This post is week 3 of 8 in the 8 Weeks of Summer Blog Challenge for educators.
The Prompt:
The Biggest Change
What is the biggest change you are considering
making for your learners in the coming school year?
Whatever course I teach next year, I will include and expect search, research, and verification skills every week. I want students and adults to know that ways exist to verify the information and the websites that continuously bombard us with information in an effort to inform, persuade, and entertain. Knowing the difference and knowing how to know that is key knowledge for today’s citizens.
I’ve always taught those skills– but now, they need to become habit, a part of our daily conversation.
What’s real? What isn’t? How do we know? What is sharable? How do we talk about this?
Resources I’ve found include search strategies, internet safety, fake news, website/source verification, critical thinking, socratic discussions, and questioning techniques.
Of course, these resources must also be considered by students for their own writing because content, purpose, audience, and truth are also their responsibility.
Resources
Search and Media:
KQED has several courses on media.
Teaching Tolerance on Search Engines: How Info Comes to You
Fake News
TeachHub’s Resources for Fake News
Padlet of Resources by Ms Legarde
Source Credibility
Teaching Tolerance Evaluating Websites
Edutopia’s Evaluation Websites
Education World’s Guide to Source Credibility
Critical Thinking / Reading
P21 Critical Thinking Resources
Teaching Tolerance Close and Critical Reading
ThinkCERA Graphic Organizers for Critical Thinking
Discussions / Questioning
ThinkCERA Socratic Discussions
My favorite: QFT / Question Formulation Technique from Right Question Institute: Sign up for Resources
QFT I created in Google Docs, for student collaboration in class
Search, research, verification, conversation, reading and writing: these are powerful tools for our students.
As teachers of those who will lead today, tomorrow and in the future, we need to help students understand and apply the skills needed to navigate social media, news, and our everyday interactions; it starts in our classrooms. It’s the biggest change in our world today, and education needs to change to deal with it.
Wha would you add to this list?
