Start where they are

Prior to Semester

1. Decide which concepts/topics need student engagement

2. Familiarise yourself with popular culture artefacts, refer to the resources section

3. Align the key concepts and topics to the popular culture artefact reference

4. Decide which artefact is best presented in lectures, discussion forums or tutorials

Tips:

1. Make a conscious decision to be on the lookout for artefacts: either on television, in the movie theatre or on the Internet. Carry a notebook with you or create an electronic note on your phone; so you can capture these instances, when they occur to you

2. Ensure that you are not breaking copyright by reusing or remixing an artefact. Check with your copyright librarian

3. Consider embedding an artefact in your course web page or Blackboard course site

4. Search with others: Isolate a topic and frame it as a question or problem. Now ask your colleagues, families or friends to think about what movie, tv scene or cartoon/comic reminds them of this question or problem

5. Keep in mind that humour can be very culturally and language specific. If you have a multicultural cohort, consider adding a few different videos. Or ask students or colleagues from other cultures than your own to contribute to your collection of artefacts

6. Search for a piece of popular culture that interests you and can be related to the point that you want to make. Also, refer to popular culture sites in the resources. Think about: television series, music videos, artists, actors, songs, cartoons, movies, memes and popular web sites:

1. Seinfeld and economics (a popular comedian with a continuing cult following) and economics: (http://yadayadayadaecon.com/)

2. MTV and history High school teachers Amy Burvall and Herb Mahelona spoke at TEDxHonolulu about their groundbreaking project to create customized music videos. Herb who is a musician speaks about the way that music has a special way of helping us to create and retain memories (https://youtu.be/pZCiHSwjK_A)

3. Memes A meme is “an image, video, piece of text, etc., typically humorous in nature that is copied and spread rapidly by Internet users, often with slight variations.” Memes are part of the emergent wave of participatory culture. They can get large uptakes and even have longevity as in the case of All the Things or the Picard Facepalm. Many students will be participating in and enjoying this type of meme makership already. Reappropriating or setting up a meme challenge for the course taps into this practice

Extension

There are many ways to utilise popular culture artefacts:  

5. Tell a story, relating significant events within the story to important elements of knowledge you wish to impart

6. Show a video clip or set of images and invite students to link them to a topic you have just lectured on

7. Ask students to produce a song, poem, video, piece of art that relates to a lecture topic

8. Set your students a challenge of finding a popular culture reference for the next week’s topic and publish the top 5 in your course announcements.