Inquiry Connections: Competence, Autonomy, and Relevance

Image of 3 interlock puzzle pieces and the words competence, autonomy, and relevance (plus modeling)In the past two weeks, I have been engaged in an email exchange with Connie Williams, who retired from her high school librarian position in Petaluma City (CA) Schools and walked into her second dream job as a part-time History Room Librarian at the Petaluma Regional Library. In her current role, she often has the opportunity to work with individual students as they conduct research.

Connie and I began our conversation after my 11/16/20 blog post that referenced Joyce Valenza’s “Enough with the CRAAP; We’re Just Not Doing It Right.” We have been sharing ideas about using Mike Caulfield’s The Four Moves and SIFT process when teaching students to closely examine the reliability of sources.

Last week, I also had the opportunity to engage in a virtual interview with Barbara Stripling, which will be posted to School Library Connection.com (SLC) in the near future. Barb posed questions about how to motivate students to engage in inquiry and how inquiry motivates students to become lifelong learners. (Note: Barb also discusses relevance, autonomy, competence (confidence) in her recent SLC article.)

Central to these conversations has been how to engage students in the hard work of determining the reliability of sources—to dig deep enough to determine the perspective, bias, and authority of texts, free-range web browser-searched texts in particular. This work is essential for student-led inquiry learning.

These conversations prompted me to revisit the work of psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, which I first learned about in Paul Tough’s book Helping Students Succeed: What Works and Why (2016). Research conducted by Deci and Ryan points to the fact the people (students) are motivated by intrinsic needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness (personal connection or what we in education call relevance). According to Deci and Ryan, motivation can be sustained when those needs are met.

I believe these three needs are the key to unlocking in our students the motivation to doing the hard work. (This is the order in which Deci and Ryan address these needs.)

Competence
Making sense of any text, also known as comprehension, is work. It requires that readers who want to know the answers to their questions apply a range of strategies. These strategies include self-assessing their background knowledge or building it, posing meaningful questions and questioning the texts they encounter, determining main ideas, perspectives, and bias, drawing inferences, and synthesizing information from multiple sources. It also requires that adults and more proficient peers model what is going on inside their heads when they use these strategies to analyze a text.

K-12 students who have learned and have been guided in practicing reading comprehension strategies have learned to “stop” and chose from a selection of strategies to gain or regain comprehension. The process involved in making sense of text is an essential practice in reading and therefore in inquiry, which often challenges students to learn from texts that are above their proficient reading level. Students who are accustomed to doing this work will have a leg up when they are engaged in inquiry learning.

When students have confidence built from success with difficult texts, they will realize they are empowered with the skills and strategies needed to investigate any question they want to pursue. They will experience competence in making sense of texts. This competence can be a foundation on which they will persist in doing the hard work of analyzing and effectively using unfamiliar texts for their own purposes.

Experiencing competence creates confident learners
who are prepared to take the risks necessary for inquiry learning.

Autonomy
Autonomy is a centerpiece of inquiry learning. From my perspective and in my experience, there are two big buckets of inquiry practices in K-12 schools: guided inquiry based in curriculum standards and open-ended completely student-led inquiry learning. I believe both practices can create the conditions that further motivate students as lifelong learners.

I have the most experience facilitating guided inquiry based in content-area curriculum standards. When educators create opportunities for students to exercise choice within a content-area topic to achieve a standards-based outcome, they have created what Bhabha (1994) called a “third space,” a negotiated space between the curriculum required in school and the student’s outside of school interests and experience. In this context, students have the authority to ask personally meaningful questions within the required curriculum framework (Kuhlthau, Maniotes, and Caspari 2012).

Junior or senior capstone (and some university-level) projects are inquiry examples in which students may assume complete choice over the topic as well as the questions of their inquiry. These projects can pave the way for supporting a lifelong commitment to the process of asking questions and seeking answers, solutions, and uncovering more questions.

Empowered students engaged in inquiry exercise choice and voice.

Relevance
Deci and Ryan use the term “relatedness” which we, in education, call relevance or personal connections. Again, inquiry supports relevance and relevance supports inquiry.

Inquiry learning creates opportunities for student agency. Agency involves students in taking an active role in and ownership over learning. “They may set goals that are relevant and meaningful to their lives, practice autonomy by having voice and choice, and be empowered to share, reflect on, and grow through their learning” (Moreillon 2021, in press).

Exercising agency and experiencing empowerment is motivating.

