In the age of bots and AI, how can students identify misinformation online?

Key points:

We must prepare students to be critical thinkers and help them develop news literacy skills
Adding AI to your K-12 digital citizenship curriculum
5 news literacy resources for students
For more news on information literacy, visit eSN’s Digital Learning hub

In this digital age of AI and misinformation, today’s students need to be better armed to discern fact from fiction.

A 2023 survey by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a nonprofit that fights misinformation, found that “60 percent of 13- [to] 17-year-old Americans surveyed agreed with four or more harmful conspiracy statements–compared with just 49 percent of adults. For teens who spend four or more hours a day on any single social media platform, the figure was as high as 69 percent.”

Whether it’s relying too heavily on ChatGPT to write a paper resulting in an assignment filled with inaccurate information, or relying solely on social media to learn about world issues like the conflict in Gaza or upcoming national elections, learning to understand primary sources, question information, analyze data, and discern hidden agendas are top skills all students need.

While reading, writing, and arithmetic are still important, today’s middle and high school students are bombarded with misinformation daily. Now that AI can effortlessly create convincing but fabricated stories, today’s curricula must prepare students to navigate the murky waters of AI, bias, and misinformation.

It’s possible to work this into interesting learning segments. For instance, a course or learning unit might explore issues like the Bermuda Triangle and examine which news sources are credible or not, what misinformation really means, and how to write an argumentative paper correctly. The subject matter translates into critical real-world cognitive skills.

Another learning opportunity could evaluate AI tools through ethical frameworks. Students might read and engage with the ideas of renowned philosophers and apply them to modern dilemmas in artificial intelligence. They could ask questions like, “How do I measure and assess the benefits vs potential harms of this AI tool?” and “What can Immanuel Kant’s Theory of the Categorical Imperative illuminate about how we make decisions around AI?”

My advice for educators is to:

Incorporate skills like critical thinking into segments on current events that students will find interesting. Students can engage with questions like:
- What kind of content am I encountering?
- Is the information complete; and if not, what is missing?
- Who or what are the sources, and why should I believe them?
- What evidence is presented, and how was it tested or vetted?

Explicitly teach students how to identify an op-ed versus a news article, and to consider who’s behind a website or social media account.

Today, institutional brand names like CNN or NBC News are no guarantee of a single set of norms, values, or approaches to quality. Knowing what distinguishes news from propaganda, advertising, publicity, or entertainment is increasingly important. In their book The Elements of Journalism, Rosentiel and Kovach have identified the four following models of media (note that all or some of these models may be found within a single issue of a newspaper and its online outlets):

Journalism of Verification: A traditional model that puts the highest value on accuracy and context (sense-making)
Journalism of Assertion: A newer model that puts the highest value on immediacy and volume and in doing so tends to become a passive conduit of information (relays information without providing much further context)
Journalism of Affirmation: A new political media that builds loyalty less on accuracy, completeness, or verification than on affirming the beliefs of its audiences, and so tends to cherry-pick information that serves that purpose
Interest-Group Journalism: Targeted websites or pieces of work, often investigative, that are usually funded by special interests rather than media institutions; they are designed to look like news

Help students understand the differences among:
- Facts
- Bias (pre-judgment about an idea, thing, or person, usually in a way that is unfair)
- Well-reasoned opinion based on facts-based analysis
- Poorly reasoned opinion based on bias or assumptions

Incorporate AI tools into the classroom so students understand the power and limitations:
- Aim for transparent and thoughtful AI usage, which involves citing the AI tool and user input, evaluating the output, and editing, combining, and elaborating on the output
- Explain the differences between using AI as an assistant and tutor and using AI to execute tasks for you
- Use an AI competency rubric or scale to illustrate the skill sets required to use AI responsibly

Teach students how to fact-check information:
- Help students explore how to corroborate information they see online
- A good rule of thumb is to “trust, but verify”
- If a statement looks suspect, determine if you can find 2-3 credible, unbiased sources that can corroborate it

We cannot ignore the new set of skills students today need as they graduate and head into the real world. A key part of our job as educators is to prepare students to be critical thinkers and help them decipher information. It’s also more than just teaching students to navigate online sources; we must prepare them for the new challenges AI presents.