The purpose of this blog post is to serve as a reflection assignment to analyze a real world lesson plan through the four lenses of media education approaches, identify which, if any, this lesson plan falls under, and then to determine how this lesson plan may be altered to both incorporate media while also adhering to the exemplifications of a Critical Media Literacy approach.
First, the lesson plan has been provided by a sixth grade teacher from Alpine School District. The lesson plan itself is based on a lesson rubric developed by the school district rather than a framework preferred by the teacher. The lesson in question is a geometry lesson plan that deals with finding the surface area of a three dimensional object, a pyramid in this particular case. Previous to this lesson the students constructed a pyramid frame for a kite out of straws or balsawood and kite string. Now the students are given a certain amount of tissue paper with which to cover their frame. The teacher then let’s the students use their own methods to solve the task of covering the frame with the given amount of tissue paper. While this is going on the teacher will ask probing questions of the students and take note of students whose method leads to the discovery of the algorithm that enables students to complete the task. After a certain point the teacher allows the selected students, whose methods are analogous to the formula, to share their method(s) with the class. While these selected students are sharing the teacher will emphasize parts of the students’ explanations that are important to the formula. It is at this point that the teacher may also introduce specific, essential vocabulary (i.e. surface area vs. volume).
With this lesson plan laid out in some detail it can now be addressed and considered using the various educational approaches. It must be noted that the four approaches that are being discussed have been explicitly stated to apply to media education. There must, and will be, some form of translation from media education to arithmetical education. This translation means there will be some aspects lost or that are ill suited to compare, but, there will hopefully yield some positive and reflective discourse on general education as a result of this translation. Now, each approach will be introduced and some characteristics specific to that approach shall be related in their dealings with media education. After which each approach shall be applied to this specific lesson plan and what an educator of that method might feel about that lesson plan’s activities or pedagogical ideology.
Protectionism, as it pertains to media education, primarily sees the student (and thus media audiences) as passive and media as a force that the student needs to be insulated from. The reasons for this insulation can be multifarious; oversimplification of facts, political biases, and/or domination of cognitive abilities. Of course an exception to this attitude towards media would be the pre-approved literature that deals strictly with the relay of information. Of course the “pre-approved” quality is performed by the majority perspective and is usually a simplification based on that perspective’s bias on reality.
This approach holds much more “traditional” (again traditional to the majority but maybe not a minority) views of pedagogy and the teacher-student relationship. That is to say, in an American education setting, the teacher is a conduit of information which the teacher then pours into the heads of the students. These passive students duty is to memorize, compartmentalize, and regurgitate the information as it has been presented by the teacher. The student’s comprehension of the subject is determined by their ability to how closely they can regurgitate, verbatim, the materials which their teacher has presented.
A protectionist educator might view this lesson plan as an error in the classroom and a violation of the teacher-student relationship. The basis for this view lies in the protectionist idea that the teacher is the most active participant, yet this lesson clearly makes the teacher a passive force in the classroom and allows the students to explore the lesson with little interference. A protectionist might present this lesson in a much different fashion. One way a protectionist might teach this lesson would be to present a pyramid, either from a text, on a display, or perhaps even a model, and then lecture to the students the proper algorithm with which to find the surface area of the pyramid. Then the following exercise might be to give various components and then have the students use those components to find the surface area of different sized pyramids. Although this method has been traditionally the way that students have engaged with this lesson it has also been shown to be a method that has had low information retention amongst students. This first method differs a great deal from the second approach that shall be discussed; Media Arts Education.
Now, Media Arts Education might be a little difficult in clearly translating an expansion into a scholastic subject, if it is read that a primary attribute of Media Arts Education is to teach the subject as a separate entity from all other subjects, it is easier to understand. Another pillar of Media Arts Education is; there exists an appreciation of the subject and the students then replicate (in an artistic setting this would be an opportunity for the student to exercise creative self expression) the subject within a classroom setting.
