Learner Inquiry Project (EDT 520)

Project Description

This project aims to invite educational leaders and administrators to adopt an inquiry stance to the challenge of integrating media and information literacy into our core instruction and curriculum. Like many public school districts, there is not a comprehensive approach to media and information literacy instruction. Our district is currently writing our K-12 library and information skills learning goals based on the AASL Standards Framework for Learners. However, these standards and learning goals will likely still face the challenges of being perceived as something “extra.” With this in mind, the goal of this workshop is to engage colleagues into generating questions and brainstorming opportunities for media and information literacy instruction across the curriculum.

This workshop will likely occur during a regularly scheduled meeting time, and ideally an hour will be allotted for the brainstorming and learning activities. As a warm up activity or icebreaker, I plan to ask participants to define or describe the role of the school library without using the words “book” or “read” using the platform Padlet. My hope is that this will provide a low-stakes way for participants to begin challenging their thinking and asking questions. From there, I will share some information and data about media consumption, digital skills, and misinformation and disinformation to illustrate the need for media and information literacy instruction. I will then invite participants to explore some resources, chat with their colleagues, and share ideas, questions, and thoughts via the virtual whiteboard platform, Mural. To wrap up, we will highlight some key questions and ideas that came out of our brainstorming session and I will share a Google Form exit ticket for participants to share their learning individually and provide feedback for the workshop.

Facilitator Resources

• American Association of School Librarians. (2018). AASL Standards Framework for Learners. Available at: https://standards.aasl.org/
• American Association of School Librarians. (2019) Your School Library in the Learning Community. Available at https://standards.aasl.org/project/stakeholders/
• Murthy, V. H. (2021) Confronting Health Misinformation: The U.S. Surgeon General's Advisory on Building a Healthy Information Environment. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Available at: https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-misinformation-advisory.pdf
• Rideout, V.; Peebles, A.; Mann, S.; Robb, M. B. (2022). The Common Sense Census: Media Use by Tweens and Teens, 2021. Available at: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/research/the-common-sense-census-media-use-by-tweens-and-teens-2021
• Rideout, Victoria; Robb, Michael B. (2020). The Common Sense Census: Media Use by Kids Age Zero to Eight, 2020. Available at: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/research/the-common-sense-census-media-use-by-kids-age-zero-to-eight-2020
• Wineburg, S.; McGrew, S.; Breakstone, J.; Ortega, T. (2016). Evaluating Information: The Cornerstone of Civic Online Reasoning. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: http://purl.stanford.edu/fv751yt5934

Participant Reference Resources

• Hone Your Media Literacy Skills (TED-Ed): This playlist from TED-Ed includes 16 short videos covering topics related to media literacy such as spotting misleading graphs, recognizing clickbait, and logical fallacies. The videos are appropriate and accessible for learners from middle school up and effectively present complex ideas in easy to understand terms and real-life examples.
• Indiana University Observatory on Social Media: Really interesting set of tools developed by the OSoMe team at Indiana University. Tools include “Fakey” a game to learn to recognize misinformation, “CoVaxxy” a visualization tool representing COVID-19 vaccine rates and online misinformation, and “Hoaxy” a visualization tool for the spread of claims and fact-checking.
• Media and Information Literacy (UNESCO): UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) highlights media and information literacy as a project area. UNESCO has created a wide variety of resources, including training resources, data and research, teaching resources and more. I especially like UNESCO's definition of media and information literacy, “Media and information literacy is an interrelated set of competencies that help people to maximize advantages and minimize harm in the new information, digital and communication landscapes. Media and information literacy covers competencies that enable people to critically and effectively engage with information, other forms of content, the institutions that facilitate information and diverse types of content, and the discerning use of digital technologies.”
• Misinformation Susceptibility Test (University of Cambridge): This quiz was actually created as part of a research study developed by Dr. Rakoen Maertens in the Department of Psychology at the University of Cambridge. The quiz asks participants to rate 20 news headlines as real or fake and answer a few optional questions about your background.
• News Literacy Tips, Tools & Quizzes (News Literacy Project): The News Literacy Project offers a variety of tools including quizzes for practicing vetting information, infographics, checklists, and printouts.
• Snopes: Snopes is one of the oldest and most trusted fact-checking sites on the web. Snopes began in 1994 investigating urban legends, online hoaxes, and folklore, and as the demand for online fact-checking has grown, so has Snopes.

