Civic Media Literacy

Civic Media Literacy

The powerful practices are how we build student engagement in community and in learning, through research-based culturally responsive practices in classrooms and schools.

Competencies


All school stakeholders (administrators, teachers, students, parents, and partners):

  1. critically examine varied media and mediums to understand how they shape our decisions, values, policies, and biases.
  2. examine the forums we use and how we use them to share and amplify our own views and perspectives, and consider our role in shaping our democracy through an informed, engaged public
  3. encourage an open culture of evaluating information (internal and external)
  4. challenge ourselves with new ways we can integrate, utilize, deconstruct, and construct digital media in our work

Classroom Indicators


Students:

  • understand the all media is constructed by people, and therefore have perspectives and biases
  • can judge the accuracy, credibility, and reliability of sources, and reflect on how their own biases may shape their value of reliable sources
  • identify reliable sources with a range of perspectives and viewpoints
  • practice both constructing and deconstructing varied media and mediums relative to the course content
  • understands how digital media can be used to learn about and influence issues they care about and connect with others in civil discourse on those issues
  • consider what to share publicly and how to manage the afterlife of information shared online
  • know how to participate in, promote, and take action for a healthy and productive media environment for themselves and others

Teachers:

  • stay informed and fluent in digital media, mediums, and forums, and make time to learn about those their students are using - use in instruction
  • include various types of media and mediums in their instruction, and ensure a variety of perspectives that honor students’ identities
  • embed questioning and analysis of information used in class to promote a critical lens
  • model how media can enrich, complicate, and distort our knowledge and understanding of course content, and how that can impact their lives and our world
  • make time to learn about students’ media habits, and model healthy media use in and outside the classroom

Schoolwide Culture and Leadership Indicators


School leaders and School leadership teams Departments ILT’s, LSC’s, SVC’s, etc (Youth, Adult, Intergenerational)

  • create opportunities to consider and evaluate the information communicated within and outside of the building (newsletters, website, posters, message boards, etc) to ensure it is representative and affirming of students’ identities
  • support all teachers in incorporating media literacy into their instruction across grade levels and content areas.
  • encourage and uplift students' voices through social media, and elevate students that model civic media literacy practices
  • create dedicated and public spaces for students to generate information media
  • evaluate school norms, practices, and policies around student use of digital media tools, and consider ways they can be improved to teach and model healthy, respectful, and safe media use

Civic Media Literacy in Action

  • Civic Media Labs (coming soon!)

  • K12 Civic Media Literacy Modules (coming soon!)