fake news

Assignment

Faking Breaking News

Play-based learning activity asking students to intentionally create "fake news" and engage with their emotional reactions in coming across information. 

Teaching Resource

Four Moves: Adventures in Fact-Checking for Students

The Four Moves blog is maintained by Mike Caulfield, who has been helping teachers integrate digital citizenship skills into the classroom for over 10 years.

Assignment

Fake News: Harmless or Disruptive?

Did fake news affect the presidential election? Do websites purposely publish misleading stories? In this workshop, learn how to evaluate the trustworthiness of news stories while responsibly sharing reliable information.

Assignment

Fake News: Fight Back

A one-shot or seminar class on fake news tied to source evaluation. Examination of the factors at play in the creation of misinformation; insight into how to select sources; tools and strategies for evalutating content of stories, authors, and news outlets.

Assignment

Fake News, Lies, and Propaganda: How to Sort Fact from Fiction

What is “fake news” anyway? Are we living in a post-truth world? These University of Michigan course materials will provide opportunities to discuss and analyze news production, consumption and evaluation. Students will develop the critical thinking skills necessary to be an informed citizen; understand how their worldview affects their interpretation of the news; and create a personal strategy for fact-checking and evaluating the news.

Assignment

Fact Checking Pro

This resource and accompanying assignment focuses on evaluating news sources/claims and were used in an online information literacy class.

Teaching Resource

Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers

The web is a unique terrain, substantially different from print materials. Yet, too often attempts at teaching information literacy for the web do not take into account both the web’s unique challenges and its unique affordances.

Assignment

What's Happening? Evaluating News in a Time of Information Overload

In this workshop, students learn about the driving forces behind fake news, reflect on how our opinions impact the way we evaluate information, and discuss and practice using criteria for evaluating news. The workshop includes a brief presentation on fake news and cognitive biases, reflection prompts for students to respond to, and an activity in which students work in groups to evaluate different news articles on a common topic.

Assignment

Keepin It Real: Tips and Strategies for Evaluating Fake News

In an effort to provide students with an open space to learn about and discuss recent national concerns over “fake news,” the library offered four sessions of the workshop “Keepin’ It Real: Tips & Strategies for Evaluating Fake News” during a campus-wide Inauguration Teach-In on Friday, January 20, 2017. During this session, students had the opportunity to talk about how misleading news sources (encompassing misinformation, disinformation, click-bait, propaganda, etc.) have affected their views on civil discourse, specifically relating to the recent U.S. presidential election.

Assignment

Evaluating Claims: Facebook Edition

Students will be expected to find evidence to investigate a pseudoscientific claim or conspiracy theory. For their graded assignment, they will be submitting a two-page paper to their Chemistry professor (the lead professor for this class in which I’m embedding). In their paper, they make a case that either supports the claim or rejects it. They will be expected to use both library and credible online sources for support.