Kiva Harper

Pinning for Cultural Diversity

Kiva Harper, LCSW

Assistant Professor in Practice, School of Social Work, UT Arlington

Kiva Harper is a licensed clinical social worker and an Assistant Professor in Practice in the School of Social Work at the University of Texas at Arlington. She has a BS in Criminal Justice from The University of North Texas and a MSSW in Social Work from the University of Texas at Arlington.

Her areas of specialty include trauma, military social work, mental health, domestic violence, substance abuse and grief. Her professional experience includes working with women’s shelters, law enforcement, active duty military, persons affected/infected with HIV/AIDS, those with severe and persistent mental illness and the homeless population.

Her service to the community includes being a volunteer therapist for Trauma Support Services of North Texas and serving on the Mental Health/Substance Abuse Committee for the school. She has served the university by being a judge at the ACES competition and volunteering for the Center for African American Studies annual conference.

Catherine Ortiz

Hi Kiva,

I love this! It is a wonderful way to motivate students to access various sources of news and social media to investigate important social themes! The visual pull of Pinterest clearly draws them into reading, discussing and researching the topics they need to investigate, and clearly keeps them engaged using a medium that they can easily relate to.

The students’ “Let’s make a change” board is a great way to synthesize their efforts and give them ideas about how they can move forward in various aspects of their future careers in social work. Kudos!
- Kiva Harper
  
  Thank you Catherine!
Peggy Semingson

Kiva

I enjoyed this! I know in my own field (teacher education), there are a lot of teachers using it for professional reasons, in addition to personal reasons. Building on this seems logical! I have students follow my board and I encourage them to use it, but I need to expand this further.

Having them do this in groups is great! Did you have a handout that you provided to structure the assignment? Thanks for sharing the examples! It was nice to see the variety of content and the media/current issues connections.

Love the “Let’s make a change” board! It’s great that they learned from each other!

Was it hard to assess this?

Nice job!

-Peggy
- Kiva Harper
  
  Hi Peggy. Thank you so much. I did not have a handout as I wanted to see what they would do with the assignment. In my experience, students get so bogged down in the logistics of the assignment that they sometimes don’t use their creativity and critical thinking skills. I put a vague description of the assignment in the syllabus and encouraged them to be creative. I did get some feedback about about wanting more structure and guidance. In the future, I might encourage it as a non-graded activity. Not sure yet. Thank you for your feedback.
nakiaspope

Nice work in explaining how the iPad was beneficial in your use of Pinterest. I also appreciated how broad “relevancy” was in your project. By using a popular, non-academic technology like Pinterest, you’re also showing how these tools are relevant to more intellectual and professional pursuits. Awesome project!
- Kiva Harper
  
  Thanks Nakia!
Diane Mitschke

This is great, Kiva! I love that your students really seemed to get into Pinterest. I hope that they’ll continue to use it even after the class ends. For me, using Pinterest in such a novel way has helped me to see that many of the social media tools we use can really be expanded and used to enhance what we’re doing in the classroom in authentic ways. Thank you!
- Kiva Harper
  
  I agree Diane. I plan to incorporate them with each course.
Regina Urban

Kiva, as a novice pinner, I found your educational application of Pinterest to be very interesting. I think that the way you asked students to apply course content was very thoughtful and creative. How do you feel the student reflections differed (qualitatively) using Pinterest versus the previous methods you utilized for student reflection? Did you collect data on the students who were new to Pinterest or who expressed technological anxiety regarding the assignment at the beginning? Nice student comments on their experience - Cool Project!
- Kiva Harper
  
  Hi Regina
  
  I think the students were definitely more engaged with Pinterest than other mediums. Working as a group allowed them to have conversations about the issues and think critically. They were able to apply concepts from the classroom to the real world. I think this was more effective than other mediums I’ve used.
  
  I am still awaiting final data but the majority of the students were already using Pinterest socially. The few that hadn’t used it did say it would be helpful to have been oriented in greater detail than I did. I plan to do a detailed video with screen shots in the future in hopes to alleviate some anxiety.
Kim Breuer

I have been considering using Pinterest as well, but have always been a bit hesitant. Your example and student reaction has made me more confident t try using Pinterest in my own classes. Great project!
- Kiva Harper
  
  I say go for it Kim! It’s pretty user friendly and allows the students to show a bit of creativity.
Jenny Roye

Love love love Pinterest!! I have several versions in my course. They say you have to meet the students where they are and you know they are on pinterest. Great ideas…
- Kiva Harper
  
  Jenny do you have any feedback based on your experiences?
  - Jenny Roye
    
    I do. Had about 1/3 of the class follow me. I also started a Pinterest board for our new students to collect apps that would be helpful to them starting out. It was a collaborative effort
Alex Hunnicutt

I think this is a fascinating use of technology that is easily accessible to the students. Your project demonstrates how useful and effective it can be, and yet, relatively simple. Did you find any challenges in terms of grading this? Can you tell which students pin?
- Kiva Harper
  
  I used the project as half of their class participation. I didn’t want to grade to too heavily as I wasn’t sure how it should go. In the future I think I will make it a stand alone assignment.
  
  Yes, you can tell who pins what.
Denise Cauble

Have started a Pinterest on Nursing Research but have not really pursued it diligently. You have inspired me to do something with it. I am thinking that it could be in place of some of the discussion boards.
- Kiva Harper
  
  I think that’s a great idea! They can have their classmates to follow their pages and interact with each other via the Pinterest comments.
Stephanie Binger Rasmussen

Very interesting project! I think something like this could be useful in the principles of accounting courses to help engage the non-accounting majors who are required to take the course.
- Kiva Harper
  
  That sounds like a great idea. I did have on student who was taking the course as an elective and she told me she learned a great deal. She is planning to be an interpreter and found a great value in learning more about culture and social oppression.