Faculty of Education EDUC5199G: Youth, Media, and Popular Culture Course outline for Summer 2015 1. Course Details & Important Dates* Term Status Course Type S Location
Graduate CRN #
Online • • • • •
Day
Time
Tuesday
6pm to 9pm
Classes Start
Classes End
Final Exam Period
June 29, 2015
August 13, 2015
N/A
for other important dates go to: www.uoit.ca > Current Students > Important Dates and Deadlines Course Web Page on Weebly: http://uoit-educ5199g.weebly.com Student Login Page for Personal Blogs: http://students.weebly.com/ Adobe Connect: TBA Course Wiki: https://educ5199g.wikispaces.com/
2. Instructor Contact Information Instructor Name Office Carolyn Guertin N/A
Phone 647-771-1335
Email
[email protected]
Office Hours: By Appointment Online through Skype: carolyn_guertin 3. Course Description This course is positioned at the intersection of education, popular culture, and youth experiences. It explores questions concerning the social construction of youth, parents, and teachers; knowledge and power in schools and in media; representations of social identities; and access to particular media and technologies within social spaces. Students use theoretical and research texts to critically analyze popular media, including films, digital media (including games and music), and television shows. Inquiry will explore the complex relationships between identity, performance, representation, consumption, power, knowledge, authority, and culture with the objective of with how schools can incorporate media and popular culture in ways that contribute to student success.
4. Learning Outcomes On the successful completion of the course, students will be able to: • Identify, describe and discuss key features of popular culture in fiction, film, television, games, the web, and in the classroom, and examine its impact for youth and adult learning. • Critically evaluate pop culture materials and online resources for their role in shaping youth, communication and socially constructed knowledge. • Develop skills and practices to assess, analyze, design, and theorize popular culture in a variety of media, including text, images, comics, games, audio and video. • Be able to understand and apply theories and practices of popular culture in adult learning contexts, both formal and informal • Design a mockup of a unit in his/her teaching area utilizing popular culture materials and educational theory as discussed in the course. 5. Course Design • Students will participate in a 2-3 hour synchronous online class once a week for 7 weeks • Students will also participate in asynchronous sessions 5 times throughout the term • The course website will be used extensively as a guide for students in this course. • Blackboard will be used to for downloading materials and uploading assignments • The majority of the classes will consist of a series of small group discussions, student presentations, and activities to discuss and apply key principles and learning goals • Meetings with students will occur over the phone or using Skype. Instructor’s contact info is carolyn_guertin 6. Outline of Topics in the Course Week by Week June 30 | Week 1: Lesson 1 • Why Popular Culture? Readings: William M. Reynolds, Ed. “Why Popular Culture Matters” Popular Culture. (28 Jan 12): http://bit.ly/1B25znl Jill Walker Rettberg, “Filtered Reality,” Seeing Ourselves Through Technology, Berkshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. (Free for Kindle: http://amzn.to/1HkIopA) July 2 | Week 1: Lesson 2: Media Currency (Asynchronous) Reading: David Wong and Danah Hendricksen, “If Ideas WERE Fashion.” Mirror Images. Diana Silberman-Keller et al, Eds. Pp. 179-198. Watch: a school-themed episode of The Simpsons: http://simpsons.wikia.com/wiki/Category:Education-themed_episodes July 7 | Week 2: Lesson 1: Media Spaces Reading: Virginia Funes. “Advertising and Consumerism: A Space for Pedagogical Practice” Mirror Images. Pp. 159-177. July 9 | Week 2: Lesson 2: Media Spaces (Asynchronous) Reading: Robert Saunders. “Imperial Imaginaries: Employing Science Fiction to Talk About Geopolitics.” Popular Culture and World Politics. Caso and Hamilton, Eds. Pp. 149-159.
