K12LEADERS

Tag: k12voices

  • Designing Media Literacy Choice Boards for Current Events

    Designing Media Literacy Choice Boards for Current Events

    At the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022, we developed a Ukraine-Russia Conflict 2022 Media Literacy Choice Board to support students and teachers in exploring current events from a critical media literacy perspective. To engage in critical media literacy is to access, analyze, and produce a variety of media, with a particular focus on the ‘behind-the-scenes’ work of ownership, production, and distribution of media. The Ukraine-Russia Conflict 2022 media literacy choice board asks students to critically investigate and construct new ways to interact with the information about the Russian invasion of Ukraine from the news, television, social media, and other media outlets.

    After sharing our Choice Board on social media and receiving an enthusiastic response, including more than 9,000 views on Twitter and 250 shares in Facebook groups for educators, we recognized that educators from across all grade levels and subjects are looking for ways to incorporate real world events into their classroom in real time. And critical media literacy is one such way to do this.

    The Russian invasion of Ukraine is part of what British investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr has called the First Great Information War – a war she believes began in 2014 when a democratically elected leader replaced an ally of Valdmir Putin as President of Ukraine. Given the ubiquity of media and the Internet, it can be easy to fall prey to the barrage of misinformation and disinformation that shapes the way in which we understand global events.

    Information about the Russian invasion is coming in at a furious pace. Critical media literacy asks audiences to slow down and look closely at what is presented, watched, read, and listened to. By slowing down, and carefully analyzing texts through the tenets of critical media literacy, audiences may gather a greater understanding of both their own media use as well as the content of the events. This process is especially valuable for youth audiences for whom this may be the first global conflict with which they are grappling. Furthermore, it may be the first time that such highly contentious information pops into their social media feeds. Critical media literacy aims to support young people in their media use as well as their media understanding and sense making.

    Designing Digital Choice Boards

    As an interactive online visual display about a topic, digital choice boards are a powerful tool for literacy learning. With multiple entry-points for captivating the attention and interest of learners, choice boards can excite and propel student understanding and learning (Trust & Maloy, 2022).

    A digital choice board can be designed using any type of word processing software or design tool – from Microsoft Word and Google Docs to Google Slides and Canva. Like traditional paper-based choice boards, digital choice boards often are set up in a grid or box-like format with each box featuring a learning activity. Digital choice boards have the added benefit of being able to include direct links to online resources and digital tools that can advance and extend student thinking and learning. The “choice” aspect of digital choice boards comes into play when students get to choose which activities they would like to complete and/or which topics they would like to explore. For example, you might ask students to complete any three boxes or have each student in a group complete 2-3 boxes and then share what they uncovered during their activities with their groups (like a Jigsaw activity).

    When we design digital choice boards, we make sure each box includes the following elements: 1) interest-engaging topics and titles, 2) higher-order thinking activities, 3) hyperlinks to digital resources and/or tools, and 4) an image. 

    Interest-engaging topics and titles capture attention and motivate learning. For example, the title and content of the “Evaluate the News from All Sides” box on the Ukraine-Russia Conflict Media Literacy Choice Board draws attention to how news outlets don’t always paint the same picture of an event. Here we build on Maria Montessori’s focus on capturing attention and engaging students with a “point of interest” – in this case, examining how different news outlets present a current event.

    Students’ engagement is not complete with just an examination of different news outlets, though. They must then think critically about what they found and consider how to present that information to friends, family, and peers through a website, image, or video. The digital choice board box includes a link to Adobe Creative Cloud Express (formerly Adobe Spark), which supports the design of these types of learning materials. Here we are guided by Bloom’s Taxonomy and how students learn more deeply when they are asked to not only understand and remember information, but to continually create, evaluate, analyze and apply information through hands-on/minds-on activities.

    To engage students in higher-order critical media literacy thinking and learning, you might ask students to analyze their online search habits for a topic of interest, produce a news report about a current event, create an interactive digital story that draws connections between the past, present, and future, hand-draw an infographic to influence thinking (like William Edward Burghardt “W. E. B.” Du Bois did), or investigate an issue as a journalist. For more ideas, explore our free open access eBook Critical Media Literacy and Civic Learning.

    Finally, each box contains an image as a way to excite interest, convey meaning, and invite analysis. When selecting images, we strive to find #heading=h.4uw6j1z2sc2e” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>public domain images, such as those from Wikimedia Commons, and include a link to the source site for students to learn more about the image. However, if we cannot find a public domain image that is related to the topic, we will seek out an image with a #heading=h.d5qmfz2k608i” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>Creative Commons license or one that is permissible within the #h2_IWir” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>Fair Use doctrine.

    For more examples of digital choice boards, take a look at the Black Lives Matter learning pathway and Influential Women learning pathway in our free open access eBook Building Democracy for All: Interactive Explorations of Government and Civic Life.

