Design Document
Media Literacy (Microlearning)¶
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Identify your curriculum and content goals.
The curriculum and content for this project will be incorporated into a microlearning module to inform Colorado Adult Educators about what Media Literacy & Reader Response. Learners will discovery what these topics are and why they are important to include it into their curriculum mapping. The microlearning module will be distributed through the Colorado Adult Education Professional Association (CAEPA). The microlearning module will be presented through three topics, an introduction, media literacy, and reader response. Each topic will extend the learners prior knowledge of literacy instruction, and introduce new techniques to utilize with their student learners. The microlearning module will adhere (align) with the professional learning model designed in 5100, which is currently being implemented by the organization. The overall professional learning project is in early Alpha Development, see Moodle.
As part of the learning design for the CAEPA's Professional Learning, microlearning modules will include resources, project-based learning, and community support. These aspects will be part of the topic developed for the final project.
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Goal: Have Colorado Adult Educators use Media Literacy and Reader Response with lessons meeting the College and Career Readiness Standards (CCRS).
- Topic 1: Introduction - Learners will be introduced to the concepts of Media Literacy & Reader Response.
- Topic 2: Media Literacy - Learners will build upon prior knowledge of close reading strategies and connect Media Inquiry techniques.
- Topic 3: Reader Response - Learners will understand how Reader Response techniques can be incorporated into literacy instruction.
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Topic 2 Learning Objectives:
- Learners will recognize questions to ask in each stage of critical analysis relating to media literacy.
- Learners will interpret the flow of critical analysis questions relating to media literacy.
- Learners will develop lessons incorporating Media Literacy.
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Identify media literacy and critical thinking goals.
The Media Literacy - microlearning topic - will be viewed in an asynchronous learning environment. Learners should be able to complete the topic in 15-20 minutes. To make it valuable and relevant to learners, a few techniques will be presented, including:
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TeachHub
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MediaLit
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Newseum
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College and Career Readiness
These techniques should build upon Adult Educator's knowledge of literacy instruction. As an example, close reading strategies have long been utilized and presented in trainings to help connect student learners to the reading content and develop critical thinking skills. Close reading is based on staggered critical analysis questions specifically designed for the content being examined. Questions support student learners in comprehension and critical analysis of the content. Resources provided in this topic should inspire new questions to ask in close reading lessons, with a focus on developing Media Literacy.
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Address Common Core and other learning standards.
Each Adult Education program in Colorado serves a diverse group of adult learners including English acquisition, as well as low- and high-literacy adult learners. Programs have a common goal of supporting adult learners to move into College and Career Training programs, furthering their education. Colorado Adult Educators are Federally mandated to align their curriculum to the College and Career Readiness Standards for Adult Education (CCRS PDF) - the top tier of the Common Core State Standards. For those serving English acquisition students, the English Language Proficiency Standards for Adult Education (ELP PDF) provide additional correspondences or standards to support adult learners in meeting the CCR Standards.
Being aware that Adult Educators are developing lessons based in standards, learning topics should be easily aligned to these. Fortunately, the standards are flexible and are easily aligned to a variety of content. Example, lets look at CCR Standard 1, as well as the corresponding ELP Standards:
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Anchor Standard 1
Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.
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ELP Standard 1
An ELL can… construct meaning from oral presentations and literary and informational text through level-appropriate listening, reading, and viewing.
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ELP Standard 9
An ELL can… create clear and coherent level-appropriate speech and text.
This example shows that the topic of Media Literacy can easily be aligned to this standard. Adult Educators following a close reading strategy of content specific questions, will be able to modify or extend questioning to a media literacy focus. Anchor Standard 1, asks Adult Educators to support student literacy in understanding what is explicitly and implicitly stated within texts. The ELP Standard 1 & 9, ensures additional support for English acquisition students to express their understandings of Anchor Standard 1.
To incorporate multimedia support, and deeper analysis, Adult Educators can look to the standards under the Integration of Knowledge. Anchor Standard 7, moves away from text only documents and begins to build in 21st Century Digital Media skills, again with corresponding support for English acquisition student learners.
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Anchor Standard 7
Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.
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ELP Standard 1
An ELL can… construct meaning from oral presentations and literary and informational text through level-appropriate listening, reading, and viewing.
A recommendation to the organization will be made to develop a microlearning module specifically for standards aligned lesson plan development.
