109.91 ± 17.81; maximum 133), student feedback provides insight into differences in the overall success of the activity based on the nature of students’ engagement in regular discussion, comfort with using technology in class, and availability of convenient device.