Educators: Sign up for our online professional development series
Is one of your goals as a teacher to help your students make sense of the torrent of news and other information streaming through their online worlds?
Would you like to empower your students by providing them with the news literacy skills they need to become active and engaged participants in civic life?
Our new professional development sessions are for you!
“Teaching News Literacy” is an affordable series of five online workshops that meet these needs. It’s offered by the News Literacy Project, the nation’s leading provider of news literacy training and resources for middle school and high school educators.
Led by Peter Adams, NLP’s senior vice president of education, John Silva, a National Board Certified Teacher and director of education and Suzannah Gonzales, a former journalist and associate director of education, these workshops will give you everything you need to begin introducing news literacy into your classroom, including dozens of ideas, examples and tools to jump-start your news literacy instruction.
You can register for one, some or all of the sessions here ($10 per session/$40 for all five).
Session Descriptions
Session 1 – Introducing news literacy education: This session uses timely events and examples to make the case for news literacy as a vital 21st-century life skill; it also provides an overview of the field’s major concepts, skills and tools. You’ll learn how today’s information landscape is evolving in ways that create both challenges and opportunities for students, and how to use these shifts in the landscape to teach news literacy i n your classroom. We’ll cover the changing nature of advertising, the impact of algorithms, the roles of bots and other forms of computational propaganda, and more. Tuesday, Sept. 24 (5 to 6 p.m. ET)
Session 2 – Exploring the misinformation landscape: Dive into the world of viral rumors, disinformation, hoaxes and fakes — and learn how to help students push beyond the term “fake news” to identify the many types of misleading, inaccurate and false information that they encounter every day. Find out how to prepare your students for emerging misinformation technologies such as d eepfake videos and other AI-generated content. We’ll also show you how to use examples of misinformation to engage students in news literacy and civic learning, spark meaningful discussions about current events and issues, and develop an internal system of red flags that students can use to join the fight against the spread of misinformation. Tuesday, Oct. 1 (5 to 6 p.m. ET)
Session 3 – Teaching digital verification to spark news literacy learning:Teach students the tools and skills that professional fact-checkers use to verify the authenticity of information, and learn to create engaging challenges that inspire students to investigate viral content (including political misinformation). Learn how to teach students to do reverse image searches; research domain registration to discover a website’s owner; use web archivers to explore deleted or changed content; develop keen observation skills to detect false images and video; and use Google Street View to geolocate subjects of visual misinformation. Access to NLP resources and classroom-ready examples is included. Tuesday, Oct. 8 (5 to 6 p.m. ET)
Session 4 – Evaluating the quality of standards-based journalism: This session introduces and explores the standards and ideals of quality journalism. Learn why it is important for students to have an understanding of journalistic concepts and processes such as verification, fairness, sourcing and accountability. Gain insight on how developing this understanding empowers students to identify credible news reporting; respond to coverage that is lacking; and become better informed and less vulnerable to misinformation and disinformation. Tuesday, Oct. 15 (5 to 6 p.m. ET)
Session 5 – Using news literacy to drive civic engagement: Consuming, engaging with, sharing and creating information are the most fundamental and common civic actions that anyone can take. This session examines the connection between news literacy and civics and explores how news literacy learning can ignite civic engagement and improve civic literacy and reasoning. Educators leave with tips, ideas and strategies for using news literacy to supercharge a “consume/engage/create” cycle around timely issues. Tuesday, Oct. 22 (5 to 6 p.m. ET)