ACT Awareness and Critical Thinking Activities for Teaching about Misinformation in Grades K-5
WELCOME to ACT, a flexible set of interconnected K-5 lessons and activities that help students learn how to detect, avoid, and resist online misinformation.
7. Share, Challenge, Report, or Skip
It’s no secret that one of the reasons that misinformation spreads so quickly is that people choose to share it. So one goal of this skill area is to make sure students aren’t one of those people. It is also about giving students confidence that they know what to do with the misinformation they find (or that finds them). So for older students (grades 3-5), ACT offers four options as responses. These are summarized on the Share, Challenge, Report, or Skip handout. The activities provide practice opportunities to help students learn these options and consider situational ethics for online interactions.
For the youngest students (K-2), the most appropriate option to any media or online interactions that bother them will always be to tell a trusted adult and ask them what to do. The activities in this skill area are not for them.
Students will learn that
- They have agency. They can choose how to respond to misinformation.
- There is more to responding than saying I’m right and you’re wrong. The words we use matter. And sometimes ignoring misinformation is the best option.
Students will learn to ask
- Do I want to share this? If not, is there another action I want to take? If so, are there ways I can share that would make my intention clear?
Routines that Support Understanding “Share, Challenge, Report, or Skip”
Help students develop the confidence to act by occasionally pausing when you present an information source to ask, If you came across this source online, would you share it? Why or why not? That helps reinforce the habit of asking “Do I want to share this?” And when you do it with sources that you know are credible, you help students learn the characteristics of sources they can trust, not just how to spot sources they can’t trust. Activities
What to Do with Clickbait
What Makes a Person an Expert?
For Reinforcement
Is 7 a Lot?
Introduction to Lateral Reading
Finding the Best Source (about hot dogs)
Encountering Trolls and Other Bad Actors
© Awareness & Critical Thinking (ACT) Program, Texas Woman’s University, 2024 was developed by Dr. Faith Rogow, InsightersEducation.com as part of the ACT Program led by Dr. Tara Zimmerman, Texas Woman’s University. This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, IMLS grant #2023-057. Educational use is encouraged. All media examples are either public domain or protected by fair use. Requests to re-publish, duplicate, or distribute any ACT document outside of educational settings or for profit should be directed to Dr. Zimmerman.