PHILOSOPHICAL MEDIA LITERACY



Philosophical Media Literacy

Philosophical Media Literacy

Introduction

As you all know, we successfully completed the first year of the M.Ed. in Critical Practitioner Inquiry, known for short as CPI programme. The CPI programme is part of the UNESCO-IICBA's initiatives of training and upgrading teacher educators through the distance mode. It is a Masters of Education programme developed and implemented through collaboration between the Umea University (Sweden) and UNESCO-IICBA. The programme officially began in Addis Ababa/Ethiopia in May 2003. The CPI programme follows the theoretical and practical experiences of the Namibian Teacher Education Reform Project.

Philosophical Media Literacy

It is expected to enable teacher educators to analyze what is happening in their classrooms, examine what official policies are and to improve their practices. These knowledge and skills, in turn, are expected to be transferred to their students in teacher education programs. In other words, the CPI-trained teacher educators are supposed to have high degree of multiplying effects at their respective education levels. That is their skills are expected to impact their teaching at faster rates than conventional teaching methods.

A focal point is identified at an early stage. The focal point is identified based on a genuine concern by the practitioner to improve his/her practice. However, the practitioner's initial focal point will often be modified due to the continuous inquiries and dialogue with tutors and critical friends as part of the process to emancipate educational thinking and understanding from the taken for granted. This process can at times be problematic as we all have a tendency to stick to and feel comfortable with our old ways of thinking and doing.

The contextual analysis is threefold. It includes analysis of practice, meaning that the practitioner looks into his/her own practice with critical eyes to find out about weaknesses and possibilities. Critical friends, who in this course are colleagues from the same institution, can at times be very helpful in the analysis of practice. The contextual analysis includes analyses of policy as a way to identify degrees of freedom for action, external influences on policy that in countries dependent on the financial goodwill of donors is a highly significant aspect of educational policy, and the official as well as taken for granted intentions with education in a given society. The third leg of contextual analysis is the development of a scholastic perspective that will assist the practitioners in their inquiries with the aim to move away from a culture of blame and create a reflective position towards their own practice. The development of the scholastic perspective is mainly done through literature studies and related assignments that will be integrated into the students' master theses.

The practitioners/course participants carry out a practical attempt to change their own practice based on the focal point and their inquiry plan. Parallel data collections are carried out that are followed by another critical analysis based on the different parts of the inquiry process with the aim to identify and problematize reconstructed practice and reconstructed understandings of that ...