ML3: Librarians as Leaders for Media Literacy

How can we support all students to develop habits of critical thinking about all media messages?  When will our overwhelmed teachers find the precious time to integrate media literacy?  And who can lead this work in schools across the nation?  These are the essential questions behind the ML3 initiative – Librarians as Leaders of Media Literacy.

Constructivist Media Decoding

ML3 emerged from the work of Project Look Sharp (PLS), a not-for-profit media literacy initiative based at Ithaca College that was founded by Cyndy Scheibe, Chris Sperry and others in 1996.  PLS provides all educators with free standards-aligned lessons for integrating student-centered, question-based media analysis into all subjects and levels of K-12 instruction.  PLS has codified a classroom methodology for leading media analysis that we call Constructivist Media Decoding (CMD).  Through the process of CMD, educators lead students through the analysis and evaluation of engaging media documents – from books to blogs, films clips to Tik Tok  posts – by asking questions that are aligned to specific curricular and media literacy objectives.  In leading a media decoding activity, educators have students apply core content, learn key concepts, and reflect on their own thinking. The CMD process shifts teaching and learning from a teacher-centered, didactic approach to a constructivist approach that acknowledges that students construct their own meaning, they learn best from each other, and that they should be the most active agents in media analysis – and their learning in general.

For two decades Project Look Sharp has been providing educators with free media decoding lessons that enable CMD at all levels and subjects.  This highly-interactive and engaging approach enables educators to address their key subject area standards and content while also teaching students critical thinking habits.  

Example of a Search for elementary level health lessons on nutrition.

As an example of a media decoding lesson for teaching nutrition to 1^st graders, a teacher can present a cereal box or commercial for Froot Loops and ask, Do you think there is fruit in this cereal?  By following up students’ affirmative comments the teacher can ask, What makes you think that?  After students give evidence from the document (the fruit on the packaging) the teacher can ask, It shows fruit on the package, but how can we find out if there really is fruit in Froot Loops?  After an introduction to the nutritional label, the teacher can shift from their nutrition objectives to media literacy objectives by asking, Why would the makers of Froot Loops want you to think there is fruit in it if there is not?   This discussion helps students understand advertisers’ intent, marketing strategies, and the “tricks” often used to fool consumers.

Example of a Search for high school history lessons on “Native Americans”

For a high school U.S. history class students can be shown different textbook excerpts and short video histories about the Trail of Tears, from different time periods, producers (including Native filmmakers), and through different voices.  After probing for application of knowledge about the event (e.g., What messages are given here about the Trail of Tears?), the teacher asks about the representation of history, e.g., Is one of these histories more accurate or more biased than the others?  Why might different teachers, schools or states choose one version of history over the other?  How might our own identities influence how we see these different representations?  

Like the two examples above, all 800+ of PLS’ free media decoding lessons, address teachers’ concerns about “adding” media literacy to the curriculum – and instead use media decoding to teach to their core content and standards in an engaging, relevant, and effective way for a diverse range of learners.  

Shifting Teaching Practice

The shift from teachers delivering knowledge to teachers facilitating learning is not an easy one for many educators. In a 2005 evaluation of the use of PLS lessons, Dr. Renee Hobbs observed that even with PLS’s question-based lessons, teachers who had no training in CMD tended to use the media documents as examples or illustrations of what they wanted students to see rather than as prompts for collective analysis. To address this, PLS has added to its website 20+ short, annotated demonstration videos of classroom decoding for all levels and diverse subjects (see Demonstration Videos on the PLS homepage).  Even more effective have been face-to-face trainings and online courses in CMD.  But the most effective way for educators to make this shift to inquiry-based media decoding has been through ongoing CMD practice, ideally, with reflection and feedback (PLS has protocols for PD practice decoding with colleagues).  

Over the last two decades PLS has developed the lessons and professional development approaches that enable educators to integrate media analysis into all curriculum areas and levels, but we did not have a workable plan for scaling up this work.  From the start we were committed to providing our lessons and online PD resources to all educators for free through grant funding.  But this mission-driven approach limited our budget for promoting CMD.   Our lessons and approach were continually a revelation for educators, who often commented, “How come I did not know about these resources?” 

We clearly needed an approach and collaborators for sharing these media literacy resources and pedagogy with all educators through grass-roots advocacy.  But who could we collaborate with that is in every school, already has a commitment to media literacy, and that can play a leadership role with both students and teachers?  Once we established this essential question, it did not take us long to see that school librarians are our natural partners in this work.  

Librarians as Media Literacy Leaders

School librarians are the information literacy experts.  They often build relationships with all students in their schools, across many years.  They have relationships with all educators in their buildings and awareness of all curricular areas.  They are trained in the pedagogy of inquiry.  They have deep experience in collaboration.  They should be in the position to provide curricular and instructional support to their colleagues.  And, school librarians have the commitment to being the guardians of well-reasoned thinking about credibility, sourcing, and truth. 

In 2021 Project Look Sharp had the opportunity to propose a capacity-building grant to the Booth Ferris Foundation to scale up our work throughout New York State.  We immediately looked to school librarians and entered into a partnership with the New York State School Library Systems Association (SLSA).  Together with SLSA we were able to develop a plan for the integration of critical thinking habits about all media messages for students in schools across New York State through the leadership of K-12 public school librarians.

