Sorting Truth From Fiction: Civic Online Reasoning

Fake news and misinformation pose an urgent challenge to citizens across the globe. Multiple studies have shined a light on people’s difficulty in distinguishing truth from fiction, reliable information from sham.

With educators from around the world and faculty from MIT and Stanford University, you will learn quick and effective practices for evaluating online information that you can bring back to your classroom. The Stanford History Education Group has distilled these practices from observations with professional fact-checkers from the nation’s most prestigious media outlets from across the political spectrum. Using a combination of readings, classroom practice lessons, and assignments, you will learn how to teach the critical thinking skills needed for making wise judgments about web sources.

At the end of the course, you will be better able to help students find reliable sources at a time when we need it most.

Unit 1: Search Like a Fact Checker

Unit 2: The Two Big Fact Checker Moves: Lateral Reading & Click Restraint

Unit 3: Evaluating Different Types of Evidence

Unit 4: Adapting Civic Online Reasoning