Information Literacy & the COVID-19 Pandemic: Home
Data & Media Literacy Assignments
- Stats, News & the Coronavirus...OH MY!Highlighted by the National Education Association, this lesson plan was created for high schoolers but can be adapted for a college audience. Kathleen Currie Smith and Sean Law.
- ‘Air Travel Surges 123%’: A Lesson About Misleading StatisticsIn this lesson, students learn about why percentage change values may give a misleading impression of what is really happening. From the New York Times' Lessons of the Day.
- ‘Black Americans Face Alarming Rates of Coronavirus Infection in Some States’In this lesson, students will analyze data on race and the coronavirus and share their opinion on what should be done to prevent deaths in black and Latino communities. From the New York Times' Lessons of the Day.
- 7 Ways to Explore the Math of the Coronavirus Using The New York TimesGraphs and data are everywhere as we try to better understand this pandemic and all its related health, economic and social consequences. From the New York Times' Lesson of the Day.
- Dangerous Numbers? Teaching About Data and Statistics Using the Coronavirus OutbreakDangerous Numbers? Teaching About Data and Statistics Using the Coronavirus Outbreak. From the New York Times' Lesson of the Day.
- New York Times' Lesson of the DayCheck back here for continued COVID-related lessons
Identifying Misinformation & Fact Vs. Opinion
- COVID-19 Misinformation ResourcesFrom Boston College Libraries. Includes resources to help identify misinformation related to COVID-19.
- News Lit Quiz: Get smart about COVID-19Test your ability to accurately categorize information with this compilation of examples we’ve pulled from several sources. From the News Literacy Project.
- Fact-Checking Coronavirus VideoFour-minute video that covers the SIFT method to prevent spreading misinformation. By Emilia Marcyk at Michigan State University Libraries.
- Project Information Literacy (PIL) COVID-19 Misinformation ResourcesA select list of resources about Covid-19 misinformation to support learning about information and news literacy. Includes resources for building activities, readings, podcasts, videos, and more.
A Bit of Framing
News and media literacy approaches (like those listed in the box above) often focus on the acquisition of individual skills (deciphering "real" news from fake news, for example). However, truly critical approaches take sociopolitical context into consideration, asking after issues such as
- media deregulation;
- surveillance;
- filter bubbles;
- algorithmic bias;
- and more.
Asking students to engage with today's complex information landscape through only skills-based approaches to literacy – often sold as "solutions" – will likely miss the mark. Scholars encourage us to work with students to interrogate their own cognitive biases as well as the social construction of information. For more, see the Pfau Library's Critical Information Literacy Lab and check out social media scholar, youth researcher, and advocate Danah Boyd's What Hath We Wrought? (2018). See also Digital Disconnect: Fake News Privacy, and Democracy (2018 film available to CSUSB users through the Pfau Library),
Data Visualization: Social Explorer
- Social Explorer This link opens in a new windowUS COVID-10 Data: This daily updated dataset allows you to explore and visualize COVID-19 data across the United States at the state, county, and MSA levels. Track the cumulative number of confirmed cases and deaths, the growth rate of the virus, the number of negative and positive tests, and much more on one convenient map. With daily updates and data provided by the New York Times and The Covid Tracking Project, receive reliable and accurate data every day with this new dataset.
Check out the "Teach and Learn" section to explore resources created by Social Explorer to inspire creativity, encourage hands-on learning, and equip your students with desired skills.
- Social Explorer Library GuideThis guide will walk you through how to use the Social Explorer database to create both maps and tables.