Using the same source used in Activities 6A, 6B, and 6C, students work in groups to evaluate how much a source’s recognition from others affects its credibility and then discuss how they made their decisions. The instructor leads the discussion.
Other activities in this series: Activity 6A, Evaluating a Source’s Neighborhood on the Web; Activity 6B, Evaluating a Source’s Author and Publisher; Activity 6C, Evaluating a Source’s Degree of Bias; and Activity 6E Evaluating a Source’s Currency
Learning Outcomes
Students will be able to:
- Make inferences about a source’s credibility.
- Evaluate a source’s credibility based on the source’s degree of bias.
- Use Choosing & Using Sources.
Relevant Threshold Concepts
- Authority is constructed and contextual.
Suggestions for Use
- Whatever source a student evaluated in the first activity you’ve used in this series should be the one he/she evaluates for this activity.
- This activity should be helpful in classes where students will be planning which kinds of sources they should consider for their research projects.
- Consider preceding this activity with Activity 6A, 6B, and 6C and following it with Activity 6E
Pre-Class Preparation
- Review the handout for this activity.
- Review In-Class Procedure below.
- Read Choosing and Using Sources, Chapter 6, Evaluating Sources, “Recognition from Others,” which students will be referring to on their devices to make their evaluations.
- Consider assigning students to read before class Choosing and Using Sources, Chapter 6, Evaluating Sources, “Recognition from Others,” which students will be referring to on their devices to make their evaluations.
- Prepare to introduce the session, using your own remarks or In-Class Procedure below, if it is helpful.
- Evaluate the source’s recognition from others yourself.
- Using In-Class Procedure, plan your discussion of the groups’ evaluations.
- Print 1 copy per student and 1 for yourself of Handout 6D-1.
- Make sure you have the “grades” students gave the source for Web neighborhood, author and publisher, and degree of bias so you can re-display them today.
- Download and perhaps print In-Class Procedure so you can take it with you to class.
In-Class Procedure
- While students work, draw this matrix with as many group columns as you need. (Group columns need to be wide enough for only 1 capital letter.) Fill in the “grades” for Web neighborhood, author and publisher, and degree of bias that were posted earlier.
- On the board, write the URL for the source you selected.
- Point to the source’s URL you put on the board and remind students that they have already evaluated this source’s web neighborhood, author and publisher, and degree of bias and how those factors contribute to or do not contribute to the source’s credibility. Today they will be evaluating the same source’s recognition from others.
- Remind students that since there is no source that’s guaranteed to be 100% correct or true, we’re all required to make inferences as we evaluate the credibility of our sources. Inferences are educated guesses made after observations and investigation. We examine sources and infer how credible they are. If we infer they are credible enough for our purpose, we use them in our research projects. This means evaluating sources for research projects takes lots of critical thinking.
- Ask students to get into the same group they were in for Activities 6A, 6B, and 6C. (If some students are absent, it will not matter.)
- Pass out Handout 6D-1 to every student.
- Suggest that if one or more group members did not bring an electronic device, those within the group who did should share their device(s).
- Tell students that they will have only about 5 minutes to do their evaluations after reading the handout, so they should get started quickly.
Factor Group 1 Group 2 Group 3 Group 4 Group 5 Group 6 Group 7 Web Neighborhood Author and Publisher Degree of Bias - After about 5 minutes, ask any reporter who hasn’t reported his/her group’s grade to put it on the board.
- Once all groups’ recognition “grades” are on the board, compare the “grades” for the source across groups. Remind students of what the “grades” stand for (A=Very Acceptable, B= Good, but could be better, C= OK in a pinch, D= Marginal, and F= Unacceptable). Point out the variation or uniformity across groups. Ask some questions, such as what made any group member question the source’s credibility for recognition from others and subsequently give it a low “grade.” If two groups gave very different grades, ask group members to explain how that happened—did one group notice something that the other group did not? Or, maybe something both groups saw was more important to one group than the other?
- Let students know that evaluating a source will get faster and easier for them the more they do it.
- Before closing this activity, suggest that any students who haven’t recorded the URL for Choosing & Using Sources do so now. That way they can use that free ebook any time in the future when they need information about working with sources.
- If you are going to do Activity 6E in upcoming classes with these students, take a photo of the grades on the board or otherwise record them so you’ll have them for a comparison of grades across factors.
Relevant Choosing & Using Sources Chapters:
Chapter 6, Evaluating Sources.