Sharing Tools

• Google Docs: Google Docs is a cloud-based word processor. Google Docs is widely used by school districts, universities, nonprofit organizations, and businesses. As a school district, we use Google Docs to create and share meeting agendas and notes. While Google Docs may not be the most glamorous of technology tools, I have found having shared notes to be extremely helpful for communication and collaboration. This approach also allows for backchannel communication, such as asking questions, sharing resources, commenting, and input from discrete small groups. I would rate Google Docs as potentially between Modification and Augmentation. On the one hand, Docs is a direct substitute for traditional word processing with some functional enhancements, but Docs can be used in such a way as to redesign a static task to a dynamic, collaborative one.
• Google Forms: Google Forms is a simple form and survey builder, which can feed data into spreadsheets. I often use Google Forms as a simple way to collect “exit tickets” at the end of a lesson or workshop session. This is an easy way to collect immediate feedback and assessment. I would consider Google Forms at Substitution because in my experience, Forms is a direct substitute for paper forms and exit tickets. Although that being said, a perk of Google Forms I like to take advantage of is being able to embed animated GIFs.
• Mural: Mural is a virtual whiteboard and visual work platform that allows for collaboration, mapping and diagramming, sticky notes and text, images, a flexible canvas and different sharing options. I have seen others do very interesting things with Mural and it seems to be a very flexible tool. I would rate Mural at the Modification level: Mural has taken the concept of a whiteboarding or storyboarding process, and created a platform that offers additional features only available through a digital platform.
• Padlet: Padlet is a visual platform for sharing, organizing and presenting information. I like to use Padlet as an icebreaker, warm-up or brainstorming activity. Participants can type out and share ideas, comment on others’ posts, share links or other resources. Similar to Mural, I would rate Padlet at the Modification level. Without Padlet, I would probably do a round-robin or verbal share-out activities. With Padlet everyone can share at once and engage with each other, and the responses are recorded so ideas can be highlighted and saved.

Discussion

Guiding Question

Marzano Focused School Leader Evaluation Model Standards

Domain 2: Instruction of a Viable and Guaranteed Curriculum

• Element 1: The school leader provides a clear vision for how instruction should be addressed in the school.
• Element 5: The school leader ensures that each student has equal opportunity to learn the critical content of the curriculum.

Learning Goals

By the end of this session, participants will be able to:

• Challenge and expand thinking about cross-curricular information skills.
• Describe the need for media and information literacy instruction as a curriculum area in the district and at each phase level.
• Envision and share opportunities for instruction and learning in media and information literacy at their phase level.

Assessment

Assessment for this kind of workshop with colleagues will include both assessment of learning and evaluation of the session itself. While I certainly won’t be grading my colleagues, having a clear sense of strengths, areas for growth, and new learning will be very important in informing my work moving forward. I will be collecting ideas and questions from participants using the four sharing tools mentioned above. First, the Padlet will introduce the warm-up question: “Without using the word ‘book’ or ‘read,’ describe the role of the school library.” I will then provide some more background information and goals for the session, and participants will be invited to explore the resources provided and share ideas in the brainstorming Mural, which is organized as a grid:

	K-5	6-8	9-12	District
Current Strengths
Areas of Need
Opportunities
Resources
Wonders?

I may pre-load some items in some of the cells, just to provide a model and break the anxiety of a blank white canvas. For example, a current strength at K-5 is that there are Common Sense Media lessons already integrated into the curriculum, and an opportunity at middle school is the interest in reading news and studying current events.

I'll also plan to share a simple Google Form exit ticket allowing participants to share their learning, ideas, and questions individually, as well as share feedback about the session. We also regularly use Google Docs for our running meeting agendas and notes, so this may also provide some information for me to use.

Using the data and feedback I have collected, I will assess learning according to a single point rubric. This will allow me to identify strengths and areas for growth as I move forward with future workshops or one-on-one follow up.

Areas for Growth	Criteria	Strengths
	Demonstrates desire to broaden and deepen understandings.
	Reflects and questions assumptions and possible misconceptions.
	Describe media and information literacy needs at selected phase level.
	Generate and share ideas for media and information literacy instruction.

Reflection

My hope for this workshop is that participants will come away with a better understanding of the role and need for media and information literacy instruction and begin generating ideas for how we can achieve these learning goals for our students. These align with the Marzano School Leader standards I have identified under the instruction and curriculum domain. I also hope to invite my colleagues to generate questions as a practice unto itself – we’re often accustomed to asking clarifying questions in a learning environment, but in this case I want participants to purposefully develop questions as part of the learning experience. I’m excited about this prospect, but I also recognize that this process can be foreign to many learners (both young learners and adults), so I actually ended up changing my “Questions?” row to “Wonders?” Asking “What are you wondering?” is very different from asking “What questions do you have?” I know that many of my colleagues will be thinking in terms of their own building, their staff, and their grade level, so that’s why I wanted to make this shared grid that is both divided by grade levels, but also something everyone can work on at once. So perhaps someone may see a question arise at the elementary level that makes them think of something happening at the high school level. I’m very excited about the prospect of this learning session, and I really hope that I am able to create an environment in which my colleagues feel comfortable asking questions and sharing their ideas.

🡨 Return to Projects