    Critical Media Literacy in a Media-Saturated World

    With our media-saturated world filled with vast amounts of disinformation and misinformation, critical media literacy activities presented in digital choice boards can inspire students to choose ways to critically interact with and construct their knowledge about global events in real time as they unfold. By engaging students in asking questions and thinking critically about the information they are getting, who is providing it to them, and why the information is provided to them, you are preparing students to become engaged citizens in a global society. 

    Authors

    This post was written by Robert W. Maloy, Ed.D., Allison Butler, Ph.D., and Torrey Trust, Ph.D.

    Robert W. Maloy is a senior lecturer in the College of Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst where he coordinates the history teacher education program and co-directs the TEAMS Tutoring Project, a community engagement/service learning initiative 犀利士
    through which university students provide academic tutoring to culturally and linguistically diverse students in public schools throughout the Connecticut River Valley region of western Massachusetts. 

    Allison Butler is a Senior Lecturer, Director of Undergraduate Advising, and the Director of the Media Literacy Certificate Program in the Department of Communication at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she teaches courses on critical media literacy and representations of education in the media. Butler co-directs the grassroots organization, Mass Media Literacy (www.massmedialiteracy.org), where she develops and runs teacher trainings for the inclusion of critical media literacy in K-12 public schools. 

    Torrey Trust, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Learning Technology in the Department of Teacher Education and Curriculum Studies in the College of Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her scholarship and teaching focus on how technology shapes educator and student learning. www.torreytrust.com 

  • Talking to Students About Masks 

    Talking to Students About Masks 

    This week our Governor and Commissioner of Education had a press conference about ending the mask mandate in schools. It was all anyone could talk about. However, what was not being discussed was how educators would talk to their students about what happens IF schools have the option for mask wearing. How will we approach the idea that some people will be wearing masks for various reasons and others will not be wearing a mask?

    The conference was scheduled for 10:30 AM, and I decided to watch it with my 5th grade students. Before the conference began, we had a class conversation around masks. I explained masks were the new accessory that became a big trend in 2020! Some people started making them. Others made sure they had ones that matched outfits, while some wore medical masks. We all had them and wore them regardless of our personal feelings about them. We talked about the pandemic becoming an endemic, which were two big concepts for these 5th graders! They recognized we will need to learn to live with Covid in our new normal, which was later confirmed by the Governor during the press conference.

    I led an open discussion about how people can sometimes get made fun of for the clothes they wear, the earrings or shoes they have on, or their hair style. When asked if anyone had been made fun of for these things every hand went up. This was a natural opening to talking about mask wearing and normalizing it. Wearing a mask is going to be part of someone’s identity moving forward, should they choose to do so. It is a human choice and should be valued. Just the same as the person who chooses not to wear a mask. There are also people who have to wear the mask because they are immunocompromised or cannot get vaccinated, so this is something else they need to be aware of.

    In the spirit of Kindness Week, students talked about being nice and having empathy towards everyone regardless of their individual choice. Students also mentioned how they are young, and it might be their parent’s prerogative for them to wear a mask or not.

    In the spirit of Kindness Week, students talked about being nice and having empathy towards everyone regardless of their individual choice. Students also mentioned how they are young, and it might be their parent’s prerogative for them to wear a mask or not. Having an open dialogue with students where we normalize mask wearing before a decision is even made helped students see the bigger picture of how we are transitioning into an endemic.

    As we watched the press conference, students learned there are decisions about mask wearing made at the federal level. The decision to wear a mask on a bus is decided by the federal government, and students heard they will still have to wear one on a bus. Then they listened to state government officials discuss how they are lifting the mask mandate in schools on February 28th. This was followed by an announcement that it was now up to the local government to decide if they would lift the mandate. Our class talked about the different levels of government and decision making. We then dove into a talk about policy. A child curiously asked if our school committee would decide to keep the mask policy even though the state said the mandate would not be in effect at the end of the month. I told him we would have to wait and see what happens.

    I gave the students a few days to reflect on our discussion and press conference. Then I revisited the conversation, reminding them about everyone’s personal choice to wear a mask or to not wear a mask. We talked about ways to approach our classmates. One student said, “It does not matter whether someone is wearing a mask or not. It is their decision and their choice.” Another child said, “Do not treat someone differently because they are wearing a mask.” A student said, “It is their decision to wear a mask just like it is your decision to get your ears pierced or wear something.” A student mentioned, “They might feel safer with a mask. It is their decision. Some parents might want their child to still wear a mask.” “Just because someone does something different than you, they should still be treated with respect,” said another child. “People will have different beliefs, but you have to respect their opinion,” was something shared by a student. “A mask is just an accessory,” said someone else. A student ended the conversation with a person has “their reasons to wear a mask.”

    Students then had an opportunity to email our school committee should they choose to and share either what they learned, what they wanted to see change, or their concerns about what could change. Empowering students to share their voices with local elected officials is a dynamic learning experience that promotes student agency.

    So as everyone begins to make decisions that impact our children, make sure conversations are happening about how to talk to children about these changes.