Caitlin Seguin

1. Reference information (where you get it if it is a website; authors, article title, journal title, and date of publication if it is a journal article, report accordingly if it is other sources)

• Bernardi, T. (2016, April 16). Reviews & Common Sense Media. ALSC Blog. https://www.alsc.ala.org/blog/2016/04/reviews-common-sense-media/

• Emily K Vraga, Melissa Tully, Adam Maksl, Stephanie Craft, Seth Ashley, Theorizing News Literacy Behaviors, Communication Theory, Volume 31, Issue 1, February 2021, Pages 1–21, https://doi-org.cmich.idm.oclc.org/10.1093/ct/qtaa005

• Farmer, L. S. J. (2019). News literacy and fake news curriculum: School librarians’ perceptions of pedagogical practices. Journal of Media Literacy Education, 11(3), 1–11. https://doi-org.cmich.idm.oclc.org/10.23860/JMLE-2019-11-3-1

• Heller, Rafael. "The data on children's media use: An interview with Michael Robb: The director of research for Common Sense Media shares recent findings on kids' online lives and digital media habits." Phi Delta Kappan, vol. 99, no. 6, Mar. 2018, p. 20. Gale In Context: Biography, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A538859250/BIC?u=lom_cmichu&sid=bookmark-BIC&xid=e17469b6. Accessed 23 July 2021

2.  A brief description of the case (Make sure you also include the information on grades, subjects, corporate settings)

Common Sense Media is a reputable source for all things credibility. The non-profit organization's website has countless resources for teachers, students and parents that can help people make informed decisions about technology and media. The website has a News and Media Literacy Resource Center that can extremely helpful for teaching news literacy. The site includes discussion topics, scenarios/activities, and lesson plans. The website has resources that are particularly relevant for older students (middle and high school), but there are also resources for younger students as well. These resources can also be used outside of the school context as they provide valuable lessons for daily life. 

3. The purpose of the innovation (Is it information seeking, learning, organization, and presentation? Please tell, if it has one purpose or multiple purposes)

The purpose of this resource is to provide information and learning opportunities for all. Ultimately, the website acts as a hub of information on news/media literacy and provides links and resource that are external as well. The website explains how their goal is to help consumers find trustworthy news that can help them feel confident in their opinions and grounded in their beliefs.

4. The technology and resources involved (e.g., facility, network, equipment, software, online program, apps, Consider including a couple of screenshots of the websites, apps, and/or equipment)

To use this resource, teachers must have access to internet and a computer. However, there are a variety of different ways to use and engage with this resource.  They offer lessons on different topics about how to be a good digital citizen and on how to understand and analyze the news.  The image below depicts the different resources available in the news literacy resource center. 

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Here is a screenshot sample of an educator guide for a particular lesson lesson from the Dilemma section on taking a stand. These lessons are complete with an educator guide and student handouts. 

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Here is the link to the student activity that corresponds with this lesson: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Rix9eaTA75B2SO8HgzH7XTKxLRskd3OTooPHcm1dDjY/edit

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The tools and resources the teacher will need are dependent on the particular lesson or activity that they choose to use. This is a great resource for teachers who already know what they want to teach about news literacy and just need some resources to supplement it! 

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5. What prior skills and knowledge are required of students (general and specific, think of Bloom's taxonomy)

This is truly dependent on what lesson/activity students are interacting with. Generally the lessons and activities will teach students about a concept and then have them apply their understanding. The lessons require students to think about issues and explain their view or opinions- the lessons touch on the evaluation stage of bloom's taxonomy.  Students at the high school level will need to know what news literacy is and any important pre-knowledge for the specific lesson. 

6. What are students asked to accomplish exactly (product and process)

Question #6 is a key question that needs detailed illustrations and explanations.

Extract the information from your reference sources. You should provide a meaningful description of what the project is about.

Extract information from your reference sources information about how the project is evaluated. Consider including a checklist, rubrics, or any other information about how the project was evaluated in your sources. This information will make your case stronger.

You might provide external sources like links and videos, be it part of your reference sources or new information.