July 14 | Week 3: Lesson 1: Bricoleurs and Fans Readings: Henry Jenkins. “Fan Activism as Participatory Politics: The Case of the Harry Potter Alliance.” DIY Citizenship. Eds. Matt Ratto and Megan Boler. Cambridge: MIT, 2015. Pp. 65-73. Robert Kirkman and Tony Moore. The Walking Dead #1: Special Edition. Berkeley, CA: Image Comics. (May 2008). Comic book. July 16 | Week 3: Lesson 2: Bricoleurs and Fans (choose ONE reading; asynchronous) Allison S. Henward, and Laurie MacGillivray. “Bricoleurs in preschool: girls poaching horror media and gendered discourses.” Gender and Education. Vol 26. Issue #7 (Nov 2014): Pp. 726-742. Alison Happel-Parkins and Jennifer Esposito. “Using Popular Culture Texts in the Classroom to Interrogate Issues of Gender Transgression Related Bullying.” Educational Studies 51(1): (2015): Pp 3–16. July 21 | Week 4: The Social Life of Culture Karen Anijar. Teaching Toward the 24th Century: Star Trek as Social Curriculum (Pedagogy and Popular Culture). New York : Falmer Press, 2003. Access through library collection: http://books1.scholarsportal.info.uproxy.library.dcuoit.ca/viewdoc.html?id=/ebooks/ebooks2/taylorandfrancis/2013-03-10/1/9780203011300 Reading: CHAPTER 4 Klingon as Curriculum: Militias, Minstrel Shows, & Other Language Games; CHAPTER 5 Resistance Is Futile: You Will Be Assimilated into the Predatory Jungle; and CHAPTER 6 On Top of Old Mount Olympus, All Covered with Trek, or Mama, Don’t Let Your Trekker Grow Up to Be Fascist. (Pp 142-230) July 28 | Week 5: Lesson 1: Social Justice and DIY Citizenship Readings: Mandy Rose. “Making Publics: Documentary as Do-it-with-Others Citizenship.” DIY Citizenship. Pp. 201-212. Deborah A. Fields, “DIY Media Creation.” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 58(1), (Sept 2014) Pp. 19-24. July 30 | Week 5: Lesson 2: Social Justice and DIY Citizenship (Asynchronous) Reading: Emery Petchauer, “Starting With Style: Toward a Second Wave of Hip-Hop Education Research and Practice,” Urban Education 2015, Vol. 50(1), pp. 78–105. Aug 4 | Week 6: Lesson 1: Mirrors (choose ONE reading) Suzanne de Castell. “Mirror Images: Avatar Aesthetics & Self-Representation in Digital Games.” DIY Citizenship. Pp 213-221. Mark A. McCutcheon, “Downloading Doppelgängers: New media anxieties and transnational ironies in Battlestar Galactica.” Science Fiction Film & Television, Vol 2, Issue 1, (Spr 09) http://auspace.athabascau.ca/bitstream/2149/3106/1/McCutcheon_DownloadingDoppelgangers_SFFTV2-1%2809%29.pdf
Aug 6 | Week 6: Lesson 2: Serious Play (Asynchronous) Kurt Squire. “Critical Education in an Interactive Age,” Mirror Images. Pp. 105-123. Aug 11 | Week 7: Play Readings: Saara Särmä. “Collage: An Art-inspired Methodology for Studying Laughter in World Politics.” Caso and Hamilton, Eds. Pp. 110-119.
7. Required Texts/Readings Anijar, Karen. Teaching Toward the 24th Century: Star Trek as Social Curriculum (Pedagogy and Popular Culture). New York : Falmer Press, 2003. Online OUIT Library (click and login): http://bit.ly/1cXaMBD Caso, Federica and Caitlin Hamilton. Popular Culture and World Politics: Theories, Methods, Pedagogies. Free Download: http://bit.ly/1FAlrMz Matt Ratto and Megan Boler, Eds. DIY Citizenship. Cambridge: MIT, 2014. Hc, Pb, or Kindle.
