July 3, 2014
- Lesson objective: We have highlighted some themes around which there has been much debate in the field of human development and outlined some principles of human development that psychologists have agreed on through years of research. In addition, we have touched on some concepts from brain research which are related to human cognition. The accompanying videos help in clarifying some of the points made in the slides. The student population we have developed the lesson plan for are undergraduate students who are training to be school teachers. We feel that as educators it is important for them to keep up with educational research. Furthermore, we recognize that it is crucial for them to be able to critically examine educational research and media representations of educational research. In this lesson we will delve into critical media viewing strategies that will hopefully help us to make as much sense as possible of the media form we are viewing (and in the case of this lesson, a documentary about human intelligence). Using the strategies contained within this lesson, we hope that you will subject to critique (and to Ms. Paul’s presentation on human cognition) the very content expressed: Is it scientific? Are there gaps in the presentation of the research? Because critical media literacy as a discipline is also concerned with issues of power, we also hope that you not only subject the content to peer review, but also subject the format – the very style and nuance – of the documentary to critique, asking questions such as, “How is ‘gender’ an important construct to this narrative?”, “How does this media form depict women?”, and “Why has this documentary even been produced? Is it for scientific purposes exclusively, and if not, why might other interests affect my relationship with this media form as a purely scientific artifact?” Finally, this lesson should provide you with an opportunity to exercise all aspects of Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy – including remembering (see: Edmodo quiz), understanding (see: Edmodo quiz), applying (see: Edmodo quiz and journal project on the PowerPoint) , analyzing (see: Edmodo quiz and journal project on the PowerPoint), evaluating (see: Edmodo quiz and journal project on the PowerPoint), and creating (see: Edmodo quiz and journal project on the PowerPoint).
- We have decided to place our mixed-media lesson plan (i.e., text, PowerPoint, and video) upon both our u.osu blogs and an external “platform”, either upon Google Classroom or Edmodo – for if the latter interface fails, we will have our blog(s) as a backup for the lesson plan.
- Regarding the format of said lesson plan:
- We first plan to state the problem (what is to be explored) and how this problem relates to our individual research perspectives in text-form near the heading of the lesson’s layout. In this case, Narmada has suggested that we direct students to explore a National Geographic documentary that focuses on the construction, natural emergence, and/or accident of “genius”. We will implore students to critique this documentary apropos literature on intelligence and using critical media literacy methodologies.
- We will offer a text-based assessment (qua PowerPoint) of selected literature on intelligence and/or cognition and use this knowledge base as a referent for critical analyzing the documentary for biases. I will supply a methodology for critiquing media forms (from the Center for Media Literacy) that students must exercise when watching/analyzing the documentary.
- We will then have students both (1) satisfy all levels of Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy and (2) engage in formative assessment by contributing an autonomous search, critique, and written assessment of an additional media form that “constructs” intelligence – such as various “brain food” ads or the recent advertisement from “Luminocity” – to their journals.
- We will finally instruct students to attempt a quiz that caps the lesson – we will classify this quiz as a form of summative assessment. We hope (if time permits) to construct this quiz either on Carmen or via an external source.