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Identify your media format needs and preference. Describe which media format(s) will work best, and why.
Since this lesson is part of a professional learning microlearning module, short media would be most appropriate. Short media may include text snippets, print advertisements, political cartoons, and even short video clips (TikTok style). Not all will be included in this topic, as microlearning should be short and focused (15 minutes or less). The topic developed for this final project aims to support Adult Educators and Adult Education programs in understanding how to implement and explore Media Literacy in the classroom. To accomplish this, resources, references, and lesson templates would be appropriate.
The design of the topic content, should be easily digestible by the learner. So keeping media short but relevant is the goal. The topic will include content addressed in Question 2 of this document. To further engage learners in the topic, the text will be complemented by audio summaries of the content. Audio narration will connect the learner to the presenter and may be viewed as an example of utilizing new technology in instruction. References and sources to external sites will further support learner understandings and allow for individual exploration of the topic. A sample lesson has been selected from Newseum and will be provided to learners to trial. Furthering the learning goals and objectives of this topic, learners will share these trial experiences and will be challenged to modify or extend a lesson using the information provided. To support learners in the application of the topic content, the learning design for the professional learning includes a microlearning specific discussion space. Learners will be able to share their ideas, lessons, and find support among their peers, as well as from a topic moderator.
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Describe how you have addressed copyright issues such as public domain documents and Fair Use laws.
As this project falls under educational use (professional learning) “Fair Use” may be applied. However, proper attributions, citations, and references will be noted. This not only adheres to copyright laws, but also provides transparency and legitimacy to the topic. As noted in Question 4, short media including text snippets, print advertisements, political cartoons, and even short video clips (TikTok style) may be incorporated into the topic.
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Do no harm. Describe how your teaching will be mindful of the potential challenges and harm possible in using media documents. Reflect on potential challenges and harm in using this lesson with your students. Describe how your media choice is appropriate.
Learners participating in this microlearning topic will be provided resources to engage student learners in Media Literacy. Learners will be building and extending close reading strategies to include the process of critical analysis through the lens of Media Literacy. The topic will familiarize learners with the types of questions they will be raising with their student populations. To note, most Adult Educators use vendor-created materials, which are aligned to Federal Standards (CCSS), and mimic the standardized testing Adult learners are intended to pass (GED, HiSET, TASC). However, Adult Educators do incorporate self selected material to make learning more meaningful to their adult students. An example lesson has been selected from Newseum, and includes curated media examples. However, it is noted in the lesson that educators may bring in their own content. The idea of "do no harm" will be brought to the learners attention in their media selection process. Learners will need to think about their audience and curate materials that meet the literacy levels within their classrooms. It is also an opportunity to have students self select media to analyze.
The learners targeted for this topic are Adult Educators and Adult Education programs. These educators are passionate and strive to best support Adult learners in understanding the materials they are engaging with through open engaging dialogue. However, it is inevitable that some media may be challenging for the student learners in explicit and implicit messaging. Adult Educators are aware that many Adult learners carry hidden trauma and it would be poor practice to not properly introduce - setup or frame - this type of material. But then again, Adult Educators don't always know the trauma carried by their learners and should be thinking about how to create a safe space for all learners to engage and participate. It should be brought to the learners attention that having clear instructional objectives will help in discussing challenging topics brought up through Media Literacy questions.
A recommendation to the organization will be made to develop a microlearning module specifically for Trauma informed practices.
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How will you evaluating student learning? What media literacy outcomes do you want to measure? Is there a media literacy assessment tool or model you can adapt for your use?
As part of the organization learning design, formative assessments are incorporated into the microlearning modules. These can be multiple choice or matching based on the examples to support learners retention of topic ideas. The design also includes learner engagement in the microlearning topic forum as an assessment tool. Learners participating in this topic will be able to discuss the topics presented, share ideas, lessons, and find support among their peers - forums are moderated. Another component of assessment in the learning design for the organizations professional learning is project-based. Within this topic, learners will be challenged to trial a Media Literacy lesson. After trialing the lessons, learners will be challenged to modify, extend, or develop an original lesson with the focus on Media Literacy. Learners may opt to use any of the topics resources, references, or ideas to accomplish this. These new lessons will be shared in the microlearning topic forum. The organizations learning design has embedded one last assessment, a learner interview, a chance for the organization to gain insights to the learners successes and struggles. All the above assessments will be used to inform future iterations of the the learning topic.