Keeping up with the digital natives: Using social media in an all-girls science classroom

This qualitative, ethnographic study focuses on how combining aspects of visual learning with a social media application (app)-Instagram-can be a useful learning tool for digital natives (DNs). Current students are classified as digital natives because they are inundated with technology, which has become an essential tool in their everyday lives. By combining learning with a social media app that relies heavily on virtual communication, a new educational tool can emerge that is both engaging and relevant. Using its Live feature, students incorporate an app they use regularly in their nonacademic lives and bring it into the educational setting of the science classroom. Thirty-two female, high school biology students received permission to respond to a questionnaire and participate in a focus group or individual interview to further discuss their reactions to use Instagram in the biology classroom. Four students were asked additional questions regarding their reactions and understandings of how Instagram Live was used and how it enhanced their biology content understanding. The themes that emerged considered largely how Instagram as an educational tool brings science into the daily lives of digital natives. Implications from the study show how the use of Instagram specifically supported young women in science.