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IDENTIFY REAL EXAMPLES OF FALSE INFORMATION

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IDENTIFY REAL EXAMPLES OF FALSE INFORMATION

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IDENTIFY REAL EXAMPLES OF FALSE INFORMATION

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IDENTIFY REAL EXAMPLES OF FALSE INFORMATION

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WHAT COMPETENCIES DO STUDENTS NEED TO BECOME INFO AND MEDIA LITERATE AND WHY? 

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WHAT COMPETENCIES DO STUDENTS NEED TO BECOME INFO AND MEDIA LITERATE AND WHY? 

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Media and Technology have become a fantastic and quick resource for everyone and anyone to get information,... however, with everyone in the world having easy access to put information online, it's important for us to know 1. How and where to find information. 2. How to evaluate information and discern fact from fiction, and 3. Curate good information. In a world becoming increasingly media and technology focused these skill will be essential not only to school based learning, but for learning and gathering information of any kind.

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Being able to identify false information is something a lot of us are probably wishing our grandparents learned before getting social media. Perhaps its too late for them to learn but its never too late for us! So how DO you know if something is true? The first step is to always QUESTION.

Who is writing this, what is their motive and credibility, What are other sources saying, When was this information uploaded, are there multiple perspective provided, factual evidence sourced? Asking these questions will lead you to action, examples of good actions to take are given by Julia Cario, a digital literacy educator.

Verify and refute online information

Investigate author credentials

Detect bias and stance

Negotiate multiple perspectives

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/evaluating-quality-of-online-info-julie-coiro

These may seem like excessive steps, but they will keep you above all the fake news, save you from the embarrassment of being just another fake news spreader, and help you always know how to find truth.

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a newspaper with fake news written on it

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Its easy to find information but knowing where to find good information, and know the self guiding steps to knowing which information to find, is essential. The best place to start is with the first 3 steps of "The Big 6"

The Big 6 teaches technology literacy for students of all ages from all over. The first three can be helpful in the area of finding information.

1. Task Definition ( What info do you need?)

1.1 Define the information problem

1.2 Identify information needed

2. Information Seeking Strategies ( What sources do I have available)

2.1 Determine all possible sources

2.2 Select the best sources

3. Location and Access (Where can I access those sources and find more)

3.1 Locate sources (intellectually and physically)

3.2 Find information within sources.

With these steps you will be right on track to successful research. Its important to know how to get started when looking for information and following these steps will most likely lead you to looking in places with accurate and valuable information, rather than content that is misleading and biased.

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Once you have found good information, don't lose it, curate it! Curating means gathering and pulling information together in an organized fashion so you can use it effectively! There are many resources out there to help you do this.. here are a few!

-Google keep

-Flipboard

-Wakelet

Resources like these allow you to save and organize information at anytime and anywhere, as well as share it with others!

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Flipboard for Educators - curating and sharing content

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The idea of "Learning styles" has been around since Aristotle, and became more prominent in the 70s and 80s. While there are different styles of teaching and favorable ways to learn, the idea that there are 4 specific learning styles, in which every student will have a specific style of learning has been in recent years debunked. There is no scientific proof to these 4 types of learning and the "VARK"(a test you can take to find your type of learning) which this article encourages. This type of mis-information about learning is common, as it was taught and continues to be taught mistakenly even now.

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"...We need a sustained K-12 media literacy program—something to teach kids not only how to use the media but how the media uses them.  Kids need to know how particular messages get crafted and why, what devices are used to hold their attention and what ideas are leftout. In a culture where media is pervasive and invasive, kids need to think critically about what they see, hear and read.  No child’s education can be complete without this.” -FCC Commissioner Michael Copps

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"...We need a sustained K-12 media literacy program—something to teach kids not only how to use the media but how the media uses them.  Kids need to know how particular messages get crafted and why, what devices are used to hold their attention and what ideas are leftout. In a culture where media is pervasive and invasive, kids need to think critically about what they see, hear and read.  No child’s education can be complete without this.” -FCC Commissioner Michael Copps

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I was shown this film in the 4th grade on the holiday previously called "Columbus day", now "Indigenous peoples day". While this film is not completely inaccurate, it tends to have biased views on the historical figure as well as a lack of information in order to paint the story in a good light. The film avoids telling the parts of Columbus's history that are not so heroic. History is one subject where digital literacy is extremely important because history tends to be recorded with bias. It's important to teach history from multiple perspectives in order to get closer to giving an accurate account of the event.

