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March 13, 2025
How do your students determine what’s real or misleading online? Teaching digital and global literacy is more important than ever—let’s explore how to equip students with the skills to navigate today’s complex information landscape.
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Teachers know the drill: Students bring headlines, viral videos and social media posts into class, expecting instant analysis. But with global events unfolding rapidly and misinformation spreading just as fast, it’s tough to help students understand it all. That’s where global and digital literacy comes in. Understanding how information moves across platforms and how world events connect to daily life can give students the tools to think critically rather than just react.
That’s exactly what this upcoming free webinar with CFR Education and Digital Inquiry Group (part of the 2025 Share My Lesson Virtual Conference) is all about. Presenters Charlie Hopkins and Joel Breakstone share why these skills matter, the biggest challenges teachers face, and how the presenters’ work supports educators in tackling misinformation and teaching global literacy.
What inspired you to create this session? Why is it especially important for educators today?
Hopkins: There’s a lot of news these days. We know teachers are getting questions from students and are looking for tools and approaches to address those questions. So much of our news comes to us through the digital sphere (for many teenagers, all of their news comes to them online), so digital literacy is important. And so many of the issues and challenges we face are global in nature, so global literacy is important for approaching the news with adequate context.
Why is global literacy an essential skill in today’s digital age? How does it connect with digital literacy?
Hopkins: Practically every question we face has a global component, even things that may seem local at first blush: A local factory closing is often tied to global trade policies; challenges that farmers face are tied to climate change, a challenge that can only be addressed on a global level; and so many of our communities are seeing immigration that is the result of conditions in other countries. We also know that in the digital sphere, there are actors, sometimes from foreign countries, trying to use misinformation and disinformation to shape these issues to their advantage. To engage with these global issues, students have to be digitally literate as well.
Nearly every issue we face is global. Building global literacy helps students more effectively engage with news and the media and successfully navigate today’s interconnected world.
With so much misinformation circulating about global events—from wars to elections—how can strengthening students’ global and digital literacy help them navigate today’s news more effectively?
Breakstone: We live in an age of information overabundance. We need to help students understand how to efficiently and effectively sort through an avalanche of information in order to make informed decisions about issues that will affect them and their communities.
Hopkins: Also, having some basic global literacy helps students bring context to some of the claims they see online and understand the scope of the issues we face.
What are some of the biggest challenges teachers face when students bring social media “facts” into the classroom?
Breakstone: Social media feeds deliver an overwhelming amount of information. Navigating the flood of content is incredibly challenging. Unfortunately, students often evaluate sources based on surface-level features that have no bearing on credibility: how many followers an account has, a video’s number of views, or what someone says about themself in their profile.
Joel, your work with the Digital Inquiry Group focuses on helping students think critically about online information. Can you share how your research and resources support educators in tackling misinformation in the classroom
Breakstone: Our research shows that there is a small set of strategies that we can teach students to make them more discerning consumers of information. Our classroom-ready resources provide educators with engaging activities that ask students to evaluate real online sources drawn from the platforms where students spend their time (e.g., TikTok, Instagram, etc.).
Charles, as managing director of teaching and learning at the Council on Foreign Relations, how does your team at CFR Education help educators teach global literacy and navigate misinformation in the classroom?
Hopkins: CFR Education offers students free, multimedia global affairs teaching and learning resources backed by over 100 years of nonpartisan expertise from the Council on Foreign Relations. By helping students build their global literacy before an issue comes up, and by offering teachers quick and easy ways to give students context when an issue arises, teachers can help students to be informed participants in these conversations.
Can you share one simple strategy teachers can use to help students evaluate online information more critically?
Breakstone: Get off the page. By leaving an unfamiliar source, students can use the internet to check the internet. Instead of simply accepting a source at face value, students can seek out information about who’s behind the source, what their motivations might be, and whether they’re a trustworthy source of information. That’s what the most skilled online searchers do.
We need to help students understand how to efficiently and effectively sort through an avalanche of information
If teachers take away just one key insight from this webinar, what should it be?
Breakstone: The evidence is clear: We can move the needle. We can prepare students for civic life in a digital age. We just need to make sure that we are equipping students with the tools to navigate in an incredibly complex information landscape.
Hopkins: Nearly every issue we face is global. Building global literacy helps students more effectively engage with news and the media and successfully navigate today’s interconnected world.
Curious about how to bring these skills into your classroom? Join us for the free webinar with CFR Education and Digital Inquiry Group to explore these ideas further and walk away with classroom-ready strategies. Want more professional development? Check out the 2025 Share My Lesson Virtual Conference, featuring more than 35 webinars on topics like civic education, student well-being, digital literacy, STEM innovation and teacher leadership. All sessions, including this one, will be available on demand after the conference so that you can learn at your own pace.
Help students navigate global news and misinformation with critical digital literacy skills! Join CFR Education and the Digital Inquiry Group for a free webinar at the 2025 Share My Lesson Virtual Conference. Learn expert strategies to teach global and digital literacy in the classroom.
