Nine Strategies for effective online teachingPearson | March 24, 2020 in Higher Education
Many of us are having to move teaching quickly online (tips here if you are still setting up your course). Once you have your technology in place, take a deep breath. Teaching online requires different types of interactions with students. We’ve simplified what works into nine strategies based on research that will help set you and your students up for success in your newly online course. 1. Know the technology
AFT makes coronavirus resources available to members The AFT is deeply involved in the response to the coronavirus, focusing on the health, safety and welfare of AFT members and the communities we serve; ensuring first responders are safe; and buffering working families from the economic impact of the crisis.
With every member affected in some way—from nurses to university faculty to public sector workers, teachers and school staff—we are constantly updating our resource page with research-based fact sheets, printable information on how to stay safe, division-specific guidelines and opportunities to take action and virtually advocate for things like personal protective equipment for nurses, closing the digital gap so all students can learn online and ensuring people are paid even if the pandemic has shuttered their workplace. 
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| MFPE How to have a successful first year. Read more here
Remember, we are a merged union so you also have AFT access and member benefits. To learn more, click here.
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Register today for the third and final day of AFT Share My Lesson’s Virtual Conference!
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Supporting Social Emotional Learning during Covid-19
Nearly a year into the pandemic, students nationwide are navigating unprecedented challenges. This additional strain is of great concern to teachers, making supporting social and emotional learning (SEL) more important than ever. While we hope that an effective vaccine will soon be widely available, we know that emotional and economic recovery will take time. With support, students can develop skills, such as processing feelings in a healthy manner, that will benefit them for life. In this light, we feature several resources for SEL available through Share My Lesson.
A Pandemic-Related Priority
An essential first step to supporting students’ learning is addressing the emotional impact of COVID-19. In the Share My Lesson webinar “Helping Children Regulate Emotions During Challenging Times,” Marc Brackett, director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, unpacks how adults can support children in validating and managing their feelings. The webinar includes practical strategies for self-regulation and case studies that can spark discussions and help students grow.
Similarly, the webinar “Fostering SEL and Self-Care for Our Students in the Coronavirus Era” focuses on positive ways students from preschool through high school can handle stress and anxiety. Presented by Victoria Cheng-Gorini of Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility, a Share My Lesson partner, the webinar offers guidelines for discussing difficult feelings and healthy ways to express them, such as through art, music, writing, and physical activities. For educators and caregivers facing pandemic-related stress in their own lives, the webinar also emphasizes the importance of self-care routines.
For those students who are grieving a loved one lost to COVID-19, the Coalition to Support Grieving Students, to which the AFT belongs, offers educators a free, comprehensive guide to its video and print resources. These include modules on connecting with families remotely and understanding grief triggers as well as information on organizations that support bereaved children and their families. Together, we can ensure that no student grieves alone.
Throughout the pandemic, it’s crucial to ensure the educator-student bond remains strong. To that end, the webinar “Comprehensive Whole Child Development: SEL Tools for In-Person and Distance Learning” shows teachers how to bolster these connections. Presented by Jessica Jackson of Digital Promise, Rachael Wilcox of the Francis Howell School District, and Share My Lesson, the webinar offers constructive ways to help students manage their time and emotions.
Supporting Social Emotional Learning Beyond COVID-19 Supporting Social Emotional Learning During COVID-19
Even outside the context of the pandemic, studies find that nearly half of all young people have experienced childhood trauma; without a caring adult offering assistance, trauma can impede children’s social and emotional development.
To support these students, educators can turn to a lesson titled “How to Help Students Below Their Age Appropriate Developmental Level for Social Emotional Learning.” Provided by AFT partner First Book, the lesson is an excerpt of its “Trauma Toolkit,” a free guide on what educators should know about adverse childhood experiences and ways to support student learning after trauma.
To help children in grades K–2 in developing social and emotional skills, Share My Lesson partner Discovery Education offers the lesson “Soar with Wings.” The detailed, multiday modules use role-play to help students manage emotions and engage in responsible decision-making.
Another productive strategy students can use when they feel upset or angry comes from Share My Lesson partner Operation Respect. In a lesson titled “Creating a Peace Place,” students figure out alternatives to inappropriate behavior, establish calming-down strategies, and cooperate with others to create a space in the classroom where they can self-regulate and feel better. Geared toward students in kindergarten through fifth grade, the lesson also includes modifications for students in grades six through twelve.
