In the past, “literate” meant that you could read. We taught students how to find information, how to use a library. They had to go to the library in person, which wasn’t always convenient, but the information they found had been vetted by a librarian. Now information pours out of everyone's phone, but much of it is junk, and students are poor at distinguishing real from fake, and good at spreading rumors. Hence the need for 21st century skills.
For two years, I’ve been teaching a freshman seminar called, "21st Century Literacy for Succeeding in College and Beyond." It teaches students how to study, gather material, and, most importantly, how to decide what is real and valuable, and what it fake and trying to fool them. It teaches them to understand and respect why there might be different perspectives from people with different backgrounds. It could have an effect on issues of equity and acceptance in a diverse student body.
For the course, I collected interesting and compelling written and video material. I used Canvas to present it, but I've put some materials here https://casa.colorado.edu/~dduncan/?page_id=1017 that you can see. The publisher Kendal-Hunt would test publish if 200 students try using it. My freshman seminar is only 20. I hope there is a way to get more freshmen to take such a course. If even some of this material were part of Common Core, the publisher would be interested.
I do not avoid controversial topics, but we treat them carefully. Students care about what actually affects their lives. The class begins with a commitment to respect opinions different from your own. We discuss vaccines and climate change, and read articles with a variety of opinions. Then we also look up information, and critique how accurate the article were. “Should you avoid vaccines?” is an emotional topic, and now an example of the importance of learning how to get reliable information. For another example, we discuss the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh. We talk about whether what you do in college or in a fraternity should be a part of whether you get a future job. Students read three articles that criticize Christine Blasey Ford’s credibility, for a variety of reasons such as that her “Rate My Professor” website reviews are bad. After (only after!) a discussion of whether this changes student’s opinions of Blasey Ford, I ask the students if they checked the accuracy of the articles. On purpose, I give them three that are false (Blasey Ford was confused with another professor on the website.) We read, “How Fake News Turned a Small Town Upside Down,” from the NY Times. The more often students are asked to distinguish facts or evidence from opinion, the better they get at it. The more they see the difference between reliable and unreliable sources, the more likely they are to pay attention to sources.
For 20 years, I included "Real vs. Fake Science" as part of my Introductory Astronomy Course for non-majors. I reasoned that a purpose of CU making all students take some science is to improve their ability to make wise real-world choices. So, I introduce real world, controversial, engaging topics. Teaching this caused hundreds of students to tell me that it is the most valuable thing they've learned in a science course. The freshman seminar is an expanded version to help students effectively deal with the media environment we live in. If our graduates have not gained the ability to tell real from fake, to think critically and thoughtfully, I think the university has failed them, and we have failed society. I hope that teaching this kind of literacy could be built into any common curriculum we adopt.
I invite anyone to communicate and collaborate with me on this topic!
Doug Duncan, University of Colorado Department of Astrophysical & Planetary Sciences. dduncan@colorado.edu
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If students studied history and understood the context of any given issue better, it would be a lot easier for them to evaluate the current issues. For instance, with the Cavanaugh nomination and Blasey. It's difficult to really evaluate it until one understands the long history of rape charges against right leaning leaders that come out of the blue after decades with no prior attempts at prosecution. This is a standard Democrat smear tactic. Once you've seen it a few times, it's easier to understand.
Wow, this sounds wonderful! I wish every High School student had to take this. I still remember a movie we watched with discussion afterwards in eighth grade about how the advertising industry manipulates people with subtle and insidious psychological symbolism, embedded messages, embedded images that evoke some of our deepest lizard brain states.
It is still hard for me to adjust to our rapidly changing world, but I realize kids have to be taught these things in the medium they are used to and that everything is being published in. My first thought was, "Why aren't you taking them to the library?" I think I will teach my kids both about the library and about other ways to access reading material and information. I think it's good to learn how things were done up until around 2 cultural seconds ago. I think every child should know where the continents and major global powers are on a globe and a map, and that they should know how to read a map. The idea that they don't need to know where anything is because "they can just look it up" makes little sense to me. How can they understand the history of various civilizations, wars, conflicts, and migrations if they don't know where anything was and what the topography was? And if your GPS navigator crumps out and you're lost, you should be able to fall back on a map.