A recent encounter with concepts in the work of Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown (2011) has enlightened me to a particularly focused understanding of 21st-Century learning. In their book, A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change (2011), Thomas and Brown discuss a changing culture fundamentally bound to the accessibility of information through the internet. It has been the opinion for some time of both theorists and practitioners that increasingly undivided internet access would likely bring about changes in culture, and these changes are reflected in education as much as the business place or home.
Similarly, Renee Hobbs (2011), in her book Digital and media literacy: Connecting culture and classroom, further suggests the need for educators to adapt to such changes in certain methods. These methods can be described by the terms “Access, Analyze, Create, Reflect, and Act” (Hobbs). In short, these concepts are intended to adapt traditional methods of learning to the changing landscape of culture and education. My current task is to design a lesson plan that reflects such methods.
You may view the lesson plan here.
In this lesson, I have attempted to embody each of Hobbs’ (2011) concepts in some manner. Access is the concept of finding and sharing information. In my lesson, students will be researching topics through provided web resources as well as seeking out similar resources to expand their exploration. Analyze includes delving deeper into the message of the content, a strategy demonstrated in my lesson through the investigative process wherein students will be determining the validity of certain theories (as well as establishing their own). Create is one of the more obvious and common steps in such a process and will be essential to my lesson as students will be both creating in a conceptual sense (ideas) and tangible sense (digital posters). Such products will be assessed later in the process, as well. Reflect is expressed through a particular focus (authenticity and validity of the media message) but as a concept, should be an integral dynamic of every learning experience. Students will reflect both on the validity and presentation of their own work and ideas as well as that of other students. Act involves taking the lesson/learning/skills outside of the limitations of mere content area and student-teacher interaction. Posting content publicly and presenting ideas globally is one powerful manner of accomplishing such an effort.
I welcome feedback on the lesson! Comment below with any thoughts.
Sources:
Hobbs, R. (2011). Digital and media literacy: Connecting culture and classroom. Thousand, Oaks, CA: Corwin/Sage.
Thomas, D., & Brown, J. S. (2011). A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change. Lexington, KY: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.