More Resources
These resources offer some additional detail and next steps about both Media Literacy and Communities of Practice.
More about Media Literacy
Lateral reading resources
"Evaluating where information comes from is a crucial part of deciding whether it is trustworthy. By observing fact checkers, we found that the best way to learn about a website is lateral reading—leaving a site to see what other digital sources say about it."
From Civic Online Reasoning - Stanford History Education Group
More about Communities of Practice
Communities of Practice support media literacy instruction by connecting like-minded educators together to learn, share, and support one another. Understanding Communities of Practice will help teachers and leaders create self-sustaining professional learning teams to develop and sustain media literacy education in classrooms, libraries, and schools.
"It was great to meet with teachers across content areas to work on ways to provide this instruction to students in a variety of ways. We don't often get to collaborate with teachers in other content areas, so this was unique and helpful."
From a participating teacher in the SW WA Media Literacy Project
What is a Community of Practice?
In Connect and Inspire: Online Communities of Practice in Education, the U.S. Department of Education offered the following working definitions.
Personal (or professional) learning network (PLN)—A group of people and information sources that can help an individual reach personal or professional goals. For an educator, a PLN guides learning, points to learning opportunities, answers questions, and contributes knowledge, experiences, and resources that respond to individual needs (Tobin, 1998; Warlick, 2010).
Community of practice (COP)―Groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis (Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder, 2002). True communities of practice have three core elements (Wenger et al., 2002):
A domain—A shared area of interest (e.g., science instruction or inquiry-based learning or autism spectrum disorder) to which members are committed and in which they have a shared competence that distinguishes them from other people.
A community—In pursuing the domain, members engage in joint activities and discussions, help each other, and share information. This social dimension is a hallmark of true communities of practice.
A practice—As a result of pursuing the domain together, members develop a repertoire of resources—experiences, stories, tools, ways of addressing recurring problems—that together define the practice of their profession or area of shared interest.
Communities of Practice offer authentic, educator-driven, and collaborative support for teachers, librarians, and leaders to define, design, and implement media literacy instruction.
What are the elements of a CoP?
According to Wenger et. al, there are three essential elements to a Community of Practice. While these may seem obvious, defining these elements for your media literacy Community of Practice ensures that all participants share and understand the goals and desired outcomes of the team. The participants in your CoP can include any interested partners within or outside of your organization.
A domain—What is the shared area of interest for your media literacy community of practice? Is your community defined by a content area like English Language Arts? Is it defined by a grade level or grade range? Is there a specific area of focus like mis/disinformation or synthetic media? Your domain can include multiple areas, but should be clearly defined.
The SW Washington Media Literacy Project had the following domain:
Integration of media literacy instruction in ELA, Social Studies, and/or Health classrooms
Teacher librarians and educators in secondary schools (middle and high)
A community—What are the joint activities, work and discussions, and how does this occur? As a team, what are you doing? Are you conducting research? Designing a solution? Discussing your instruction? And how and when are you connecting with one another? In person? Remotely?
The SW Washington Media Literacy Project had the following community goals:
Collaboratively build knowledge and dispositions to support leading and teaching media literacy
Identify and curate resources and lessons to support media literacy instruction
Support one another in learning and implementing media literacy learning and instruction
A practice—In relation to your domain, what are your desired outcomes and changes to practice? Will you create products or artifacts? What will change or be different as a result of your work together?
The SW Washington Media Literacy Project focused on the following areas of practice:
Build confidence and capacity for media literacy leadership in schools and districts (facilitators and participating teachers)
Design, plan, implement and evaluate integrated classroom media literacy lessons with support from facilitators and school-based communities of practice
How did SW WA Media Literacy Project use CoPs?
In the SW Washington Media Literacy Project, Communities of Practice were used in two different ways to build educator skills and dispositions. In the first phase, teacher librarians were identified as media literacy facilitators who were trained, supported, and tasked to lead teams of participating teachers in their schools or districts. In this first phase, the Community of Practice enabled a 'train-the-facilitator' approach to professional development and learning, building the capacity of educators to effectively lead their own Communities of Practice in the second phase of the project. In the second phase of the project, these media literacy facilitators formed their own small teams of classroom teachers into building-based Communities of Practice. These local CoPs providing training, support, and feedback for the integration of media literacy instruction in their respective content areas.
Using Wenger's elements, the SW Washington Media Literacy Project could define their Communities of Practice as follows
Domain—The SW Washington Media Literacy Project utilized Communities of Practice to address two key areas of focus
Media Literacy Facilitator CoP — How to build and sustain knowledge, leadership skills and dispositions for media literacy facilitators to lead, teach, and support fellow educator colleagues in media literacy instruction
Participating Teacher CoP — How to identify and support secondary classroom teachers focused on integrating media literacy instruction in their core content areas (ELA, social studies and/or health)
Community — The work of the SW Washington Media Literacy Project Communities of Practice included a variety of activities, work and discussions.
Media Literacy Facilitator CoP
Identify and build on existing facilitator knowledge of media literacy both as a topic and area for designing lessons and instruction
Examine emerging research and ideas specific to media literacy such as lateral reading, 'pre-bunking,' and increased parent/community energy around media literacy instruction
Explore and support educator leadership skills and dispositions including working with adult learners, communication, and collaboration
Examine and understand instructional collaboration with a focus on Communities of Practice as a structure for supporting educator learning and practice
Participating Teacher CoP
Share and support classroom teachers to build on their understanding of media literacy
Identify core content lessons or topics suited to the integration of media literacy instruction
Design or adapt lessons using Open Educational Resources or other sources
Share and review instruction to identify successes, areas for improvement, and how to sustain media literacy instruction in the classroom
Practice— The practice of the SW Washington Media Literacy Project CoPs aimed to build and support both media literacy facilitators and participating teachers
Media Literacy Facilitator CoP
Identify and build on existing facilitator knowledge of media literacy both as a topic and area for designing lessons and instruction
Examine emerging research and ideas specific to media literacy such as lateral reading, 'pre-bunking,' and increased parent/community energy around media literacy instruction
Explore and support educator leadership skills and dispositions including working with adult learners, communication, and collaboration
Examine and understand instructional collaboration with a focus on Communities of Practice as a structure for supporting educator learning and practice
Participating Teacher CoP
Share and support classroom teachers to build on their understanding of media literacy
Identify c