Integrating Media Literacy and Critical Thinking into the Curriculum

(2 hours, half day, full day, or multi-day intensive)

This popular interactive workshop introduces the theory and practice of media literacy integration throughout the curriculum, emphasizing the development of critical thinking and analysis skills. It can be adapted to address the needs of a mixed group of K-12 educators, or focus on a specific target audience (e.g., middle school ELA and social studies, librarians, elementary health). Participants will receive materials and learn approaches that can be immediately used in the classroom or other educational context.

Secondary Social Studies Integration with Curriculum Kits

(Full Day or Multi-day Intensive)

Chris Sperry, will deliver training and materials that enable teachers to reach both high achieving and traditionally disengaged students through use of Project Look Sharp curriculum kits that teach core social studies content and skills. The workshop will cover classroom decoding methods using key concepts and questions for media analysis, teaching 21st century critical thinking skills (e.g. identifying sourcing, credibility, and bias), and issues of copyright, accessing media documents, and assessment. Participants will gain access to over eight hundred media documents and 2400 pages of lesson plans, teacher guides and student materials that link the documents to core social studies content and skills.

Youth Culture and New Technologies

Wikis, Facebook, twitter, texting, gaming: How and why are students using new communication media, what are our concerns, and what are the implications for our classrooms? This 2-hour (exposure) to full-day (hands on) workshop will explore literacy for the 21st century.

Media Violence & Conflict Resolution

This 2-hour workshop explores the potential effects of verbal and physical violence shown in movies, TV, and video games on children and teens, and demonstrates ways in which K-8 teachers, community educators, and parents can address these effects through discussion and media literacy activities.

Critical Thinking & the News

Democracy requires an educated and literate citizenship. This 2-hour workshop provides guidelines and strategies for training our students to consistently assess the credibility, accuracy, and bias of various news sources.

Media & Health Issues

Media literacy education is a powerful way to approach the impact of media use and media messages on a wide range of health issues for today’s youth by emphasizing media analysis, critical thinking, and self-expression. This 2-hour to full day workshop can address multiple health issues or focus specifically on one of them, including: nutrition, body image, advertising, alcohol and substance use, smoking, bullying and put-downs, safety, and teen sexuality.

Credibility, Information and Science

Designed for secondary science and environmental studies teachers, this 2 hour to full day workshop will explore the role of the internet and other media on our students’ understanding of information.
It will include strategies and materials for the classroom.

Some workshops available through video conference! Please inquire if interested.