(2018-07-26) Spencer Why Journalism Might Actually Be The Class Of The Future

John Spencer: Why Journalism Might Actually Be the Class of the Future. I’d argue that one of the most relevant subjects for developing a maker mindset is actually journalism

my students HATED writing

I realized that they didn’t hate writing. They hated fake writing. They hated writing in school

So, I pitched an idea. “We are going to run an online magazine. We can do videos and podcasts. We can write articles. You get to choose the topics.”

At first, they still hated it.

something changed two weeks later when they saw their work online

For the rest of the year, this writing intervention class morphed into a journalism class. They called our blog Social Voice.

The next year, we began using a PBL approach and added elements of design thinking as a way to start with empathy and eventually design media packages that we would launch to a specific audience.

if you ask people what type of technology skills students will need in the future, you’ll hear things like digital citizenship, media literacy, and creative thinking. Unfortunately, schools tend to teach these topics in isolation, as if they exist in separate little buckets

But journalism takes the buckets and mixes them all together

Digital journalism takes media literacy a step further

Instead of stopping at critical reading, students learn how to construct critically.

When they engage in the creative act of journalism, they gain a better understanding of how people produce media and construct informational texts.

side of the maker mindset that is rooted in context. It’s what happens when students engage in inquiry and problem-solving by looking at things from multiple perspectives. It’s what happens when students become master curators (Curation).

It’s what happens when they learn what it means to send their work to an authentic audience

*When students own the entire publishing process, they think creatively and develop a maker mindset. They find their creative voice.

They become makers.*

But Isn’t Journalism a Dying Industry?

we still teach P.E. despite the fact that most kids will not become professional athletes

We still teach music even when cities are cutting their symphony and opera programs

We do these things because they help students learn how to think differently.

I believe the best way to prepare students for the future is to empower them in the present.