The purpose of the workshop is that participants share their experiences and practices about misinformation and disinformation in their instruction. The facilitators will present the learning material ‘Am I fooled? Do I fool others?’, which helps students to identify misinformation and disinformation. The method in the workshop is learning cafe, which supports discussing and sharing ideas. The learning café is based on the presented material.
The Internet is a relevant source of information for students. Openness makes it easy to publish, social media makes it simple to share. Unfortunately, students encounter misinformation and disinformation in online environments. The Global Risk Report 2024 named misinformation and disinformation the biggest short-term risks, and they remain in the long-term risks. Students should learn critical thinking skills for their studies because they have a role and responsibility as producers and sharers of information.
Academic librarians are concerned about untruthful information and its impact on society. Librarians have widely reacted to this concern and integrated critical thinking into their instruction. Critical thinking should be a key learning outcome from information literacy instruction, as the skill significantly increases, for example, the likelihood of identifying fake news. Being able to assess online information, also check facts, is an important skill as an actor in society as well. (Goodsett & Schmillen 2022, Jones-Jang & al. 2021, Saunders 2023). An easy-to-use material on identifying untruthful information helps instruction librarians integrate the theme into their teaching.
The facilitators will first present the learning material ‘Am I fooled? Do I fool others? The material focuses on typical information used in assignments: news, images, numbers and statistics, scholarly articles. First, the students self-reflect their own thinking before the theme is discussed in more detail. The participants in the workshop will step into the shoes of students in the workshop’s learning cafe. The learning material is CC-licensed and won The Federation of Finnish Learned Societies’ Annual Open Educational Reward in 2023 and was updated in 2025.
Session outcomes for participants:
• gain and share new ideas into their guidance
• experience learning from the students’ point of view
• self-reflect their own thinking
• familiarize with an open access learning material, which they can apply
Session activites:
• facilitators introduce learning material ‘Am I fooled? Do I fool others´ and learning café method
• participants circulate learning café tables in small groups and do activities
• summary of workshop in plenary discussion
References
Goodsett, M. & Schmillen, H. (2022). Fostering Critical Thinking in First-Year Students through Information Literacy Instruction. College & Research Libraries, 83(1), 91-110. https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.83.1.91
Jones-Jang, M., Mortensen, T., Liu, J. 2021. Does Media Literacy Help Identification of Fake News? Information Literacy Helps, but Other Literacies Don’t. American Behavioral Scientist 65(2), 371-388. https://doi.org/10.1177/000276421986
Saunders, L. 2023. Librarian Perspectives on Misinformation: A Follow-Up and Comparative Study. College & Research Libraries, 84(4), 478-494. https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.84.4.478
World Economic Forum. (2024). Global Risks 2024: Disinformation Tops Global Risks 2024 as Environmental Threates Intensify. News Release 10.1.2024. https://www.weforum.org/press/2024/01/global-risks-report-2024-press-release/
