2019 #VWEDU: #DTA: The fake news challenge: a natural for educational games.

The Fake news challenge:  
a natural for educational games.

A plan for creating an instructional unit to practice students in recognizing fake news.  This article is licensed CC0 -- Public Domain.

No computers?

Can you find fake news without a computer?

• Educational objective: teach students to recognize Fake News.

Instructional objectives

• Learner will be able, with high accuracy, to distinguish instances of fake news from legitimate reports.
• Learner will be able to point out the clues that support the distinction.

• update 3/19/2020 VWBPE 13th Annual Conference, March 26-28 2020. VWBPE conference is immune to COVID-19 VWBPE Immersive events started March 15

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Method

Stage 1: Instruct (solo or group)

• DTA offers text or video presentation citing clues to watch for.
• DTA offers several presentations in each form; student choose. 
• DTA can provide more than one on request.   
• To Spot Fake News, AI Uses These Clues — and You Can too
• Break the Fake?

Stage 2, Apprentice: Game: Fake breaker team (group)

• DTA provides Fake Breaker game.
• DTA presents news item, group chooses: 
• fake, probably fake, don't know, probably true, true 
• News items are about unfamiliar topics. Fake news items have at least one clue. 
• Half the items are fake.  
• Correct items score: definite +3, probably +1 
• Wrong items score: definite -3, probably -1
• DTA presents one item at a time.
• On first reading, students complete an individual report noting any clues they see.
• To report a clue they copy/paste the relevant text into the form from DTA. 
• They also identify the clue by name (multiple choice: a number)
• Dta can score the name responses and may be able to score the copied text.
• DTA reports its scores to group and to teacher.
• Practice has no set limit, but items may be scored to show progress.
• Teacher sets stage 2 exit criteria, which may be for individuals even in group work 
• Teacher may recommend return to stage 1 
• Fake news generator (search)
• Fake news clues (search)

Stage 3, Journeyman :  Game: Fake breaker (solo)

• Same plan as Stage 2, but items may be more difficult and with another task:
• In a collection of fake news items, student must mark and identify clues.
• Teacher sets stage 3 exit criteria.

Stage 4: Master Fake breaker team (group)

• Challenge: Produce a credible item of fake news.
• Group may produce several items, but must choose one as its best work.
• DTA  may collect intermediate products for teacher evaluation.
• Teacher evaluates final group product.
• Stage 4 might be required only for students seeking a grade of A or A+

Measure

• Present Items as in Stage 3.  Measure speed and accuracy
• Speed: mean response time per item.
• Accuracy: score as calculated in Stage 2.
• Clue finder task may be scored separately. 
• Measures would be combined into a single score which would give progress toward the game goal.

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License

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