Plus One: Modeling
To these three, I would add one condition that creates the kind of learning environment that motivates youth to enthusiastically engage in learning and persevere when the going gets tough. I believe that modeling is the most important example educators can offer students. When school librarians and classroom teachers show students that we, as adults, continue to pursue personally meaningful questions in our own lives, students can understand the usefulness of a lifelong inquiry stance toward learning.

Educators who model lifelong learning show students and colleagues that doing the work is worth it. This is not easy at a time when the most common question is what’s the quickest and easiest path to success.

Educator modeling invites students into a supportive inquiry learning environment, a club of inquirers.

Works Cited

Bhabha, Homi K. 1994. The Location of Culture. New York: Routledge.

Deci, Edward L., and Richard M. Ryan. 2018. Self-Determination Theory: Basic Psychological Needs of Motivation, Development, and Wellness. New York: The Guilford Press.

Kuhlthau, Carol C., Leslie K. Maniotes, and Ann K. Caspari. 2012. Guided Inquiry Design: A Framework for Inquiry in Your School. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.

Moreillon, Judi. Ed. 2021. Core Values in School Librarianship: Responding with Commitment and Courage. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.

Tough, Paul. 2016. Helping Children Succeed: What Works and Why. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

See also: My 6/5/17 review of Tough’s book How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character.

 

Indigenous History, Land, and Climate Justice

Photograph of Multi-colored Indian CornNovember is American Indigenous Peoples Month/Native American Heritage Month. It is also when many U.S. families celebrate Thanksgiving, a harvest festival, the origin of which as we learned in elementary school, was a feast that included Wampanoag people and Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts in 1621.

In American Indian cultures across this land, there are perspectives on Thanksgiving that reflect the broader historical and devastating consequences that resulted from this shared feast and subsequent deadly conflicts between colonizers and Indigenous peoples. (See the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian “Thanksgiving” resources  and “Transforming Teaching and Learning about Native Americans” resources, part of the Native Knowledge 360° Education Initiative.)

Land Statement Acknowledgments
In 2020, a growing number of non-Indians are recognizing the fact that the land on which we live belongs to the Indigenous people who lived on this soil long before White arrival.

As an acknowledgment of that fact, many individuals and organizations are developing land statements. There are websites that help land statement writers examine their motives, their minds, and their hearts as they compose an acknowledgment that honors and shows respect for the Indigenous history of the land on which they live and work.

When I crafted a land statement for this blog and when I collaborated with members of the Arizona Library Association (AzLA) to create one for the organization, we used the guidance found on the Native Governance Center’s “A Guide to Indigenous Land Acknowledgement” website and in the case of AzLA feedback from the tribal members of our association.

I live in Tucson sixty miles from the Mexican border. Today, the Tohono O’odham American Indians live on approximately 3 million acres to the west and south of Tucson. Their reservation extends into northern Sonora, Mexico and is larger than the state of Delaware. O’odham also live off reservation throughout Arizona and in communities across the country.

This is the land acknowledgement you will find on the About page of this blog:

Land Statement Acknowledgement: I post to this blog and share information from my home in Tucson, Arizona, which is built upon the traditional homelands of the Tohono O’odham and their ancestors the Hohokam. Their care and keeping of this land allow me to live here today.

The Tohono O’odham
Our Tucson community is diverse in terms of race, ethnicity, and culture. Ten percent of the students at Elvira Elementary School, where long ago I served my first year as a school librarian, were Tohono O’odham children who were bussed into Tucson from the nearby San Xavier District of their reservation. This was a first-time experience for me teaching and learning with and from American Indian students and families. That year at Elvira made a lasting impact on my teaching, writing, and my life. (See 12/18/29 “Gifts of Windows and Mirrors” blog post.)

The Tohono O’odham are not well known outside of the Southwest. Some years ago when the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) in Washington, DC first opened, I had the opportunity to visit and was pleased to see O’odham culture and art included in an exhibit.

I have since followed other NMAI events that have included O’odham culture and knowledge like this lecture by Terrol Dew Johnson, founder of Tohono O’odham Community Action (TOCA), “Living Earth 2019.” In his talk, he shares native food ways and how TOCA guides O’odham people in reconnecting with traditional farming, harvesting, processing, and preparing local food.

Indigenous Peoples and Climate Justice
Last September 12, 2020 on Indigenous Peoples’ Day, the Smithsonian hosted a Virtual Indigenous People’s Teach-In: Food and Water Justice. Teaching for Change offers a webpage devoted to a recap of the keynote, workshops, and teaching resources that grew out of this professional development opportunity.