To see what other resources Share My Lesson offers for supporting social emotional learning, visit our entire collection of lesson plans, resources, and activities. If you have additional ideas or requests, please reach out to us at content@sharemylesson.com.
A Pandemic-Related Priority
An essential first step to supporting students’ learning is addressing the emotional impact of COVID-19. In the Share My Lesson webinar “Helping Children Regulate Emotions During Challenging Times,” Marc Brackett, director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, unpacks how adults can support children in validating and managing their feelings. The webinar includes practical strategies for self-regulation and case studies that can spark discussions and help students grow.
Similarly, the webinar “Fostering SEL and Self-Care for Our Students in the Coronavirus Era” focuses on positive ways students from preschool through high school can handle stress and anxiety. Presented by Victoria Cheng-Gorini of Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility, a Share My Lesson partner, the webinar offers guidelines for discussing difficult feelings and healthy ways to express them, such as through art, music, writing, and physical activities. For educators and caregivers facing pandemic-related stress in their own lives, the webinar also emphasizes the importance of self-care routines.
For those students who are grieving a loved one lost to COVID-19, the Coalition to Support Grieving Students, to which the AFT belongs, offers educators a free, comprehensive guide to its video and print resources. These include modules on connecting with families remotely and understanding grief triggers as well as information on organizations that support bereaved children and their families. Together, we can ensure that no student grieves alone.
Throughout the pandemic, it’s crucial to ensure the educator-student bond remains strong. To that end, the webinar “Comprehensive Whole Child Development: SEL Tools for In-Person and Distance Learning” shows teachers how to bolster these connections. Presented by Jessica Jackson of Digital Promise, Rachael Wilcox of the Francis Howell School District, and Share My Lesson, the webinar offers constructive ways to help students manage their time and emotions.
Supporting Social Emotional Learning Beyond COVID-19 Supporting Social Emotional Learning During COVID-19
Even outside the context of the pandemic, studies find that nearly half of all young people have experienced childhood trauma; without a caring adult offering assistance, trauma can impede children’s social and emotional development.
To support these students, educators can turn to a lesson titled “How to Help Students Below Their Age Appropriate Developmental Level for Social Emotional Learning.” Provided by AFT partner First Book, the lesson is an excerpt of its “Trauma Toolkit,” a free guide on what educators should know about adverse childhood experiences and ways to support student learning after trauma.
To help children in grades K–2 in developing social and emotional skills, Share My Lesson partner Discovery Education offers the lesson “Soar with Wings.” The detailed, multiday modules use role-play to help students manage emotions and engage in responsible decision-making.
Another productive strategy students can use when they feel upset or angry comes from Share My Lesson partner Operation Respect. In a lesson titled “Creating a Peace Place,” students figure out alternatives to inappropriate behavior, establish calming-down strategies, and cooperate with others to create a space in the classroom where they can self-regulate and feel better. Geared toward students in kindergarten through fifth grade, the lesson also includes modifications for students in grades six through twelve.
To see what other resources Share My Lesson offers for supporting social emotional learning, visit our entire collection of lesson plans, resources, and activities. If you have additional ideas or requests, please reach out to us at content@sharemylesson.com.
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Classroom resources available regarding national events |
Foundations
of Democracy
#8 Collection of 2018
sharemylesson.com
https://sharemylesson.com/collections/foundations-democracy
of Democracy
#8 Collection of 2018
sharemylesson.com
https://sharemylesson.com/collections/foundations-democracy
For two centuries, American political offices have peacefully transferred power after every election. Try this resource from @sharemylesson for middle & high school.
https://sharemylesson.com/teaching-resource/peaceful-transfer-power-infographic-327959
https://sharemylesson.com/teaching-resource/peaceful-transfer-power-infographic-327959
Peaceful Transfer of Power Infographic | Share My Lesson
Peaceful Transfer of Power Infographic lesson plan template and teaching resources. For over two centuries, American political offices have peacefully transferred power after every election.
sharemylesson.com
Peaceful Transfer of Power Infographic lesson plan template and teaching resources. For over two centuries, American political offices have peacefully transferred power after every election.
sharemylesson.com
WINTER EDUCATOR ACADEMY 2021
Attend AFT's virtual
Professional Learning Fair
December 8
The AFT’s signature Summer Educator Academy is extending into winter! We will be offering a series of mini-courses starting in January 2021. These courses are not a train-the-trainer model but will provide just-in-time strategies for teaching and learning in the remote world.
