We completed the Cyber Civics unit on Ethical Thinking last week. This series of lessons explored how to apply the student's emerging ethical thinking skills to a digital world. Many young people seem tech-savvy, but that doesn’t necessarily mean their brains are ready to make wise choices online. According to developmental psychologists, it takes children about twelve years of life to fully develop the cognitive structures that enable them to engage in ethical thinking. Before then it’s difficult, if not impossible, for children to fully grasp the consequences of their online behavior. That’s why we engage students in activities that help them practice ethical thinking. In the prior units, I assigned art-focused main lesson pages in an attempt to deepen the classroom discussions through drawing. Based on feedback from parents and students, I switched gears this week and made artistic pages optional. My goal is that the students understand the concepts and take the ideas in on a meaningful level, and for many of the students, the pressure to deliver beautiful pages was distracting from that goal. Here are some suggested at-home activities that will support what they are learning in class if you would like to weave cyber civics into family discussions. Remember, it takes a village to raise thoughtful, ethical, and smart digital citizens and reiteration is key to solidifying these ideas.
Suggested activities for at-home discussion:
The students heard several stories about things that commonly happen between young people online. Afterwards they had to guess whether the main characters in each story were trying to be helpful or hurtful, and whether their actions were unintentional or intentional. Ask them to tell you about one story they analyzed.
Working together, the students came up with “norms” for safe and respectful online behavior. Hopefully these shared agreements will guide them as they interact with friends online. This is a good time for your family to create norms to guide your online behavior too (like asking one another’s permission before posting family photos online; or agreeing that no devices should be brought to the dinner table, etc.). Talk with your children about some online norms that your family might agree upon.
Knowing how to communicate properly online and how to distinguish the norms appropriate for different types of online communication are important skills for digital citizens. The students learned that regardless of how they send an electronic message, via text, email, tweet, or on social media, there are three general guidelines to keep in mind. Ask them to tell you one of these guidelines and discuss.
End-of-year Projects
Since our switch to distance learning last month, I've grappled to come up with a meaningful way to maximize at-home learning time and allow the students to finish out the school year with a sense of accomplishment. Out of this rumination, I decided to assign a year-end project that would allow the students to dive deeply into a topic that interests them. The students will be responsible for delivery of a writing assignment, a visual presentation, and an oral presentation of their project topic. For the written and visual components, students have the option of a paper-based deliverable or an online submission using word processing and slideshow applications. I will provide guidelines for time management and have offered one-on-one sessions to help with planning and topic refinement. This project will be good preparation for their 8th grade projects which will be a yearlong undertaking of a culminating project with a mentor relationship. It is my hope that this mini-project will be student directed and not require tremendous parent support. If this is not the case for your family, please let me know and we can modify the assignment to a more manageable level.
Learning objectives for this project:
-Setting and following timelines
-Gathering and organizing materials
-Practicing research skills and research paper writing
-Learning something entirely new, or developing an existing skill or interest to a new level of expertise or depth
-Building public speaking skills
Please contact me if you have any questions or your child is feeling stressed out by assignments. We're all still working to manage expectations in this environment, and I'm sensitive to the varying levels of stress amongst households.