Research abstract

Media Literacy: Five Ways Teachers Are Fighting Fake News

To help students determine if news is fake or not, a California teacher makes his students ask themselves if it’s well-known. Are there other sources? Did an expert write the piece? Is the information current, and have a copyright? By Sophia Alvarez Boyd

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Fake news seems to be a new phenomenon, but it’s actually been around for centuries. Fake news is getting a lot of attention recently because the internet provides a way to expose the world to information quickly, whereas it could have taken years for information to spread prior to the invention of the internet. So, the impact of fake news is much greater to our modern society.

As the national attention to fake news and the debate over what to do about it continues, one place many are looking for solutions is in the classroom.

Children are more likely to believe fake news than adults who have mastered the critical thinking skills needed to tell the difference between real and fake news. An informative Stanford Study has prompted schools to address this issue. Instead of attacking the source of fake news, which would be virtually impossible to do, they are educating the students. Sophia Alvarez Boyd has written a comprehensive article on this topic.

Key takeaways

  1. Younger students lack the ability to distinguish between real and fake news.
  2. Scott Bedley has his students use a checklist to verify the truthfulness of an article.
  3. English as a second language students may have to work extra hard to spot fake news over real news.

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