In this approach the student is still a passive participant. Compared to Protectionism, however, there is a marked increase in the level of engagement as the student is allowed to replicate and create based upon their appreciation of a subject. In this approach, again, the teacher is very active in the students’ engagement with the material, acting as a gatekeeper of information and still offering input based upon quality of reproduction’s adherence to a preapproved rubric. A potential pitfall of this application to education is that, while the student is passive, it greatly depends on their appreciation of the subject. If a student doesn’t appreciate the materials then there is a low level of engagement.
A Media Arts Education adherent instructor might appreciate this lesson plan much more than a Protectionist educator, but the high level of activity amongst the students might still cause trepidation. This isn’t to say that Media Arts Education proponents shun activity, the main portion of conflict lies in the fact that the instructor isn’t the driving force behind the activity. An educator of this tactic might walk the students through the activity before allowing them to replicate it later as either homework or as a separate activity in the lesson. A second way that Media Arts Education differs from this lesson lies in that Media Arts Education still views the teacher as the arbiter of information. This ensures that the teacher is still the ultimate judge on a student’s comprehension of the subject by relying on the student’s ability to replicate the information. Considering this second difference, a Media Arts Education advocate might also consider another revision to the lesson plan. This time, the teacher would provide an example algorithm needed to solve the task to the students and then letting them perform the activity under the instructor’s supervision. While this method does increase the level of active participation amongst the students there is still a strict pedagogy in place.
The third method is the Media Literacy Movement (MLM). This approach deals in trying to get the students to objectively engage the materials. A MLM methodology would be to have the students, engage with the materials outside of a purely literal format and afterwards explore the material through an interactive (preferably media based) activity. It is through this access, analysis, and evaluation that the students learn to communicate the lesson’s objectives effectively. There might be some intertextual connections being made that include other, similar fields but, for the most part, these connections are superficial and applicability of them is limited.
In terms of pedagogy, the MLM line of thought views the student as just as active a participant as the instructor in their education. This is where marked distinctions are being made concerning the democratization of education. However, MLM doesn’t quite make the full step of having a democratic relationship in a student’s education. In MLM, the instructor still has to have a role as gatekeeper by shepherding the students in the direction they feel the students must go in order to have truly learned the lesson.
Since this lesson plan is a great deal like a MLM lesson, an educator who favors this approach would probably have few revisions for this kind of lesson. Any revision for a lesson like this might involve changing superficial elements from building a pyramid out of straw and tissue paper to maxing a box out of paper and balsa wood. Another such change might be that the instructor could provide wooden pyramids and have the students figure out the surface area so the students can know how much paint they need to paint the whole surface. This would satisfy the need for students to become actively engaged in their education and would create a more level field in the student-teacher relationship. However, there is still a lack of a true democratization in the pedagogy. This missing piece lies in the fact that there is still the imposition upon the student of a dominant ideology; it can be of the majority culture, the students’ teacher, the educating institution, or any combination/permutation of those three or more.
The final educational approach is Critical Media Literacy (CML). This last approach, while somewhat related to the previous educational schools of thought, is radically different from those perspectives. CML not only allows the student to actively engage the materials, it encourages the student to question and critically analyze the ideologies, pedagogies, and institutions of power surrounding the materials. The students can then creatively produce something that addresses and alleviates/validates their concerns. After this work is finished the students are to reflect on their work and the subject at hand which they produced the work for. Hopefully questions and reflections like, “How does my work engage the subject?”, “Does it adequately make its case about the subject?” are considered and discussed between the students and teacher. After this reflection and consideration the student is supposed to act on their reflection. This might include a re-analysis of the material which could lead to a decision that the material is worth pursuing, or that it is inconsequential to their education at large. In either case, the student has been exposed to, and been able to engage with the subject on a critical level.
In terms of pedagogy and the relationship between instructor and instructed, CML places the most responsibility on the audience’s role in education, out of the four methods. The instructor, while still responsible for aiding the education and guidance of the students is less of a gatekeeper of information and more of a landmark with which the student uses in research, analysis, and critique of information. Another aspect to role the teacher inhabits in a CLM environment is; the teacher aides in the creative process by either offering technical assistance or by engaging with the creative work critically to help the student come to a clearer understanding of the materials. In CLM the teacher also has the possibilities of learning just as much about the subject matter as the student, thus creating a learning environment for both parties.
