Istheam, A TikTok Video Curriculum

High school students are interested in science but do not feel as engaged when learning about science in school. We believe social media has the potential to increase student interest in science with its affordances for learning. We will address this intersection of learning and social media use by creating engaging opportunities to spark interest in science. Istheam’s goal is to create a fun, educational video curriculum that is completely free and accessible to users via social media. Our videos on TikTok will foster a multi-contextual exposure to science that is based on learning theories and best practices for social media short videos. Our focus on interest and learning is informed by learning theories: Hidi & Renninger’s four phase model of interest development (2006), Brigid Barron’s learning ecology’s conjectures of learning (2006), Tamara Clegg et al’s building blocks of disposition (2014), and Saba Kawas et al’s design framework for mobile technologies to promote children’s interest in nature (2019). With appreciating science more important than ever, we aim for students to become more interested in science and increase their disposition towards science after watching and engaging with our videos. Currently, we have created and posted 8 videos on TikTok and conducted a learner study. From our preliminary data, students are interested in the videos we have made and provided valuable feedback in regards to our video style and content.