Tag: Misinformation

  • Misinformation Course Teaches Ethics for Engineering Students

    Misinformation Course Teaches Ethics for Engineering Students

    Nearly three in four college students say they have somewhat high or very high media literacy skills (72 percent), according to a 2025 Student Voice survey by Inside Higher Ed and Generation Lab. Students are less likely to consider their peers media literate; three in five respondents said they have at least somewhat high levels of concern about the spread of misinformation among their classmates.

    When asked how colleges and universities could help improve students’ media literacy skills, a majority of Student Voice respondents indicated they want digital resources on increasing media literacy or media literacy–related content and training embedded into the curriculum.

    A recently developed course at the University of Southern California’s Viterbi School of Engineering teaches students information literacy principles to help them develop tools to mitigate the harms of online misinformation.

    The background: USC offers an interdisciplinary teaching grant that incentivizes cross-campus collaboration and innovative teaching practices. To be eligible for the grant, applications must include at least one full-time faculty member and faculty from more than one school or division. Each grantee receives up to $20,000 to compensate for applicants’ time and work.

    In 2023, Helen Choi, a faculty member at USC Viterbi, won the interdisciplinary teaching grant in collaboration with Cari Kaurloto, head of the science and engineering library at USC Libraries, to create a media literacy course specifically for engineering students.

    “By focusing on engineering students, we were able to integrate a component of the course that addresses a social issue from an engineering perspective in terms of technical know-how and the professional ethics,” Choi said, which helps students see the relevance of course content to their personal and professional lives.

    What’s the need: Students tend to receive most of their news and information on online platforms; Student Voice data found a majority of learners rely on social media for news content (72 percent), and about one in four engage with news apps or news aggregator websites (27 percent).

    Choi and Kaurloto’s course, titled Information Literacy: Navigating Digital Misinformation, builds academic research skills, teaches information literacy principles and breaks down the social issue of online misinformation.

    “Students examine ways they can navigate online information using their research skills, and then extend that knowledge by considering how they, as prospective engineers, can build technologies that mitigate the harms of online misinformation while enhancing the information literacy of users,” Choi explained.

    USC faculty aren’t the only ones noticing a need for more education around engagement with digital information; a growing number of colleges and universities are making students complete a digital literacy course as a graduation requirement.

    In the classroom: Choi and Kaurloto co-teach the course, which was first offered in this spring to a class of 25 students.

    The students learned to develop effective search strategies and critically examine sources, as well as ethical engineering principles and how to apply them in designing social media platforms, Kaurloto said. Choi and Kaurloto employed active learning pedagogies to give students hands-on and real-life applications including writing, speaking and collaborative coursework.

    One assignment the students completed was conducting library research to develop a thesis paragraph on an information literacy topic with a short, annotated bibliography. Students also presented their research to their peers, Kaurloto said.

    Learners also engaged in a group digital literacy project, designing a public service campaign that included helpful, research-backed ways to identify misinformation, Choi said. “They then had to launch that campaign on a social media platform, measure its impact, and present on their findings.” Projects ranged from infographics on Reddit to short-form videos on spotting AI-generated misinformation and images on TikTok and Instagram.

    The impact: Student feedback said they found the course helpful, with many upper-level learners saying they wished they had taken it sooner in their academic career because of the library research skills they gained. They also indicated the course content was applicable in daily life, such as when supporting family members “who students say have fallen down a few internet rabbit holes or who tend to believe everything they see online,” Choi said.

    Other librarians have taken note of the course as a model of how to teach information literacy, Choi said.

    “We’ve found that linking information literacy with specific disciplines like engineering can be helpful both in terms of building curricula that resonate with students but also for building professional partnerships among faculty,” Choi said. “Many faculty don’t know that university librarians are also experts in information literacy—but they should!”

    This fall, Choi and Kaurloto plan to offer two sections of the course with a cap of 24 students per section. Choi hopes to see more first- and second-year engineering students in the course so they can apply these principles to their program.

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  • RFK Jr.’s Autism Misinformation Undermines Equity—and the Role of Higher Education

    RFK Jr.’s Autism Misinformation Undermines Equity—and the Role of Higher Education

    Dr. Yolanda WigginsRobert F. Kennedy Jr.’s recent claims about rising autism rates directly contradict the findings of a rigorous, peer-reviewed study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While the CDC attributes the increase to better diagnostic tools and broader awareness—especially among historically underdiagnosed populations—Kennedy has revived a discredited suggestion that environmental factors, including vaccines, may be responsible.

