Professional Development and Meetings
Democracy, Governance and Elections Reporting Initiative
National Community News Wire (and submission form)
Pedagogy & Structure
If your news-academic partnership functions as a course, independent study, module, practicum or other part of a curriculum, this section will provide examples and ideas for how pedagogy and instruction can power news for communities.
Learning Outcomes
Create 3-5 essential outcomes for your news-academic partnership experience. There will be many opportunities to learn many skills, but you want to narrow down to what each student should master and be able to demonstrate through the curriculum.
- Examples: Professional acculturation, public service, civic understanding, innovative visual storytelling, collaborative writing, enterprising and beat reporting, etc.
- Form examples: Good learning outcomes should be specifically measured by assessment.
- By the end of this course, students will be able to:
- Conduct interviews and compile and analyze secondary sources to report on issues related to the General Assembly.
- Demonstrate through reporting the ethical principles that guide journalists, such as accuracy, fairness, courtesy and diversity, and articulate how those principles are particularly critical at the community level.
- Receive, respond to, and incorporate rigorous editing and feedback through revision for publication.
- Create compelling visual social media stories that engage the audience by reaching established KPI metrics for that platform.
- By the end of this course, students will be able to:
Assessment
The assessments, then, must align with the learning outcomes. The trick is what type of product or project and its associated grade will best provide evidence of the attainment of each learning outcome. Here are a few types of assessment that work well for news-academic partnership courses:
- Self-Assessment and Conferences (formative or summative): We often have to self-evaluate in the professional world, so self-assessments can provide early practice for this challenging task.
- Inventory of skills
- Professionalism and reflection form
- Long-form writing reflections
- Guides for future staff members (reflection on what was learned)
- Conferences (shared goal-setting and feedback)
- Rubrics (summative): Although each journalistic product differs, there are key elements that make it “good.” Using the same, flexible rubric throughout the course can help students gauge their personal progress. Rubrics can be used as either formative (progress and practice-based feedback) or summative (at the end as a demonstration of learning). The key is to write them in a way that clearly provides feedback about whether a learning outcome has been met.
- Feedback (formative): Formative feedback is the “in-process” part of teaching that allows for low-stakes repetition and encourages risk-taking and allows for mistakes.
- Group/staff feedback can be through regular post-mortems or post-show critiques
- Individual feedback can be delivered through your learning management system or private conversations, as well as shared newsroom spaces (like Google Docs) with a professional tone
- Checklists can be useful, low-stakes ways to see if individuals are meeting expectations
- Highly recommend bringing in outside professionals for both individual and group critiques whenever possible
Professional Development and Meetings
Helping your students to grow professionally in addition to creating reporting or products is crucial to their development. There are a number of ways, through regular class sessions and outside of them, to bolster the professionalism of your staff.
- Staff-led training in areas of expertise: Find out student areas of expertise and give them small sections of time to present best practices to the rest of the staff
- Faculty mini-lessons on areas of need: Through an inventory or conversation (or observed staff needs for growth), faculty can fill knowledge or technique gaps throughout a semester. Popular ideas for mini-lessons have included:
- Solutions Journalism
- Project Management
- Interviewing
- Navigating civic information (public records, ORR, FOIA)
- Covering meetings and events (observation, ledes, structure)
- Photojournalism
- Video journalism and short-form video
- Audio/podcasting
- Quick-turns versus in-depth pieces
- Investigative or explanatory journalism
- Features/profiles
- Social media storytelling
- Multiplatform storytelling best practices
- Data journalism and visualizations
- Headlines, captions and SEO
- Analytics
- Email newsletter best practices
- Product development
- Preparing for the journalism job market
- Community journalism research/trends: Using Reuters Digital News Report, Pew Center Research or other sources, help students learn about the trends, challenges and benefits of community news and how your newsroom fits into (or overcomes) those trends
- Types of journalism or emerging trends: There are a number of strong, emerging models for journalism right now, including: solutions journalism, public service journalism, engaged journalism, etc. Also, critical analysis and brainstorming about information disorder, the use of AI in local news, cybersecurity for journalists or data manipulation can be great preparation for a professional role.
- Certifications: Through online programs/institutes, students can drive their own professional development by selecting certifications or online mini-classes to fulfill a professional development requirement. Some common options:
- Newsroom simulation activities: creating or implementing scenario-based situations during your class meetings on everything from breaking news to ethical gray areas, particularly if students work through them collaboratively, can add much to a sense of professionalism
- News meetings: depending on how often your course meets, it’s useful to create the context of a traditional news or editors’ meeting, including pitching, analytics readouts, visual brainstorming, copy editor feedback, crowdsourcing for sources, lede workshops, etc.
Sample Syllabi
- Community Journalism, University of Kentucky
- The Statehouse File, Franklin College
- Fresh Take Florida guide, University of Florida
- Reporting on Government and Politics, Kennesaw State
- Field Experience & Statehouse Bureau, Louisiana State University
- Reporting Texas, University of Texas at Austin
- Covering Government and Politics and the Statehouse Program, Boston University
- Grady Newsource, University of Georgia
- The Oglethorpe Echo, University of Georgia
Democracy, Governance and Elections Reporting Initiative