In collaboration, the Zinn Education Project offers a lesson plan for middle and high school students: “Stories from the Climate Crisis: A Mixer.”  The Zinn Project also has a book of resources and activities titled A People’s Curriculum for the Earth: Teaching Climate Change and the Environmental Crisis.

The NMAI also offers “American Indian Resources to Environmental Challenges” resources to share projects today’s Indigenous peoples are leading to continue their stewardship of the land.

Gratitude
As you consider your blessings at this time in our shared history, I hope you will pause to acknowledge and give thanks for the land on which you live and work. As school librarians, I hope you will also recommit to teaching and coteaching with classroom teacher colleagues for social and climate justice and enlist young people in learning about and caring deeply for our Earth and its peoples.

Image Credit

Ulleo. “Corn.” Pixabay.com, https://pixabay.com/photos/corn-harvest-food-ornamental-corn-3663086/

Digital Learning: SIFT Meets Reading Comprehension Strategies

Image of Laptop with Books on the Screen and this text: Physical/digital access without intellectual access does not support traditional or any other literacy.Since computers entered libraries (and classrooms), students have been reading on screens. The difference today during the pandemic is that many students are reading exclusively online. This means that during this academic school year, more K-12 students than ever before will be engaging with digital texts.

An 11/11/20 Knowledge Quest blog post by Elizabeth Pelayo, librarian at St. Charles East High School in St. Charles, Illinois, brought this situation into sharp relief for me: “Print Nonfiction vs Databases.”

Elizabeth’s post reminded me of the challenges of allocating funds for library collections during tight budget times (and a pandemic). Her post also brought back a comment a high school junior made to me in 2010 when attempting to use a database during an inquiry project related to Harlem Renaissance literature and the arts: “Dr. M., can’t I just use a book?”

I agree with Elizabeth’s conclusion that students need both paper print and digital information sources. Her conclusion also aligns with Kathy Lester’s perspective in her 10/26/20 KQ post “Access to Print Books? Yes!

Comprehension Using Digital Texts
I think it is critical that all school librarians and educators, including administrators, read the research referenced in Jill Barshay’s The Hechinger Report article “Evidence Increases for Reading on Paper Instead of Screens” (2019). This is essential information if we are not only focused on providing access to paper print and digital resources but also committed to ensuring readers comprehend what they read.

This research finding should give us direction: “The excessive confidence of screen readers (with regard to their comprehension) is important, (researcher Virginia) Clinton said, because people who overestimate their abilities are likely to put in less effort. The less effort a person puts into a reading passage, the less they are likely to comprehend. That’s because reading comprehension, like all learning, isn’t easy and requires work” (Barshay 2019). (Emphasis added.)

As noted in Barshay’s article, the genre of the text figures into the mix. When Clinton’s research separated out studies in which students had read narrative fiction, there was no benefit to paper over screens, “but for nonfiction information texts, the advantage for paper stands out” (Barshay 2019).

Physical/digital access without intellectual access does not support traditional or any other literacy.

Connections to Inquiry Learning
Today, when students are engaged in remote and hybrid inquiry learning, they will be even more inclined to use digital texts accessed exclusively from the web in their information search process. Sorting fact from fiction, misinformation, disinformation, propaganda, and outright lies during free-range web searches requires the “work” that Clinton’s research supports.

SIFT + Comprehension Strategies = Critical Thinking
In a recent School Library Journal blog post “Enough with the CRAAP: We’re Just Not Doing It Right,” Joyce Valenza makes a research-based case for reassessing and changing the way we teach validating online information. I have never used the CRAAP test in my teaching. I have not found this apparently linear list useful to students. (Not to mention that I find the acronym off-putting.) On the other hand, I have used graphic organizers that I hope have led students to dig deeper when they are analyzing a source of information.

In her post, Joyce cites “Educating for Misunderstanding: How Approaches to Teaching Digital Literacy Make Students Susceptible to Scammers, Rogues, Bad Actors, and Hate Mongers,” research from the Stanford History Education Group. Joyce’s post and SHEG’s research finding should be a wake-up call for school librarians. It’s time to rethink how we teach digital literacy. (I encourage you read both Joyce’s post and the SHEG study.)

Joyce also cites Mike Caulfield’s “SIFT (The Four Moves).” For me, the SIFT process is aligned with and reinforces reading comprehension strategies that (upper grade) students should know and be able to apply. Parenthetical are mine.