    This isn’t just political theater. It’s part of a broader and troubling pattern: a sustained attack on scientific research, the public institutions that produce it, and the higher education system that trains the researchers behind it.

    As a sociology professor at a public university, I’ve watched with concern as public trust in science and expertise has eroded. The pandemic magnified these trends, but they have long been in motion—accelerated by social media, political polarization, and the growing popularity of conspiratorial thinking. The resurgence of autism misinformation is just the latest iteration.

    The CDC’s study represents the best of public-facing science: it’s evidence-based, transparent, and focused on improving equity. The data show that more children—especially Black, Latino, and low-income children—are finally being diagnosed and receiving support. For decades, these children were overlooked in clinical research and excluded from early intervention programs. Their families often lacked access to diagnostic services, and cultural stigma around disability further compounded delays in recognition and care.

    That makes this progress all the more important. It means health and education systems are becoming more responsive to the needs of diverse communities. It’s a win for public health, for special education, and for racial equity. But Kennedy’s remarks obscure that progress and instead imply institutional deceit, further corroding the already fragile relationship between the public and research institutions.

    This moment should concern everyone in higher education. When research is publicly undermined by powerful voices, it isn’t just scientists or health experts who lose credibility—it’s the entire academic enterprise. Faculty working in controversial or misunderstood fields face online harassment. Public universities face funding cuts. Politicians introduce legislation to restrict what can be taught, who can be included, and which research is “acceptable.” These are not isolated attacks. They are part of a broader campaign to delegitimize the role of higher education in a democratic society.

    We’ve seen it before. Climate science, gender studies, and even basic public health data have been politicized and distorted. In many cases, these attacks are racialized, aimed at scholars of color or those researching topics related to race, equity, and social justice. The goal is not simply to disagree with findings—it’s to sow public doubt about the legitimacy of the research process itself.

    If higher education wants to defend its role in shaping public understanding and policy, we must do more than produce knowledge—we must also protect it. That means publicly pushing back when bad actors distort science. It means communicating our research clearly and accessibly, especially in communities where trust in institutions has historically been low. And it means preparing the next generation of students not only to be critical thinkers, but to be defenders of fact in an era that increasingly devalues it.

    The consequences of not responding are far-reaching. When misinformation takes root, it influences public health decisions, erodes confidence in life-saving vaccines, and increases distrust in institutions we rely on during crises. The damage isn’t abstract—it’s measurable in declining vaccination rates, increased health disparities, and growing skepticism toward experts in medicine, climate science, and education. The ripple effects extend into classrooms, clinics, and communities, where the stakes are all too real.

    It also threatens the progress being made in autism awareness and support, particularly in communities that have only recently gained access to diagnostic and therapeutic services. When Kennedy promotes falsehoods about the cause of autism, he doesn’t just mislead the public—he makes it harder for families to trust medical providers, harder for schools to advocate for neurodiverse students, and harder for researchers to do their work without facing backlash.

    Kennedy’s remarks may seem like a fringe view to those of us working in higher ed. But their reach—and their harm—are real. If we remain silent, we risk allowing misinformation to fill the vacuum we leave behind. That vacuum won’t remain empty. It will be filled with falsehoods that, once embedded in public consciousness, are incredibly difficult to reverse.

    This is a time for the academic community to speak clearly and often. We must show that science is not about dogma—it’s about rigor, peer review, and accountability. We must reaffirm that public universities serve not just students, but society. And we must reclaim our role in informing the public—not just in lecture halls and labs, but in newspapers, social media, and public discourse.

    We can’t afford to treat this moment as politics as usual. It’s a test of our collective commitment to truth, equity, and the public good. The integrity of science—and the credibility of higher education—depends on it.

    Dr. Yolanda Wiggins is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at San José State University.

     

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  • Why History Instruction is Critical for Combating Online Misinformation – The 74

    Why History Instruction is Critical for Combating Online Misinformation – The 74

    Can you tell fact from fiction online? In a digital world, few questions are more important or more challenging.

    For years, some commentators have called for K-12 teachers to take on fake news, media literacy, or online misinformation by doubling down on critical thinking. This push for schools to do a better job preparing young people to differentiate between low- and high-quality information often focuses on social studies classes.

    As an education researcher and former high school history teacher, I know that there’s both good and bad news about combating misinformation in the classroom. History class can cultivate critical thinking – but only if teachers and schools understand what critical thinking really means.

    Not just a ‘skill’

    First, the bad news.