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Animated Hero Classics Episode 1 - Christopher Columbus Watch Cartoons Online Free - Cartoons is not just for the kids

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Animated Hero Classics Episode 1 - Christopher Columbus Watch Cartoons Online Free - Cartoons is not just for the kids izleyin - Viral THX Dailymotion'da

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1. There is no scientific evidence that show teaching to someones learning styles benefits learning

(link above)

2. Preferences for learning do not mean you learn better a certain way, it means you find one form of learning more enjoyable and entertaining. The learning styles are preferences, not something scientifically proven about the way our brain receives information.

https://www.stcidlsig.org/are-vark-and-other-learning-styles-a-legitimate-pedagogical-theory/#:~:text=Many%20research%20studies%20conducted%20over,VARK%20were%20not%20scientifically%20sound.

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Introduction

If you have been anywhere where teaching is involved, you have probably heard mention of "learning styles." "I'm a visual learner" vs. "I'm a hands-on learner" or "My instructor didn't teach in my learning style" are all the types of commentary that are common when some individuals talk about their own learning. Although it is deeply appealing to be able to categorize individuals into easy methods of learning, unfortunately, it is deeply flawed, has little empirical evidence to support it, and might cause more problems than it solves.

What are learning styles?

To best understand why learning styles are problematic, it is important to clearly define learning styles. The idea of learning styles is that there are stable, consistent methods that individuals take in, organize, process, and remember information, and by teaching those methods, students learn better.

One popular concept in learning styles posits that the modality of information is critical - a "visual" learner learns best by seeing versus an "auditory" learner who learns best by having things spoken or described to them. Learning style theory would suggest that by using visual aids, a visual learner would organize and retain information better than say, an auditory learner. The implication is that matching modality information to the modality of learning style is critical to student success.

At face value, the concept of learning styles makes sense. Individuals learn differently. Most educational settings are trying to reach large numbers of students in personalized ways. It would be useful to have an easily applied theory that would help all students learn! As educators, we want to recognize the "uniqueness" of each student and help learners in any way we can. This desire has led educators to look for easier ways to navigate the complexities of teaching. Unfortunately, learning is not that simple.

Do learning styles really exist?

In general, most learning style theories make two presumptions:

1. Individuals have a measurable and consistent "style" of learning, and

2. Teaching to that style of learning will lead to better education outcomes, and conversely, teaching in a contradictory method would decrease achievement.

In other words, if you are a visual learner, you should learn best if you see things, regardless of the situation. If you are a kinesthetic learner, you will learn best if you can physically manipulate something, regardless of the topic. However, neither of these two assumptions shows any grounding in research. These two propositions are where we can see the concept of learning styles breaking down.

Are learning styles measurable and consistent?

Did you know that there are actually over 50 different theories of learning styles by various researchers? Researchers have been trying for years to find a correlation between individuals and how to help learning. Some theories suggest the modality of learning matters (like the common VARK theory) while others propose details like time of day and temperature of the room define a learning style. One study that suggested using a cell phone was a learning style (Pursell, 2009). Just the number of different styles makes it difficult to measure and make sense of an individual style.

In addition, most learning style inventories rely on a student's self-report about how they perceive they learn best. These self-reports are generally not validated in any way. Generally, humans tend to be poor judges of our own learning. Therefore, these surveys are generally measuring "learner preference" rather than "learning style." You may think you are an auditory learner but until it is validated that you objectively learn better through audio format, it is a preference, not a style.

Also, when reporting results, many studies will rely on "student satisfaction" as a measure of success, or rely on students' reflections as a measure of success in a class. For example, many measures of learning styles will ask students how they believe they learn best. Unfortunately, satisfaction with a class or a student's recollections of success are subjective measures, and generally not accurate (Kirschner & van Merriënboer, 2013, Kirschner, 2017). While understanding a learner's preference is useful as is understanding student satisfaction with a lesson, it does not have the same weight as necessitating teaching to that preference.

Finally, ​​"styles" are unstable and unreliable. The research on learning styles has suggested that these preferences may be unstable - they be topic-specific, but they also change over time (Coffield et al., 2004). That means that although an individual may be a kinesthetic learner in history this week, that person is a visual learner in math when talking about calculus (but not about geometry), or prefers to learn how to ride a bike kinesthetically instead of reading about it in a book. This questions whether a learning style is a "trait" (or something stable and persisting for a person) or a "state" (something that is temporary and may change). Learning styles as a state of mind are not particularly useful. How can a teacher know the preference of an individual student today in a given subject?

