FSOC3021: Digital Literacies in Action

• All students must provide evidence of a successful DBS check before they are permitted onto the module.
• All students must successfully pass an interview to be entered onto the module.

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• To equip students with contemporary academic knowledge about critical digital literacies.
• To engage students in critical thinking and deliberative activities related to their own and others digital practices.
• To explore and critically reflect on effective curriculum and task design pertaining to digital literacies.
• To enhance students' digital literacies and practical knowledge and experience by enabling teaching and mentoring opportunities within a community setting.
• To include students in the development, management, and execution of research-driven practices via a community placement.
• To promote the cultivation of reflexivity and critical assessment of students placement experiences.

• The content of the module is focused on the following key areas:
• The tenets of digital culture
• Critical pedagogy principles
• The role of dialogue, deliberation and reasoning within curriculum and task design
• Key digital literacies
• The module will also scaffold the practices of:
• Reflexivity and reflexive writing
• The role of critical theory
• Ethics of working with young people and external audiences
• Teaching responsibilities

Subject-specific Knowledge:

• By the end of this module students should be able to:
• Identify issues associated with key digital literacies and the practices associated with them
• Define digital literacies through a critical perspective
• Differentiate between functional and cultural understandings of digital literacies
• Design learning activities that engage their audiences in dialogue, reasoning and deliberative experiences
• Appraise critical research pertaining to digital practices
• Write reflexively about their practicum experience.

Subject-specific Skills:

• By the end of this module students should be able to:
• Apply theory to practice
• Reflect critically about the professional contexts and their placement experiences
• Contribute to community learning through engagement with relevant target audiences.

Key Skills:

• By the end of this module, students should be able to:
• Read and think critically and independently
• Develop critical inquiry
• Work collaboratively
• Analyse, synthesise, evaluate, identify and deconstruct issues, norms and practices
• Construct and sustain a reasoned argument
• Develop study and research skills, information retrieval, and the capacity to plan and manage learning, and to reflect on own learning
• Use written and spoken communication skills.

• The module learning, teaching and assessment strategy is designed to provide students with practice-based learning opportunities, providing them with key graduate attributes acquired within community settings and engagement with different audiences. The module bridges conceptual knowledge with practice through the combination of classroom and placement-based learning opportunities.
• Workshops: Workshops will provide important spaces for discussion and experimentation of conceptual knowledge. They will support students to develop knowledge and confidence to complete the practical component of the project. The workshops will also provide support for assessment tasks.
• Tutorials: Group tutorials will be offered to students to support them during the placement process. This also allows for regular contact to be maintained between module tutors and students, to ensure that work is progressing as planned and students are supported while working away from campus.
• The Placement: A 20-hour placement (over five placement sessions) in an approved school, working with young people on the development of key digital literacy issues. Teaching sessions organised within the schools will take place on Wednesday afternoons. A mentor will be identified within the school who will take responsibility for ensuring the students are welcomed and supported.
• Independent Study - Readings and preparation for placement: Students will engage in independent activities to develop key skills and knowledge relating to the topics explored in their placement as well as a way to engage with the module learning outcomes and assessments. Scaffolding activities will be put in place to support students with their independent learning.
• Summative Assessment - Project Output: Creation of infographic representing understanding of a key digital literacy PLUS accompanying guidance document explaining its use. This guidance document will be addressed to a key target audience (e.g. briefing for teachers in schools or Local Authorities, a letter to parents, etc.).

Students will be asked to collaboratively annotate a bibliography for each digital literacy theme they will study, obtaining verbal feedback from tutors of the readings they have been doing. The students will also be asked to submit a 300-word document of reflective notes for each of five placement visits which will be discussed in tutorials. During the last workshop, students will have an opportunity to discuss their infographic with their tutors for verbal feedback.

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