Lesson: How to Train Your Algorithm
In this lesson, students will learn about algorithms and how they function, particularly recommendation algorithms utilized by popular apps like YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Netflix. Students explore the role of optimization goals such as watch time, engagement, and daily active use in shaping the content algorithms prioritize. Through activities like “red teaming,” students will critically analyze the potential downsides and biases of these optimization goals. Students will also discover how to train algorithms by providing both explicit inputs through actions like liking and sharing, and understand the implications of implicit inputs gathered from their online activity. Finally, students design their own algorithm for an app of their choice, identifying which goals it should be optimized for and how they should be weighted as well as what inputs it should use.
Grade range: 9
Time Frame
| One class period (75 minutes) | Two or three class periods (150-225 minutes) | Extended Unit | |
| Activities | Introducing Recommendation Algorithms
How to Train Your Algorithm Algorithm Training
|
Introducing Recommendation Algorithms
Optimizing Algorithms The Cold Start Problem How to Train Your Algorithm Algorithm Training |
Introducing Recommendation Algorithms
Optimizing Algorithms The Cold Start Problem Red-teaming Recommendations How to Train Your Algorithm Algorithm Training Reinventing Recommendations |
Preparation:
- Make sure that you are able to show the embedded videos or that students are able to access the links.
- Make sure that students are able to access the interactive activities.
Learning Outcomes
Big ideas/key concepts: Students will understand that…
Media are constructions:
- Algorithms are designed and optimized for a particular purpose
Media have social and political implications:
- Recommendation algorithms can have negative impacts on people and society due to their optimization goals
Media have commercial implications:
- Algorithms’ design and optimization serve commercial purposes such as maximizing watch time and engagement
Digital media have unexpected audiences:
- Many apps, websites and other digital tools collect information while you are using them to use as inputs for their algorithms
Digital media experiences are shaped by the tools we use:
- How algorithms are designed and optimized influence how we use an app or tool
- It is possible to consciously “train” algorithms to influence the content they deliver
Key questions:
- How do algorithms work?
- What are some of the implications of how they work?
- How can we use them more consciously and mindfully?
Essential knowledge: Students will know…
- Reading media: Operation of recommendation algorithms, including optimization goals and explicit and implicit inputs
- Consumer awareness: Commercial goals of algorithms’ optimization goals
- Privacy and security: Collection of personal data for use as implicit inputs
- Key vocabulary: algorithm, data brokers, optimization goal, explicit input, implicit input, recommendation algorithm
Performance tasks: Students will be able to…
- Access: Find and use privacy settings
- Use: Refresh and customize an app’s recommendation algorithm
- Understand: Analyze the implications and potential impacts of algorithms, their optimization goals and their inputs
- Engage: Identify potential harms of recommendation algorithms, take steps to use algorithms more mindfully, and design an algorithm that would mitigate those harms
Student-friendly outcomes:
- We will learn how algorithms and recommendation systems work, what their optimization goals are, and key terms like “algorithm,” “optimization goal,” and “implicit input.”
- We will think about the social, political, and commercial impacts of algorithms, how they collect and use our data, and how we can use them more mindfully.
- We will find and use privacy settings, customize app recommendations, analyze the effects of algorithms, and design ways to reduce potential harms caused by recommendation systems.
Curriculum Connections
Strand A: Literacy Connections and Applications
A1. Transferable Skills
A1.1 Student Agency and Engagement
evaluate and explain how transferable skills help them to express their voice, be engaged in their learning, and implement a plan to develop their capabilities and potential
A2. Digital Media Literacy
A2.1 Digital Citizenship
valuate and explain their rights and responsibilities when interacting online with appropriate permission, and make decisions that contribute positively to the development of their digital identity and those of their communities
A2.4 Forms, Conventions, and Techniques
evaluate the use of the various forms, conventions, and techniques of digital and media texts, consider the impact on the audience, and apply this understanding when analyzing and creating texts
A2.5 Media, Audience, and Production
demonstrate an understanding of the interrelationships between the form, message, and context of texts, the intended and unintended audience, and the purpose for production
A2.6 Innovation and Design
select and use appropriate digital and media tools to support the design process and address authentic, relevant, real-world problems by developing and proposing innovative solutions
A3. Applications, Connections, and Contributions
A3.1 Cross-Curricular and Integrated Learning
analyze and explain how the knowledge and skills developed in this course support learning in various subject areas and in everyday life, and describe how they enhance understanding and communication
Strand C: Comprehension: Understanding and Responding to Texts
C1. Knowledge about Texts
C1.2 Text Forms and Genres
analyze and compare the characteristics of various text forms and genres, including cultural text forms, and provide evidence to explain how they help communicate meaning
C1.3 Text Patterns and Features
compare the text patterns, such as compare and contrast in an expository essay, and text features, such as footnotes and copyright information, associated with different text forms, including cultural texts, and evaluate their importance in helping readers, listeners, and viewers understand the meaning
C3. Critical Thinking in Literacy
C3.2 Making Inferences
make local and global inferences, using explicit and implicit evidence, to explain and support their interpretations about various complex texts
Strand D: Composition: Expressing Ideas and Creating Texts
D1. Developing Ideas and Organizing Content
D1.1 Purpose and Audience
identify the topic, purpose, and audience for various texts they plan to create; choose a text form, genre, and medium to suit the purpose and audience, and justify their choices
D1.2 Developing Ideas
generate and develop ideas and details about complex topics, such as topics related to diversity, equity, and inclusion and to other subject areas, using a variety of strategies, and drawing on various resources, including their own lived experiences
D1.3 Organizing Content
classify and sequence ideas and collected information, selecting effective strategies and tools, and identify and organize relevant content, evaluating the choices of text form, genre, and medium, and considering alternatives
D2. Creating Texts
D2.1 Producing Drafts
draft complex texts of various forms and genres, including narrative, persuasive, expository, and informational texts, citing sources, and use a variety of appropriate media, tools, and strategies to transform information and communicate ideas
D2.4 Point of View and Perspective
explain the explicit and implicit points of view, perspectives, and bias conveyed in their texts, evaluate how various audiences might respond, and suggest ways to acknowledge other perspectives
A computer program that follows a series of steps to make a decision.
Training an algorithm to achieve a particular goal.
Companies that collect information about people and sell it to advertisers, apps or websites.
A signal that you know you're sending, such as hitting the Like button.
A signal you may not know you're sending, such as how long you watch a video.
An algorithm that guesses what you are likely to want to see and shows it to you.