Welcome to the teachers’ lounge, an occasional newsletter to keep you posted about happenings in the data journalism teachers’ club.
Slides: 📚☕️Book Club☕️📚
Padlet: https://padlet.com/data4news/book-club-discussion-board-1e4lve2igwomgnsv
Last month, we gathered to discuss the book Cheating Lessons, by James M. Lang. It was a timely read about what we can do in an era where many of the discussions around ChatGPT have centered on cheating. But the wisdom in Lang’s book – which predates ChatGPT – was timeless. Lang took us on a journey from the ancient Greek Olympics, through a tale about civil service exams in ancient China and finally to modern academic research on cheating. Drawing on these sources, Lang argued that there are four conditions that may pressure individuals into cheating:
We discussed ways in which these might play out in journalism classrooms and what we can do about it. We brainstormed ways to lower the stakes for our students and to foster intrinsic motivation. We also discussed the idea of mastery learning, a way to [scaffold](https://www.buffalo.edu/catt/teach/develop/build/scaffolding.html#:~:text=Scaffolding is an instructional practice,%2C processes%2C and learning strategies.) learning so that students are incentivized to demonstrate mastery of course content instead of simply jumping through hoops. While much of the literature around pedagogy isn’t the perfect fit for a journalism classroom, we realized that there are pearls of wisdom in these texts that we just need to take the time to think through and translate into our journalistic context. You can check out our brainstorm on this padlet (which, by the way, is our new favorite teaching tool – courtesy of Dr. Anita Sundrani!).
We’re starting a new reader questions section of the newsletter!
Alex Wooley of AidData asks:
“I'm seeking a bit of advice: would you know of, or be able to point me towards, any resources on storyboarding for DJ? I'm due to teach a session in a couple of weeks on this topic. In the past I've cobbled together some materials based on my own experience, but would be keen to see what others have done in this space too.
We didn’t have a great answer for Alex so, with his permission, we are putting the question to you! If you have any resources you can share please email [email protected] and we will forward it along!
Got a question for the group? Email us at [email protected]