The Case for News Literacy Skills in an AI World

Instruction that personalizes learning while teaching the tools to ferret out misinformation

When artificial intelligence technologies exploded into the mainstream almost two years ago, many educators’ primary concern was how to curb fresh opportunities for cheating and plagiarism. But there’s an even more worrisome possibility with the widespread availability of AI: the prospect we will send students into a world of algorithmically generated information without the skills to determine whether they should trust it.

Our students live in an information ecosystem cluttered with social media influencers, YouTube rabbit holes and AI technologies that anyone can use to create realistic-looking content at a scale never before possible. For all the upsides that generative AI technologies could bring to the classroom — personalizing learning or automating rote tasks to free up more time for teaching — it also could be used to develop and distribute misinformation more quickly and convincingly than ever before.

All of this is happening against a backdrop of hostility toward the media, dwindling access to local, credible news and a divisive society in which people choose which set of “facts” they believe.

Crucial Credibility

The proliferation of AI has made it more urgent than ever for school leaders to prioritize news literacy instruction.

News literacy is the ability to determine the credibility of news and other information and to recognize the standards of fact-based journalism. With these skills, students know what to trust, share and act on. News literacy teaches students how to think, not what to think. It helps young people evaluate the credibility and authenticity of the information generated by AI.

In this new information world, news literacy must be integrated into cross-disciplinary instruction so students have the skills and habits needed to find credible information, evaluate evidence and recognize and push back against rumors and falsehoods.

Many school leaders across the country are leading the way. In the Gunnison Watershed School District, a rural Colorado district about 200 miles southwest of Denver, teachers meet year-round to map out and pilot news literacy courses that include lessons on navigating AI.

In a news literacy approach to AI, what do educators and students need to know?

To evaluate the credibility of AI-generated information, students and educators must understand that these tools have serious limitations. They often get things wrong, they are not objective and they can be riddled with bias.

AI tools are trained on significant portions of the internet, including credible sources, but also on message boards filled with hate speech, YouTube videos pushing conspiracy theories and propaganda sites run by foreign governments. This means AI often “learns” inaccurate “facts” and perpetuates harmful stereotypes.

AI tools also make things up. The tech industry calls this “hallucination” or the “black box problem,” and even the people who build AI technologies aren’t entirely certain why it happens. But it results in AI presenting false information with certainty, and it happens frequently.

Even though this technology — and its shortcomings — are new, the fundamentals of thinking critically about information remain the same.

Students should be taught to approach AI tools with dispositions and questions such as “How do you know this information is accurate or authentic?” “Are sources cited?” and “Are they credible?” One question especially relevant to AI is to ask whether the sources are even real. AI has been known to fabricate citations to news stories that don’t exist and never have actually been published.

To illustrate this, ask students to use AI tools to research a topic they are deeply knowledgeable about — such as Taylor Swift or their favorite sports team — and analyze the accuracy and credibility of the information that’s generated.

Students also must recognize when AI generates content that is overtly biased. Teachers can ready their students to spot this by helping them understand the different forms bias can take, such as an absence of fairness and balance, framing that misleads or skewed sourcing and tone.

Our students need to be prepared to encounter possible misuses of AI, including its potential to turbocharge the creation and spread of misinformation. When school leaders in the Gunnison Watershed District recently surveyed their students and staff about AI as part of their efforts to incorporate news literacy instruction into the district, 65 percent of respondents said one of the primary challenges is the technology’s ability to spread misinformation.

A district’s blueprint teaches students how to navigate AI with news literacy.

It’s one thing to identify the skills and dispositions that students need to learn so they can navigate information generated by AI. It’s another thing to integrate this necessary instruction into the classroom in a meaningful way. Gunnison, a district with about 2,000 students and 165 teachers, provides a blueprint for others to follow.

Gunnison had perfect timing. Just as AI began to explode in the public consciousness, the district was selected to join the News Literacy District Fellowship program, a two-year effort that includes intensive support from the nonpartisan, nonprofit News Literacy Project to create and implement a systemic news and media literacy instructional plan.

While the fellowship presented the time, space and support for Gunnison teachers to incorporate AI into their news literacy approach, the steps they took can be replicated anywhere.

First, district leaders tapped into educators’ expertise. Starting in the 2023-24 school year, Gunnison identified teachers who met regularly throughout the year to discuss various aspects of news and media literacy. Three educators had a primary focus on AI. Together, they identified where to include lessons on AI, like recognizing its limitations as a source, into the news literacy curriculum.

