Teaching young people to skillfully sort fact from fiction on the internet is vital work. Students’ ability to find trustworthy information will affect themselves, their communities, and the world. And yet, there are few resources for teachers regarding how to teach students effective strategies for evaluating online information. We’ve developed this resource as a small start toward meeting that need.
What follows are recommendations for professional learning on how to improve students’ online reasoning. We’ve designed these resources to be used flexibly with colleagues in your department, school, and beyond. Central to this professional learning framework are classroom simulations that offer opportunities to observe student challenges, reflect on instruction, and plan best practices in teaching Civic Online Reasoning. These activities are delivered on a free online platform called Teaching Moments or can be reviewed as Google Docs or printed pages. You may choose to have participants complete these activities before professional learning meetings or during them.
How To Use This Resource
We encourage professional learning communities, such as departments, curriculum teams, or committees, to use these resources and have included suggestions for how to structure each session. We encourage groups to modify the materials to best suit their needs and interests.
The classroom simulations are designed to be used sequentially, starting with Session 1 and ending with Session 4. For those looking to do just one session, we recommend Session 1 or 3. For those planning to do two or three sessions, we recommend doing Session 4 only if you’ve completed Session 1.