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My granddaughter is in an International Baccalaureate Elementary School which goes from prK to 4th grade.
We went to their final IB presentations today and I must say I was impressed with the variety of topics chosen (they were given a list to choose from) and the variety of ways in which the topics were presented (power points, puppet shows, plays, simple lectures, etc.). However, it was disturbing to see the amount of erroneous information that was being shown off as correct.
My granddaughter's presentation was excellent, but one of the students talked about the MMR as a possible cause of autism, despite the fact that this has been debunked by all the available scientific research. We did talk to her and she corrected that, but I noticed the same in other presentations about other disabilities. For example, in the presentation on Asperger's syndrome, the students thought it was easy to diagnose and was diagnosed at two which is generally not the case. The presentation on child endangerment focused on stranger danger rather than on the more common scenario (perhaps the kids would have been more frightened by the fact that it is more likely to be a relative that kidnaps kids).
Anyone here who teaches elementary school or middle school, have ideas on how to teach sorting out good information from bad information when doing this kind of research? The students did use other resources besides the internet, but my impression was that most tended to think that the internet was the best source of information.
As soon as you figure out how to ensure 4th graders access accurate information before presenting it, be sure to tell the 50 year olds to do the same thing.
As soon as you figure out how to ensure 4th graders access accurate information before presenting it, be sure to tell the 50 year olds to do the same thing.
+1 for this!! I have the same problem with my college students. The best sources for information are peer reviewed journals. The downside is that those aren't readily available to the general public, though anyone can get some info and read some abstracts from Google Scholar. The popular media is marvelous at taking info out of context and fear-mongering, because well... it sells more. The worst place to get factual information is from web sites that are selling a product or have some other agenda. One think I like to do with my students is show them how easy it is to take a piece of legit information and twist it around to say pretty much whatever one wants.
I've been telling middle school students to stick to online encyclopedias for research.
When they balk and tell me wikopedia has it all I tell them that anyone can write on wikopedia and it's not always the truth and can later be corrected.
It's very hard telling fact from fiction on the internet, especially with young kids.
None of these kids used wikipedia. All used various websites. My dgd used Autism Speaks for a good portion of the information (some good information, but not everything on that site is what I consider good). They also used kidshealth.com, brainpop.com (which they use a lot in the school for quizzes on information), webmd.com and a couple I haven't checked out or heard of. And they used the Science Encyclopedia, but they did not tell what version or anything in their bibliography. That's something they need to do too.
I actually can't quite figure out what these two have to do with autism (that was what they presented about - she chose it because of her autistic brother).
voices.com appears to be something about acting
asd.com seems to be an American School website
I get an error on another one - I am assuming that she miswrote or that another student in the group gave that to her and it is not correct.
With 6 students on the team and each doing a little bit, I am concerned that she did not really look at this herself.
The popular media is marvelous at taking info out of context and fear-mongering, because well... it sells more. The worst place to get factual information is from web sites that are selling a product or have some other agenda. One think I like to do with my students is show them how easy it is to take a piece of legit information and twist it around to say pretty much whatever one wants.
I love the comic in the following link. It perfectly captures the problem the general public faces in getting accurate information:
My granddaughter is in an International Baccalaureate Elementary School which goes from prK to 4th grade.
We went to their final IB presentations today and I must say I was impressed with the variety of topics chosen (they were given a list to choose from) and the variety of ways in which the topics were presented (power points, puppet shows, plays, simple lectures, etc.). However, it was disturbing to see the amount of erroneous information that was being shown off as correct.
My granddaughter's presentation was excellent, but one of the students talked about the MMR as a possible cause of autism, despite the fact that this has been debunked by all the available scientific research. We did talk to her and she corrected that, but I noticed the same in other presentations about other disabilities. For example, in the presentation on Asperger's syndrome, the students thought it was easy to diagnose and was diagnosed at two which is generally not the case. The presentation on child endangerment focused on stranger danger rather than on the more common scenario (perhaps the kids would have been more frightened by the fact that it is more likely to be a relative that kidnaps kids).
Anyone here who teaches elementary school or middle school, have ideas on how to teach sorting out good information from bad information when doing this kind of research? The students did use other resources besides the internet, but my impression was that most tended to think that the internet was the best source of information.
I wouldn't exactly say that they had erroneous information. Instead, I'd say that the children who did the research did it alone. It is absolutely necessary with today's technology that an adult helps them interpret what they read.
They most likely took what they read very literally. For instance, I imagine they came across one of the many checklists for one of the "you might have Aspergers if" situations.....and decided that made diagnosing it easy. If there was no adult with them to explain that a checklist is a very small beginning step, then what else are they to think?
Focusing on stranger danger is expected because the world revolves around them and what would be the most scary thing that could happen to them but to get abducted by some scary stranger?
The only way for a young child to do research and come to solid conclusions is to have a knowledgeable adult right there with them.
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Love it!
