Lesson Plan


Description of Teaching Strategies: This plan begins by engaging the audience in the topic of fair use through prior knowledge/experience. The lesson also uses scaffolding, so that the student is presented with information, including examples and non-examples, before then practicing identifying these examples with immediate feedback from the website. Finally, the students actually apply this knowledge by finding and correctly citing their own examples of copyrighted material. This type of learning is also deductive, as students are presented with the rule for fair use and then examples before providing opportunities to practice identifying more examples. Finally, the learner must evaluate the whole lesson and apply it to real life/school by creating strategies to employ and refer back to for future use.

Series of Learning Activities:
Engagement
  1. Students will respond to a question about their own experiences downloading and sharing music (mp3's).
  2. A brief discussion will cover the types of popular filesharing services students use and the availability of music, speed, etc.
Explore
  1. After activating student prior knowledge and discussing their use, the teacher will present the students with statistical information about filesharing, popularity, costs, and lawsuits.
  2. The teacher will either share an article or video (news clip, youtube clip, etc.) about the original creator of Napster and the trouble he faced for spawning this new era.
  3. Students will consider and write brief reflections: Question: Why is unfair use of copyrighted material a problem? Think about it- put it into the context of someone stealing something you produced. How would you feel if someone turned in a copy of your essay without your permission?
Explain
  1. The teacher will share information from www.techlearning.com, which includes policies on exactly what copyrighted material students are allowed to borrow and use for educational purposes. Brief discussion.
  2. The teacher will provide a few brief strategies for correctly following these policies, such as trying to use original material when possible, creating credit pages, and using working citation pages.
  3. A final note will be made about the serious nature of consequences for plagiarism and misuse in college (including expulsion), as well as the specific consequences that exist for this specific class.
Elaborate
  1. Students will complete a brief quiz activity (StAIR or linked to classroom webpage) where they look through examples and non-examples of fair use, as well as considering proper MLA citations.
  2. Additional links available for further investigation
Evaluate
  1. Finally, students will individually (or in pairs) create a short powerpoint presentation to demonstrate their understanding of the ideas and guidelines covered in this lesson. The powerpoint will include 3 parts:
  • Brief overview on what fair use/copyright laws mean, why it is important to be aware of, and what might happen if  you ignore it.
  • Students will include one example of correctly incorporating copyrighted material into their presentation (with correct MLA citation) for: text, video, and music.
  • 3 Hints/Strategies for correct use in the classroom- What things might you do in order to make sure you don’t break copyright laws? (ideas: source list, credit page, only use original material if possible, keep audience local, etc.)

Assessment: 
The formative assessment takes place within the activity, as students respond to review questions concerning examples/ non-examples of fair use. After receiving immediate feedback, students will later apply this information by creating their own examples during the summative assessment.

For the summative assessment, students will create a powerpoint presentation that demonstrates their understanding of the key issues surrounding fair use and the consequences for breaking copyright rules. The presentation will also demonstrate their ability to correctly cite a variety of material taken from the internet and used in the presentation. Finally, the learner will provide strategies for personal and peer use when trying to use and correctly cite copyrighted material for school and life. The powerpoint will be evaluated based on the incorporation of all three areas and the correctness of the information.