Professional Learning Fair, Dec. 8 at 6 p.m. EST
Join AFT National Trainers for a special, interactive virtual fair on Dec. 8 to preview the courses being offered. You'll have an opportunity to meet the trainers and AFT staff, and learn more about the different courses that interest you with live, small-group conversations. You get to choose your own professional learning adventure! Register and select FOUR courses you'd like to explore more.
See Course Descriptions for more details
on these courses:
Special Courses:
New Teachers and New Teacher Leaders
Professional Learning Fair, Dec. 8 at 6 p.m. EST
Join AFT National Trainers for a special, interactive virtual fair on Dec. 8 to preview the courses being offered. You'll have an opportunity to meet the trainers and AFT staff, and learn more about the different courses that interest you with live, small-group conversations. You get to choose your own professional learning adventure! Register and select FOUR courses you'd like to explore more.
See Course Descriptions for more details
on these courses:
- 10 Trauma-Informed Strategies to Help Students Heal
- The Classroom Management Puzzle: Putting the Pieces Together
- Developing Problem-Solving Strategies with Bar Models: Winter Virtual Edition
- Differentiating Instruction
- ELL 101 Special Virtual Edition: Planning for the Success of ELLs
- Every Child Needs a Champion: Unlock Your Ability to Build Online Caring Relationships
- Meeting Writing Expectations in the K-5 Classroom: Recommendations for Improving Writing Instruction
- Real Talk
- Simple View of Reading: One Lens at a Time, the Full Picture
- Teach Them to Think
- What You Get Is What You Expect
Special Courses:
New Teachers and New Teacher Leaders
- The Classroom Management Puzzle: Putting the Pieces Together
- Differentiating Instruction
- Every Child Needs a Champion: Unlock Your Ability to Build Online Caring Relationships
- Real Talk
- Teach Them to Think
- What You Get Is What You Expect
Webinars on preparing your classroom for distance learning
Did you miss our recent webinars
on how to prepare
for distance learning?
No problem!
You can watch (or re-watch) any one
of our distance learning webinars here.
Webinar 1: Planning for a Week of Distance Learning
Webinar 2: Facilitating Quality Practice
Webinar 3: Accommodations and Scaffolding Online
Be sure to join MFPE in partnership with NEA for our next webinar: Wellness Skills for Self-care and Health
for Educational Support Professionals: Providing Accommodations and Scaffolding Online
Register
on how to prepare
for distance learning?
No problem!
You can watch (or re-watch) any one
of our distance learning webinars here.
Webinar 1: Planning for a Week of Distance Learning
Webinar 2: Facilitating Quality Practice
Webinar 3: Accommodations and Scaffolding Online
Be sure to join MFPE in partnership with NEA for our next webinar: Wellness Skills for Self-care and Health
for Educational Support Professionals: Providing Accommodations and Scaffolding Online
Register
How do you support students with IEPs, English language learners, and older students with developing literacy skills in an asynchronous distance learning environment? Using Google Classroom, learn strategies for providing accommodations, scaffolds, SIOP features, and elements of explicit instruction in an asynchronous setting that support all students.
Register Here
Register Here
Join MFPE in partnership with NEA for a series of webinars on how to prepare a distance learning classroom. Register for one or both!
Quality practice looks, sounds, and feels different virtually. Let's practice with tools that teachers and paraeducators can use with students. We will learn about best practices for online learning, including instructor presence, learning objectives, real world applications, clear expectations, engaging students, prompt feedback, and netiquette. We will focus on two platforms: Seesaw and Google Classroom.
Register Here
MFPE Member Lucas Logan has had
his Student Loans Forgiven
You Could, Too!
MFPE member Lucas Logan is now free of his student debt thanks to a partnership between MFPE and Savi, a student loan forgiveness tool. For ten years, Logan tried to have his debt forgiven under the federal student loan forgiveness program, but was rejected again and again. Unfortunately, his story is all too common. In 2019, Forbes reported that “99% of requests for a federal student loan forgiveness program were denied.”
Logan, an educator in the Shepard School District since 2009, says he started the application process with his student loan lender 10 years ago, but each application was denied. In 2019, Logan attended the MFPE Educator Conference in Belgrade where he met a representative from Savi. “I had turned in about four applications with another company, and they could never tell me what I was doing wrong,” says MFPE member Logan. “So, that’s why I attended the student loan forgiveness session in Belgrade.”
The difference was remarkable.
