SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 4 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Results of a major new study validate that media literacy education improves core learning for all students. The research further indicated that special education and hard to reach students made particularly significant gains. The three-year Media Education, Arts and Literacy (MEAL) project was delivered to approximately 444 students in two low-income middle schools in San Francisco with a major grant from the U.S. Department of Education.
Conducted through a collaboration of the AMLA and the Just Think Foundation of San Francisco, which designed and delivered teacher training and curriculum, the study presented evidence from standardized tests including the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking in which students' critical and creative thinking skills measurably increased following their participation.
"The results of the evaluation clearly indicate that those students exposed to the MEAL curriculum showed significant increases in their acquisition of knowledge in core curriculum areas -- and even shifts in attitudes toward learning," reported educational researcher Michael Cohen.
Just Think's 40-hour professional development program was implemented at Visitacion Valley Middle School and Marina Middle School, both in the San Francisco Unified School District. During the training, 16 middle school educators developed media literacy lessons and then integrated them into their 23 classrooms. Throughout this process teachers received ongoing one-on-one technical support and academic coaching from Just Think. Integration of media literacy lessons in the classroom resulted in measurable improvement in both creative and critical thinking skills by the 324 student participants who were tested.
The National Middle School Principal of the Year, Jim Dierke states, "A decade ago we were promised by our leaders that we would teach with 21st century tools. It wasn't until our partnership with Just Think that those tools turned into practices. Just Think provided the key to adapt the way we teach our students to learn."
Elana Yonah Rosen, Executive Director of Just Think, noted, "The MEAL study may be the tipping point for media literacy education. The understanding that young people are more accustomed to My Space and iPods than they are to pen and paper insists on new modes of teaching. This is quantifiable evidence that media literacy education is essential to meet the learning needs of all twenty-first century children."
The AMLA's "Core Principles of Media Literacy Education" (http://www.amlainfo.org/coreprinciples) provides guidelines for integrating media literacy with educational standards in classrooms from kindergarten through college.
About the Partners:
Alliance for a Media Literate America (AMLA) is the leading voice for inquiry-based media literacy education in the United States. It is a professional membership organization reaching over a thousand media educators in schools, after-school programs, public health agencies and community-based groups. http://www.amlainfo.org/
The Just Think Foundation has delivered programming, led teacher training and developed cutting-edge media education curriculum for over a decade. http://www.justthink.org/
The Michael Cohen Group is an internationally acknowledged evaluation research group. http://www.mcgrc.com/
In addition to downloading the MEAL case study and resources from the AMLA website, educators may order it for free on CD/DVD from Just Think Foundation, 39 Mesa St., #106, San Francisco, CA 94129 / 415-561-2900 / meal@justthink.org
JUST THINK FOUNDATION
