Professional Development offerings
The News Literacy Project offers engaging, interactive in-person and virtual workshops and webinars for educators nationwide who are interested in deepening their skillset in teaching news literacy.
Educators who attend one of these topical sessions will gain an understanding of how to verify the accuracy of information and evaluate the credibility of sources, news and other online content. They will also receive guidance on free news literacy tools and resources to use in their classrooms.
NLP’s current professional learning offerings include:
Viral Election Misinformation: Tracking and analyzing trends in 2024
The 2024 presidential election is one of the most contentious and divisive elections in our nation’s history. It has also touched off a flood of viral mis- and disinformation. It coincides with the rise of generative artificial intelligence technologies that can create sophisticated fabrications and distortions that threaten to upend our standards of evidence and make it harder to identify what’s real and what’s not online. In this session, we’ll explore the major patterns and trends of viral misinformation about the 2024 election. We will also discuss best practices for teaching students how to evaluate evidence and information sources to avoid getting duped.
Key objectives
- Investigate and analyze election misinformation trends.
- Select examples of viral falsehoods to teach about misinformation tactics.
- Explore ways students can use “prebunking” to take action against election misinformation.
- Consider best practices for teaching about misinformation and conspiratorial thinking this election season.
Teaching News Literacy: Where do I start?
Key objectives
- Define news literacy and develop an understanding of the field’s core competencies.
- Learn the importance of teaching students to distinguish between different kinds of information according to primary purpose.
- Analyze signs of credibility in news sources.
- Evaluate online claims using verification skills.
- Discuss how to help students reflect on and cultivate healthy media habits.
A Framework for curriculum mapping: Teaching news literacy within and across grade bands
We’ll provide an overview of core news literacy concepts and skills through the News Literacy Project’s framework and grade bands for teaching news literacy for individual classroom and districtwide use. In this session, you’ll review core competencies to identify essential questions, knowledge and skills for unit planning; you’ll also review a scaffolded approach to developing a news literacy curriculum for K-12 using NLP’s news literacy standards.
Key objectives
- Examine NLP’s Framework for Teaching News Literacy and the grade band expectations for teaching news literacy to map concepts into pre-existing or new curricula.
- Identify elements from the News Literacy Project’s Framework for Teaching News Literacy that you can use in your educational setting.
- Assess how grade band expectations fit with other educational standards.
Characteristics of Credibility: Teaching the standards of quality journalism
Today, addressing news coverage and current events – including claims students encounter online – can quickly become entangled in perceptions of partisanship. Cut through polarization by focusing on the characteristics of credible information and the standards and guidelines that are used in journalism and other communities of practice.
In this session you’ll take a deep dive into journalism standards and ethics. These include aspects of verification — such as the practice of gathering and comparing information from multiple credible sources — and ideals such as fairness, transparency, independence and accountability. We’ll address how journalists work to avoid bias, as well as the importance of context and balance. Finally, we’ll demonstrate how students can apply an understanding of these standards to judge the credibility of news and other information.
Key objectives
- Describe signs of credibility in journalism.
- Analyze how “red flags” that violate standards of quality journalism appear in questionable sources.
- Consider resources for incorporating standards of quality journalism in learning experiences.
Evaluating News Media Bias: A nuanced approach to a vital topic
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 and complex topic in ways that empower students to meaningfully evaluate the fairness and impartiality of news coverage.
Key objectives
- Reflect on the ideal of avoiding bias as a standard of quality journalism.
- Analyze actual examples of news and other information and reflect on the nuanced, highly subjective nature of perceived bias in news.
- Learn an approach for helping students evaluate potential bias in news by recognizing different types of potential bias and the forms they can take in coverage.
- Explore the limitations of popular media bias charts and rating systems.
Cost
In-person (includes travel expenses)
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Full day: $5,000
Up to seven hours of customization of the above topics — resources and classroom-ready materials tailored to specific content areas, relevant and timely media examples, a break for lunch and time for educators to work on content relevant to their positions with an NLP expert.
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Half-day: $3,500
Up to three hours of customization of the above topics and time for educators to work on content relevant to their positions with an NLP expert.
We also offer virtual trainings. Cost varies for time and need, ranging from $500-$1,750. We provide trainings for district partners for reduced or no cost. We also have grants that might apply to your district. Contact [email protected] for more information.