The district also took stock of the current landscape and future needs when it comes to AI. The district surveyed educators and students to measure the existing AI knowledge within Gunnison and how students were already using the technology. With those insights, district leaders pinpointed areas where staff could provide professional learning support, as well as areas where outside support was needed from organizations like NLP or through subscriptions to approved AI-tools that could be integrated into teachers’ work.

Like any educational initiative, administrative support has proven to be a key strength. Leaders have made it a priority to provide guidance to educators on using AI. They have modeled professional learning by leading workshops for staff and built their own skills alongside the district’s teachers by attending sessions hosted by their fellowship team.

Another main ingredient to Gunnison’s success has been engagement and communication. Educators recognized the need to bring students’ families into the conversations happening around AI. They made it a priority to clearly address concerns that caregivers had about AI use in the classroom, while also highlighting the ways students successfully use the technology in their studies.

As the first year in the program ended, the fellowship team drafted AI agreements so everyone in the district is on the same page when it comes to understanding the how, what and why of AI use in teaching and learning in Gunnison.

Heading into the 2024-25 school year, the district was well-positioned to implement a sustainable, systemic plan to ensure students learn to navigate AI technologies using news literacy skills.

What school leaders can do to integrate news literacy into the classroom.

Classroom educators can use an inquiry-based approach or a pedagogy that models curiosity to learn how to use these tools.

There is a plethora of free professional development opportunities and other resources available through organizations like the News Literacy Project, the Digital Inquiry Group and Common Sense Education. The Poynter Institute’s MediaWise initiative offers useful classroom materials for teaching news literacy skills, including content created by teens for their peers.

For school leaders looking for a comprehensive approach to integrating these critical dispositions and skills across grade bands and content areas, the News Literacy Project offers two resources. The Framework for Teaching News Literacy provides a bird’s-eye view of news literacy instruction and is ideal for incorporating it into curriculum or as the basis for creating stand-alone courses. The grade band expectations for teaching news literacy can help districts tailor teaching approaches from K-12.

Organized around the three-stage, “backward design” process of Understanding by Design, the framework maps out common standards, essential questions and knowledge and skills objectives, along with suggested performance tasks and learning activities. NLP’s five core competencies that students need to master to be news-literate are the heart of the framework. The competency most relevant to navigating AI calls for students to learn to verify, analyze and evaluate information.

The grade-band expectations help educators build these competencies in age-appropriate ways. In K-2, for example, students begin conceptual development of verifying context by demonstrating how the meaning of words can change when they are taken out of context. In grades 3-5, verifying authenticity of information is added to conceptual development; students define what authenticity means in different contexts and reflect on how information can be authentic or inauthentic. By middle and high school, students can recognize the advantages and uses of generative AI technologies, as well as their potential for fabricating details, sources and visuals.

These skills are the foundation of a solid civics education but are also applicable across content areas. Students who have developed core news literacy skills and habits of mind can evaluate scientific evidence and detect pseudoscience. In art and social studies, they can explain how editorial cartoons are distinct from memes and assess the potential for each to be used to spread propaganda. In math, they can understand how data can be misused or distorted, complicating the notion that, “Numbers don’t lie.”

Another way that school leaders can ensure that students are given the opportunity to learn these essential 21st-century skills is to advocate for policies that make news literacy a requirement for graduation. States across the country are increasingly taking this approach. New Jersey is particularly noteworthy. A law passed last year calls for news literacy concepts to be taught in all grades, thanks in part to advocacy from the state’s school librarians.

Fully Prepped Students

Districts like Gunnison know that news literacy is not a “nice to have” but a “must have.” Information is the basis for civic literacy, agency and action.​ Failing to prepare students to separate what’s credible from what’s not is a failure to prepare them to be fully informed participants in our democracy.​

If no one teaches our young people how to know what to trust online or how to understand the pitfalls of new information technologies, we leave them vulnerable to misinformation, bad actors and conspiracy theories. Or worse, we tacitly encourage them to confront this complex information landscape with cynicism and reckless distrust, where whatever is inconvenient or that challenges their beliefs is dismissed as fake, made up by AI or pushed by some other unseen powerful force. 

Shaelynn Farnsworth is director of the district fellowship program with the News Literacy Project in Washington, D.C. Peter Adams is senior vice president of research and design for the News Literacy Project.