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How can educators use the digital platform Twitter in a grade six…
How can educators use the digital platform Twitter in a grade six classroom to promote social justice-based inquiry projects?
Role of Teacher
Provide students with opportunities to connect with their sense of "moral purpose."
Allow students to confront tensions and inequalities within their community through social activism.
Assess students (
for, as, of
).
Assessment FOR learning - teachers determine where students are with respect to their education, where they need to go, and the necessary steps to get there.
Assessment AS learning - students maintain agency over their learning by monitoring their progress and determining if they meet provincial expectations. In self-evaluating, students begin to reflect on their behaviours and modify their approaches to align with the learning goals and success criteria.
Assessment OF learning - teachers summarize student learning.
Ministry of Education. (2010). Growing Success: Assessment, Evaluation, and Reporting in Schools.
https://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/policyfunding/growsuccess.pdf
Support, challenge, and extend student thinking.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jyxk-VNKwTPo38ntn66A-BLCF40JNqdKJnncSyzHiXE/edit?usp=sharing
Foster higher order thinking skills.
Blooms Taxonomy!
https://www.teachthought.com/learning/what-is-blooms-taxonomy/
Push students to engage in practices of reflexivity and challenge societal norms.
Maintain the Ontario College of Teachers ethical standards of practice.
Implement curriculum goals and expectations.
Social studies
Grade 6 Social Studies overall expectations that could be utilized to create a social justice-based inquiry project.
Strand B. People and Environments: Canada’s Interactions with the Global Community.
OE B2. Inquiry: Use the social studies inquiry process to investigate global issues of political, social, and economic, and/or environmental importance, their impact on the global community, and responses to the issues.
Strand A. Heritage and Identity: Communities in Canada, Past and Present.
OE A2. Inquiry: Use the social studies inquiry process to investigate different perspectives on the historical and/or contemporary experiences of a few distinct communities, including First Nations, Metis, and/or Inuit communities, in Canada.
Social Studies Inquiry Process
Formulate Questions
Gather and Organize Data
Interpret and Analyse Data and Information
Evaluate and Draw Conclusions
Community Judgements
OE A2. Understanding Context: Demonstrate and understanding of significant experiences of, and major changes and aspects of life in, various historical and contemporary communities, including First Nations, Metis, and Inuit communities, in Canada.
https://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/curriculum/elementary/social-studies-history-geography-2018.pdf
Ensure the safety and well-being of students.
Prioritize online safety.
Comply with Twitters Age Policy.
https://www.scdsb.on.ca/common/pages/DisplayFile.aspx?itemId=916530
“When working online, students shall practice safe computing practices including: protecting their identity and reputation; not posting personal information about themselves and others and protecting their digital footprint (SDSB, 2021, p.4)."
Digital footprint - data that is left behind on the internet by individual users.
Remind students that what goes online, stays online!
Digital Citizenship!
Teach students how to navigate various digital spaces in a manner that is safe and respectful.
https://mediasmarts.ca/digital-media-literacy/general-information/digital-media-literacy-fundamentals/what-digital-citizenship
Netiquette!
How to act appropriately when online.
https://www.kathleenamorris.com/2018/07/25/internet-safety-teachers/
Gradually release responsibility to students and allow them to be autonomous leaners.
Release responsibility by gradually working students through different modes of inquiry.
Inquiry Level
Confirmation Inquiry: students confirm a principle wherein the results are already known.
Structured Inquiry: students investigate a teacher-presented question through a prescribed procedure.
Guided Inquiry: students investigate a teacher-presented question using student designed/selected procedures.
Open Inquiry: students investigate questions that are student formulated through student designed/selected procedures (Bell & Banchi, 2008, p. 27).
file:///Users/joanne/Downloads/The%20Many%20Levels%20of%20Inquiry%20-%20Banchi%20and%20Bell%20(1).pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9cK_eto3HE&t=156s&ab_channel=OntarioScienceCentre
Promote critical digital literacy skils
Meaning Making!
Reading - students will follow and develop narratives around their social justice-based inquiry projects.
Relating - students will make connections between new information and existing knowledge via Twitter and other online searches.
Expressing - students will share about what they have been researching and challenge social inequalities via Twitter.
Code Breaking!
Students will become familiar with the various structures and conventions of Twitter.