In July 2021, PLS received the grant.  The pilot initiative selected 19 K-12 librarians, library system directors, and coordinators (from over 100 applicants) who reflected the diversity of schools and librarians across all regions of NY state.  The ML3 librarians began their training (starting with 2-day workshops in the fall of 2021) to become leaders of CMD in their schools and regions. The grant also included funding for evaluation, documentation, outreach, and networking statewide for scalability.

Each librarian participated in monthly individual coaching (by ML3 Coordinator and long-time librarian educator, Susan Allen), monthly cohort meetings on Zoom, and a weekend retreat in Ithaca in July 2022.  They each crafted an ongoing integration plan, led practice decodings, and gave continual feedback on the initiative including through confidential surveys. The ML3 staff (Chris Sperry, Susan Allen, and Cyndy Scheibe) met regularly with an ML3 Advisory Group made up of the leadership of the NYS School Library Systems, filmmaker Rhys Daunic and the ML3 evaluator, Faith Rogow.

New Resources for ML3

One goal of the initiative was to collaborate with librarians to identify and create the materials that would enable them to effectively integrate media analysis in their schools and to promote this approach to their teachers and administrators.  Based on the feedback from the ML3 participants, the Advisory Committee, and school librarians across New York State, we have recently added the following new resources to the PLS website:

Results of the Initiative

The 2-year ML3 initiative with our 19 participants was more successful than we anticipated in shifting their practice towards student-centered, question-driven instruction.  The formal evaluation of the initiative was conducted by media literacy expert Faith Rogow, based on feedback after each training workshop, coaches’ notes after individual coaching and practice decoding sessions, extensive questionnaires, individual videotaped exit interviews, and a final Zoom session with all of the librarians where everyone was invited to comment on their experiences and our plans for scaling up this work

Dr. Rogow summarized the results of the initiative in her formal report for the Booth Ferris Foundation. Among her conclusions:

• As a result of the design and content of PLS training and coaching, almost ¾ of ML3’s school librarians made a profound shift in their teaching practice, from teacher-centered information delivery to student-centered inquiry. This change influenced everything they taught, not just CMD.

• During CMD lessons, more students than normal engaged in discussion, and they displayed deeper analysis and critical thinking skills.

• The 19 ML3 librarians reached more than 3,500 students with CMD lessons that they led or that resulted from collaborations with teachers. 

• ML3 participants embraced CMD enthusiastically enough to want to share its methods with peers, and they had the skills and opportunities to do so. Their presentations about CMD reached more than 1,500 teachers and library professionals across New York State.

Dr. Rogow’s qualitative analysis of the librarians’ comments in the questionnaires and interviews demonstrated their deep reflection on, and appreciation for, the skills and approaches acquired through this training and their follow-up work in their libraries and classrooms:

“This has completely changed how I approach my job…I’ve realized how many of my questions were accidentally very biased. So, using a constructive media decoding approach…changed how students were responding, and it was better. More open-ended questions; more student-centered.”

“I have learned how to ask better questions to push students to think deeper.”

“It’s made me more thoughtful and self-reflective. Even if I loved a lesson I’ve done in the past, I spend time thinking of ways to make it better using techniques I learned in PLS.”

And many reported that they now apply to their new skills to everything they teach:

“I feel like I’m a better teacher all around. The questioning strategies that we were taught and use helps me whether I’m teaching library or media skills or I’m teaching social studies. Or if I’m just trying to get a kid to provide me with evidence in their thinking, just helping kids learn how to think or to figure out what it is they’re asking or what it is that they’re looking for.”

“The media literacy content remains pertinent. It’s current all the time.”

“It’s a life skill more than an academic skill; it encourages higher order thinking skills.”

Dr. Rogow also noted that the librarians participating in the initiative had less success than anticipated in providing PD for the teachers in their schools and for other librarians, at least at the time the final evaluation was conducted.  This may be because many librarians need to practice the CMD and media literacy work on their own before they feel confident to train other teachers and librarians.  We plan to collect another round of feedback and assessment one year after the ML3 initiative was completed to see if that may be the case.  Librarians also identified a number of roadblocks that got in their way when trying to implement higher levels of PD (or even support the work of teachers in their buildings), including unsupportive administrators, limited schedules, and busy teachers with little time for collaboration.  Addressing those obstacles will be a focus of our future work in scaling up the ML3 work across the U.S.

Conclusions

The ML3 initiative achieved far more than we had hoped in preparing librarians to be media literacy leaders in their schools.  The initiative shows that the CMD approach prompts shifts in teaching practice to be more inquiry-based, engaging, and effective with all students.  And ML3 nourished librarians’ deep desire to collaborate on this critical mission.  As discussed in the Evaluation Report, the initiative was less successful in enabling all ML3 trained librarians to systematically deliver quality PD to their teachers.  This will be a focus in our continuing work.

Nationwide ML3

In August of 2023 PLS, in partnership with the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) and in collaboration with the National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE), received a 2-year planning grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS) to develop a nationwide plan for school librarians to engage with the training, resources and support they need to be leaders of media analysis in their schools. The planning grant will fund research on the opportunities and challenges for adapting the existing NY State ML3 initiative to all 50 states including assessing and revising our hybrid course, PD approaches, promotional videos, and other resources.  We will develop partnerships from diverse states and organizations for future implementation.  We will address the needs of diverse communities, especially under-resourced schools and marginalized populations. 

The 2-year ML3 project will culminate in a written plan to support school librarians nationwide to collaborate with their teachers to integrate media analysis into curriculum and instruction.  The relationships, partnerships, networking, and shared work of this grant will link the fields of media literacy education and school library services to prepare all students with habits of critical thinking about all media messages.