Pedagogical memes: a creative and effective tool for teaching STEM subjects

Abstract

The rise of memes has transformed the way people communicate and share information online, presenting a unique opportunity to leverage technology in the service of education. We explore the potential of memes as an educational tool for supporting STEM education and increasing student engagement. We aim to provide a theoretical framework for using pedagogical memes in education and showcase examples of educational activities and assignments using memes. Further, we discuss the use of memes as an instructional tool in education and propose a multimodal meme-based education framework. We specify the pedagogical memes using a metamodel based on the ‘Relate-Create-Donate’ framework and Engagement Theory, combining collaborative learning and multiliteracies with the taxonomic levels of engagement. We provide the learning scenarios which include the use of pedagogical memes in a classroom for teaching STEM subjects. To support the proposed models, we present a case study of a mathematics teacher using memes to teach calculus and a qualitative evaluation of the effectiveness of using memes in the classroom. We evaluated the potential of pedagogical memes using the six conditions outlined in the Conditions of Excellence, and Revised Bloom's Taxonomy, and discussed limitations of using memes in education.

Keywords:

• Pedagogical memes
• 21st century education
• Relate-Create-Donate
• multimodal learning
• multiliteracies
• student engagement
• STEM

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethical approval

The research was performed following the requirements of the Helsinki declaration and in line with national standards as a part of day-to-day teaching work and practices. Required informed consent was obtained from study participants.