Mrs. Robertson's Classroom: First Informal: Website Credibility

Throughout student teaching, my supervising teacher from UT Dallas, Mr. D., will be coming to observe me while I teach. Today was my first of three informal observations that will take place before spring break, after which I will have three formal observations as well. My lesson plan was an introduction to research. These students have just recently finished doing a research project, so the purpose of this lesson was not to introduce my to research journals and the like, but rather to help them understand the need for research in their daily lives.

For my anticipatory set (or introduction) I had the students analyze this quote:

The meaning was pretty clear :) From this, we discussed the need to be active learners who seek out correct information, not just passive learners who believe everything they see at face value. I had the students log onto nearpod.com for a quick activity to drive this idea home. I presented them with two different pop culture news headlines I saw online this weekend and they used the information given to guess whether the story was true or false. They had a lot of fun with these two articles, and the connection to their interests really caught their attention. Here are the articles:

1. "Justin Bieber to Attend BYU by Court Order"

-thebunYion.com

MIAMI — Canadian-born pop sensation Justin Bieber was arraigned early Thursday morning under charges of intoxicated driving without a valid license. As part of a court-ordered remedial program, Bieber will be moving to Provo, UT to attend Brigham Young University.

2. "JK Rowling says Hermione should have married Harry Potter, not Ron."

-cnn.com

The majority of the kids caught on to the Justin Bieber article (duh), but the class was pretty split about the JK Rowling story (which is true, by the way!). We talked about how they came to their conclusions and what further research they could conduct to discover the validity of these stories. Does it seem legit? Where is the information coming from? Can we trust the sources? If you don't know, look it up!

Following this activity with nearpod.com, we had a class discussion wherein we discussed the need for research and sited sources, and the effects faulty stories can have on individuals and society. Most of the classes were able to link false reports to panic and ignorance. They really are bright kids for their age, allowing me to ask higher level questions throughout the lesson.

Finally, I split the class into groups by their table clusters and had them evaluate two opposing articles online about causes of cancer and cancer prevention. I used a link that was going around Facebook a little while back claiming to be an update about cancer from Johns Hopkins and the rebuttal from Johns Hopkins University. Within their groups, they were to consider the following:

Does it seem valid? What specific language makes you think this information is valid or invalid?
What specifics can you use to determine whether this article is a primary or secondary source?
Analyze whether the website and sources look legitimate
Do some research of your own. What can you learn about this topic to help you analyze whether or not this information is accurate?