You might insert screenshots.

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• For the sake of focusing the project to a more specific resource from Common Sense Media, I am going to focus my reflection on the Taking a Stand Lesson from the Dilemmas portion of the website. 

• For this lesson, students are asked to take a look at a specific dilemma and determine their perspective on it. After some individual analysis, students will have a conversation with classmates and hear perspectives that may differ from their own. After hearing from others, students will reflect on their opinions and determine if their point of view has changed at all. Lastly, students will make some more broad connections/research about the dilemma. They might consider their own experiences, things they have heard about, things that have happened across the world. Some dilemmas they might consider are the college admission scandal or protesting.

• This lesson does align with the purpose and goals of news literacy.  According to an article in the Journal of Media Literacy Education, "Hobbs (2010) recommended that news literacy educators should start with current news that interests learners" (Farmer, 2019).  Common Sense Media keeps this at the forefront of their lessons engaging students with relevant and current information to analyze. 

• Most of the criticisms I found about Common Sense Media were in regard to their rating and review system. I could not find specific reviews of the lessons within Common Sense Media. However, I was able to make important connections between research on news literacy and the lessons offered in Common Sense. The research I found from Communication Theory addresses how news literacy needs to move people to action rather than understanding. They write, "we argue definitions of NL need to move beyond newsroom practices and norms to encompass how these practices develop and their implications, the broader system in which news is embedded, the ways in which people engage with news, and how these processes differ across contexts and countries" (Varga, et. al., 2021). The lessons I have explored on Common Sense Media do ask learners to move beyond norms and challenge students to examine and change their own thinking. 

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7. What are the procedures of the project (steps to teach the technical skills and the project

• Question #7 is a key question that needs detailed illustrations and explanations.

• Extract the information from your reference sources. You should provide a list of steps of how the project was supposed to be done.

• Extract the information from your reference sources. You should provide external sources like links and videos.

• It would be best if you considered inserting screenshots.

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For this question, I again will be focused on the Taking a Stand lesson. 

• The procedures for this project are as follows: 

  • First students examine a social dilemma from the real world and determine what they think about it ​

  • Then students discuss with classmates and consider multiple perspectives 

  • Students can change their initial opinions and create a more detailed perspective 

  • Students makes connections to other experiences or events in the real world. 

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• The Journal of Media Literacy Education acknowledges how students struggle to identify multiple perspectives and often will just visit a few "trustworthy" sites to get information (Farmer, 2019). This lesson requires students to think about other's perspectives and to think about how their opinions change based on hearing others. Hopefully this practice will be something that students take with them. Ultimately, students should be more open minded and curious about people who think differently than them. 

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8. What are the advantages of the project?

The advantages of this project are: 

• Students learn to form their own opinions based on news 

• Students listen other perspectives and determine how that changes their view 

• Students make connections to the real world 

• These are transitory skills that students can apply to any situation when they are analyzing a media message. 

9. What are the disadvantages of the project?

• This project has a limited scope and does not necessarily provide students with enough practice to use this skill in their daily life. It is a good exercise, but it may not "stick" with students without repetition. 

• Common Sense Media lessons and activities still require educators to do a lot of prep work to implement the lessons.

• Common Sense Media lessons only address a part of news literacy as a whole. So educators have to decide what works best for them and what lessons would be useful for their students.  

10. What types of effective instructional strategies are included?

The lessons in Common Sense Media on news literacy use a variety of strategies to engage students. The particular lesson I used for this analysis uses the gradual release of responsibility. Students first form opinions on their own, listen to other perspectives, and then reflect and make connections. This lesson does include collaboration with classmates and includes a graphic organizer for students to use to record notes.

11. What are the possibilities that the innovation can be transferred to other teachers, subject content, and different school settings. 

One of the great advantages of Common Sense Media is that there are lessons that can be applicable to nearly all content areas. The materials are marked for grade level appropriateness. Media literacy may be particularly useful for ELA and History teachers, but there are definitely applications to all contents that use current events and news.  The educator guides make it easy for teachers to read about the lessons and implement it in their own classroom setting.