Does teaching a learning style result in better learning?

Even more importantly, however, is the second assumption - does teaching to an individual's learning style lead to achievement? Simply put, there is no evidence that supports teaching to a person's specified learning style results in better learning (Alley, et. al., 2023; Cuevas, 2015; Kirschner & van Merriënboer, 2013; Krätzig & Arbuthnott, 2006; Pashler et al., 2008; Rogowsky et al., 2020). No study has shown that teaching to an identified learning style results in better retention, better learning outcomes or student success. Instead, we see that teaching to a self-identified learning style has no impact on learning in children or adults (Krätzig & Arbuthnott, 2006; Paschler et al., 2008; Rogowsky et al., 2015, Rogowsky et al., 2020). Some research suggests that some students performed better on tasks when taught in a different modality than their self-identified "learning style" (Krätzig & Arbuthnott, 2006, Rogowsky et al., 2020). Most studies of learning styles use a methodology that uses multiple styles to all learners - meaning that there is no way to isolate learning style to teaching method. This leads us to ultimately conclude that while the concept of learning styles is appealing, at this point, it is still a myth.

Alternate explanations to learning styles

Anecdotally, there are many stories about the success of leveraging "learning styles." If learning styles are not empirically supported, how are these successes explained? There are alternative explanations for why teaching in multiple methods increases achievement that do not prescribe students into style categories. Multi-modal learning explains how learning improves with various methods of teaching.

Learning requires sustained attention. Therefore, if an educator can capture and maintain students' attention, students' learning outcomes likely improve. Providing engagement with content in multiple forms - be it through hands-on activities, or different modalities - makes students pay attention to content in different ways, and requires learners to integrate knowledge in new ways. If an educator is using multiple methods and modalities, it's just more interesting, and students pay more attention, which leads to better learning. Mayer and colleagues (2001, 2003) have extensively studied how students learn with visuals and audio, and the interaction of the two. What he and his colleagues suggest is that by providing dual streams of information in multiple methods engages learners to work harder at understanding the material, which leads to better learning. It may be that the research on learning styles is actually showing that teaching with different modalities is just more interesting to students rather than catering to a particular style of learning ​​(Krätzig & Arbuthnott, 2006).

Why learning styles are dangerous

While the intentions of learning styles are good, the implications of learning styles are more destructive than helpful. On the positive side, reflecting on how one learns is always a lesson. However, by focusing on a style suggests that learners are passive vessels at the whim of the method of teaching. Ultimately, most educators want students to actively engage in their learning. The best learning takes place when an individual can connect and incorporate information into his or her personal experiences and understanding. By focusing on a student's learning style we reinforce a simplistic view of learning. Learning styles suggest that individuals have one way to learn best. Unfortunately, learning is complex, and not easy. This is hard and takes time! It has very little to do with the way information is handed to a learner, but rather, how the learner processes that knowledge once they have it. It is important to remember - learning is within the control of the learner.

Thinking critically about learning styles

If learning styles do not impact an individual's ability to learn, why is there so much talk about them? Articles and books are still being published about learning styles and how to tailor teaching to reach every style. Research on teaching and learning is a complicated discipline, and being able to examine theories and concepts like learning styles critically is important to anyone working in education. The challenge is to keep a skeptical eye when you hear about research supporting learning styles and ask the right questions to make sure you are getting good information.

What should you think about the next time you encounter learning styles in the wild?

1. What framework of learning styles are they referring to? Some are more empirically vetted than others. The most popular learning style VARK (Visual-Auditory-Read/Write-Kinesthetic) is also the least validated. Find out more about the learning style being discussed.

2. How are they measuring both learning style and success? Are they self-reported? Are they looking at academic results or a self-report of satisfaction with learning?

3. Is the study carefully controlled? Many studies fail to tailor the learning to a particular style. Rather, the lesson uses all the styles to reach all the students. There is no way to truly measure success.

4. Learning styles can be controversial with some people. They aren't necessarily harmful if they encourage people to reflect on teaching and learning in different ways. They can be harmful if students believe that their learning is outside their control.

References

Alley, S., Plotnikoff, R. C., Duncan, M. J., Short, C. E., Mummery, K., To, Q. G., Schoeppe, S., Rebar, A., & Vandelanotte, C. (2023). Does matching a personally tailored physical activity intervention to participants' learning style improve intervention effectiveness and engagement? Journal of Health Psychology, 28(10), 889-899. https://doi.org/10.1177/13591053221137184

Coffield, F., Moseley, D., Hall, E., & Ecclestone, K. (2004). Should we be using learning styles? What research has to say to practice: Learning & Skills Research Center.

