Thanks to the internet, consuming media — a form of mass communication — has become a part of everyday life. What was once limited to TVs, magazines, newspapers, and billboards is now directly available to students on their portable devices. On average, students use their smartphones for 6 hours and 53 minutes per day. The most used apps include social media like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.
Media messaging can influence student’s beliefs and attitudes. Unfortunately, plenty of media found online contains false or inaccurate information. Media literacy skills help students analyze messaging with a critical eye, ensuring they can distinguish between factual and inaccurate information.
Today, many higher education institutions offer media literacy courses to students to foster informed and critical campus discourse. Discover why these courses are so essential to student success and how to implement effective ones at your institution.
Media literacy is a person’s ability to analyze messages they receive through mass media. The goal is to identify the author and intent behind a message to better understand it and its influence. As students develop the skill, they become more informed users and responsible content creators.
The National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE) is a leading source of media literacy education in the United States. They established the five key components of media literacy for students:
If you have yet to address media literacy at your institution, now’s the time. The need for media literacy in college courses is growing due to:
As fake news becomes more of an issue, policymakers have picked up on the importance of media literacy. Some states — including California, New Jersey, Texas, Connecticut, Delaware, Ohio, and Georgia — have already passed media literacy legislation. Most legislation focuses on teaching media literacy to K12 students. However, some states have set policies regarding media literacy for college students.
The University of North Dakota recently signed off on a proposal requiring students to complete media literacy coursework to graduate. The decision was in response to a mandate from the North Dakota State Board of Higher Education requiring digital literacy education for students. Other universities are even offering media literacy programs. For example, Arizona State University now has a digital media literacy undergraduate degree.
Media literacy classes can significantly contribute toward student success, in their studies and future careers. That’s because media literacy skills also teach students how to:
Improving media literacy at your institution empowers students and faculty to make better choices in their media consumption habits. Their media literacy skills can also positively affect campus discourse, increasing collaboration and the flow of ideas. That’s why it’s an effective strategy for higher education institutions, regardless of legal requirements.
Follow these steps to implement media literacy education successfully:
Media literacy courses should cover all five components outlined by NAMLE — access, analyze, evaluate, create, and act. You can establish these as learning outcomes, as they are the skills students should have after completing the course. Starting content creation with learning outcomes in mind helps ensure all content is relevant and essential.
It’s also beneficial to create learning outcomes and curricula with the guidance of media literacy experts. They’ll have the latest guidance and information to help you create up-to-date course content. If you’re implementing media literacy education into existing courses, you may also want to work with faculty to modify and align learning outcomes with the new content.
Courses are only as good as the content within them. To create engaging, meaningful content, try:
Once you’ve identified learning outcomes and created an engaging media literacy curriculum that aligns with them, you can start mapping the curriculum. Curriculum mapping is the process of creating an outline of learning outcomes throughout a course or program. It helps faculty know what and when to teach students.
Institutions can teach media literacy in stand-alone classes, single courses, or entire programs. The curriculum mapping process differs slightly for each type:
To improve the effectiveness of media literacy education, your institution must make it convenient for students. The more convenient and accessible media literacy education is, the higher the chance of students completing it. One way to make media literacy content convenient is to digitize it. A recent student survey revealed that digital resources are one of the most requested ways to learn media literacy skills.
Another way to make content more convenient is to introduce self-paced learning. Self-paced learning is a style of education where students progress through learning material at their preferred pace and at times that are convenient to them. This can be an effective solution when paired with digital resources, as students can easily access them online and choose when they learn.
Before implementing any media literacy education, your institution should educate faculty first. Lecturers who understand media literacy concepts can teach the topic more effectively. They can model media literacy and critical thinking for students, reinforcing their understanding. Training also equips faculty with effective teaching and assessment methods specific to media literacy and ensures consistency across all departments.
The best way to make media literacy classes effective is to improve them over time. To make improvements, you’ll need to assess how well a course accomplishes its objectives. Assessing students through exams, projects, and quizzes can tell you how well students understand the content. Course completion rates will also tell you how engaging and difficult the course is.
For more specific information about a course’s strengths and weaknesses, gather student feedback. Using this information, you can make targeted changes that have a larger impact on the student experience.
Planning, designing, and introducing new courses is simple when you have the right tools. At Watermark, we provide a suite of innovative software to help higher education institutions achieve their goals. We believe in the power of insights and want to help you harness data to maximize your institution’s impact.
If you’re adding new courses or programs for media literacy, you’ll benefit from Watermark Curriculum Strategy. It makes it easy for faculty to develop curricula, streamline processes, and use student feedback to inform changes. Watermark Planning & Self-Study can then assist with curriculum mapping, using automation and intelligent features to simplify the process. The software also makes it easy to identify gaps in the curriculum so you can make it even better.
For a more comprehensive solution, consider Watermark’s Educational Impact Suite (EIS). EIS integrates all our offered tools into a centralized system. With all your institution’s information in one place, you can see the bigger picture and understand what’s happening across campus. All the data you need to drive growth will be at your fingertips.
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