Through Savi, a tool offered by MFPE to MFPE members, Logan received expert assistance and re-submitted his loan forgiveness application. “I got a letter in the mail and then read it and walked into the bedroom,” says Logan. “I had no idea what was happening to me and tears were falling down my face. My puppy was blubbering, and my wife thought someone passed away. By this point I said, ‘No. They forgave all of it.’ And that was it.”
After 10 years of hitting a wall, Lucas Logan is finally free of his student debt thanks to this new and unique tool offered through MFPE. “It’s been over a 10 year process trying to apply to this and Savi got it done in under a year,” says Logan. “I was ready to just give up.”
The difference it’s made in his life has already been remarkable. He’s now investing in household improvements and his daughter’s college fund.
If you are an MFPE member, you can access Savi here at no cost.
In addition to providing tools like Savi, MFPE recently won a major victory in court for public employees saddled with student loan debt.
MFPE members are not only entitled to NEA member benefits, but to AFT members benefits, as well. AFT has its own student debt management tool called Summer. The average savings for MFPE members using Summer is $48,600! Learn more about Summer by clicking here.
MFPE members are entitled to a wide range
of benefits.
Learn more by clicking here.
MFPE member Lucas Logan is now free of his student debt thanks to a partnership between MFPE and Savi, a student loan forgiveness tool. For ten years, Logan tried to have his debt forgiven under the federal student loan forgiveness program, but was rejected again and again. Unfortunately, his story is all too common. In 2019, Forbes reported that “99% of requests for a federal student loan forgiveness program were denied.”
Logan, an educator in the Shepard School District since 2009, says he started the application process with his student loan lender 10 years ago, but each application was denied. In 2019, Logan attended the MFPE Educator Conference in Belgrade where he met a representative from Savi. “I had turned in about four applications with another company, and they could never tell me what I was doing wrong,” says MFPE member Logan. “So, that’s why I attended the student loan forgiveness session in Belgrade.”
The difference was remarkable.
Through Savi, a tool offered by MFPE to MFPE members, Logan received expert assistance and re-submitted his loan forgiveness application. “I got a letter in the mail and then read it and walked into the bedroom,” says Logan. “I had no idea what was happening to me and tears were falling down my face. My puppy was blubbering, and my wife thought someone passed away. By this point I said, ‘No. They forgave all of it.’ And that was it.”
After 10 years of hitting a wall, Lucas Logan is finally free of his student debt thanks to this new and unique tool offered through MFPE. “It’s been over a 10 year process trying to apply to this and Savi got it done in under a year,” says Logan. “I was ready to just give up.”
The difference it’s made in his life has already been remarkable. He’s now investing in household improvements and his daughter’s college fund.
If you are an MFPE member, you can access Savi here at no cost.
In addition to providing tools like Savi, MFPE recently won a major victory in court for public employees saddled with student loan debt.
MFPE members are not only entitled to NEA member benefits, but to AFT members benefits, as well. AFT has its own student debt management tool called Summer. The average savings for MFPE members using Summer is $48,600! Learn more about Summer by clicking here.
MFPE members are entitled to a wide range
of benefits.
Learn more by clicking here.
Join Us for the 4th Summer of NCTE Reads!
We are inviting all current NCTE members to participate in a monthlong discussion via a private Facebook group where they’ll have the chance to discuss ideas from the book, ask questions of the author and contributors, and create new resources together.
Starting on July 5, we will be discussing this year’s text, In the Pursuit of Justice: Students’ Rights to Read and Write in Elementary School,
edited by Mariana Souto-Manning.
Sign up here: https://ncte.org/events/ncte-reads/
We are inviting all current NCTE members to participate in a monthlong discussion via a private Facebook group where they’ll have the chance to discuss ideas from the book, ask questions of the author and contributors, and create new resources together.
Starting on July 5, we will be discussing this year’s text, In the Pursuit of Justice: Students’ Rights to Read and Write in Elementary School,
edited by Mariana Souto-Manning.
Sign up here: https://ncte.org/events/ncte-reads/
AFT shares Memorial Day lesson plans
Updated on May 2020
IN THIS COLLECTION: Find new ways to discover the meaning of Memorial Day with your students using the free K-12 resources in this curated collection from Share My Lesson.
The lessons and activities honor military men and women who died while on duty and explore the wars they served in, as well as the impact on their families and our country.
Memorial Day is observed on the final Monday of May. The holiday was originally known as Decoration Day, a time when Americans remembered those who died during the Civil War. During the 20th century, it was expanded to include all wars. Memorial Day was declared a federal holiday in 1968.
