PHUV9510 Knowledge and Misinformation: Teaching and Learning in a Digital Society Course description

Children and young people are growing up in an increasingly digital society, and research is needed to understand how they navigate and live with ubiquitous technology permeating the fabric of their everyday lives. Digital technology can be a powerful tool for transforming learning. It can help affirm and advance relationships between educators and students, reinvent our approaches to learning and collaboration, shrink long-standing equity and accessibility gaps, and adapt learning experiences to meet the needs of all learners. Simultaneously digital technology can bring with it several challenges, such as the spread of misinformation, online harassment, and overall ethical concerns. Ultimately digital technology can tremendously impact how people communicate and engage with each other while also increasing the knowledge available.  This course seeks to deepen understanding of how digital technology, schools and society interact. 

Historically, the culture of education has tended to be local, rooted in neighborhood schools, yet the problems facing education today are no longer confined to local issues and concerns. This is partly due to the increasing use and importance of digital technology in society, which now means that the boundaries of the classroom have been expanded and can include input, information, and knowledge from outside the classroom. What happens outside of school can also affect what happens inside the classroom. As a result, educators are confronting challenges in a variety of areas, from the onslaught against democratic practices the rise of nationalism and populism, as well as the continued inequities made all the more pronounced during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this course, we are concerned with an understanding of, in general, citizenship but particularly, digital citizenship. For practitioners, scholars and policy makers, it is crucial to understand how education and society can enable children and young people to manage and be resilient to many of the challenges that arise due to digital technology including issues such as safety, health, cyberbullying, and misinformation (fake news) while also being aware of their rights and responsibilities in the digital world as digital citizens.

This course will be taught in English.

After completion of the course, the student will have acquired the following learning outcomes, defined as knowledge, skills and general competence:

Knowledge

The student

• has knowledge of the historical and epistemological issues connected to different perspectives on the role of digital technology in terms of information and misinformation
• has and understanding of the methodological, philosophical and interdisciplinary topics that are embedded in digital spaces and can distinguish between related methodologies and philosophical standpoints
• understands and can critically evaluate the mechanisms and research around the challenges facing education in relation to digital spaces

Skills

The student

• can identify, examine and analyse current issues and challenges facing education in addressing issues around the influences of digital technology and polarised discourses
• is able to analyse and discuss complex methodological, philosophical and interdisciplinary issues in their own thesis in light of the course content

General competence

The student

• can recognize how trends and patterns in micro, mezzo and macro discourses shift practices in education
• can identify and discuss relationships and conflicts between more general scientific theories and this particular field of research
• can critically evaluate complex issues related to the effects of digital technology on information and misinformation

While many young people use digital technology to speak out for marginalized groups in society, fight for the environment, for equal rights and other matters around social and civic responsibility, others may be drawn to rising populist and nationalist ideologies leading to challenges for teachers in navigating these sometimes conflicting and complex terrains. This requires that educators understand not only information but also misinformation (e.g. fake news). For educators, questions about how children and young people’s participation in social and digital relations undo and reshape the pre-existing boundaries of their everyday microsystems become crucial to understand. What is more important is how such reshaping can contribute to rethinking (predefined) ideas about what knowledge is important, especially within an educational setting.

This course seeks to provide an opportunity for PhD students to think deeply about these issues in complex and interrelated ways. The course focuses on:

• How studying the impact of digital technology in education differs from research fields such as computer science, political science and sociology.
• Providing a foundation for future researchers in education to understand the methodological, philosophical and interdisciplinary topics that are embedded in digital spaces.
• Examining how the teaching and learning process is changing as a result of online activities that affect students from the earliest grades to the most advanced policy spaces in education. 

Course sessions include lectures, discussions, small group exercises, and text feedback sessions. The course is planned to take place over three consecutive days. In lectures and discussions, students will be introduced to relevant theories and methods. Candidates are expected to participate in all learning activities. Candidates are expected to give oral feedback on other students’ work.

Preparations for the course

Candidates are expected to read the syllabus and prepare a ten-minute presentation on their dissertation work related to the course topic before the course to be able to participate in discussions and activities.

The coursework requirements

Mandatory participation, an oral presentation, a paper draft and oral feedback to a co-student’s paper.

1. Mandatory participation: During the course days, full participation is required. If a participant has attended at least 75% of the course, but less than 90%, they must submit an extra paper of at least 2000 words, plus a reference on a given topic.     
2. The oral presentation is to be prepared before the course starts and presented on the second day of the course. The oral presentation should be no longer than ten minutes. The topic of the presentation must relate to the course topic in a way that is relevant to the student’s PhD projects. Following the presentation, there will be a five- to ten-minute discussion.
3. The oral presentation will serve as the foundation for a paper draft. The paper draft should be a minimum of 1000 and a maximum of 1500 words.
4. Oral feedback: Each student will comment orally (3-5 minutes) on one co-student’s presentation.

The candidate will write an individual paper based on the presentation and the comments by the student and staff, of 3500 words (+/- 10%) plus a reference list. The paper must be written in English, Norwegian, Swedish or Danish.

New and postponed examination

In case of a failed exam/valid absence, the candidate may have a new exam under the same conditions when a new/postponed exam is arranged. If the paper is graded with "fail", the candidate must submit a revised version within a given time limit.

All aids are permitted, as long as the rules for source referencing are complied with.

The learning outcomes serve as criteria for assessments. The grades are "pass" or "fail".

The paper will be assessed by two course coordinators, except in cases where the exam is written in Norwegian, Danish or Swedish the essay will be examined by one of the course coordinators and a member of the academic staff involved in the PhD-program with relevant expertise on the course topic.

Target group

This PhD-course is open for candidates at the PhD Programme in Educational Sciences for Teacher Education, PhD candidates from other relevant programmes, and academic employees.

Admission requirements

The admission requirement is a five-year master’s degree (three years + two years) or equivalent qualifications in teacher education, other pedagogical education, educational science, development studies, or other education on equivalent level in subjects relevant for teacher education.

In case of a large number of applicants, PhD-students enrolled in the PhD Programme in Educational Sciences for Teacher Education will be prioritized, then students in other PhD programs, then academic employees at the Faculty of Teacher Education and International Studies.

Those applicants who are not enrolled in the PhD Programme in Educational Sciences for Teacher Education will have to send a summary of approximately 400 words with relevant information about their own PhD project or other project/sphere of interest containing the topic, methodology, theoretical approach, how far they are in their PhD work and why this particular subject is relevant for their project.