Welcome to Inspire Creative Science Communication with Media Projects! You’re here because you want to prioritize science communication in your classroom and want to level up student creativity with media. But maybe you’re not sure where to start, where media-making best fits within your content area or how much time it might take. No worries - we got you! 

Why take this course?

• You want to help your students effectively communicate complex science concepts using media
• You want to boost student engagement and creativity in your classroom
• You want your students to create media, but would like to understand the steps of planning a project for them
• You want resources, examples and ideas on media projects from KQED experts and fellow educators
• You want to get hands-on and create a unit or project plan for your classroom that you can use as soon as you complete this course

More About This Course

This course is divided into lessons that are a combination of text, images, videos and other interactive elements. You’ll finish up the course by putting together all of your learning in a final assignment: a lesson or unit plan for your student-made media project in your STEM class.

The course instructors will provide you feedback on your assignments designed to help you improve your practice.  Your instructors' recommendations will align with the “Implementing Instruction” KQED media literacy competency.  Exemplary media literacy educators can demonstrate the following:

1. Ability to create and implement instruction that supports students accessing content appropriate for their needs, as well as supporting their ability to analyze how production elements impact media messages and evaluating the accuracy and validity of content they discover. 
2. Ability to lead instruction that promotes informed decision-making, digital literacy, and responsible engagement across media formats and platforms.
3. Ability to design instruction that integrates student skill development around writing, planning, designing, producing and sharing media projects into standards-based instruction in your content area. This includes supporting the use of media-production tools, including GenAI features, in ways that are appropriate for your students, do not bypass critical thinking, and center student voice. 
4.  Ability to design and implement assessment practices for student-created media that are aligned to standards-based learning outcomes and provide learners with quality feedback about both the academic content requirements associated with the media and the quality and effectiveness of the media itself. 

In addition, other educators may view and comment on your submission, which many course participants have found helpful. We encourage you to do the same.

You can go through the course at whatever pace makes sense for you, and review anything afterwards that you might have missed. In order to receive a certificate of completion, you will need to complete all the assignments and finish the course within four weeks of starting it. If you don’t finish in time, no worries, you can always re-enroll.