For additional materials:
https://sharemylesson.com/collections/memorial-day?utm_source=SilverpopMailing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=enews_051720_memday_verizon%20(1)%20remainder&utm_content=&spMailingID=42519045&spUserID=OTg5MTIyMjY4MzU1S0&spJobID=1761627816&spReportId=MTc2MTYyNzgxNgS2
IN THIS COLLECTION: Find new ways to discover the meaning of Memorial Day with your students using the free K-12 resources in this curated collection from Share My Lesson.
The lessons and activities honor military men and women who died while on duty and explore the wars they served in, as well as the impact on their families and our country.
Memorial Day is observed on the final Monday of May. The holiday was originally known as Decoration Day, a time when Americans remembered those who died during the Civil War. During the 20th century, it was expanded to include all wars. Memorial Day was declared a federal holiday in 1968.
For additional materials:
https://sharemylesson.com/collections/memorial-day?utm_source=SilverpopMailing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=enews_051720_memday_verizon%20(1)%20remainder&utm_content=&spMailingID=42519045&spUserID=OTg5MTIyMjY4MzU1S0&spJobID=1761627816&spReportId=MTc2MTYyNzgxNgS2
BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE U.S. CENSUS BUREAU
Make a Difference for Your Students and Community
Statistics in Schools Week is March 2-6! Educators can use free, downloadable activities for the five daily themes related to the 2020 Census. Find out more at census.gov/schools.
Get Resources
Statistics in Schools Week is March 2-6! Educators can use free, downloadable activities for the five daily themes related to the 2020 Census. Find out more at census.gov/schools.
Get Resources
Now more than ever, we recognize the importance of educators all over the world.
Day in and day out, teachers provide one of the most important services to our communities: care, attention, and support to children and students everywhere. As leaders doing the challenging work of developing the future minds of the world, we want to extend our deepest and most sincere appreciation to all of you. For Teacher Appreciation Week this May (4–8), we invite you to take part in the following activities NCTE has created just for you. In this particularly stressful time, we seek to support as well as celebrate all you contribute to our world. Please consider joining us at one or all of the special engagements. CALENDAR OF EVENTS We are excited to announce the #tomyteacher campaign! Through a series of video messages, some of today’s most beloved writers will tell personal stories of appreciation for teachers who had a profound impact on their lives. People are encouraged to share one or more of the author messages or post their own message to social media with the hashtag #tomyteacher. Stay tuned for an announcement Monday morning involving beloved writers speaking up with their teacher appreciation stories! |
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Happy Women's History Month!
We're celebrating women authors all month long and have compiled this list of resources to help you do the same in your classrooms. In honor of International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month, check out the NCTE books and resources written by some incredible women. In this blog post, Jocelyn A. Chadwick, NCTE Past President, shares her reflections on “Legacy of Pride: Women and NCTE." This Build Your Stack blog post consists of books all written in free verse and shows that the fight for equality has been a continuous journey for women.This post shares the understanding that authors need to support each other’s lived experiences, narratives, and voices.
[Editor’s Note: We understand many schools and students cannot rely on virtual learning during the closures because many in our communities do not have access to it for a variety of reasons. We will address issues of equity in subsequent articles.]
BY JACQUI MURRAY My inbox–probably yours, too–is flooded with suggestions, how-tos, and don’t-dos, on teaching online as a strategy for dealing with COVID-19. As I received the onslaught of teach-online resources, I collected those that made the most sense. Below is a short curation of the most useful articles, links, resources, and webinars to help you through this challenging environment, followed by some tips and answers to common questions. Online articles Resources, tips and more for remote and e-learning (teaching online) — from Educational Technology Guy Tools to prepare for school closures–suggested by Common Sense Advice for new Online Teachers–from EdSurge Navigating Uncertain Times: How Schools Can Cope With Corona virus–from EdSurge Understanding the Impact of Coronavirus on K-12 Education–from EdSurge Newsela COVID-19 resource center (and free access to their paid products this school year) A live-tracker of the spread of the disease from Johns Hopkins University. Snow Day? 7 Ways to Keep Teaching An Open Letter to Teachers About Online Classes Remote Learning: Tips for Thriving in This Ecosystem Online webinarsOne of the best I’ve watched in the last few weeks (as I dig into this subject) is Rushton Hurley’s. Here are some great suggestions for teachers who have to start fast with little preparation: Here are three webinars from the knowledgeable Richard Byrne: Three Free Webinars About Transitioning to Teaching Online Distance Learning Strategies for Education Leaders, Part 1 Date: March 17th, 2020 Distance Learning Strategies for Education Leaders, Part 2 Date: March 20th, 2020 A short curated list of resources for teaching online:How-to
If you’re still with me, here are quick notes on questions I’ve gotten from fellow educators over the past week or so: What can you as a parent do in advance?
