. . . and rising from the ashes
Alexandra Dragomirescu wondered what would happen if she designed a lesson like a TikTok feed. Being curious, she tried it out, and discovered her inner Phoenix.
Lessons design in a viral TikTok world
Imagine a lesson designed like a TikTok feed, having short, focused content, a clear call to action and immediate feedback. If this makes you frown, consider this: instead of fighting against social media’s influence, we should adapt its structure to foster curiosity, creativity, and active participation of our students. After all, this is what we teachers, have always tried to do.
What TikTok does and why it works
I want to make it clear; this is not about ‘copying’ TikTok, replacing textbooks with video clips or integrating viral trends into lessons. What it is about, is understanding why social media works so well with teenagers. What makes my students remember an influencer’s video posted three months ago, but not the lesson taught at school the day before? To uncover this, I used TikTok for a month and I realised the answer was quite simple: it made me feel . . . curious, surprised, confused, and proud for completing small tasks. All these emotions are not only addictive, but also the catalysts for learning. These are the elements often missing from traditional classrooms, where lessons seldom have genuine emotional impact. Give an honest answer: how many lessons from your school days do you remember because they made you feel something? Not so many . . . So, perhaps, if we want school subjects to resonate deeply with this generation, we should design lessons that don’t just inform students but also make them feel.
Learning with feeling
I did not know how to put this theory into practice up until I heard Professor John Hattie mentioning ‘interleaving’ at the Dare2Learn Conference. Then, I realized interleaving is the key element I needed to experiment with to develop a method I called ‘threading’. Basically, threading is an AI-enhanced teaching method that interweaves activities and subjects in a flexible, engaging way, mirroring social media to trigger emotions and, in this way, foster deeper learning.
I designed and implemented a lesson in collaboration with two online assistants, ChatGPT4 and Gemini Advance. The experiment made me go against everything I was taught at university about teaching. Everything! I even broke the very first rule drilled into future teachers’ minds: always start by writing the lesson title on the blackboard.
Now, imagine my students’ surprise when I handed them a paper filled with QR codes with no title, no explanation, no activity, just a feedback loop . . . After minutes of surprise, they realised I was not going to give them any clues about the title, so for the next forty minutes they had to reconstruct the lesson, watching short videos about writers, musicians, artistic experiments. All these pieces of information had to be put together on the feedback section in order to answer this question:
“What is this untitled lesson about?”
In the end, they figured it out—it was about Avant-Garde art, design and writing.
What resonated with students and what didn’t
In their feedback, students described the experiment as “interesting,” “interactive,” “cool,” and “enjoyable,”. Comments like “It’s a new lesson” and “an approach specific to our times, based on communication” which emphasized its relevance. Several students also expressed appreciation that phones and headphones were integrated as learning tools: “I support the idea of using headphones and phones in class, of course, for educational purposes.”
Opportunities for independent learning were another highlight: as one student remarked, “I enjoyed the way we could independently learn about the Avant-Garde.”
However, not all responses were positive. A few students admitted a lack of personal connection with the lesson’s theme: “The content of the lesson is interesting, but at first glance, I don’t think it aligns with my area of interest.” Similarly, another student shared mixed feelings: “I liked the approach, but I don’t think I resonate with this modernist direction in the arts.”
However, the innovative format stood out as a key strength. Students appreciated the TikTok-like structure of the content because this dynamic approach resonated with their digital habits. Despite its success, the lesson wasn’t without its challenges. Mobile phones introduced distractions, so engagement levels varied. Time management was also an issue, some students expressed a desire for more time to complete tasks.
Lesson assessment
With all this in mind, was the lesson truly effective for learning? To find out, I used AI to analyse students´ notes taken during the lesson and compared them with an analysis of the characteristics of the Avant-Garde movements outlined in the textbook . The comparison aimed to highlight similarities and differences in understanding. I found out that while the textbook approach is anchored in historical examples, offering a solid foundation, students in their feedback did not mention this, although the information was available in the videos they looked at.
Instead they they wrote about timeless avant-garde principles, focusing on universal principles like freedom, shock, and subconscious exploration. They captured the ‘feeling’ and ‘use’ of the Avant-Garde, focusing on its emotional impact and practical relevance in the present world. This comparison between the textbook analysis and the information selected by students raises another important question: Do we study the Avant-Garde – or any subject, for that matter – to better understand the past, or to equip our students for the future?
What and how should they be learning?
If we want to answer this question and remain relevant in the digital age, we must stop viewing students’ preferences, such as social media, as enemies. Platforms like TikTok aren’t just distractions—they could be valuable tools, blueprints for engagement. As teachers, our goal is not to replicate social media but to adapt its strengths in our classrooms. As teachers, we are like the Phoenix—we must constantly reinvent ourselves, rising from the ashes of outdated methods, and today, we live, learn and teach in a TikTok World.
Alexandra Dragomirescu teaches Romanian Language and literature at “Grigore Moisil” National College in Bucharest. She holds a PhD in Philology and a Master’s in Educational Management. Her expertise includes pedagogical mentorship and the integration of technology and AI into education. She is a published author of numerous articles and books in her field.
FEATURE IMAGE: by Kreativfuchs from Pixabay
Support Images: by Alex Shuper For Unsplash+ & by Solen Feyissa on Unsplash
QR codes & the analysis of the characteristics of the Avant-Garde movements kindly provided by Alexandra
