Lesson Plan

For my Instructional Role of the Information Professional course, our final project is a Lesson Plan to be taught at our choice of information organization. I chose to do a social media class at a public library. What follows is my lesson plan. 

Take Your Social Media Temperature:

How to maintain a healthy relationship with social media

Inspiration

First, my lesson plan research lead to one from the Academic Research and College Library association in their lesson plan sandbox entitled “Digital Wellness” (Penn State Berks, 2016). This particular series of classes at Penn State Berks focuses on past, current, and future privacy issues (2016). However, one class in the series particularly focuses on current digital behaviors (Penn State Berks, 2016). This series is geared toward college students and privacy, but what if I got young people thinking about their online behaviors and how they influence their real lives earlier? That was the light bulb moment: a social media class focused on how to mitigate the harms of so much online interaction.

Since working with a younger population was needed, the research focus shifted to how best to teach teens in a public library. Reaching out for help from my teacher, she mentioned using role play as a way to engage the younger audiences. After viewing the video series “Teaching the Adolescent Brain,” which included role play as a way to engage students, I decided role play would definitely add to the level of impact the class may have upon the audience (D’Arcangelo & Sheets, 2006). An expert in the video mentioned the adolescent brain “learns best by being engaged in meaningful curriculum” not through lecture and rote memorization (D’Arcangelo & Sheets, 2006, min. 15:15). This too inspired me to drop a lot of the ‘talking at’ parts of the class and to replace with ‘talking with’ sections. At almost two hours in length, the video series was packed with best practices for teaching teens (D’Arcangelo & Sheets, 2006).

Audience

Teens in a public library, ages 13-17

Background

Because this is not a ‘how to use social media’ class but rather a class about balancing social media use with mental health, I assume that learners will have a medium to high level of competency with internet and communication technologies, especially social media on portable devices. This class does not have a particular subject it might align with at a traditional school, but it does pull from several areas of knowledge: internet and communication technologies, mental health, functioning anatomy, theatre, sociology, composition. Again, because this class is given at the public library, keeping lecture time low and informal for teens already attending school all week is important so as not to stretch their attention spans.

Learning Styles

Because developing social abilities is an important task during the teen years, the interpersonal learning style has been built into this course with discussion between all attendants (Everhart, 2021). To respect those that prefer intrapersonal style, and to encourage a safe space for honesty, a quiet time of writing that will not be shared is also incorporated into this course (Everhart, 2021). For linguistic learners, who prefer the spoken and written word (Everhart, 2021), the course includes verbal discussion, a written paragraph, and words on the PowerPoint presentation. Visual-spatial learners, who prefer pictures and images (Everhart, 2021), will find the images in the PowerPoint stimulating as well as the video and final infographic handout. Active hands-on participation with immediate feedback is preferred by bodily-kinesthetic learners (Everhart, 2021), and the role play situation should enhance the class for them.

Time Needed

·      5 minutes: Introduce myself and motivating question of decisive nature

·      5 minutes: Introduce the course, define social media, and explore attendant’s social media use

·      15 minutes: Social Media TEDx Talk video (TEDx Talks, 2017)

·      5 minutes: Private writing about personal social media harm

·      5 minutes: Mini lesson on stress reactions (Reach Out Australia, 2021)

·      10 minutes: Social media role play

·      10 minutes: Discuss stress reduction for role play characters and selves

·      5 minutes: Evaluation

·      5+5+15+5+5+10+10+5= 60 minutes

Standards

·      ISTE standard 2a: Students cultivate and manage their digital identity and reputation and are aware of the permanence of their actions in the digital world (International Society for Technology in Education [ISTE], 2016).

·      ISTE standard 2b: Students engage in positive, safe, legal and ethical behavior when using technology, including social interactions online or when using networked devices (ISTE, 2016).

·      AASL standard A.I.2: Recalling prior and background knowledge as context for new meaning (American Association of School Libraries [AASL], 2018).

·      AASL standard B.I.2: Devising and implementing a plan to fill knowledge gaps (AASL, 2018).

·      AASL standard C.I.1: Interacting with content presented by others (AASL, 2018).

·      AASL standard D.I.3: Enacting new understanding through real-world connections (AASL, 2018).

·      AASL standard D.III.1: Actively contributing to group discussions (AASL, 2018).

·      AASL standard C.V.3: Collaboratively identifying innovative solutions to a challenge or problem (AASL, 2018). 

·      AASL standard D.VI.1: Personalizing their use of information and information technologies (AASL, 2018). 

·      AASL standard D.VI.3: Inspiring others to engage in safe, responsible, ethical, and legal information behaviors (AASL, 2018). 