Recommended Further Reading Daspit, Tony and John A. Weaver (Eds). Popular Culture and Critical Pedagogy: Reading, Constructing, Connecting. New York and London: Routledge, 2000. DuGay, Paul, et al. Doing Cultural Studies: The Story of the Sony Walkman. 2E. London: Sage, 2013. Gee, James Paul. What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. 2E. New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2003. Hunsinger, Jeremy and Aleks Krotoski. Learning and Research in Virtual Worlds. London: Routledge, 2012. Jenkins, Henry. Confronting the Challenge of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 2006. http://bit.ly/1AaI4rc Petchauer, Emery, Ed. “Special Issue Title: Theories, Concepts, and Methods in Hip Hop Education.” Urban Education. January 2015; 50 (1). http://uex.sagepub.com/content/50/1.toc Rettberg, Jill Walker. Seeing Ourselves Through Technology. Berkshire: Palgrave, 2014. Sheldon, Lee. The Multiplayer Classroom: Designing Coursework as a Game. Boston: Course Technology, 2012. Silberman-Keller, Diana, Zvi Bekerman, Henry A. Giroux, and Nicholas C. Burbules (Eds). Mirror Images: Popular Culture and Education. New York: Peter Lang, 2008. Toppo, Greg. The Game Believes in You: How Digital Play Can Make Our Kids Smarter. New York: Palgrave, 2015. Plus other materials as specified in the syllabus, including many online and free digital technologies. Additional readings may be assigned or recommended during the course. Students should use APA style (https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/2/10/).
8. Evaluation Method Evaluation will be based on a variety of criteria including: • in-class participation, production, and collaboration (10%) • weekly activities involving blogs/vlogs, critiques, written summaries, responses, and critical evaluations. (10%) • a 15 minute presentation on a topic related to teaching a class or unit using a specific topic in popular culture. May be performed live or pre-recorded. (Due on date chosen - 30%) • a 12 to 15 page essay on a topic related to popular culture and education (3000 – 3500 words). (Proposal due July 21st; final paper due August 13th: 50%)
Final course grades may be adjusted to conform to program or Faculty grade distribution profiles. Further information on grading can be found in Section 5 of the UOIT Academic Calendar. 9. Assignments 1. Weekly Learning Blog or Vlog. A minimum of 7 reading responses or analyses exploring popular culture and teaching. Your entries should demonstrate deep knowledge of different pedagogical approaches. 250 wds/wk posted to course Weebly site prior to start of each class. Each entry should be a critical response to course materials. An essential part of your learning in this course will be the development of this Learning Blog. Publicly available, it will serve as a primary space for you to reflect, question, comment, critique and share your ideas about what you are learning. By engaging with your peers and the public, you are expanding your horizons as an adult learner and exploring what it means to shape your digital identity. You may post anonymously to the class if you wish, but to receive credit the instructor will need to know the identity of the blog’s author. (10%) 2. Weekly in-class assignments, usually in groups. Attendance is mandatory. If student is unable to attend for documented medical reasons, the instructor and student will agree on an alternate assignment to replace the missed one(s). (10%) 3. A 15-minute presentation with slides or a Prezi on a topic related to teaching a class or unit in your subject area using a specific topic in popular culture. May be performed live or pre-recorded. Should include multimedia and be liberally illustrated and/or sonically rich with samples from your source material. This is a research assessment assignment and should include full citations in APA Style. (Due on date chosen - 30%) 4. A 12 to 15 page essay on a topic related to popular culture and education. You might discuss genre fiction, music, television, comics, film, games, remix culture, transmedia, participatory culture, social practices (like selfies or hacking or queer media) or social movements (like the Occupy Wall Street or maker culture). (3000 – 3500 words). (Proposal due July 21st; final paper due August 13th: 50%) 10. Students with Disabilities Accommodating students with disabilities at UOIT is a responsibility shared among various partners: the students themselves, SAS staff and faculty members. To ensure that disability-related concerns are properly addressed during this course, students with documented disabilities and who may require assistance to participate in this class are encouraged to speak with me as soon as possible. Students who suspect they have a disability that may affect their participation in this course are advised to go to Student
