Presented June 26, 2015 at the 2015 ALA Annual Conference

Program Description

As the Internet becomes more essential in meeting young people’s everyday life and academic information needs, ensuring that students have the skills needed to assess the credibility of online resources becomes more critical. These skills are particularly difficult to teach, largely due to the ambiguity of what makes a site both credible and relevant to a young and inexperienced searcher.

This workshop will introduce participants to methods of credibility assessment instruction informed through research conducted by a team at the University of Maryland, in collaboration with school librarians in selected middle schools. This collaborative team runs weekly after-school sessions through the program, HackHealth, wherein young people learn to become effective users of health information, increase their health literacy and health-related self-efficacy, and make positive changes to their health behaviors. By selecting, researching, and presenting on a health topic of personal relevance, students learn valuable skills of digital research in a way that is connected to their own lives.

Using data collected and methods tested during HackHealth sessions, this workshop will present strategies for effectively teaching Web-based credibility assessment to middle and high school students. The workshop will incorporate:

• Hands-on learning, such as real-time credibility assessment, group discussion on current practices, and demonstrations of credibility lessons;
• Interactive presentations of effective credibility assessment strategies to use in the library and classroom; and
• Activities focused on developing ways to incorporate skills learned into the participants’ teaching practices.

More specifically, librarians will come away from the workshop with individual action plans to take back to their schools. Depending on their needs, librarians will be able to build innovative lesson plans, create professional development activities, and develop strategies to implement credibility instruction across grade levels.

Click here for more information about the workshop.