Education Commons^™

Teachers’ Perceptions Of Media Literacy Competence During An Online Professional Development, Matthew Korona

Journal of Media Literacy Education

Although scholars and practitioners have suggested teachers integrate media literacy into content instruction to equip students with the skills needed to participate online, media literacy may be a new or underutilized concept for teachers. As teachers must acquire the necessary skills to educate students about media literacy, online professional development is an efficient method for teacher learning focusing on concepts often overlooked by school divisions such as media literacy. This case study examined the change in six high school teachers’ perceptions of their competence related to the instructional integration of media literacy while participating in an online professional development course. …

Critical Online Information Evaluation (Coie): A Comprehensive Model For Curriculum And Assessment Design, Lauren Weisberg, Xiaoman Wang, Christine Wusylko, Angela Kohnen

Journal of Media Literacy Education

The recent evolution of technology and the Internet has transformed how individuals find and share information. Research shows that citizens of all ages and backgrounds struggle with critical online information evaluation (COIE), which could result in serious societal consequences. Although it is crucial to develop student proficiency within this key information literacy construct beginning in middle school, there is currently no interdisciplinary framework for designing COIE instruction or assessments. To address this gap, we have developed a comprehensive COIE model for curriculum developers, assessment creators, and practitioners to implement at the secondary and post-secondary level. In this paper, we provide …

Delving Into The Forbidden: Banned And Challenged Literature Syllabus, Grace Burns

Senior Honors Projects

“You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them,” (Ray Bradbury).

Literature is a mirror which unites even the most unlikely characters, invites us to reflect on our lives, promotes critical thinking and discussion as well as explores the themes of humanity over time. As the world around us changes, then, it is only natural that literature changes along with it. Exposure to literature of many kinds can only aid in the development of a richer appreciation for the world around us and the many lives within it.

Further, the consistent evolution …

Promoting The Healthy Development Of All Adolescents Through An Equity Lens: Continuing Education For Secondary-Level Educators, Isabella Simone

Senior Honors Projects

American schools, as an institution, have a mission to educate society’s youth in a way that is characterized by, and promotes, equity regarding educational access, opportunities, and outcomes. Doing so promises to support the individual growth and development of all students. Unfortunately, high school students face challenges regarding healthy development — academic, social, and identity-based — during the transition from childhood to adulthood. These challenges include navigating their identity development, achieving academic success, managing school and family demands, and planning for their futures. Barriers to the successful achievement of these challenges include risk factors associated with family relationships, financial standing, …

Developing Digital Detectives: Essential Lessons For Discerning Fact From Fiction In The 'Fake News' Era | Book Review, Ashley Cooksey

Journal of Media Literacy Education Pre-Prints

No abstract provided.

Seeking Truth About Muslims: Critical Media Literacies In An Era Of Islamophobia, Matthew Deroo

Journal of Media Literacy Education

Across various forms of media, Muslims are often portrayed as a homogenous group prone to violence, yet scholars have increasingly called upon schools and teachers to transcend stereotypes and prepare students to understand Muslims in more thoughtful and nuanced ways. This qualitative case study recounts how students and a teacher in a high school multicultural studies class investigated problematic media materials about Islam sent by an organization called the Christian Seniors Association. Drawing upon Mihailidis’s (2014) 5A’s of Media Literacy heuristic, I analyzed field notes from classroom observations, interviews, and student produced artifacts. Findings revealed how a teacher’s use of …

Media Literacy Instruction In Today’S Classrooms: A Study Of Teachers’ Knowledge, Confidence, And Integration, Tracy A. Mcnelly, Jessica Harvey

Journal of Media Literacy Education

Teachers play a critical role in helping to ensure that students leave school with the skills needed to not only be critical consumers of media, but to also be thoughtful and knowledgeable producers of mediated messages. Despite the important role of teachers in media literacy education, we still know very little about teachers’ knowledge of and experiences with media literacy in the classroom. This information is a critical piece in understanding how to best support teachers as they integrate media literacy education within PreK-12 classrooms. The current study seeks to add to the growing body of research in this area …

Where Image And Text Meet Identity: Gifted Students’ Poetry Comics And The Crafting Of “Nerd Identities”, Michael L. Kersulov, Adam Henze

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This article reports on a study of how a class of fifteen- and sixteen-year-old gifted high school students “mixed” the media of poetry and comics to unveil and interrogate (what they called) their “nerd identities.” Both co-authors constructed and co-taught a class within a literature-based comics course that led students through various writing processes that focused on the visual and textual properties of poetry and comics. Researchers asked: How may gifted students use poetry and comics to write about identity? How can the mixing of poetry and comics contribute to media literacy education? Using their poetry comics to connect their …

Can Middle Schoolers Learn To Read The Web Like Experts? Possibilities And Limits Of A Strategy-Based Intervention, Angela M. Kohnen, Gillian E. Mertens, Shelby M. Boehm

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This paper describes the strategies 8^th graders used to evaluate the credibility of unfamiliar websites after a curricular intervention. Website topics were somewhat contested, and students could navigate the open web in order to assess the credibility of the sites. Findings reveal that students were more likely to leave the presented webpages and investigate the sources before making a credibility judgment after the curricular intervention. Furthermore, after the intervention students were more likely to prefer a more credible source of information over a less credible source when the two sources were presented. However, few students improved in their ability …

