Civic Online Reasoning: Preparing Students for Civic Engagement in a Digital Age

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Civic engagement in the current digital environment demands that individuals be able to find trustworthy information online. This is no easy task given the overwhelming amount of advertisements, misinformation, and disinformation online. Preparing students for this reality is a crucial component of civic education. This session will detail partnerships between researchers and school districts to assess students’ ability to evaluate online sources and to implement curriculum to help students become more skilled in this realm. The first part of the session will focus on a national study of high school students’ abilities to evaluate online sources. The second part will examine research partnerships between two school districts and university-based researchers to implement and evaluate lessons in digital evaluations.

Sub Unit

• Division C - Learning and Instruction / Division C - Section 1b: Humanities and Social Sciences

Chair

• Joel Breakstone, Stanford University

Papers

• A National Portrait of Students' Online Evaluation Skills - Marshall Garland, Gibson Consulting Group; Amie Rapaport, Gibson Consulting Group

• Teaching Students to Read Like Fact-Checkers: A Curriculum Intervention - Joel Breakstone, Stanford University; Sarah McGrew, University of Maryland; Mark D. Smith, Stanford University; Sam Wineburg, Stanford University; Teresa Elena Ortega, Stanford University; Darby Kerr, Stanford University

• Beyond Checklists and Databases: A New Approach to Teaching Digital Literacy - Rob McEntarffer, Lincoln Public Schools; Jaclyn Kellison, Lincoln Public Schools

• Building Students' Digital Literacy - Mark Gomez, Salinas Union High School District

Discussant

• Marc Chun, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation