Social Media and Middle School Curriculum

Question: I am looking for resources around social media to support middle school students at a public school. Could you make any recommendations please?

Answer: We know that the average tween and young teenager spends multiple hours a day using screens. How they use screens, including social media, matters. There is a lot of variety in how kids tie their social and emotional development to social media use. For example, being included in online social groups can help teens feel like they belong to a community and help support their identity, while being excluded can leave teens feeling lonely and lacking in self-confidence.

Despite the amount of time adolescents spend using digital media, adults should not assume that all students understand how to navigate it. The classroom setting offers many opportunities to help bridge this gap, by offering lessons surrounding digital citizenship, “netiquette” and media literacy. There are several free, evidence-based curriculums designed for middle schoolers that can support educators in teaching about digital literacy in a school setting:

• Common Sense Media's Digital Citizenship curriculum provides lesson plans on media balance & wellbeing, privacy & security, digital footprint & identity, relationships & communication, cyberbullying, digital drama, hate speech and news & media literacy.
  • Educators can delve deeper into the Digital Citizenship curriculum by participating in a one-hour training that is offered by Common Sense Media.
• Media Power Youth’s Screenshots curriculum includes lesson plans, podcasts, a project, and an interactive notebook.
  • The curriculum focuses on thinking critically about social media messages, managing online conflict, exploring how digital media relates to substance use, and practicing empathy when navigating online challenges.
• Teens & Tech provides a curriculum for educators on how adolescent brain development affects technology use and well-being.
• Ed Tech Triangle’s model guides teachers and admins on spreading wellness and sharing resources about digital wellness in the classroom.  

Many school phone use policies focus on limiting screen time or requiring students to put away phones. However, there is some evidence that with intentional instructional design, handheld devices including smartphones can enhance learning by using strategies like inquiry-oriented learning and computer-assisted testing. For example, when students use smartphones to conduct research on a topic and or when teachers use smartphones for formative assessment during a lesson to get immediate feedback on what students do and don’t understand. Here are some resources that offer ideas for using phones and social media as teaching tools:

• Social Media for Civic Education by Amy L. Chapman
• “Smartphone Apps in Education: Students Create Videos to Teach Smartphone Use as Tool for Learning”
• “Twenty Ideas for Using Mobile Phones in the Language Classroom”

For those looking to create responsible use policies for technology, a report by ATLIS and CoSN (Consortium for School Network) provides guidance and outlines how technology use policies should be curated. High-quality Responsible Use Policies (RUP) outline student behaviors that lead to a healthy digital culture at school and home. An effective RUP should guide students in how to be successful, effective digital citizens and should be written at a level of understanding for children. According to ATLIS, there are three tenets for an effective RUP. This includes keeping it positive (not a list of don’ts, make it about the do’s with technology), writing in plain English (this is not a legal document, keep language conversational and friendly) and involving students (allow students to make suggestions and ask questions).

Age: 11-14, early adolescence, middle adolescence, middle school

Topics: Social media, screen time, middle school

Role: Educator