A CLM educator, while they would be encouraged to see the students actively engaged in the activity to discover the algorithm needed to carry out the task, would find numerous aspects of the lesson plan either superfluous or in need of revision. One thing that a CLM instructor might prefer, rather than immediately engaging with the material, is having the students critique the material’s sources, “Why is it so important that we learn this?”, “Do we even want to learn this?”, “What might we want to learn instead?”, “How does learning this subject affect me?”. The lesson would also involve making intertextual connections of the material with other materials that might involve history, science, arts, and even other arithmetical subjects. Then there would be a creative production that includes inquiry into the subject, perhaps a short documentary about the necessity of geometry in civil engineering. In the wake of this production there would be some reflection on the production and its relation to the subject and, finally, the resulting action would have already been accomplished in the inquiry about the subject. This kind of lesson would have to have the ability to fluidly address the various aspects of the lesson and assuage many of the students’ reservations about the subject’s validity to a rounded education.
Of course the great difficulty of the CLM approach’s application (even in media education, trying to apply CLM is tough enough) to any of the “core” subjects is how to incorporate the democratization of education that CLM champions without losing the efficiency to cover the materials that exists in, say, a Protectionist or Media Arts Education structure. Now, one way that CLM might be able to apply itself to broader subjects is to carefully integrate media into a lesson plan similar to this example one provided. This not only introduces media (a necessary aspect of a CLM education) but it would also allow for the student to creatively engage with the materials, another necessary part of CLM thought. For instance, an activity a student could take part in might be for the student to create a computer model of a pyramid and, using algorithms provided by the teacher, figure out the surface area of the pyramid in pixels. The mathematical ends may not be what the student is originally interested in, but through the creative production involved in the computer modeling they are able to engage the materials and their own interests. And then in the reflection following the production, the student will hopefully have found a way to act on this information in their own manner. The end result is, the subject matter is not only applied but there is a kind of democratization involved in the learning process.
But nagging questions are posed by critics of CLM, “What if the student isn’t interested in any kind of creative production related to the subject matter?”, “How is the student supposed to learn the lesson and proper application if they feel that they cannot analyze the information?” A CLM approach to the subject is more than content with letting the students critique the necessity of the subject matter if it holds no interest to them. CLM also would welcome a student’s proposal that some information has an inability to be analyzed. In the case of the latter, an activity that this student could engage in might be to make a short podcast covering the necessity of the subject matter in an engineering environment or another field of study, rather than a project on how important that information innately is.
The great separation between CLM and the MLM, Media Arts Education, and Protectionist methods lies in the students and their willingness to engage and critique the subject matter. This doesn’t mean that the teacher becomes subservient to the whims or desires of the students, rather, the students and teachers are allowed to engage one another on the subject, with respect towards each other’s views. And while it is the duty of the student to actively participate in the materials (critiquing is entirely up to them), it is up to the teacher to help the students engage the materials in whatever way they can. Perhaps it is pertinent to come up with a sample lesson or a possible scenario where CLM perspectives may be applied to a core subject.
Here is a possible application of CLM suppositions on a core subject, let’s say history. The lesson might be a focus on imperialism in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. This subject can be engaged with in a manner similar to the following practices. First, there is access to the facts and information pertinent to the subject. Second, there is an analysis that information; this might include precursory motivations (social, political, economical), the lasting after effects (again social, political, economical), and/or, even this event’s relationship to other fields of study (i.e. imperialism and its relationship to Heart of Darkness). The students can then engage in a creative production that includes some (or maybe even all) of their analytical responses to the subject matter which they studied. The fourth part of this lesson plan would include reflection on how the students’ creative work(s) address the issues uncovered in the original access to the information. The final aspect would be for the students to consider (or even to actually prepare for) what kind of future actions they could take to prevent such actions from repeating or how they can become involved in solving the problems caused by imperialism, even though the effects are half a world away from themselves.
In any case, there is the possibility of application of CLM to these “core” subjects in school. But there are many things that need to change about the American (even international) education system before a widespread adoption of a CLM-like education ideology can happen. Using this lesson plan as a template, and some oversimplification, there exists at least the possibility of CLM adoption in classrooms.
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