    When people demand that schools teach critical thinking, it’s not always clear what they mean. Some might consider critical thinking a trait or capacity that teachers can encourage, like creativity or grit. They could believe that critical thinking is a mindset: a habit of being curious, skeptical and reflective. Or they might be referring to specific skills – for instance, that students should learn a set of steps to take to assess information online.

    Unfortunately, cognitive science research has shown that critical thinking is not an abstract quality or practice that can be developed on its own. Cognitive scientists see critical thinking as a specific kind of reasoning that involves problem-solving and making sound judgments. It can be learned, but it relies on specific content knowledge and does not necessarily transfer between fields.

    Early studies on chess players and physicists in the 1970s and ’80s helped show how the kind of flexible and reflective cognition often called critical thinking is really a product of expertise. Chess masters, for instance, do not start out with innate talent. In most cases, they gain expertise by hours of thoughtfully playing the game. This deliberate practice helps them recognize patterns and think in novel ways about chess. Chess masters’ critical thinking is a product of learning, not a precursor.

    Because critical thinking develops in specific contexts, it does not necessarily transfer to other types of problem-solving. For example, chess advocates might hope the game improves players’ intelligence, and studies do suggest learning chess may help elementary students with the kind of pattern recognition they need for early math lessons. However, research has found that being a great chess player does not make people better at other kinds of complex critical thinking.

    Historical thinking

    Since context is key to critical thinking, learning to analyze information about current events likely requires knowledge about politics and history, as well as practice at scrutinizing sources. Fortunately, that is what social studies classes are for.

    Social studies researchers often describe this kind of critical thinking as “historical thinking”: a way to evaluate evidence about the past and assess its reliability. My own research has shown that high school students can make relatively quick progress on some of the surface features of historical thinking, such as learning to check a text’s date and author. But the deep questioning involved in true historical thinking is much harder to learn.

    Social studies classrooms can also build what researchers call “civic online reasoning.” Fact-checking is complex work. It is not enough to tell young people that they should be wary online, or to trust sites that end in “.org” instead of “.com.” Rather than learning general principles about online media, civic online reasoning teaches students specific skills for evaluating information about politics and social issues.

    Still, learning to think like a historian does not necessarily prepare someone to be a skeptical news consumer. Indeed, a recent study found that professional historians performed worse than professional fact-checkers at identifying online misinformation. The misinformation tasks the historians struggled with focused on issues such as bullying or the minimum wage – areas where they possessed little expertise.

    Powerful knowledge

    That’s where background knowledge comes in – and the good news is that social studies can build it. All literacy relies on what readers already know. For people wading through political information and news, knowledge about history and civics is like a key in the ignition for their analytical skills.

    Readers without much historical knowledge may miss clues that something isn’t right – signs that they need to scrutinize the source more closely. Political misinformation often weaponizes historical falsehoods, such as the debunked and recalled Christian nationalist book claiming that Thomas Jefferson did not believe in a separation of church and state, or claims that the nadir of African American life came during Reconstruction, not slavery. Those claims are extreme, but politicians and policymakers repeat them.

    For someone who knows basic facts about American history, those claims won’t sit right. Background knowledge will trigger their skepticism and kick critical thinking into gear.

    Past, present, future

    For this reason, the best approach to media literacy will come through teaching that fosters concrete skills alongside historical knowledge. In short, the new knowledge crisis points to the importance of the traditional social studies classroom.

    But it’s a tenuous moment for history education. The Bush- and Obama-era emphasis on math and English testing resulted in decreased instructional time in history classes, particularly in elementary and middle schools. In one 2005 study, 27% of schools reported reducing social studies time in favor of subjects on state exams.

    Now, history teachers are feeling heat from politically motivated culture wars over education that target teaching about racism and LGBTQ+ issues and that ban books from libraries and classrooms. Two-thirds of instructors say that they’ve limited classroom discussions about social and political topics.

    Attempts to limit students’ knowledge about the past imperil their chances of being able to think critically about new information. These attacks are not just assaults on the history of the country; they are attempts to control its future.

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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  • Why History Instruction is Critical for Combating Online Misinformation – The 74

    Why History Instruction is Critical for Combating Online Misinformation – The 74

    Can you tell fact from fiction online? In a digital world, few questions are more important or more challenging.

    For years, some commentators have called for K-12 teachers to take on fake news, media literacy, or online misinformation by doubling down on critical thinking. This push for schools to do a better job preparing young people to differentiate between low- and high-quality information often focuses on social studies classes.