Stop
Ask yourself if you know this website and the reputations of its authors. (“Stop” is precisely what readers are advised to do in order to self-assess their comprehension. Questioning and monitoring comprehension are reading comprehension strategies.)

Review Your Purpose
How will you use this information? (Reconnecting with the purpose for reading is a “fix-up option” reading comprehension strategy.)

Here Caulfield makes a distinction between next steps for a shallow or deeper investigation. Since this discussion focuses on students who are engaged in inquiry learning, school librarians and coteachers would guide them on to:

Investigating the source (building background knowledge)

Finding trusted coverage (determining main ideas and questioning the text until trusted information is found)

Tracing claims, quotes, and media back to the original context (verifying background knowledge) (Caulfield 2019).

And for me, at this point, educators stress the importance of deeply examining the author’s purpose, bias, and perspective, which is when students will make inferences combining their background knowledge with the evidence in the text (yet another reading comprehension strategy).

Digital Reading Comprehension
At this time as new practices are developing in instruction, it is essential that we have focused conversations with education decision-makers about how student read for meaning (reading comprehension), engage in inquiry, and determine the reliability of digital information.

AASL’s own “The School Librarian’s Role in Reading Position Statement” is also a rich resource for engaging in this conversation with decision-makers.

Collaborate!
The skills we have traditionally considered “information literacy” must not be separated from reading comprehension strategies, inquiry, and critical thinking. All of these tools—working in various combinations—help students analyze and make sense of texts. This is essential work for today’s students. Educators must teach these skills and motivate students to practice them—consistently—most especially in the free-range web learning environment.

In an SLJ article, Irene C. Fountas, professor in the School of Education at Lesley University in Cambridge and Gay Su Pinnell, professor in the School of Teaching and Learning at Ohio State University, were quoted: “Having a library is a treasure, and having a librarian is a gift. And when reading teachers, classroom teachers, specialists, and school librarians come together as a team, their collective knowledge about texts can help every child love to read independently, love to read in their classroom, and love to read at home” (Parrott 2017). (Emphasis added.)

Working together as a team, educators can also ensure that students deeply analyze and comprehend the “informational texts” they read in paper print and on their screens. School librarians can be leaders who make (digital) literacy teaching teams effective for the benefit of students.

Works Cited

Barshay, Jill. 2019. “Evidence Increases for Reading on Paper Instead of Screens.” The Hechinger Report, https://hechingerreport.org/evidence-increases-for-reading-on-paper-instead-of-screens/

Caulfield, Mike. 2019. “SIFT (The Four Moves).” https://hapgood.us/2019/06/19/sift-the-four-moves/

Parrott, Kiera. 2017. “Fountas and Pinnell Say Librarians Should Guide Readers by Interest, Not Level,” School Library Journal, https://www.slj.com/?detailStory=fountas-pinnell-say-librarians-guide-readers-interest-not-level

Valenza, Joyce, 2020. “Enough with the CRAAP; We’re Just Not Doing It Right.” School Library Journal, http://blogs.slj.com/neverendingsearch/2020/11/01/enough-with-the-craap-were-just-not-doing-it-right/

Image Credit
kalhh. “Learn Media Internet.” Pixabay.com, https://pixabay.com/illustrations/learn-media-internet-medium-977543/

World Kindness Day, Love, and Justice

Image of two hands surrounding a heart with the scales of justice in the centerThis coming Friday, November 13, 2020 is World Kindness Day. The mission of Inspire Kindness.com is to “inspire the world’s greatest kindness movement.” World Kindness Day “has the purpose is to help everyone understand that compassion for others is what binds us all together. This understanding has the power to bridge the gap between nations.” The Inspire Kindness website offers posters and other printables, a video, and ideas for celebrating World Kindness Day at school.

Quote to Teach and Live By
During the presidential campaign, I was introduced to this quote from author, scholar, and activist Dr. Cornel West:

“Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public.”

World Kindness Day seems to me to be an appropriate time to consider the connection between love and justice. I believe a wise thought such as this one can be our guide as we, school librarians and other educators, negotiate our place in today’s and tomorrow’s civic and education conversations.

During this season of misinformation, disinformation, propaganda, and bold-face lies, we have renewed our commitment to teaching students to be critical thinkers who learn and practice news/media literacy. This is essential work.

See Lia Fisher-Janosz’ 11/03/20 Knowledge Quest post: “We Hold These Truths to Be Self Evident: Learning and Discerning in 2020 and Beyond” and my own 11/02/20 post “News Literacy and Democracy.”