Accessibility Services (SAS) as soon as possible. Maintaining communication and working collaboratively with SAS and faculty members will ensure you have the greatest chance of academic success. Students taking courses on the North Campus Location can visit Student Accessibility Services in the U5 Building located in the Student Life Suite Students taking courses on the Downtown Oshawa Campus Location can visit Student Accessibility Services in the 61 Charles St. Building, 2nd Floor, Room DTA 225 in the Student Life Suite. Disability-related support and accommodation support is available for students with mental health, physical, mobility, sensory, medical, cognitive, or learning challenges. Office hours are 8:30am-4:30pm, Mon-Fri. For more information on services provided, you can visit the SAS website at http://uoit.ca/studentaccessibility Students may contact Student Accessibility Services by calling 905-721-3266, or email
[email protected] Students who require the use of the Test Centre to write tests, midterms, or quizzes MUST register online using the SAS test/exam sign-up module, found here www.uoit.ca/SASexams. Students must sign up for tests, midterms or quizzes AT LEAST seven (7) days before the date of the test. Students must register for final exams by the registration deadline, which is typically 2 weeks prior to the start of the final examination period. SAS will notify students of the registration deadline date. 11. Professional Conduct (if applicable) Both synchronous and asynchronous communication in this course will be held to the highest standards of professionalism, respect, and accountability. 12. Academic Integrity Students and faculty at UOIT share an important responsibility to maintain the integrity of the teaching and learning relationship. This relationship is characterized by honesty, fairness and mutual respect for the aim and principles of the pursuit of education. Academic misconduct impedes the activities of the university community and is punishable by appropriate disciplinary action. Students are expected to be familiar with and abide by UOIT’s regulations on Academic Conduct (Section 5.15 of the Academic Calendar) which sets out the kinds of actions that constitute academic misconduct, including plagiarism, copying or allowing one’s own work to copied, use of unauthorized aids in examinations and tests, submitting work prepared in collaboration with another student when such collaboration has not been authorized, among other academic offences. The regulations also describe the procedures for dealing with allegations, and the sanctions for any finding of academic misconduct, which can range from a resubmission of work to a failing grade to
permanent expulsion from the university. A lack of familiarity with UOIT’s regulations on academic conduct does not constitute a defense against its application. Further information about academic misconduct can be found in the Academic Integrity link on your laptop. Extra support services are available to all UOIT students in academic development, study skills, counseling, and peer mentorship. More information on student support services can be found in the Academic Calendar (Section 8). 15. Freedom of Information and Protection of Information Act The following is an important notice regarding the process for submitting course assignments, quizzes and other evaluative material in your courses in the Faculty of Education. As you may know, UOIT is governed by the Freedom of Information and Protection of Information Act (“FIPPA”). In addition to providing a mechanism for requesting records held by the university, this legislation also requires that UOIT not disclose the personal information of its students without their consent. FIPPA’s definition of “personal information” includes, among other things, documents that contain both your name and your Banner ID. For example, this could include graded test papers or assignments. To ensure that your rights to privacy are protected, the Faculty of Education encourages you to use only your Banner ID on assignments or test papers being submitted for grading. This policy is intended to prevent the inadvertent disclosure of your information where graded papers are returned to groups of students at the same time. If you still wish to write both your name and your Banner ID on your tests and assignments, please be advised that UOIT will interpret this as an implied consent to the disclosure of your personal information in the normal course of returning graded materials to students. If you have any questions or concerns relating to the new policy or the issue of implied consent addressed above, please contact the Faculty of Education for more information. 16. Course Evaluations Student evaluation of teaching is a highly valued and helpful mechanism for monitoring the quality of UOIT’s programs and instructional effectiveness. To that end, formative assessment is conducted during the course, and course evaluations are administered by an external company in an online, anonymous process during the last few weeks of classes. Students are encouraged to participate actively in this process and will be notified of the dates. Notifications about course evaluations will be sent via e-mail, and posted on Weekly News and signage around the campus.
