Browse best practices

Alternatives to the famous person report

In Rethinking Reports, page 3.1

This "rethinking reports" series of articles provides alternative research assignments that challenge students to think critically about historical actors.

By David Walbert and Melissa Thibault.

Arts of persuasion

Strategies for teaching middle school students to think critically, analyze persuasive arguments, and use speaking and writing to persuade others.

Format: series (multiple pages)

Consider the source

Information is everywhere — especially in the presence of the Internet. It's hard enough for adults to make sure that information is valid, but it's even harder for students to make that judgement. Here are some suggestions for helping students learn to recognize bad information when they see it.

Format: article

By Bobby Hobgood, Ed.D..

Demographics and deception

In Map skills and higher-order thinking, page 14

Maps get really interesting when we start adding human data to them -- population, economic production, social behavior, and so on. Mapping is a powerful way to summarize and communicate those kinds of data. Unfortunately, mapping is also an excellent way...

Format: article/best practice

By David Walbert.

Educator's Guides: North Carolina Digital History

Best practices, process guides, worksheets, and other resources for teaching with LEARN NC's digital textbook of North Carolina history.

Format: (multiple pages)

Finding, not searching

You can work smarter, not harder, by determining your searching style, learning more about what your searches return and why, and learning to look in the right place first.

Format: article

By Melissa Thibault.

Five tips to improve students' information evaluation

Teach your students how to separate the good online information from the bad with these five strategies.

Format: article

By Bill Ferris.

It's an ad!

How do marketers target kids — and how can we teach kids to know the difference between advertising and fact? These websites provide strategies to build critical thinking skills for media literate kids.

By Melissa Thibault.

Map skills and higher-order thinking

This series of articles looks at map skills as a kind of visual literacy, considering what maps are, how they're made, and the higher-order thinking skills students need to move from simply decoding maps to fully comprehending them.

Format: series (multiple pages)

The not-so-famous person report

In Rethinking Reports, page 3.2

Instead of teaching the history of the famous, use research in primary sources to teach students that the past and present were made by people like them.

Format: article

By David Walbert.

Persuasive speaking: A classroom model

In Arts of persuasion, page 3

A plan for teaching persuasive speaking in the middle school classroom, with tips for speakers and on how to recognize bias.

Format: article

By Pamela Myrick and Sharon Pearson.

Projections and propaganda

In Map skills and higher-order thinking, page 9

Interestingly, until the mid-twentieth century, publishers of maps and textbooks resisted using new projections (many of which were, by then, quite old). Why? Maybe because they wanted to stick with what was familiar to people -- or maybe because Mercator...

Format: article/best practice

By David Walbert.

Reading, writing, and research: Integrating literacy across the curriculum

"Reading, Writing and Research: Integrating Literacy across the Curriculum" helps participants develop skills for implementing oral and written communication instruction in their professions.

Format: article/online course

Rethinking Reports

Creative research-based assignments provide alternatives to the President Report, Animal Report, and Famous Person Report that ask students to think about old topics in new ways, work collaboratively, and develop products that support a variety of learning styles.

Format: series (multiple pages)

Strategies for online reading comprehension

This article examines the differences between reading in print and reading online, and proposes some tools and strategies to help aid students' reading comprehension and information literacy in online environments.

Format: article/best practice

By Kevin Hodgson.

The student pathfinder

By creating pathfinders, students not only learn to manage time and produce a higher quality research project, but they also develop twenty-first century learning skills.

Format: article

By Melissa Thibault.

Think for yourself! Media literacy every day

Information, like air, is everywhere, and we breathe it in whether we mean to or not. If we want our students to be rational, responsible citizens and consumers, we have to help them develop a filter they can use all the time, not just when they're doing research.

Format: article

By David Walbert.

Tools of the trade for information seekers

A guide to understanding and using search engines, directories, and the invisible web.

Format: article

By Melissa Thibault.

Resources on the web

ACRL - Information Literacy

Tutorials and standards for information literacy. (Learn more)

Format: website/activity

Provided by: American Library Association

The Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education

Looking for information about fair use and copyright? This site provides a code of best practices for educators to understand their rights in using copyrighted materials in the classroom. (Learn more)

Format: website/general

Provided by: American University Center for Social Media