Public Education and Justice
Last week, Arizona voters passed Prop. 208! For students who attend K-12 district public schools, serve in and advocate for public education in Arizona, this hard-won outcome is cause for great celebration. Working toward providing every young person with a high-quality education guided by better-paid educators is both an expression of love and an act of social justice.

This measure includes funding for hiring and retaining state-certified school librarian positions in Arizona district public schools. I was just one among the many who dedicated time and energy to promoting this initiative. My personal thanks go out to all who worked on this effort, including members of the Arizona Library Association and EveryLibrary executive director John Chrastka.

When we resume the Tucson Unified School District School Librarian Restoration Project, we will be meeting with newly elected TUSD board members: Natalie Luna Rose, Sadie Shaw, and Ravi Grivois-Shah. Having the Prop. 208 funds in the bank will definitely make those conversations “sweeter.” (This win is important because it reflects Arizonans’ frustration with the inability of our governor and state legislature to restore public school funding to pre-2008 recession levels.)

Developing Hearts
As we serve young people, school librarians have the opportunity and the charge to guide students in developing their hearts as well as their minds. We have the dual charge to both teach and coteach our school’s curriculum with a focus on information literacy and critical thinking AND to develop students as lifelong readers who develop understanding, compassion, and empathy through reading and interacting with literature.

In order to serve our learning communities in both of these ways, we must practice our core values of equity, diversity, inclusion, and intellectual freedom. As Metro Nashville school librarian Erika Long states: “Librarians must commit to being radical change and equity warriors to ensure no one is omitted” (2020, 13).

The reading materials and learning opportunities we provide through our libraries must reflect our values, reach and speak to all students, and support all educators in guiding students to success. We must collaborate with other educators to engage students with literature, to invite them to discuss diverse literature with their peers and guides—to use literature as a springboard for personal growth and societial change.

SEL = Human(e)
I appreciate this “formula” that Steve Tetreault proposed in his 11/6/20 Knowledge Quest blog post “Finding Moments of Joy.” Whether or not we consider this an “academic” formula, it is true that social-emotional learning helps us develop as whole human beings—as humane humans.

Diverse, inclusive literature can be a large part of a “heart” curriculum because it helps us connect with others people’s experiences. Readers can develop our compassion and empathy, and can grow our human-ness through story.

Living with uncertainty, as we are today, is difficult for many of us, including our students, colleagues, and families. Let’s be sure to practice kindness every day and make a commitment to connect, to educate hearts as well as minds as we move forward into a more just future—together.

Works Cited

Inspire Kindness. 2020. “World Kindness Day.” https://inspirekindness.com

Long, Erika. 2020. “Radical Change Agents and Equity Warriors.” School Library Connection, October, 12-14.

Tetreault, Steve, 2020. “Finding Moments of Joy.” Knowledge Quest (blog), November 6, https://knowledgequest.aasl.org/finding-joyful-moments/

Image Credit:

GJD. “Heart Love Passion Peace Sign.” Pixabay.com, https://pixabay.com/vectors/heart-love-passion-peace-sign-2028061

News Literacy and Democracy

Photograph of Woman Holding Her Head while looking at her laptop It seems fitting on the day before the U.S. national election day to review what we know or don’t yet know about teaching news literacy and how that instruction is related to democracy.

Last week during Media Literacy Week, I participated in the University of Maine Fogler Library’s week-long “Friend, Enemy, or Frenemy? News Literacy Challenge.” (It is not too late to participate in this activity. The Challenge links are live and will be accessible into the future.)

Below is a summary of each day’s information and activities and my takeaways.

Day 1: Does News Matter?
On the opening day, participants were asked to identify a news article that piques their interest and categorize it in one or more of these three functions: inform about daily life, report on one or more topical trends, and/or socialize readers/viewers in some way. Reading the range of articles on the comment board was a good exercise in itself. There were a number of COVID-19 articles and a few related to the Supreme Court confirmation.

From my own perspective on 10/26/20 and even though I am currently in northern California and have been under threats of wildfires, I was surprised to note that people found anything besides these two trending topics compelling and competing for their attention!

Day 2: Fact or Fiction
On Day Two, we were given four “news” stories to “guess” if they were real or fake without doing any research or background digging. This reminded me of guessing on a standardized test. I thought these examples were interesting because they could uncover participants’ biases as reflected in news headlines alone.

We were given sources to review including the Stanford History Education Group’s research: “Educating for Misunderstanding: How Approaches to Teaching Digital Literacy Make Students Susceptible to Scammers, Rogues, Bad Actors, and Hate Mongers.”