Cuevas, J. (2015). Is learning styles-based instruction effective? A comprehensive analysis of recent research on learning styles. Theory and Research in Education, 13(3), 308-333. https://doi.org/10.1177/1477878515606621

Kirschner, P. A. (2017). Stop propagating the learning styles myth. Computers & Education, 106, 166-171. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2016.12.006

Kirschner, P. A., & van Merriënboer, J. J. G. (2013). Do learners really know best? Urban legends in education. Educational Psychologist, 48(3), 169-183. https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520.2013.804395

Krätzig, G. P., & Arbuthnott, K. D. (2006). Perceptual learning style and learning proficiency: A test of the hypothesis. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98(1), 238-246. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-0663.98.1.238

Lau, W. & Yuen, A. (2009). Exploring the effects of gender and learning styles on computer programming performance: Implications for programming pedagogy. British Journal of Educational Technology. 40(4), 696-712

Mayer, R. E., & Moreno, R. (2003). Nine ways to reduce cognitive load in multimedia learning. Educational Psychologist, 38, 43-52.

Pashler, H., McDaniel, M., Rohrer, D., & Bjork, R. (2008). Learning styles: Concepts and evidence. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 9(3), 105-119.

Pursell, D. P. (2009) Adapting to student learning styles: Engaging students with cell phone technology in organic chemistry. Journal of Chemical Education. 86( 10), p1219-1222.

Rogowsky, B. A., Calhoun, B. M., & Tallal, P. (2015). Matching learning style to instructional method: Effects on comprehension. Journal of Educational Psychology, 107(1), 64-78. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0037478Rogowsky, B. A., Calhoun, B. M., & Tallal, P. (2020). Providing Instruction Based on Students' Learning Style Preferences Does Not Improve Learning. Frontiers in Psychology, 11. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00164

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Roundup on Research: The myth of "learning styles"

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If you have been anywhere where teaching is involved, you have probably heard mention of "learning styles." "I'm a visual learner" vs. "I'm a hands-on learner" or "My instructor didn't teach in my learning style" are all the types of commentary that are common when some individuals talk about their own learning.

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The PDF is a tricky one, here are reason you might have fallen for this mis-information,

- It is easy to believe because it is a common misconception that you have either heard about, or even been taught. It's easy to believe something you have already heard about. Make sure you are double checking your facts regularly if you plan on making a claim.

-It's author is a University. Anything with University in the title, and we will tend to believe it, but just like we talked about in the last paragraph, information can change as time passes and its good to not rely so heavily on titles with other backup evidence.

How you can avoid falling for it again

-Check the date: The document with this information was dated 2004, look for information with more current dates

-Actively check resources with opposing claims: Look up pros and cons, multiple articles and find common denominators.

-Look for and evaluate sources: Are there any? Are they valid? Are those quoted, qualified to make those claims?

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Promoting The Big6 model, approach, and programs to promote essential, lifelong information problem-solving skills thinking, learning, and teaching in schools and informal learning contexts. The Big6 is an information literacy process, a research process, and an inquiry process because it describes the way we complete assignments and solve problems in any situation.
The Big6 is a six-stage model to help anyone solve problems or make decisions by using information. Some call it information literacy, inquiry, research skills, or an information problem-solving process...but we call it the Big6!

Using the Big6, you will identify goals, seek, use, and assemble relevant, credible information, then reflect-is the final product effective and was my process efficient? The Big6 works anywhere-the classroom, workplace, or at home. Moreover, it works across content areas and aligns easily with state and national learning standards.
Read our press release announcing the new Big6.org!

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Christopher Columbus - Facts, Voyage & Discovery

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The explorer Christopher Columbus made four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean from Spain: in 1492, 1493, 1498 and 1502. His most famous was his first voyage, commanding the ships the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria to the Americas.

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Here are reason you might have fallen for this mis-information,

- A common teaching error in history, you were taught with Bias. You were most likely taught these things by teachers in the past. It's easy to believe something you have already heard about. Make sure you are double checking your facts regularly if you plan on making a claim.

How you can avoid falling for it again

-Check the date: The film with this information was dated 1991, look for information with more current dates as information changes.

-Ask yourself if information is leaning in one direction.

-Actively check resources with opposing claims: Look up pros and cons, multiple articles and find common denominators.

-Look for and evaluate sources: Are there any? Are they valid? Are those quoted, qualified to make those claims?