For Educators
Professional learning
The News Literacy Project’s professional learning emphasizes teaching educators essential news literacy concepts they can integrate into the curriculum to provide their students with the abilities, knowledge and confidence to navigate an increasingly complex and ever-changing information landscape.
We offer compelling interactive workshops, on site or via webinar, for educators from a variety of subject area and grade levels, including librarians and technology/media specialists.
Whether you are new to the field of news literacy or want to expand the ways you integrate it into your curriculum, our professional learning offerings can meet your needs.
We know news literacy
Our experienced staff includes former classroom educators and journalists who can address a variety of core topics. You will leave our sessions equipped with knowledge, strategies and resources to give students lasting news literacy skills.
Core topics for educators
NLP offers four core topics for teaching news literacy as well as customized workshops and seminars. Choose one session on a core topic (up to 90 minutes) or combine sessions for a three-hour or six-hour immersion in news literacy professional learning. Sessions include dozens of timely real-life examples, tips, tools and classroom-ready resources for teaching news literacy. NLP also offers certificates of attendance for educators.
- Teaching news literacy: where do I start? We’ll provide an overview of the news literacy concepts and skills that students need to be reliably informed, such as recognizing the difference between news and other type of information including opinion and propaganda, using the standards of quality journalism to identify credible news sources, identifying misinformation and using fact-checking and digital verification tools, and discerning various types and forms of bias.
- Exploring the misinformation landscape: Learn how to teach students to move beyond the unhelpful term “fake news” to more precisely identify the many types of misleading, inaccurate and false information that they encounter. Explore motivations behind different types of propagators of misinformation and learn fact-checking basics to help encourage student learning. By teaching a deeper understanding of misinformation, students can become less susceptible to it and more likely to prioritize reliable, verified sources of news and information.
- Evaluating news media bias carefully and fairly: People frequently perceive and allege bias in news coverage, but what does this really mean? What makes a piece of news biased, and who decides? What role do our own biases play in our perceptions of bias? In this session we’ll help you teach this vital, controversial, complex topic in ways that empower students to meaningfully evaluate the fairness and impartiality of news coverage.
- Avoiding the Rabbit Hole: Teaching concepts in conspiratorial thinking: Conspiracy theories are becoming part of mainstream discourse and public awareness. From QAnon to pandemic-related beliefs to older ideas such as the Earth is flat, we are finding that more and more of our friends, family and loved ones believe at least one conspiracy theory. How do we teach students to avoid conspiracy theories without actually teaching them the specifics of such false beliefs? This session explores the psychological and cognitive factors behind conspiratorial thinking, including the role of fears and anxiety, cognitive dissonance and biases, motivated reasoning and institutional cynicism. We will discuss the ways in which conspiracy theories exploit our emotions as well as fill our emotional needs.We offer several options for professional learning events, including customized workshops and seminars. We also can give keynote addresses and presentations and lead discussions for general audiences.
Pricing for educator professional learning
Virtual professional learning, core topics
For public school districts, virtual sessions on core topics up to 3 hours are $500. For a full day up to 6 hours, the fee would be $750. Fee may be waived if district can guarantee a minimum of 50 educators attending. For private schools or for-profit schools, virtual sessions up to 3 hours are $750 and a full day up to 6 hours is $1000
In-person professional learning
For any in-person professional learning using core topics, the fee is $3,000 (including travel) for one day. Additional days are $500 per day. For learning that includes customized content, the fee is $4,000.
We can prepare customized quotes for specific time frames, settings and topics.
For more information, email [email protected].
What people have to say
“This was by far the most valuable webinar I have attended EVER. Thank you so much for the information. The webinar was informative, professional and highly engaging.”
Laura Smith
Educator