Teaching Digital Literacy

 In a modern world teaching and technology go hand in hand along with other aspects of life. But how do we as teachers help our students prepare for this integration and help them use the technology to the very best of their ability while keeping in mind all of the fake news that is out there and keep them as non-bias and as open minded as possible when it comes to day to day research on topics. The webinar "Teaching Digital Literacy" goes into how we as educators can make these things happen for our students.

The Webinar goes into discussing how there are many types of bias that can happen in the world especially on the internet. We as humans have cognitive bias and also confirmation bias. Cognitive Bias is what our brains will do by default. We will do things on impulse or without really thinking to much or at all about the situation we are in. Confirmation bias is when believe things that further confirm something that we already thought or believed in. So for example on the internet, students, teachers and everyone are more likely to click on a link to say a news article and believe that article to be true if we already have some prior knowledge of the situation and the article just further confirms that idea that we had beforehand. Another way that confirmation bias is shown is on social media. We are more likely to react to a post or like a post if we already have previous knowledge on the situation and the post further confirms what we were already thinking about or have previously believed.

We as teachers also often want students to make connections to patterns that aren't completely obvious. Apophenia is seeing patterns where patterns are not normally to be seen. Our brains are wired to make meaningful connections to things that are around them. However, we as teachers want to make sure students learn to not confuse understanding with familiarity. So in other words make sure our students are comprehending something say when we repeat instructions everyday and not just completely getting used to the prior knowledge that they have been given.

We as teachers also need to educate our students to know that the first result that they yield from say a google search may not be the correct answer and may in fact be bias and skewed in some sort of way. People have discovered how they can manipulate the situation in order to yield certain posts, links, articles, videos and pictures to come up first whenever people search for related things. So we as educators need to inform our students that the first thing that the search results yield is not always the most accurate information.

We as educators need to think of the internet as a potentially dangerous place for our students to be on. The internet has the potential to be full of things like hate speech, vulnerability to conspiracy theories, and information inequality. Information inequality meaning that some students have access to less platforms of media then others and can't take in a wide range of news media and can only take in what they are exposed to.

As educators we can recognize and decode bias in our students. We can look at our own teaching sources closely with students to determine if they are bias or not. We can also find websites and resources to create our own fake news articles for students in order to help them better detect and recognize what fake new sources look like. By doing these things we can allow for our students to be more open minded in a society that is fueled by the online world.

LGBTQ Inclusion in the Classroom and Being an Ally as an Educator

 What does it mean to be an LGBTQ ally? What does it mean for us as educators? The webinar "LGBTQ Best Practices: Classroom Culture and Curriculum" it goes into discussing what it means to make students who are in the LGBTQ community to feel more included and let them know your classroom is a safe space for them to be themselves.

How can we do this? There are a number of things we can do as educators to make our LGBTQ students feel included and allow for their ally peers to become even more of an ally.

• Start the class by sharing your pronouns and also having students share their name along with their own pronouns
• Ask for students and anyone else in the classroom what their pronouns are (Don't assume pronouns)
• Use they pronoun when when addressing all students (everyone is included where as things like boys and girls may make some students who don't identify with either feel left out)
• You can even ask pronouns in a student survey at the beginning of the year
• Representation of what you are reading, writing or discussing (either the character or author) in the LGBTQ community
• Posters around the classroom can also help with the representation of the LGBTQ community
• Create ground rules when talking about the LGBTQ community (Such as no negative comments or statements) (Can also, create a student signed contract to enforce this policy)
• Give students proper language to use when they may be confused about certain things such as pronouns
• Never let a homophobic or transphobic remark go uninterrupted
• Never present someone's identity as up for debate
• respond to myths surrounding the LGBTQ community with facts about the community

By doing these things students who are a part of the community feel more included and will be able to recognize your classroom as being a safe space for them. Also, by doing this you are allowing for other students to grow in their understanding  of the community, stay respectful of peers and create allies to the community.

What Happens when we miss gender someone, witness someone else miss gender someone, or a homophobic/transphobic comment is made? These issues may come up in your classroom and the webinar also goes into discussing what we as educators can do to correct the situation.

• If we miss gender someone: Apologize and correct yourself but don't over apologize (if more needs to be said it should be done as a one on one with the person and not a public issue)
• If you notice someone else miss gender someone: You can correct the pronoun in the moment (by rephrasing or repeating what the person said but using the correct pronoun), or continue the conversation and use correct pronouns
• If a negative comment is made (Transphobic/homophobic):  Never let it go uninterrupted (even if it is just a brief interruption to signal to the person that the comment was not okay)
• If religion is brought up: make sure students understand that religion is not an excuse to harass someone else

Overall, by using these tools we can make for a more inclusive classroom setting when it comes to LGBTQ communities and being allies. We as educators can model correct and positive behavior surrounding this topic and also have the tools to correct any negative (intentional or unintentional) behavior that may come about in the classroom. 

Student's Mental Health Matters

 The Webinar  "Student Mental Health Matters" goes into discussing students and how their mental health can affect them in not only the classroom but also in the world. The webinar also, discusses the ways in which we can be more responsible as educators and how we can help take care of our students mentally and provide them with resources that they may need.

The first big and key takeaways are how common mental health issues are in the students that we are teaching. The webinar discusses that one in five children, ages three to seventeen, have a mental, emotional, or behavioral disability. There also, is the discussion of how students of color have suicide rates that are twice the amount as their white peers. This shows that students who struggle with their  mental health is something that is very common to have in the classroom.

But what can we as educators do? We can educate ourselves as educators and provide other educators with mental health first aid training. We can make sure schools have unified mental health teams featuring a school psychologist, school social worker, and the school's counseling staff to work alongside the teachers. We can work to educate ourselves, educate the families in the schools, and work to remove the negative stigma around one's mental health. We can also give students of all ages the frameworks and language to discuss their mental health in a safe environment.

What we should not do as educators: We should not be trying to diagnose our students with different mental health issues. We should not be generalizing students problems. We should not be comparing one students problems to another student and or another students problems.

Together by doing things and not doing others to better our students health we can see a more positive change and provide students with what they need in order to be successful in not only the classroom but also, in the future when they are out in the world.