    As an education researcher and former high school history teacher, I know that there’s both good and bad news about combating misinformation in the classroom. History class can cultivate critical thinking – but only if teachers and schools understand what critical thinking really means.

    Not just a ‘skill’

    First, the bad news.

    When people demand that schools teach critical thinking, it’s not always clear what they mean. Some might consider critical thinking a trait or capacity that teachers can encourage, like creativity or grit. They could believe that critical thinking is a mindset: a habit of being curious, skeptical and reflective. Or they might be referring to specific skills – for instance, that students should learn a set of steps to take to assess information online.

    Unfortunately, cognitive science research has shown that critical thinking is not an abstract quality or practice that can be developed on its own. Cognitive scientists see critical thinking as a specific kind of reasoning that involves problem-solving and making sound judgments. It can be learned, but it relies on specific content knowledge and does not necessarily transfer between fields.

    Early studies on chess players and physicists in the 1970s and ’80s helped show how the kind of flexible and reflective cognition often called critical thinking is really a product of expertise. Chess masters, for instance, do not start out with innate talent. In most cases, they gain expertise by hours of thoughtfully playing the game. This deliberate practice helps them recognize patterns and think in novel ways about chess. Chess masters’ critical thinking is a product of learning, not a precursor.

    Because critical thinking develops in specific contexts, it does not necessarily transfer to other types of problem-solving. For example, chess advocates might hope the game improves players’ intelligence, and studies do suggest learning chess may help elementary students with the kind of pattern recognition they need for early math lessons. However, research has found that being a great chess player does not make people better at other kinds of complex critical thinking.

    Historical thinking

    Since context is key to critical thinking, learning to analyze information about current events likely requires knowledge about politics and history, as well as practice at scrutinizing sources. Fortunately, that is what social studies classes are for.

    Social studies researchers often describe this kind of critical thinking as “historical thinking”: a way to evaluate evidence about the past and assess its reliability. My own research has shown that high school students can make relatively quick progress on some of the surface features of historical thinking, such as learning to check a text’s date and author. But the deep questioning involved in true historical thinking is much harder to learn.

    Social studies classrooms can also build what researchers call “civic online reasoning.” Fact-checking is complex work. It is not enough to tell young people that they should be wary online, or to trust sites that end in “.org” instead of “.com.” Rather than learning general principles about online media, civic online reasoning teaches students specific skills for evaluating information about politics and social issues.

    Still, learning to think like a historian does not necessarily prepare someone to be a skeptical news consumer. Indeed, a recent study found that professional historians performed worse than professional fact-checkers at identifying online misinformation. The misinformation tasks the historians struggled with focused on issues such as bullying or the minimum wage – areas where they possessed little expertise.

    Powerful knowledge

    That’s where background knowledge comes in – and the good news is that social studies can build it. All literacy relies on what readers already know. For people wading through political information and news, knowledge about history and civics is like a key in the ignition for their analytical skills.

    Readers without much historical knowledge may miss clues that something isn’t right – signs that they need to scrutinize the source more closely. Political misinformation often weaponizes historical falsehoods, such as the debunked and recalled Christian nationalist book claiming that Thomas Jefferson did not believe in a separation of church and state, or claims that the nadir of African American life came during Reconstruction, not slavery. Those claims are extreme, but politicians and policymakers repeat them.

    For someone who knows basic facts about American history, those claims won’t sit right. Background knowledge will trigger their skepticism and kick critical thinking into gear.

    Past, present, future

    For this reason, the best approach to media literacy will come through teaching that fosters concrete skills alongside historical knowledge. In short, the new knowledge crisis points to the importance of the traditional social studies classroom.

    But it’s a tenuous moment for history education. The Bush- and Obama-era emphasis on math and English testing resulted in decreased instructional time in history classes, particularly in elementary and middle schools. In one 2005 study, 27% of schools reported reducing social studies time in favor of subjects on state exams.

    Now, history teachers are feeling heat from politically motivated culture wars over education that target teaching about racism and LGBTQ+ issues and that ban books from libraries and classrooms. Two-thirds of instructors say that they’ve limited classroom discussions about social and political topics.

    Attempts to limit students’ knowledge about the past imperil their chances of being able to think critically about new information. These attacks are not just assaults on the history of the country; they are attempts to control its future.

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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  • Misinformation is flooding school communities. Here are 3 strategies to combat it.

    Misinformation is flooding school communities. Here are 3 strategies to combat it.

