Building 21st-Century Teachers: An Intentional Pedagogy of Media Literacy Education

Abstract

High-quality teacher education requires a complex body of knowledge, skills, and dispositions. This article identifies media literacy education as an intentional and essential framework in which to catalyze essential knowledge, skills, and dispositions for 21st-century teacher preparation. The multidimensional nature of media literacy education renders it a meaningful framework with which to contextualize the pursuit of technological proficiency, promote pedagogical excellence, and to magnify the democratic ideals and purposes of public education in the United States. This article aligns the National Educational Technology Standards for Teachers, principles of democratic education, and provides sample pedagogical skills essential to media literacy education.