Evaluating Online Information: Attitudes And Practices Of Secondary English Language Arts Teachers, Matthew Korona

Journal of Media Literacy Education

As an increasing number of teens are engaging in digital environments, they are becoming open to online misinformation often designed to further a variety of agendas. Online misinformation, or “fake news” as it is often referred to in popular culture, permeates all Web 2.0 technologies. Since English Language Arts curriculums often focus on topics related to critical media literacy, English Language Arts teachers have a unique opportunity to integrate strategies to evaluate online information. This survey design study explored the attitudes and practices of secondary English Language Arts teachers regarding teaching students strategies to detect online misinformation. Teachers working within …

Commercials As Social Studies Curriculum: Bridging Content & Media Literacy, Shanedra D. Nowell

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This essay explores ways television commercials can teach both media literacy skills and social studies content knowledge. Because of their brevity and concise messages, commercials offer teachers a wide assortment of engaging, content focused lesson topics that can be used to introduce new ideas, as writing or discussion prompts to further explore concepts, or as creative media projects to assess the content and media literacy knowledge. I examine different approaches to integrate commercials into social studies classes and include resources to guide students through deconstructing commercials, understanding advertisers’ creative techniques and appeals, and creating their own commercials.

Book Review: Breakbeat Pedagogy: Hip Hop And Spoken Word Beyond The Classroom Walls, Drew Emanuel Berkowitz

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This review explores and critiques Breakbeat Pedagogy: Hip Hop and Spoken Word Beyond the Classroom Walls, a book that presents not only auto-ethnographic observations about the author's own approach to critical media literacy pedagogy, but also his views on the role straight, white, cisgender male educators play in the media literacy education of increasingly-diverse high school student bodies.

Developing Student Critical Consciousness: Twitter As A Tool To Apply Critical Literacy In The English Classroom, Joshua P. Kunnath, Arika Jackson

Journal of Media Literacy Education

As young people today are flooded with information from a multitude of sources, they must be prepared to perceive the potentially oppressive and nefarious nature of many texts. Critical literacy is a theory and strategy that allows young people, along with people of all ages, to achieve just this; however, teachers often experience difficulties implementing and guiding students in taking crucial action steps in the classroom. This exploratory action research case study was conducted to address these concerns, as a teacher utilized Twitter to implement critical literacy and guide 32 ethnically diverse eleventh grade students in applying critical literacy in …

The Complexity Of Learning To Teach News Media In Social Studies Education, Mardi Schmeichel, Jim Garrett, Rachel Ranschaert, Joseph Mcanulty, Shannon Thompson, Sonia Janis, Christopher Clark, Stephanie Yagata, Briana Bivens

Journal of Media Literacy Education

This research reports on data generated through an initial teacher certification program for secondary social studies teachers that introduced a specific and program-spanning focus on news media literacy. Growing out of the urgent need for pedagogies that address and promote critical engagement with the kinds of news media sources upon which civic decisions are made, our project follows teacher candidates from their initial certification coursework through the culminating student teaching semester. Our work with teacher candidates over this time was explicitly intended to intervene in and develop teacher candidates’ understandings of news media literacy, its place in social studies education, …

Empowering Indigenous Learners Through The Creation Of Graphic Novels, Deborah Begoray, Alexis Brown

Journal of Media Literacy Education

In this paper, we examine how Indigenous and non-Indigenous adolescents identify media influences as health/wellness related. We conducted research over a six-week period in two alternative high school settings: a culture-based Indigenous education program at one school and an arts-based program at another school, both in the same small, Western Canadian city. We taught students from both programs the principles of critical media health literacy. Small groups of students from the Indigenous program wrote narratives. Then small groups of Indigenous and non-Indigenous students in an arts-based education program converted these stories into graphic novel/comic book format. Findings indicated a broad …

Priorities: A Film Investigation Into The Quality Of Hiv Education In Ri Public High Schools, Ellis Iacono

Senior Honors Projects

HIV infection in Rhode Island is trending in a positive, downward direction as the state continues to emphasize testing and prevention. The Miriam Hospital’s HIV/AIDS Immunology Center is a well-established caregiving facility, providing medical and social support to more than 1,500 Rhode Islanders annually. Despite this progress, there are educational gaps between school districts and an apparent lack of emphasis on HIV education in some RI public high schools. I created a documentary film to better understand the state’s health education standards and how they are presented in curricula. In doing so, I conducted a series of short, on-camera interviews …

English Language Learners In The Mathematics Classroom, Julia Mccormick

Senior Honors Projects

Mathematics is often considered a universal language. Most of us have heard this statement from a math teacher at some point throughout our academic careers. However, for students moving to the United States from another country with minimal fluency in English, this is clearly not the case. They may walk into math class, a subject area in which they may have excelled in their native country, and see the words “polynomial”, “coefficient”, and “differentiate” on the board. Regardless of their experiences in their native language, there are disconnects and cultural differences between languages and skills emphasized that prevents mathematics from …