Common Sense Media: Digital Dilemmas for Educators to Discuss
Start important conversations about AI, social media, and more with these scenarios.
Every other minute, educators are facing dilemmas. Unless you’ve been in front of a classroom of students, there’s no way to understand the myriad split-second decisions we need to make every day, all the time. Though tech in the classroom often requires forethought, cellphones, AI, digital drama, and more can create conundrums that are tricky to navigate.
In our Digital Literacy & Well-Being Curriculum for students, we offer digital dilemmas to discuss, since thinking through scenarios can help us make better decisions when we face them for real. The same is true for teachers: Considering how we’ll handle a tech-based dilemma gives us some breathing room for when we encounter similar circumstances.
Below are some dilemmas you can think through yourself, use in a staff meeting, or apply as a part of professional development around digital literacy and well-being. Each scenario has initial questions as well as “complicate” questions to address nuances and examine scenarios from other angles.
There are two thinking routines we practice with dilemmas: Take a Stand and Feelings and Options. As is often the case, these steps can be helpful for everyone, not just students, especially when the dilemma feels particularly tricky.
Feelings and Options: Supports communication, empathy, and thoughtful decision-making for digital dilemmas in social life.
- Identify: Who are the different people involved in the scenario? What dilemma or challenge are they facing?
- Feel: What do you think each person in the dilemma is feeling? Why might the situation be hard or challenging for each of them?
- Imagine: Imagine options for how the situation could be handled. Come up with as many ideas as possible. There’s no one “right” answer! Then, highlight which option might lead to the most positive outcome, where most people feel good or taken care of.
- Say: Think more about the idea you chose for handling the situation. What could the people involved say?
Take a Stand: Supports consideration of one’s own and others’ perspectives related to privacy, community, and civic life.
- Take a stand: What do you think? Why?
- Stand back: Where do your peers stand? Why?
- Look again: Look again at your original response. What had you not considered that other people brought up? How has your thinking shifted after hearing your classmates’ perspectives, even if you haven’t changed your mind?
- Look Beyond: Look beyond this specific case. How does this dilemma remind you of other situations we’ve explored in class or that you’ve seen, heard about, or experienced?
Apply them if they’re helpful or if you want to practice using them yourself for deeper understanding as you walk students through them. But you can also use these dilemmas as open-ended discussions—whatever works best for you.
Use the links below to jump to specific dilemmas:
Continue article here.
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Start important conversations about AI, social media, and more with these scenarios.
Every other minute, educators are facing dilemmas. Unless you’ve been in front of a classroom of students, there’s no way to understand the myriad split-second decisions we need to make every day, all the time. Though tech in the classroom often requires forethought, cellphones, AI, digital drama, and more can create conundrums that are tricky to navigate.
In our Digital Literacy & Well-Being Curriculum for students, we offer digital dilemmas to discuss, since thinking through scenarios can help us make better decisions when we face them for real. The same is true for teachers: Considering how we’ll handle a tech-based dilemma gives us some breathing room for when we encounter similar circumstances.
Below are some dilemmas you can think through yourself, use in a staff meeting, or apply as a part of professional development around digital literacy and well-being. Each scenario has initial questions as well as “complicate” questions to address nuances and examine scenarios from other angles.
There are two thinking routines we practice with dilemmas: Take a Stand and Feelings and Options. As is often the case, these steps can be helpful for everyone, not just students, especially when the dilemma feels particularly tricky.
Feelings and Options: Supports communication, empathy, and thoughtful decision-making for digital dilemmas in social life.
- Identify: Who are the different people involved in the scenario? What dilemma or challenge are they facing?
- Feel: What do you think each person in the dilemma is feeling? Why might the situation be hard or challenging for each of them?
- Imagine: Imagine options for how the situation could be handled. Come up with as many ideas as possible. There’s no one “right” answer! Then, highlight which option might lead to the most positive outcome, where most people feel good or taken care of.
- Say: Think more about the idea you chose for handling the situation. What could the people involved say?
Take a Stand: Supports consideration of one’s own and others’ perspectives related to privacy, community, and civic life.
- Take a stand: What do you think? Why?
- Stand back: Where do your peers stand? Why?
- Look again: Look again at your original response. What had you not considered that other people brought up? How has your thinking shifted after hearing your classmates’ perspectives, even if you haven’t changed your mind?
- Look Beyond: Look beyond this specific case. How does this dilemma remind you of other situations we’ve explored in class or that you’ve seen, heard about, or experienced?
Apply them if they’re helpful or if you want to practice using them yourself for deeper understanding as you walk students through them. But you can also use these dilemmas as open-ended discussions—whatever works best for you.
Use the links below to jump to specific dilemmas:
Continue article here.