What are the biggest problems I face moving my teaching online:
What should students and families know before their first online session:
Schools and Coronavirus: What You Should Know Find general guidance on COVID-19 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organization, and other health organizations, in addition to resources for navigating schools closures and online learning. NEA is committed to ensuring the health and safety of its members and the students they serve and will continue to monitor the situation and provide updates as they become available. Jacqui Murray has been teaching K-18 technology for 30 years. She is the editor/author of over a hundred tech ed resources including a K-12 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, K-8 Digital Citizenship curriculum. She is an adjunct professor in tech ed, Master Teacher, webmaster for four blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice, CSTA presentation reviewer, freelance journalist on tech ed topics, contributor to NEA Today, and author of the tech thrillers, To Hunt a Sub and Twenty-four Days. You can find her resources at Structured Learning. For more information: http://neatoday.org/2020/03/16/resources-for-online-learning-during-school-closures/utm_source=nea_today&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20200318&utm_content=online_learning |
Digital Learning Day:
Practical Life and Work Skills for Students
February 27, 2020
Today is Digital Learning Day—a day to spread innovative teaching practices and help young people everywhere access high-quality digital learning opportunities. This year, the event is all about sparking innovation in every classroom, every day. As part of the celebration, Google’s Applied Digital Skills curriculum is excited to launch new curated Digital Learning Day lesson collections to help students explore new digital skills they will need in life and in their future careers, including lessons on creating a resume, exploring their digital footprint, creating a presentation about a topic, and more.
https://sharemylesson.com/blog/digital-learning-day?link_id=12&can_id=78b7ef37773b9340ff71ddf37c5d7ca3&source=email-aft-daily-communicatorfebruary-26-2020&email_referrer=email_735521&email_subject=aft-daily-communicator-february-27-2020
Today is Digital Learning Day—a day to spread innovative teaching practices and help young people everywhere access high-quality digital learning opportunities. This year, the event is all about sparking innovation in every classroom, every day. As part of the celebration, Google’s Applied Digital Skills curriculum is excited to launch new curated Digital Learning Day lesson collections to help students explore new digital skills they will need in life and in their future careers, including lessons on creating a resume, exploring their digital footprint, creating a presentation about a topic, and more.
https://sharemylesson.com/blog/digital-learning-day?link_id=12&can_id=78b7ef37773b9340ff71ddf37c5d7ca3&source=email-aft-daily-communicatorfebruary-26-2020&email_referrer=email_735521&email_subject=aft-daily-communicator-february-27-2020
How Refining Definitions
of Digital Literacy Emphasizes Student Needs
Fracturing digital literacy.
Sidney I. Dobrin POSTED ON 02-10-2020
Adobe Blog
One of the great things that emerged simultaneously with the development of Adobe’s Creative Cloud tools and the Adobe Creative Campus program is an invigorating conversation about digital literacy. The term has become a buzzword across not just U.S. campuses, but as part of global conversations regarding contemporary educational needs.
At my university, our provost has identified digital literacy as a fundamental “moonshot” concept and provides funding to developing digital literacy initiatives. Yet he has also articulated that digital literacy remains an ambiguous term and is reluctant to claim that digital literacy is necessary for all students.
He is, of course, not unique in pointing out this ambiguity, as digital literacy tends to be applied as an umbrella term for many different kinds of literacies. Digital literacy programs can include things like coding literacy, computational literacy, information literacy, media literacy, visual literacy, internet literacy, computer literacy, and so on.
I’d like to suggest that we adjust our thinking about digital literacy a bit. Perhaps we now need to acknowledge the complexity of digital literacy and expand our definitions to account for varying degrees of proficiency, fluency, competency, and literacy to the end of addressing student needs.
Consider, for example, the student working in the social sciences who needs to produce a poster. This student does not need to know how to code in Python or R or even HTML in order to successfully produce the poster. However, he or she is likely to need to know how to navigate a design application like Adobe InDesign and have a degree of understanding of the following things: poster as a genre, design principles like typography, visual rhetoric, content, and the material transition from the design application environment to a print-based delivery.
