Clarification: This article has been updated to better describe the work of Media Literacy Now.
On a chilly November morning here, Brie Wattier鈥檚 8th graders at the Inspired Teaching Demonstration School had their eyes trained on the slides projected at the front of the class.
鈥淲hat are the good things about social media?鈥� the slides read. 鈥淲hat are the bad things?鈥�
A bunch of hands shot up. Some students were confident that social media helps connect them with like-minded people and learn new skills, like cooking. Others were less sure of its benefits. Social media can spread rumors or make you compare yourself constantly to others, they said.
This opening gave Wattier, who is piloting a year-long course to teach students skills to determine what鈥檚 true online so they can be more informed citizens, a chance to pose a harder question: 鈥淚s social media more helpful or harmful to a democracy?鈥�
This time, the class was more united in their response, with the presidential election results still fresh on their minds鈥攕ocial media, they said, can influence how you vote, and what goes viral may not be the most accurate information.
Wattier finally asked the question at the heart of the class: 鈥淗ow can we trust the information we get on social media?鈥�
Training a critical lens on information, whether online or offline, has become an essential skill for students, she said in an interview before the class.
鈥淪ome of my students in middle school may be eligible to vote in the next election cycle,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 never too early to teach them these skills.鈥�
The misinformation and 鈥渇ear mongering鈥� before the election has made it even more important to rely on credible sources of information, Wattier added: 鈥淪tudents were asking me stuff like if Trump could run for a third term, or if slavery might come back.鈥�
A growing emphasis on digital citizenship education
The University of Maryland created this course on 鈥渄igital civic inquiry鈥� and trained a cohort of 15 Washington social studies teachers鈥攊ncluding Wattier鈥攐ver the summer on how to teach it. The course is based on the city鈥檚 newly adopted released in 2023, which emphasize that students need to learn how to 鈥済ather diverse perspectives鈥� to evaluate information they see online.
Ninteen states have taken legislative action to include digital citizenship and media literacy in their schools. How these standards are developed and implemented varies between states, according to a 2023 by Media Literacy Now, nonprofit that advocates to ensure all K-12 students are taught media literacy. The largely bipartisan efforts are in response to a growing need in schools鈥攈elping students identify credible information and use social media safely, a task that鈥檚 getting harder with the explosion of artificial intelligence-generated content and 鈥�deepfakes.鈥�
This training, though, must be consistent to be effective, said Sarah McGrew, an assistant professor at the university鈥檚 college of education who helped create the course that Wattier鈥檚 now teaching. The training can鈥檛 just kick in when 鈥渟tudents bring in random [misinformation] to the class or if they are doing a research project,鈥� she said.
鈥淲e then try to quickly teach them how to evaluate sources so that they don鈥檛 end up with crazy things on their reference pages,鈥� McGrew said. 鈥淏ut the process of inquiry needs to be embedded in the [ongoing] curriculum.鈥�
This work is supported in part by a U.S. Department of Education grant. McGrew and her team also partnered with Washington鈥檚 Office of the State Superintendent of Education and the civics education nonprofit Close Up Foundation.
To meet lofty goals, teachers need to start with the basics
The course is broadly divided into a few steps. Students must find evidence for claims or information they find online and evaluate if it鈥檚 coming from a credible and unbiased source. But even before they do this, there鈥檚 a crucial step that鈥檚 currently missing from the way students digest information.
鈥淪tudents, for the most part, aren鈥檛 thinking about the source at all. They鈥檙e just scrolling through social media feeds,鈥� McGrew said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 the way the internet is designed. We need kids to stop and think about trustworthiness and expertise behind the information they鈥檙e reading.鈥�
That鈥檚 why 鈥渓ateral reading鈥� is one of the key skills taught in the course. For example, if a student sees information on one website, they need to go to multiple other websites to corroborate it. The same principles apply to TikTok or Instagram, McGrew said, although the course doesn鈥檛 focus on those apps specifically.
Once that 鈥渞estraint鈥� is built, the next step is to evaluate the information based on the source鈥檚 trustworthiness and expertise. Students explore questions about the source鈥檚 background, if the sources are experts in that subject, or if they鈥檝e conferred with other experts in coming up with their viewpoint.
For instance, the first unit of the course exposes students to the concept of affordable housing in the nation鈥檚 capital. Wattier shared source documents from the Urban Institute, a non-profit think tank, and a luxury real estate firm.
鈥淭he students concluded that the Urban Institute is a credible source. Even if they aren鈥檛 experts themselves, they have consulted experts,鈥� Wattier said. 鈥淥n the other hand, [the real estate firm] may be experts on housing, but students questioned what鈥檚 in it for them to talk about affordable housing.鈥�
The class decided that they could trust the Urban Institute more than the real estate company.
