EDUA 5478 Teaching Media Literacy
TEACHING MEDIA LITERACY IN A POST-TRUTH WORLD
There’s little denying the role media plays in our lives. From advances in mobile technology to the expansion of social media and more, we’re bombarded with news and people’s reactions to it around the clock. While these topics can be contentious, they also hold the potential to open doors to powerful social and educational experiences in the learning environment. And, by ensuring that today’s learners can engage in media with a fair and open mindset, we set them up for success not only in their educational pursuits but their social lives, too.
This course has a few key goals. First, it will help you explore how you evaluate and respond to media. You’ll explore what about these conversations makes you comfortable or uncomfortable and how your responses to media can impact your position. Second, it will help you evaluate media, both for credibility and bias. There’s a wealth of information available online, so what steps can one take to ensure that it’s credible? That is, how do we identify legitimate news? Last, we’ll explore strategies for bringing these media conversations into the classroom. From the design of the learning environment to expectation-setting and more, it’s critical to create an environment in which all students, regardless of their opinions or background, have an opportunity to fairly express their opinion.