Quebec Competencies Chart - Behaving Ethically Online: Ethics and Values

Author: Matthew Johnson, Director of Education, MediaSmarts
Level: Grades 7 to 8
Lesson Length: 1-1 ½ hours
Lesson Link: http://mediasmarts.ca/teacher-resources/behaving-ethically-online-ethics-values

Description: In this lesson, students consider how we come to hold values and how they affect our behaviour, especially online. They begin by comparing their assumptions about how common positive and negative online behaviours are with accurate statistics, and then consider how believing that something is more or less common than it really is can affect whether or not we think it’s acceptable. The teacher then uses a fable to introduce students to the ways that values can be communicated both overtly and implicitly and students discuss the ways in which their values have been communicated to them. They then turn specifically to the online context and consider what values they have learned about online behaviour and how they learned them. Finally, students consider scenarios that examine ethical questions online and role-play ways of resolving them.

Cross-curricular Competencies

Broad Areas of Learning

  • To solve problems
  • To exercise critical judgement
  • To use creativity
  • To construct his/her identity
  • To cooperate with others
  • To communicate appropriately
  • Media Literacy
  • Health and Well-Being 

This lesson satisfies the following Competencies from the Quebec Education Program:

English Language Arts

Uses language/talk to communicate and learn

Establishes a repertoire of resources for communicating and learning in specific contexts

  • Investigates the affordances of spoken language as a mode of communication
  • Examines some of the aesthetic qualities of spoken language
  • Develops rhetorical strategies to achieve specific purposes
  • Examines the affordances of genres
  • Extends the range of strategies for collecting the data needed for use in specific genres

Participates in the social practices of the classroom and community in specific contexts

  • Investigates the uses of spoken language in the school and community
  • Plans and carries out independent units of study
  • Conducts exploratory ethnographic research
  • Organizes and maintains an integrated profile of work over the cycle
  • Engages in a process of self-evaluation and reflection
  • Confers with the teacher in regular and ongoing evaluation conferences

Interacts with peers and teacher in specific contexts

  • Collaborates with peers to construct knowledge about how things are done
  • Participates in collaborative action research groups using an inquiry process
  • Applies procedural and meaningmaking strategies to achieve a purpose
  • Contributes to team efforts as an interactive and critical listener

Reads and listens to written, spoken and media texts

Integrates reading profile, stance and strategies to make sense of a text in a specific context

  • Reads for pleasure and to learn
  • Draws on prior experience and the features of a genre to make sense of a text
  • Adjusts reading strategies and stance to the context
  • Develops research and organizational strategies for working with information

Talks about own response to a text within a classroom community

  • Deepens own meaning(s) of a text in discussions with other readers
  • Situates meanings within own experiences and the world of the text, in order to transform initial readings into more conscious interpretations
  • Considers possible reasons for own responses and the responses of others to clarify and reshape the relationship between self as reader and the text
  • Shares Integrated Profile in teacher-student conferences

Interprets the relationship(s) between reader, text and context in light of own response(s)

  • Explains the impact of a text on self as reader by returning to its social functions, as well as the way meanings and messages are constructed
  • Draws on own reading profile, including knowledge of textual structures and features, to locate textual details that support own interpretations
  • Constructs interpretations that embody both own world and the world of the text

Drama

Creates dramatic works

Applies ideas for the creation of a dramatic work

  • Is open to a stimulus for creation
  • Is receptive to ideas, images, emotions, sensations or impressions evoked by the stimulus
  • Keeps records of his/her ideas
  • Explores various ways of conveying creative ideas through dramatic action
  • Chooses dramatic actions for their interest
  • Plans a creative project

Shares his/her dramatic creation experience

  • Analyzes his/her creative intention and process
  • Keeps records of his/her ideas
  • Identifies the important elements of his/her experience and its characteristics
  • Makes comparisons with previous knowledge
  • Identifies what he/she has learned and the methods used

Presents his/her dramatic creation

  • Remains attentive to classmates
  • Adjusts his/her actions to those of classmates
  • Takes advantage of unexpected occurrences
  • Respects conventions concerning unified performance
  • Validates the clarity of the creative intention
  • Reconsiders and confirms artistic choices
  • Plans necessary adjustments

Uses elements of dramatic language

  • Experiments with elements of dramatic language
  • Makes use of his/her dramatic experiences
  • Chooses the most meaningful elements in relation to his/her creative intention and perfects methods for using these elements

Organizes his/her dramatic creation

  • Experiments with ways of linking dramatic scenes
  • Organizes the dramatic material based on the creative intention
  • Reviews his/her dramatic choices after considering the character of the work
  • Establishes conventions concerning unified performance
  • Refines certain elements of his/her creation, if necessary

Performs dramatic works

Becomes familiar with the dramatic content of the work

  • Immerses himself/herself in the work and identifies elements of dramatic language
  • Recognizes the meaning and, if applicable, the historical or sociocultural aspects that may affect the performance
  • Experiments with various ways of conveying the dramatic content of the work
  • Uses performance strategies

Shares his/her performance experience

  • Analyzes his/her communicative purpose and progress and the development of his/her understanding of the work, if applicable
  • Identifies the important elements of his/her experience and its characteristics
  • Compares with his/her previous learning
  • Identifies what he/she has learned and the methods used

Respects the conventions regarding unified performance

  • Establishes conventions regarding unified performance
  • Listens to others
  • Puts established conventions into practice
  • Adjusts his/her performance to that of others
  • Updates the elements of dramatic language selected

Uses elements of dramatic language

  • Experiments with elements of dramatic language related to the characters, action and meaning of the work
  • Makes use of sensory and emotional resources and experiences
  • Uses observation to improve his/her performance
  • Adapts elements of the dramatic language selected to bring out the characters, action and meaning of the work
  • Links dramatic actions

Becomes familiar with the expressive nature of the work

  • Experiments with the expressive elements of the work
  • Adapts these elements to the performance or to the author’s intention, if applicable
  • Makes use of expressive resources
  • Selects elements of dramatic language to match the nature of the work and his/her communication intention

Ethics and Religious Culture

Reflects on ethical questions

Analyzes a situation from an ethical point of view

  • Describes a situation and puts it into context
  • Formulates a related ethical question
  • Compares points of view
  • Explains tensions or conflicting values
  • Compares the situation with similar situations
  • Compares his/her analysis of the situation with that of his/her classmates

Examines a variety of cultural, moral, religious, scientific or social references

  • Finds the main references present in different points of view
  • Looks for the role and the meaning of these references
  • Considers other references
  • Compares the meaning of the main references in different contexts

Evaluates options or possible actions

  • Suggests options or possible actions
  • Studies the effects of these options or actions on oneself, others or the situation
  • Chooses options or actions that foster community life
  • Reflects on the factors that influenced these choices

Engages in dialogue

Organizes his/her thinking

  • Identifies the subject of dialogue
  • Makes connections between prior knowledge and new knowledge
  • Distinguishes between what is essential and what is secondary in the different points of view expressed
  • Takes stock of his/her reflections

Develops a substantiated point of view

  • Uses his/her resources and looks for information about the subject of dialogue
  • Develops further his/her understanding of different points of view
  • Imagines various hypotheses
  • Fleshes out a point of view
  • Anticipates objections and necessary clarifications
  • Validates his/her point of view
  • Reflects on his/her process

Interacts with others

  • Develops an awareness of his/her reaction to the subject of dialogue
  • Looks for conditions that foster dialogue
  • Expresses his/her point of view and pays attention to others' views
  • Explains different points of view, using relevant and coherent arguments
  • Asks for clarification
  • Implements means to overcome obstacles to dialogue