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    NEW ORLEANS — From misinterpreted data to claims that schools are equipped with litter boxes to accommodate students who identify as cats, there’s no shortage of false information for district administrators to contend with. And navigating when and how to respond can be a minefield unto itself.

    Misinformation damages relationships all around, Barbara Hunter, executive director of the National School Public Relations Association, told a packed session Wednesday at the National Conference on Education hosted by AASA, The School Superintendents Association. That erosion of trust can impact communication between parents and teachers, students and teachers, or parents and administrators, she said.

    “And, of course, it increases workloads because a lot of our time now is spent running down false information and trying to correct it, trying to manage it, and trying to get our messages out to counter that false information,” Hunter said.

    In an NSPRA survey conducted in January 2024, 96% of respondents said the spread of false information is an issue for school districts today. Furthermore, 78% said their school system had experienced a challenge caused by false information being circulated in their community within the previous year.

    To top it all off, 41% of respondents said the false information was spread deliberately, and 89% knew which groups or individuals were behind the intentional spread of misinformation.

    With 66% of school district leaders reporting that they or others on their teams spend one to four hours responding to false information each week, what can superintendents and school communications professionals do to mitigate the impact? Here are three strategies superintendents and their communication teams can use as they address this challenge.

    Create talking points and stay on message

    School district leaders must get in front of the community and be seen as a trusted source of information, said Cathy Kedjidjian, director of communications for North Cook Intermediate Service Center in Des Plaines, Illinois, and a past president of NSPRA.

    There are several steps the AASA panelists advised for accomplishing this:

    • Conduct trust and confidence surveys. These can help you determine what percentage of parents consider the district a trusted source of information — and the extent to which groups or individuals spreading false information in the community are seen as credible. 

      When writing the survey, “make sure you just don’t say, ‘Where do you get your news about the district?’ Because that could be a variety of sources,” said Hunter. “The key question is, ‘Where do you trust to get information about the district?’”

    • Assemble advisory groups. It’s essential to have regular face-to-face time with core stakeholder groups, said Melissa McConnell, manager of professional development and member engagement for NSPRA. 

      McConnell suggested meeting quarterly with a variety of advisory groups, including one for middle and high school students, another with parents and business leaders, and a third one made up of staff. Participants on the staff group might include those who are unhappy, so their concerns can be heard and information can be shared directly with them.

    • Arrange 1:1 meetings with those spreading rumors. “When it comes down to it, do those 1:1 meetings. Pick up the phone and call that person who heads up maybe that mommy blogger group or manages the Facebook group you can’t get away from,” said McConnell. “Invite them in for a conversation. A lot of times, they’re keyboard warriors and don’t really want to have that face-to-face.”

      She suggests, for example, taking them on a tour with the school principal if they’re spreading false information about a middle school’s lunches. “That can really help dispel a lot of rumors.”

      Don’t, however, join those groups or respond directly in them, advised Kedjidjian. “That is not good for your health.” 

    Engage in clear and effective communication

    The more you can keep language simple and avoid acronyms, the better off you’ll be, said McConnell. “You’ll be speaking in a language that more people can understand.”

    She also advises running any acronyms or catchphrases through Urban Dictionary so you’re not accidentally using something with a suggestive or vulgar slang meaning. “A lot of times, those abbreviations are words that you would not want to use, because you’ll get blasted at every which way and made fun of,” said McConnell.

    Misinformation really is becoming a crisis. It’s becoming a crisis of trust. It can impact the safety of students.

    Cathy Kedjidjian

    Director of communications at North Cook Intermediate Service Center in Des Plaines, Illinois

    Creating a “Rumor Has It” webpage as a one-stop source for accurate information on an issue is also effective, she said. Lakota Local Schools in Ohio did this to counter a broad range of misinformation, as did Minnesota’s Independent School District 728 to address rumors around a referendum.

    And it’s essential to make sure key communicators among parents and other community members have those “Rumor Has It” links so they’ll share them in Facebook groups and other outlets, said Kedjidjian.

    Kedjidjian also recommended communicating at an 8th grade reading level or below to simplify messaging.

    Looping in key community partners when necessary — such as the local police department as a co-author on a letter addressing safety rumors — can also help curb false information, she said.

    Develop a crisis plan

    “Misinformation really is becoming a crisis. It’s becoming a crisis of trust. It can impact the safety of students,” said Kedjidjian.

    To map out response strategies, district and building leaders should conduct “tabletop scenarios” where they walk through how communications unfold. For example, they might review what to do in a swatting event, where police or emergency personnel are sent to a location via a false report, or if a parent claims the school library contains pornographic material.

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