These aren鈥檛 straightforward tasks for students, though. Wattier also had to teach the meaning and significance behind words like think tanks, liberal versus conservative, and revenue. Wattier wanted her students to look out for those words to establish a source鈥檚 credibility and realized she had to be 鈥渁 lot more explicit鈥� about the connection.
Some of the teachers in the training cohort are teaching this course in bilingual classes, meaning they have to collect sources in both English and Spanish.
鈥淚 use Newsela to find Spanish language sources, which are usually articles taken from outlets like the Associated Press,鈥� said Sonija Parson, a middle and high school studies teacher at the Sojourner Truth Montessori School in Washington.
In civics education now, it鈥檚 important to deal with the barrage of both useful and harmful information students are now exposed to, said Eric Soto-Shed, an education lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, while speaking with 澳门跑狗论坛 this fall on civics courses that tackle misinformation and political participation.
Critically analyzing this information is only step one, though. The next step is for students to understand the kind of information ecosystem they live in, he added.
鈥淲hat is it about sensational media ... that can attract us [as] a viewer?鈥� he asked.
Students have to be critical about the larger environment in which they receive information, to鈥攊deally鈥攂urst out of their social media bubbles, he added.
Students pick up lateral reading quickly, but need to hone their skills
In 2022, a from the Stanford Graduate School of Education showed that high school students who received only six 50-minute lessons in digital literacy were twice as likely to 鈥渟pot questionable websites as they were before the instruction took place.鈥�
Two modules into the digital civic inquiry course, middle schoolers at the Inspired Teaching Demonstration School feel confident about their ability to spot fake information online and question its sources.
鈥淲hen I used to scroll on social media, every single piece of information that I saw, I would automatically believe it. And I would judge, like, whether I believe it based off of the look of it,鈥� said Kaitlyn Saunders, an 8th grader in Wattier鈥檚 class. 鈥淏ut now I can look at something, and I can be, like, this looks professional, but the information might not be true, or it might not be fact-checked, and I might want to check the sources before I go telling my family members and friends about it.鈥�
A website would seem professional鈥攁nd by extension, trustworthy鈥攖o Kaitlyn if the information in it was well-organized, if it had a color scheme, and if it linked to multiple other sites.
Kimore Philips, Caitlin鈥檚 classmate, said she鈥檇 learned to 鈥渜uestion herself鈥� when looking at videos or websites online: 鈥淲ho made this? Are those people experts on the topic? Are they biased or promoting a business? Why should I trust them?鈥�
The lessons have given students an easy way to conduct background research, said James Aument, another 8th grader in Wattier鈥檚 class who plans to talk to his family and friends about trusting information online.
The students emphasized the need to teach their parents to understand what鈥檚 real and fake. 鈥淭hey didn鈥檛 have AI, they didn鈥檛 have the types of cell phones and social media that we have now,鈥� said Kaitlyn.
Teacher training is key
Wattier is happy with her students鈥� progress. They鈥檝e grasped the idea of lateral reading, but they still need help to parse through biased and unbiased sources.
When Wattier asked them to find out if an environmental coalition was a credible source for an article that challenged research on global warming, students saw that it was a nonprofit advocacy organization and deemed it credible. 鈥淭hey missed that the group is made up of climate change denialists,鈥� Wattier said.
As Wattier works through students鈥� own biases, she will introduce concepts like 鈥渃lick restraint,鈥� the idea that websites pay to be placed at certain spots on Google, and how that can impact their credibility. By the end of the year, Wattier hopes students will be able to verify the credibility of sources they find on their own.
鈥淭hese skills should translate to critically analyzing any media they consume, whether it鈥檚 for school or entertainment,鈥� Wattier said.
Teachers, like other adults, can also lack the skills to do a credibility check on information they see online. A common mistake, said McGrew, is to think that a website with a .org or .edu domain will always give credible information.
The University of Maryland trainers will issue participating teachers a pre- and post-course survey to check to see if their evaluation skills get better, alongside their students鈥�.
There are other skills being captured, too, said McGrew: 鈥淲e鈥檙e interested in seeing if they facilitate deliberations in these classes better.鈥�
Next year, McGrew hopes to increase the number of teachers who have been trained in this course to 50. Beyond that, she鈥檒l rely on the educators who have gone through training to then serve as master trainers for other teachers in their schools.
鈥淭o the extent that there鈥檚 money available, hopefully, we鈥檒l be able to more explicitly support teachers,鈥� she said. 鈥淏ut I feel good that at least the teacher leader piece is there, and that there鈥檒l be teachers across the city who are experts in teaching this.鈥�
