NLP Annual Report FY24 - Report - Page 14
Cohort 1
ALUMNI (2022-2024)
New Mexico Las Cruces District:
Using their model to advocate for state media
literacy requirements
For years, educators have had a front-row seat to the often-troubling
impacts of the information technology revolution on their teaching and on
young people. To help ensure their students can thrive in a world where
misinformation is relentless, a team of educators in Las Cruces, New
Mexico, turned to NLP.
NEW
MEXICO
“Media technology is shifting far faster than we can keep up with it.
Most students are getting news from TikTok and other ‘news’ sources.
This was driving our thinking,” said Joel Hutchinson, secondary English
language arts content specialist for Las Cruces public schools, a district
with 25,000 students.
In 2021, Hutchinson, secondary Social Studies Content Specialist Jamie
Patterson, and middle school English language arts Content Lead Jose昀椀na
Miller were accepted into the fellowship program’s inaugural cohort.
Location: Las Cruces, NM
Number of schools: 41
Number of students: 23,000+
“If we want to
prepare kids for
tomorrow, you’ve
got to be thinking
about tomorrow.”
– Jamie Patterson,
secondary social studies
content specialist
While the Las Cruces team considered news literacy instruction to be
a necessity, they knew instruction couldn’t begin until they provided
teachers with the support to integrate it in their classrooms. Hutchinson
noted that the fellowship gave them the time and resources to focus and
plan each step of the process.
They piloted professional development with a group of high school ELA
and social studies educators, building much of the curriculum around NLP’s
signature digital learning platform, Checkology. As Patterson shared, “We
have teacher leaders who experimented and tried things out, and they’re
now the ones that are helping us grow the program over the next few years.”
They learned from the high school pilot to bring the skills from
the secondary level into middle school with the goal of eventually
incorporating news literacy instruction into elementary school. News
literacy instruction has been implemented in all Principals of Democracy
classes, a course for upper grade levels, and it’s been written into the
social studies curriculum guide for seniors. Students are introduced to
news literacy at the start of the school year, and it is woven into class
instruction throughout the year, so concepts are constantly reinforced.
Based on their experience in the fellowship, the Las Cruces school district
has a vision of establishing news literacy education as a priority for all
students in New Mexico. They are working at the regional and state levels to
help inform legislative decisions.
To have a meaningful impact, this work can’t start soon enough, the
educators say. “What success would look like is to see this as a common
practice, just part of the conversation. If we want to prepare kids for
tomorrow, you’ve got to be thinking about tomorrow,” Patterson said.
14
Annual Report FY24
