The ‘My Media, My Power, My World’ Project is funded by the Holistic Think Tank, a non-profit organisation. The purpose is to create an international interdisciplinary school subject (IDS) for children aged 6-12, which provides students with opportunities to learn:
How to confront themselves with challenges;
How to function in relation to the world and nature, as well as with one’s own body;
The ideas of science and scholarship (learning);
How to function in society;
Aesthetic and cultural awareness;
How to function in variable contexts and environments;
Entrepreneurship;
Interpersonal communication;
Self-development.
The project team includes PIs Dr Ryan Bramley and Dr Sabine Little from the School of Education, Research Assistants Hannah Raine and Adeline Choo, and Digital Media Officer Sheida Tanhai.
Some of the project team members provided a reflection on their role in this ongoing project and what it means to them.
I've been interested in children's education for quite a while now - as a Lecturer in Education at the University of Sheffield, it's pretty much part of my job title! But I'd never had the chance to actually work on primary curriculum development before. So, when I saw that Holistic Think Tank (a non-profit education organisation based in Poland) were looking for partners to develop a new interdisciplinary school subject that could be taught to children internationally, I jumped at the opportunity. Besides: the worst they could say to my application was "no"!
I initially devised a project that would create a space for primary school children to engage critically with digital media material (from online news stories to YouTube videos) that were relevant to each school's local, regional and national contexts. The idea was that the subject would adopt an inquiry-based learning approach, creating a series of scenarios for 6-12 year old pupils to engage with that would help them to better understand their place in the world through digital citizenship. I was also keen on pupils having the opportunity to create media of their own in response to the scenarios they encounter - promoting stories and narratives that are of interest to them (and through the process, learning a set of invaluable practical media production skills).
It's safe to say the 'My Media, My Power, My World' project has evolved quite a bit since then! After getting through the first round of Holistic Think Tank's funding process, Dr Sabine Little joined the team - bringing with her a wealth of experience and expertise in multilingualism, social justice, and international education. Then, when we were successfully awarded the funding ($94,502) by Holistic Think Tank, we were fortunate enough to be able to bring two fantastic research associates, Hannah Raine and Adeline Choo, on-board. Adeline and Hannah have taken the project to the next level, generating some excellent educational content in liaison with our youth advisory panels (more on them later!) We're also really lucky to have Sheida Tanhai working with us as our Digital Media Officer- her graphic designs and illustrations have really brought our interdisciplinary school subject to life.
We're trying to create an interdisciplinary primary school subject that children would actually want to engage with - so who better to advise us on what to include in our lessons than the children themselves! We have established two youth advisory panels: one based at a local school which has operated on a face-to-face basis; the other working with pupils across a variety of schools who have met with us online (via video call). This combination of face-to-face and virtual participatory methodologies has enabled us to engage with a relatively broad range of young people in a short space of time.
We have run a series of focus group-style sessions with both panels, inviting responses to themes that our 'My Media, My Power, My World' subject attempts to cover. For example, in our 'Social Media as a Force for Change' session, we asked the young people:
What social media do you use and what do you use it for?
How can social media be used as a force for change?
What are the potential dangers of social media - and how can we keep ourselves safe whilst online?
What kind of things should young people know to be able to use social media safely, powerfully, and purposefully?
We're still going through the audio data from both panels, but the preliminary findings from our engagement with the young advisors has already had a significant influence on the content of the 'My Media, My Power, My World' subject. For example, we learned from the face-to-face panel that not every child understands the meaning of the term "informed consent" - something that we focus on particularly in relation to social media usage (e.g. children needing to be 13 years of age in order to have a Facebook account).
We will be delivering our package of lessons for the 'My Media, My Power, My World' subject to Holistic Think Tank by the end of August 2022. Our hope is that this subject will be sufficiently accessible and relevant to primary school educators that it can be easily implemented within existing international curricular frameworks.
Once we've delivered the subject to Holistic Think Tank, we intend to write at least two journal articles that disseminate our research findings to a broader academic audience. In particular, I believe that our experience of working with two youth advisory panels, in order to generate the sort of subject that children want to engage in, might be of use to fellow researchers in the field of curriculum development.
One of my responsibilities in this project, alongside my job-share partner Adeline Choo, is to create a series of activities focused around the identified Key Competencies (above). We work together to identify topics of interest that match them and create lesson plans that would reflect children's interests and enhance their skills, providing an opportunity to learn and explore their world in the process. Our colleague, Digital Media Officer Sheida Tanhai, then uses our plans to create interactive media resources that support these lessons.
My second responsibility is to coordinate face-to-face Young Advisory Panel meetings. I contacted schools to arrange times to visit and meet with children from Years 3-6. I planned, carried out and led these sessions, transcribing them afterwards and using the results of those conversations to drive forward the activities for the project. This has by far been my favourite part of the project so far.
I am a former early years and primary school teacher, as well as a former teacher of English to speakers of other languages, and children with different learning needs. These experiences have left me with a strong interest in the way different children learn, what they like to learn, what is important to them and why- and how can we find that out?
I’m particularly interested in making it possible for children to be a part of research in a way that is enjoyable, interesting and valuable for them. I want to try and figure out how to make research accessible for children with different ways of communicating with adults and I hope that being a part of this project will give an opportunity to do that. Children are a wealth of knowledge and they know what is important to them, and I believe that any project that seeks to have an impact on children's lives should provide an opportunity for children to direct the choices that are made. Children are smart, sensitive and capable of expressing themselves honestly and authentically in a wide variety of ways, when given the opportunity and scaffolding to do so.
I am also a part-time PhD student within the School of Education in the University of Sheffield and my research interests are focused on understanding marginalised literacy practices in the context of a narrow pedagogical framework in the teaching of early reading. My research will seek to work alongside teachers, children and their families to explore what reading means to them, who is a reader, and how is it possible to know. I am really interested in the ways it is possible to empower teachers to provide lessons that support critical thinking skills, particularly related to topics such as Critical Digital Literacy.
I’m really excited about the potential to bring the children involved in both online and face to face panels to writing up the research, and be a part of improving future participatory research with children in school. I’m hopeful there will be lessons learned and really good strategies for working with children in a way that they want to learn.
I also am really excited about being part of the creation of interaction, creative and inventive learning activities for children- and to see them used in the classroom around the world would be incredibly rewarding.
My role in this project is to produce digital media to support the lesson plans that make up the interdisciplinary subject. Working with the lesson plans created by Research Associates Hannah Raine and Adeline Choo, I identify and create useful graphics, presentations, and worksheets to compliment the activities and lessons for primary school aged children.
Having a background of working with young people and children and a professional background in media and content creation has really influenced my work on this project. It has been especially important for me to create images and media that is representative and accessible for everyone. With the understanding that this subject is to be accessible by students and teachers from all countries something that is very important to me has been creating these drawn characters and digital artwork portraying people from diverse
backgrounds, ethnicities, abilities, and genders in all types of roles.
It has been so exciting to watch the progress of this project and to be able to offer my skills to bring it to life from a visual standpoint has been such a privilege. To have played a part in the creation of this important and influential subject for young people is so exciting.