A computer science student, on the other hand, who has been assigned the task of coding a rudimentary image editor will require an entirely different set of skills tied to algorithms, coding languages, and application design, not to mention image technologies and even visual rhetoric. That is to say, we might now need to consider that not all students need full literacy in order to produce media and documents as part of their academic, professional, civic, or personal lives.
Thus, the question becomes, do all of our students need to be digitally literate, or are there students for whom a degree of familiarity might suffice? I offer that as educators and curriculum developers we now begin to be a bit more specific in what we mean by digital literacy and embrace a fractured definition that encompasses proficiency, fluency, and competency. To oversimplify, these terms might be considered as tiers within the more encompassing digital literacy platform.
Digital competency.
We might think of digital competency as a kind of fundamental grounding in digital environments. The digitally competent student has an awareness that digital environments are constructed through program and code, but the student does not necessarily have the skills to code or program. Rather, digital competency identifies the ability to successfully complete a digital task like sending an email or creating the conference poster I noted before.
Competency, though, is more than just being able to complete a task — it requires a degree of theoretical understanding, of transferability, of being able to adapt skills and contexts. It provides us with a way of talking about blending skills and theory, the how and the why. Within the digital literacy framework, digital competency should be thought of as having the fundamentals — not illiterate, but not an expert.
Digital proficiency.
We might understand digital proficiency as a stage of learning in which students are not just able to complete a task, but to do so with a more significant understanding of the process in which she or he engages. Borrowing from the methodologies of language proficiency, we can say that someone who is digitally proficient has a greater comprehension of the digital process as well as the ability to transfer a range of digital skills between contexts. Likewise, the digitally proficient student is able to use digital skills to make informed assumptions about other digital activities in order to adapt to other digital platforms and contexts.
For example, a student who is digitally proficient and regularly uses Adobe Photoshop has developed a proficiency that allows her to make assumptions about how to use Adobe Premiere Rush. Concurrently, she understands how to seek out tools that either fulfill the immediate need or understands how to locate the tools needed to learn how to learn an unfamiliar digital process. Reductively, digital proficiency suggests more than a rudimentary grasp of digital environments and processes, but it does not imply fluency.
Digital fluency.
Reductively, we can think of fluency as suggesting expertise. Yet, fluency does not encompass the full range of digital literacy because it supposes expertise in a selected subset of skills. For example, a student might be an expert in using Premiere Pro to produce professional-caliber videos, but does not have slightest idea how to use Bootstrap libraries to build CSS frameworks for a mobile website. This student, then, is digitally fluent, certainly, if not digitally literate in a given arena.
Fracturing digital literacy initiatives
to better fit student needs.
The question that emerges, then, is one of the nature of digital literacy as an umbrella term and echoes the question our provost offered: Do all students need to be digitally literate, or are degrees of competency, proficiency, and fluency more applicable to our educational objectives?
I contend that digital literacy objectives might be more readily integrated into programmatic curricula by customizing competency, proficiency, and fluency approaches to specific disciplinary needs rather than attempting to build wholesale digital literacy components into general education efforts or cross-campus requirements that homogenize student subjects. That is to say, perhaps we should fracture our digital literacy initiatives in order to develop student learning outcomes that account for the digital environments in which individual students will interact.
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Adobe Blog
One of the great things that emerged simultaneously with the development of Adobe’s Creative Cloud tools and the Adobe Creative Campus program is an invigorating conversation about digital literacy. The term has become a buzzword across not just U.S. campuses, but as part of global conversations regarding contemporary educational needs.
At my university, our provost has identified digital literacy as a fundamental “moonshot” concept and provides funding to developing digital literacy initiatives. Yet he has also articulated that digital literacy remains an ambiguous term and is reluctant to claim that digital literacy is necessary for all students.
He is, of course, not unique in pointing out this ambiguity, as digital literacy tends to be applied as an umbrella term for many different kinds of literacies. Digital literacy programs can include things like coding literacy, computational literacy, information literacy, media literacy, visual literacy, internet literacy, computer literacy, and so on.
I’d like to suggest that we adjust our thinking about digital literacy a bit. Perhaps we now need to acknowledge the complexity of digital literacy and expand our definitions to account for varying degrees of proficiency, fluency, competency, and literacy to the end of addressing student needs.
Consider, for example, the student working in the social sciences who needs to produce a poster. This student does not need to know how to code in Python or R or even HTML in order to successfully produce the poster. However, he or she is likely to need to know how to navigate a design application like Adobe InDesign and have a degree of understanding of the following things: poster as a genre, design principles like typography, visual rhetoric, content, and the material transition from the design application environment to a print-based delivery.