Navigation - the teacher will show students how to navigate Twitter (scrolling, tweeting, re-tweeting, favouriting tweets, etc.).
Conventions - students will understand the various norms and safety practices when using Twitter.
Operations - students will become confident in using digital tools and will become aware of how to upload, download, and turn off the application.
Stylistics - students will consider how images and colour impact their messaging of social justice.
Allow students to use Twitter in progressive and radical ways (Giroux, 2019).
Enlarge students perspectives of the world (Giroux, 2019).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCMXKt5vRQk&t=1s&ab_channel=CCCB
Encourage students to be "cultural producers" (Giroux, 2019).
Analyzing!
Finding - students will find information and contact community organizations on Twitter.
Creating - students will explore the positive impact tweeting has with respect to social justice and develop various artefacts and content for sharing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnWdARykdcw&ab_channel=JonathanRajalingam
Allow students to use Twitter to go below the "surface" and extract truths about their communities (Luke, 2016).
Provide students with opportunities to understand the differences between representation and reality (Luke, 2015).
Persona!
Students will build their identity as responsible citizens and manage their class reputation by participating in social justice-based initiatives through Twitter.
Critical thinking!
Students will learn how to manage content in order to decide what knowledge is valid.
Students will be tasked with incorporating multiple perspectives and viewpoints within their social justice-based inquiry projects.
Students will learn how to develop appropriate research questions and navigate various informational systems in order to better understand their topic.
Students will be required to think of solutions to real world problems.
Social Justice-Based Inquiry Projects
Learning centres the voices of students.
A framework for using Twitter in the class to promote social justice.
https://www.learningforjustice.org/classroom-resources/student-tasks/do-something/tweeting-for-change
Tweeting CHANGE!
Positions students as "experts" by allowing them to draw on their lived experiences.
Questions may be used to jump start students in their social justice-based inquiry projects.
Questions from Chanicka et al. (2018). An inclusive design for Canada schooling as a process for participatory democracyandresponsible citizenship, Intercultural Education, 29:5-6, 632-646, DOI: 10.1080/14675986.2018.1508620
How might we learn from the past to shape a better future?
How does one’s social identity impact the ways they experience the world?
How can we make sure the rights of everyone in our community are met?
Who am I?
Students and teachers act as co-learners by sourcing out information to "answer" students burning questions about various inequalities.
Bruce Picower’s (2012) Six
Elements of Social Justice Education (SJE)
Self-Love and Knowledge
Respect for Others
Issues of Social Injustice,
Social Movements and Social Change
Awareness Raising
Social Action
https://usingtheirwords.org/6elements/
Culturally responsive teaching.
Students learn about their own identities and others.
Students search for truths and question historical implications.
https://www.edutopia.org/article/connecting-content-students-lives-boost-engagement
Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario's (ETFO) areas for social justice.
https://www.etfo.ca/socialjusticeunion
Anti-oppression
2SLGBTQ+
Anti-Asian Racism
Anti-Black Racism
Antisemitism
Climate Change
Disability
Indigenous Issues
Womens Issues
Islamophobia
Additional helpful resources.
Kessler, S., & Swadener, B. B. (2020). Educating for social justice in early childhood (Kessler & B. B. Swadener, Eds.). Routledge.
Kavanagh, A.M., Waldron, F., & Mallon, B. (Eds.). (2021). Teaching for Social Justice and Sustainable Development Across the Primary Curriculum (1st ed.). Routledge.
https://doi-org.proxy1.lib.uwo.ca/10.4324/9781003003021•
• McDermott, V. (2017). We must say no to the status quo: educators as allies in the battle for social justice. Corwin A SAGE Company.
Digital Tools
Prezi for sharing project.
https://prezi.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vCkvy4Gvqw8
Twitter!
How to use twitter -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-2Xomw92TQ&ab_channel=InsiderTech
Potential Teacher Twitter Account -
https://twitter.com/MsSilvasClass
Twitter requires that a person must be at least 13 years old to create an account, unless they have parental consent.
The teacher must manage the Twitter account and require consent from parents/guardians so students may post (under supervision) about the social justice-based inquiry projects they are engaging in.
Inform parents that digital media learning environments positively impact students by allowing them to communicate and work collaboratively. Engaging with Twitter will allow students to interact and publish with peers and other experts in the field!