Coincidentally, I also received this link from the School Library SmartBrief that day. It totally aligned with the Day 2 activity: “Can Your Students Tell the Difference Between Fact and Fiction?” by Kimberly Rues (EdSurge Columnist).

Day 3: Deconstructing the News
How news stories are constructed is determined and influenced by individual people, organizations, and the cultures in which they are produced. The challenge noted how people (reporters), organizations (policies and priorities in terms of audience/revenue streams), and culture (including format, norms, and values) frame the news.

Challenge: “Find and link to a news story that demonstrates how people, organizations, or culture construct the news. Explain the connections you’re making. How might this affect what gets told and what’s left out of a story?”

Has Hunger Swelled? (In the U.S. During the Pandemic). This American Enterprise Institute (AEI) brief article summarizes research that suggests reports of “food hardship” during the pandemic are based on exaggerated data. (Thanks to John Chrastka at EveryLibrary who encouraged Lilead Project Fellows and Mentors to regularly read outside their bubbles, I have been receiving and reading the AEI digest for several years now.)

The AEI has a reputation for being pro-business and suspicious of reporting that shows the growing wealth gap. The .pdf file that includes AEI’s research is intended to add credibility to their perspective. Their conclusion: “We believe the share of households with insufficient food over a month is closer to 5 or 6 percent than 12 percent. Six percent is higher than at any point in 20 years.”

As a former educator who continues to see how our local school district scrambles to feed kids during school closures and as a contributor to local food banks, my own experience makes me question the validity of AEI’s “research” and “reporting.” The fact that they even use the word “believe” suggests that reliable data is really not available. As a result, I “believe” AEI would prefer to underreport food insecurity at this time when congressional decision-makers are considering pandemic relief funds.

Day 4: Deconstructing Bias
For this day’s activity, we were asked to compare two headlines and articles—one from CBS News, the other from the Washington Examiner. My practice in determining which reading news articles I will take the time to read involves reading both the headlines AND the first sentence (or two) in the article. If there is a disconnect between the two, I am inclined to not read on (unless it is so outrageous and I am in a “mood” to confirm my bias). In this case, the Washington Examiner reporter lost my readership for a sensationalized headline that misrepresented his own topic sentence.

On day 4, we were given two videos to watch: “Why Do Our Brains Love Fake News?” a video that describes cognitive bias.

How news feed algorithms supercharge confirmation bias” by Eli Pariser, executive director of MoveOn.org, which focuses on how online data collection shapes the “news” that we are fed in our online searches.

Day 5: Constructing the News
On the final day, we were given a scenario, a series of photographs, and an assignment to construct a headline for a specific news outlet. I was assigned the Wall Street Journal. I used the WSJ’s news bias rating from Allsides.com to justify my headline and photograph selection.

As they did with their August, 2020 Racial Justice Challenge, the News Literacy Challenge organizers at the Fogler Library asked participants to complete an anonymous online survey.

Connection between News Literacy and Democracy
I suspect that, like you, I am not alone in my concern for the present and future of an informed electorate. Participating in the News Literacy Challenge with educated adults was illuminating. Participants’ understanding of news bias was wide ranging and their comments were not always as informed as I would have hoped.

The Pew Center conducted a nonscientific canvass based on a non-random sample of the individual tech leaders who responded to their query: “Tech Experts Say Digital Disruption Will Hurt Democracy.”

As reported in the article, Christopher Mondini, vice president of business engagement for ICANN, summed it up for me: “The decline of independent journalism and critical thinking and research skills resulting from easy reliance on the internet make citizens more susceptible to manipulation and demagoguery.”

Bottom Line:  We need U.S. and global citizens who will make informed decisions when we vote, take action, and influence the course of our collective future. We, in K-12 and higher ed, have work to do.

Works Cited

Anderson, Janna, and Lee Rainie. 2020. “3. Concerns about Democracy in the Digital Age.” Pew Research Center, https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2020/02/21/concerns-about-democracy-in-the-digital-age/

Berry, Alan, Judith Rosenbaum, and Jen Bonnet. 2020. Friend, Enemy, or Frenemy? News Literacy Challenge. University of Maine Fogler Library. https://libguides.library.umaine.edu/c.php?g=1062054&p=7722052

Image Credit:
Piacquadio, Andrea. Search: “News Literacy.” Pexels.com, https://www.pexels.com/photo/young-troubled-woman-using-laptop-at-home-3755755/