A computer science student, on the other hand, who has been assigned the task of coding a rudimentary image editor will require an entirely different set of skills tied to algorithms, coding languages, and application design, not to mention image technologies and even visual rhetoric. That is to say, we might now need to consider that not all students need full literacy in order to produce media and documents as part of their academic, professional, civic, or personal lives.
Thus, the question becomes, do all of our students need to be digitally literate, or are there students for whom a degree of familiarity might suffice? I offer that as educators and curriculum developers we now begin to be a bit more specific in what we mean by digital literacy and embrace a fractured definition that encompasses proficiency, fluency, and competency. To oversimplify, these terms might be considered as tiers within the more encompassing digital literacy platform.
Digital competency.
We might think of digital competency as a kind of fundamental grounding in digital environments. The digitally competent student has an awareness that digital environments are constructed through program and code, but the student does not necessarily have the skills to code or program. Rather, digital competency identifies the ability to successfully complete a digital task like sending an email or creating the conference poster I noted before.
Competency, though, is more than just being able to complete a task — it requires a degree of theoretical understanding, of transferability, of being able to adapt skills and contexts. It provides us with a way of talking about blending skills and theory, the how and the why. Within the digital literacy framework, digital competency should be thought of as having the fundamentals — not illiterate, but not an expert.
Digital proficiency.
We might understand digital proficiency as a stage of learning in which students are not just able to complete a task, but to do so with a more significant understanding of the process in which she or he engages. Borrowing from the methodologies of language proficiency, we can say that someone who is digitally proficient has a greater comprehension of the digital process as well as the ability to transfer a range of digital skills between contexts. Likewise, the digitally proficient student is able to use digital skills to make informed assumptions about other digital activities in order to adapt to other digital platforms and contexts.
For example, a student who is digitally proficient and regularly uses Adobe Photoshop has developed a proficiency that allows her to make assumptions about how to use Adobe Premiere Rush. Concurrently, she understands how to seek out tools that either fulfill the immediate need or understands how to locate the tools needed to learn how to learn an unfamiliar digital process. Reductively, digital proficiency suggests more than a rudimentary grasp of digital environments and processes, but it does not imply fluency.
Digital fluency.
Reductively, we can think of fluency as suggesting expertise. Yet, fluency does not encompass the full range of digital literacy because it supposes expertise in a selected subset of skills. For example, a student might be an expert in using Premiere Pro to produce professional-caliber videos, but does not have slightest idea how to use Bootstrap libraries to build CSS frameworks for a mobile website. This student, then, is digitally fluent, certainly, if not digitally literate in a given arena.
Fracturing digital literacy initiatives
to better fit student needs.
The question that emerges, then, is one of the nature of digital literacy as an umbrella term and echoes the question our provost offered: Do all students need to be digitally literate, or are degrees of competency, proficiency, and fluency more applicable to our educational objectives?
I contend that digital literacy objectives might be more readily integrated into programmatic curricula by customizing competency, proficiency, and fluency approaches to specific disciplinary needs rather than attempting to build wholesale digital literacy components into general education efforts or cross-campus requirements that homogenize student subjects. That is to say, perhaps we should fracture our digital literacy initiatives in order to develop student learning outcomes that account for the digital environments in which individual students will interact.
Copyright © 2018 Adobe All rights reserved.
GOOGLE'S APPLIED DIGITAL SKILLS
Google's Applied Digital Skills is a free video-based curriculum that teaches students practical skills they need for work and life. Students watch instructional videos on the Applied Digital Skills website, then follow the steps to build a project in Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, and other G Suite apps. As students progress through themed lessons, they discover how the digital skills they are practicing apply to real-world situations, such as budgeting for a big purchase, finding credible sources about a topic, or planning an event. They also learn communication, collaboration, time management, persistence, and other “soft skills” in high demand for education and jobs. There are dozens of lessons that can be done in as little as 45 minutes, with options for all grade levels (upper elementary, middle school and high school) and subjects (including social studies, ELA and more.
MU&IC + ARTS GRANT
Enrich your students' learning with a Music & Arts Grant. Apply to receive $250 for your school's program. The deadline is June 30, 2019, for grants to be considered for the fall of the next year. All grants will be notified of their status by September 30, 2019. Applications must be submitted by an active employee of the public K-12 school for which the grant is being requested. The applicant must be a current member or referred by a current member of the state NEA affiliate or one of our other participating educator associations.For more information, follow this link: https://www.calcasmusicartsgrant.com/
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