Teaching Civic Online Reasoning Across the Curriculum

Tips for Curricular Integration of Media Literacy

Making a case for teaching students to evaluate online content is easy. Finding a place for it in an already jam-packed K-12 curriculum is harder. Here are three strategies school districts are using successfully to integrate civic online reasoning instruction into existing courses.

• No 1: Seek curricular alignment.
  
  Administrators in Lincoln, Neb., Public Schools saw that civic online reasoning aligned with the social studies goal of preparing students for civic life. Consequently, they chose to integrate these digital discernment strategies across social studies courses.
  
  Teachers at Neuqua Valley High School in Naperville, Ill., looked for topics in existing courses that would lend themselves to civic online reasoning instruction. For example, a biology unit about forensics presented an opportunity to investigate the veracity of claims made on social media about crime scene investigations. A geography lesson about sanitation in India was a logical setting for students to read laterally about a World Toilet Day website from the United Nations.
  
  In each case, teachers did not have to contort themselves to integrate civic online reasoning. The course goals and topics lent themselves to the instruction.


• No. 2: Utilize librarians.
  
  Librarians are experts in teaching students how to find high-quality information. They can serve as key allies in the effort to integrate civic online reasoning into the curriculum. At Neuqua Valley High School, librarian Carrie Ory supports teachers as they design lessons, helping them locate relevant sources and designing activities using platforms like Peardeck.
  
  In Lincoln Public Schools, librarians infuse civic online reasoning skills into projects with teachers and students, which helps expand civic online reasoning instruction to content areas outside of social studies. The district’s librarians also lead professional development workshops for staff on civic online reasoning skills and resources.


• No. 3: Support teachers in this work.
  
  If districts are to integrate civic online reasoning across the curriculum, teachers need help. For many, civic online reasoning is novel content. They will need professional development that encourages them to learn civic online reasoning strategies like lateral reading and to develop ways to teach students those strategies.
  
  The Stanford History Education Group partnered with MIT’s Teaching Systems Lab to create a free online course focused on these issues called Sorting Truth From Fiction: Civic Online Reasoning. District-specific professional development, such as the workshops offered by librarians in the Lincoln schools, is perhaps even more useful.
  
  Districts also can provide classroom-ready curriculum materials. Lincoln’s social studies administrators adapted free civic online reasoning lessons from cor.stanford.edu to align with district curricula and made them available to teachers across the district.