Goals

·      Attendants will understand a definition of social media and how social media can negatively affect mental health.

·      Attendants will understand how social media can cause stress and apply relaxation techniques to help counteract that stress.

Objectives

·      Learners will define what social media is at the end of the class on the evaluation form in 5 minutes.

·      Learners will realize how many social media accounts they use by showing on their fingers how many they have within 5 minutes.

·      Learners will be able to assess their own stress levels caused by social media by viewing an informative video and infographic about social media and stress, then writing about a stressful online incident in 25 minutes.

·      Learners will choose a destress activity to help re-balance them, measurable by their verbal suggestions after a role play exercise within 30 minutes.

Resources

·      Computer for librarian with internet connection

·      PowerPoint presentation

·      LCD projector connected to librarian computer 

·      Computer with internet connection for each attendant

·      Ruled paper

·      Writing utensils

·      Destress infographic printout for each attendant on legal paper

·      Class evaluation printout for each student on letter paper

Activities 

1.     Introduction 5 minutes

a.     SLIDE 1: “Hi, my name is Emily Bufford, and I am the Teen Librarian here at Algiers Regional! This short workshop is called ‘Take Your Social Media Temperature: How to maintain a healthy relationship with social media’”

b.     MOTIVATION SLIDE 2: “I have a really easy question for all of you: Is social media helpful or harmful?”

c.     Encourage students to add their thoughts to each list verbally in a group conversation.

d.     Use Power Point to type key thoughts/ideas from the learners under two categories: Helpful and Harmful.

2.     Introduce the course 5 minutes

a.     SLIDE 3 “We will cover what experts say social media is, what social media you use, how social media affects us, how to know when you’re overwhelmed, and how to destress from social media.”

b.     “Caleb Carr and Rebecca Hayes, who are both experts in the study of communication, define social media as ‘Internet-based channels that allow users to opportunistically interact and selectively self-present, either in real-time or asynchronously, with both broad and narrow audiences who derive value from user-generated content and the perception of interaction with others’” (2015).

c.     “Do you all think this definition is good? Would you add or subtract anything from it?” Leave time for responses.

d.     “Now that we know what social media is, please take the next few minutes to add up how many social media accounts you have. Hold up your fingers, and maybe some toes (!) to show everyone how many you have.” 

e.     Encourage them to use their smart device (phone, tablet, laptop, library computer) to count all their social media accounts that fit under the definition.

3.     Mini Lesson: How social media affects us 15 minutes

a.     SLIDE 4 TED talk YouTube Video 15 minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Czg_9C7gw0o

4.     Private writing: The bad of social media 5 minutes

a.     SLIDE 4 “I’d like you to take the next five minutes to write about a time when you felt negative feelings because of social media. This will not be shared out, so you can be honest.”

b.     Each student privately writes a short paragraph about a time they felt emotionally drained because of social media.

5.     Mini lesson: Recognizing stress reactions 5 minutes

a.     SLIDE 5 “Now that I have you thinking about the bad times with social media, I want to see if you felt any of the following happening while you wrote about your hurt: headache, tummy trouble, faster heartbeat, urge to cry… these are just a few common stress reactions that happen to our bodies when our minds are overloaded.” 

b.     Go through each stress reaction from the Reach Out Australia infographic on the slide.

6.     Role play: Social media drama 10 minutes

a.     SLIDE 6 “You will now have the opportunity to Role Play a social media drama. Tim and Vashalice have been best friends for six years. They are in eighth grade currently, and Tim has a major crush on Francisca. Tim doesn’t realize it, but Vashalice and Francisca play an online RPG together every week, and Francisca has been really nice to Vashalice, maybe even flirting a little. That same week Vashalice and Francisca meet up like normal in the game. Now we’ll pause and ask two teens to take the roles of Vashalice and Francisca.”

b.     SLIDE 7 Student 1 reads--“Hey Vashalice! What’s up? Tim kept staring at me in math class, so weird. You guys are friends right?” 

c.     Student 2 responds--“. . .”

d.     On and on until a good stopping point or about 8-9 minutes in.

e.     Wrap up. If role play conversation ends early, discuss the why of Vashalice and Francisca’s conversation.

7.     Stress reduction 10 minutes

a.     SLIDE 8 Handout the destress infographic. 

b.     “If social media does make you feel overwhelmed, these five techniques may help you overcome those feelings.” 

c.     Quickly go over each technique from the infographic.

d.     “Out of these five techniques, which could Vashalice, Francisca, or Tim use in this case?” Leave time for responses.

e.     “Could you use any of these techniques?” Leave time for responses.

f.      “Are there any techniques on this infographic you don’t find helpful?” Leave time for responses.

8.     Evaluation 5 minutes.

a.     SLIDE 9 “This questionnaire is just to make sure I’m doing my job well. It is not graded, and your name will not be on it.”

b.     Hand out questionnaire then collect as they exit. 

c.     Remember to thank them for their time!

 

Evaluation Method

            The evaluation method is a single, four question worksheet handed to the attendants with five minutes left in the class. They will not write their name on the worksheet, but the answers will be reviewed to see if the class objectives were met. After reviewing the attendants’ responses, it will give me the opportunity to revise the materials used in class or even re-do the class structure if students are not understanding key concepts.

Annotated References

American Association of School Libraries. (2018). AASL standards framework for learners. 

 

AASL.org. https://standards.aasl.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/AASL-Standards-

 

Framework-for-Learners-pamphlet.pdf

 

AASL stands for the American Association of School Librarians. They have created their own set of learning standards with four categories and six levels. This particular set up was used in this lesson plan because it is not standard outcomes (ie: Common Core), and it is designed for pre-college aged students.

 

Carr, C. T. and Hayes, R. A. (2015).  Social Media: Defining, Developing, and 

 

Divining. Atlantic Journal of Communication, 23(1), 46-65.

 

I searched high and I searched low for a definition of social media that made good sense, through Google and FSU libraries. This by far was the best definition I came across, and it is from a relevant academic journal. I think it is a bit complicated to read at first, but with some explanation it can be understood.

 

D’Arcangelo, M. and Sheets, D. (Directors). (2006, November 10). Teaching the adolescent 

 

brain [Video]. Alexandria, VA: Association of Supervision and Curriculum 

 

Development.

 

This video series has deepened my understanding of not just how students need to be taught but why they need to be taught in certain ways. The rational, decision making part of the brain is not yet developed in teens, but the emotion, impulse section of the brain is. This means they need help expanding and developing that rational part and putting the brakes on impulses.

 

Everhart, N. (2021, January 28). Week 4: Learning theories/human development [Powerpoint 

 

slides]. Communication and Information, Florida State University.  

 

https://canvas.fsu.edu/courses/147790/files/11831036?wrap=1

 

These PowerPoint slides concisely describe each type of learner. They also describe in class activities for each type of learner. I used these to inform myself about how to best reach a wide range of learners, rather than focusing on just one type. They were helpful to expand my ways of teaching.

 

International Society for Technology in Education. (2016). ISTE standards for students. 

 

ISTE.org. https://www.iste.org/standards/for-students

 

ISTE stands for the International Society for Technology in Education. This organization believes technology can innovate teaching, and along with the written standards they also have events, produce written works, and provide a virtual network of educators. Because this lesson plan focuses on a technology, the ISTE standards fit well with the content.

 

Lohmann, R. C. (2014, November 19). Top 10 stress busters for teens. Psychology Today.

 

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/teen-angst/201411/top-10-stress-busters-teens

 

This is the research which lead to the creation of the infographic to hand out to students. I needed to know how to help specifically teens destress. This article was chosen because of the practical, easy to do solutions to relax.

 

Penn State Berks. (2016). Digital wellness workshop. ACRL.org. 

 

https://sandbox.acrl.org/library-collection/digital-wellness-workshop

 

This is the article that truly inspired the lesson plan seen above. Although this lesson plan covers mostly privacy of online affairs, I thought it would be fitting to think of the word ‘wellness’ in terms of mental wellness with the use of information and communication technology. Mental wellness is greatly affected by the ICT social media, and it is a very common ICT used by adolescents. Hence, a class about balancing social media use with mental health for teens.

 

Reach Out Australia. (2021). What stress does to the body [Infographic].  AU.ReachOut.com. 

 

https://au.reachout.com/articles/what-stress-does-to-the-body

 

This particular infographic was chosen because it describes stress effects on the body in a condensed, clear way with a fun yet accurate comic style drawing. It is important to engage learners of different styles, and this helps meet the needs of visual-spatial learners. Rather than a perhaps boring verbal lecture on anatomy, this infographic is much more interesting and participant friendly.

 

TEDx Talks. (2017, June 22). Is social media hurting your mental health? | Bailey Parnell | 

 

TEDxRyersonU [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Czg9C7gw0o

 

This TEDx talk fit so wonderfully into the lesson plan I had to include it. It eats a lot of time at fifteen minutes; however, I believe in a one-hour class that is not too much to give over to Bailey Parnell, social media expert, in her TEDx talk on YouTube. She hits four key reasons why social media can be detrimental to mental health and how to curate social media to bring the user joy.