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5 minute introduction & in-depth Ted Talk!

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Games to help your students learn to spot fake news!

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Worried About Fake News In Your Classroom?

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Worried About Fake News In Your Classroom?

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Use these resources to help your students learn how to spot the truth!

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Fake News Edition

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Fight Fake News!

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The fake news epidemic is disturbing. How do we fight it? Well, we can take a hint from how the medical community fights the flu or any other virus. We inoculate ourselves. In this post, I'll teach you how I teach about fake news.

Just as the flu shot exposes a person to enough of the dead "harmless" virus to cause immunity, we can also expose students to things that have already been verified or shown to be fake. By exposing our students to things that look very real, we can help them notice and understand that many things that look real, are lies. We can also help them understand why shady companies and organizations actually benefit from fake news (like a movie coming out this month in one of these examples.)

How does a "fake news" lesson flow?

First, you ask students to research to see if something is true or not. Second, ask students to recommend what a person should do about the information. These mini-lessons can take from 8-15 minutes and so, they are perfect for short, beginning of class "bellringers."

When students come to class, they get a copy of the bellringer and have a timer (usually 4-5 minutes - there should be some time pressure) set for them to give their recommendations.

I'm including screenshots in this post, but if you fill out the form at the bottom, I'll email you the PDF copy of these three lesson plans.

Example #1: Breaking News Bellringer

In this case, we share a tweet and some "news sources." When selecting topics, I like them to be recent enough as to feel real to students and also so that Google search results aren't "full" of the answer.

TIP: After students examine and discuss their answers, I'll often give them a "clue" if they aren't close and have them go back and look again. I like them to find pieces of the answer before unveiling the answer slide on the board.

Breaking News Bellringer Answer

I like this example because it hits on several current topics:

Fake news websites often use similar names to existing news outlets "Houston Leader" (fake news) instead of "The Leader" (a real newspaper in Houston.)

This example also has some motivation behind it and an emerging scandal that an emerging Fox movie "A Cure for Wellness" is now linked from the original news stories which have been taken down. This sort of redirect happens all the time. The website gets lots of links and then has the original content replaced with something new and totally unrelated. Redirects are why you should always click before resharing.

Finally, point out to your students that many times when something is fake and just comes out, that Snopes may not have the answer. Fake news outlets are good at what they do. Click-baiting is a billion dollar business. So, the best way to figure this out is by determining that these fake news sources are truly false. Learn to find out the legitimate newspapers for cities. The Sacramento newspaper is the "Sacramento Bee, " and you can't find anything about the Sacramento Dispatch. If it were legitimate, you'd see a lot more about it.

See how using examples demonstrates to students how fake news works. No lecture in the world can teach like this sort of virus killing fake-news inoculation method. Onto the next one!

Example #2 Viral Video News Story

This example has a video released just a week ago that has gone viral. Now, don't go sharing this yet. Wait until you verify the source.

The Video

So you can play this video in my blog post, here it is. Again, DO NOT SHARE before you research this one!!

Viral News Video Story Answer

Again, give students just 3-4 minutes to find their answer. (I like shortening the time for each of these until students have to make a call within a minute because that is how quickly they have to make this sort of snap judgment in real life.) Don't "give" them the answer but if they are not on the right track, give them clues before revealing the answer. If you're not careful, some students will share videos like this via social media if you don't warn them to do research.

Bellringer #3: To Share or Not To Share

This post has gone around dozens of times; I have to include this reshare Facebook example.

This example is a difficult one. Also, note that I give this information to students so they have to type it into a search engine.

While you could post these online, somehow having students have to type in the information helps them understand how they research. For example, if this text above was posted, most students will copy all of it and paste into Google. It is easy to mix up the spacing and a few words so that such a search won't turn up and students mistakenly think they are in the clear.

Again, let them discuss and give them hints before unveiling the final answer.

To Share or Not To Share Answer

In Summary

Once I've done these with students, I often mix in true things (that sound a bit crazy just to make it interesting.) I also have students make their bellringers to share with the class. Notice how I include sources of information at the bottom to know where the information was retrieved.

I hope these examples inspire and help you to fight fake news in a way that works. The biggest mistakes many educators make:

the "fake news" lessons are lecture based (doesn't work)

the "fake news" lessons use irrelevant examples that are easy to detect as fake

the "fake news" lessons use old stories that have so many search results that it doesn't represent the real world. They're just easy to spot that they are fake. You want more challenging, current topics. If it was on the news last night, those are the best! I'll often type one of these up and do it the next day!

they DON'T TEACH IT AT ALL!!!

So, I've given you three examples for use in your classroom tomorrow. So, get out there and FIGHT FAKE NEWS!

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3 Fast, Free Lesson Plans to Fight Fake News

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The fake news epidemic is disturbing. How do we fight it? Well, we can take a hint from how the medical community fights the flu or any other virus. We inoculate ourselves. In this post, I'll teach you how I teach about fake news.

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Interactive Game-How Fake News Is Planted & Spreads

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Can you spot the fake news?

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How to choose your news?

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How the media landscape has changed

Media visionary Clay Shirky gave a TED Talk on how the media landscape has changed. "The moment we're living through, the moment our historical generation is living through, is the largest increase in expressive capability in human history."

In other words, the amount of information we are capable of capturing is unprecedented. As a result, we need new techniques to filter through the information and need to work much harder than previous generation to better understand our world.

Watch Clay Shirky's fascinating media discussion on TED-Ed.

Understanding social media

The TED Book "Our Virtual Shadow: Why We Are Obsessed with Documenting Our Lives Online" discusses the challenges of social media turning every day folks into journalists. The chapter "A World of Mush" focused on the evolution of news and how, in our modern age, "A rumor can carry as much weight as a verified fact."

You can read an excerpt of Our Virtual Shadow on the TED blog.

Journalism can be much more than reporting. An authentic, human narrative touches audiences and keeps them reading. Learn how to shape a human-centered news story, and the importance of facts, context and heart.

In 1992, Stella Liebeck spilled scalding McDonald's coffee in her lap and later sued the company, attracting a flood of negative attention. It turns out there was more to the story.

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With the advent of the Internet and social media, news is distributed at an incredible rate by an unprecedented number of different media outlets. How do we choose which news to consume? Damon Brown gives the inside scoop on how the opinions and facts (and sometimes non-facts) make their way into the news and how the smart reader can tell them apart.

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Confirmation Bias/Fake News

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Why Do Our Brains Love Fake News? | Above the Noise

Ever have an argument with someone, and no matter how many facts you provide, you just can't get that person to see it your way? One big reason for this is cognitive bias, which is a limitation in our thinking that can cause flaws in our judgement. Confirmation bias is a specific type of cognitive bias that motivates us to seek out information we already believe and ignore or minimize facts that threaten what we believe. Studies show that when people are presented with facts that contradict what they believe, the parts of the brain that control reason and rationality go inactive. But, the parts of the brain that process emotion light up like the Fourth of July. In this video, host Myles Bess dives into the research and offers some tips to combat confirmation bias.
Why Do Our Brains Love Fake News? | Above the Noise

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Why Do Our Brains Love Fake News? | Above the Noise

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Ever have an argument with someone, and no matter how many facts you provide, you just can't get that person to see it your way? One big reason for this is cognitive bias, which is a limitation in our thinking that can cause flaws in our judgement.