Topic: Identify and Apply knowledge about copyright laws and fair use.

Level: 12^th Grade

 Teach the topic or skill with the intention of students’ positive transfer of their learning.

I would begin the class asking the students to imagine that they have taken the best picture of a sunset and have shown it to everyone and protected it under current copyright laws. However, there is this other person who decided to get the picture, transform it or duplicated it and is now making profits saying he/she is the original creator of all the material.

After thinking about how fair or not is the situation towards all individuals involved, the students would realize that copyright laws apply to everyone who is capable of producing pretty much anything that can be considered original. This situation can also be translated into other areas of their lives where laws that seem to apply only to a few can also be found to apply to the common individual.

 Teach the topic/skill to facilitate students’ near transfer of their learning.

Once the student learns how hurtful piracy is against society and how easy it can be to respect the copyright laws, the student can understand why other teachers are so “picky” about acknowledging sources properly. Learning how copyright works and what their role is as responsible students can actually improve their sense of academic and civic responsibility towards original authors and make them more eager to provide accurate sources even when they are not required to do so.

 Teach the topic/skill to facilitate students’ far transfer of their learning.

Making students aware that the copyright laws protect their rights, they will be encouraged to explore how to protect their rights and be aware of other peoples’ as a mean to stay between the boundaries marked by the law. The way to teach far transfer would be to teach students how to research the copyright terms of an item, how to contact the copyright holder, etc. as a mean to teach them that understanding a law is the best way to stay out of trouble. We are surrounded by laws in pretty much all environments so learning steps to understand them and fulfill them is surely useful in all kinds of situations inside and out of the academic environment.

 Teach the topic/skill to prevent students’ negative transfer of their learning.

It is also very important to help students realize that it is sometimes legal to use other people’s creations to make our own. “Copyrighted” doesn’t make things untouchable (common misconception): it just means that we have to learn how to make a respectful use of someone else’s intellectual property. For this, I think the best could be to teach the procedure to ask for permission from an author to use a material and the fact that some people actually feel honored to see that others like their original idea and want to adopt it and give them proper credit.