Classroom Connection: Fact Check Like a Pro

They not only share high-quality resources but also model how to teach students to think like historians. For example, in the Fact-Check Like a Pro session, I saw practical strategies for guiding students beyond intuition and authority toward using evidence to test claims. One big takeaway for me is the power of modeling how to question sources—asking who wrote it, why it was written, and what’s missing—to help students see that fact-checking is about investigation, not just memorization. In my classroom, I’ve noticed students often default to “what feels right” or “what the textbook says,” so I’m excited to adapt OER’s claim-testing activities to push them toward weighing competing evidence and making reasoned judgments.

I really appreciate the claim testing and counterclaim worksheets.  I work with middle school students in an alternative learning environment.  Their reading level is K-3rd grade, which makes it extremely difficult doing DBQ's and Evidence based claims.  I use sentence starter and word connectors to help them answer the guiding questions, or claim questions. This was a great workshop.  You provided multiple ways for me to help them with both the claim and counterclaims.

Thank you. 

It was interesting to see all forms of participants' skills (I, L, A, E) modeled in the session this evening.  Presenting the webinar in classroom performance style made the session more relevant for me.  This particular presentation also motivated me to move out of "my opinion" base thinking to sticking with the facts.

Good session.

Like Bridgette mentioned, introducing claim testing with non-history examples goes a long way toward making the skill feel accessible. Using the famous (infamous?) five-second rule works well for my students!

OER teachers are the best because they teach their students how to support claims using evidence. I think this is a powerful skill to learn in school. I introduced the claim testers early in the course (I teach Big History) and then my students practice as much as possible. On test, they have to support their claims using evidence. Today, for example, they completed the Claim Testing Evidence for the unit on Earth (we discussed Continental Drift). 

We had an interesting discussion because some students considered authority more important than evidence. They made the claim that during the Copernican era, he lacked the authority to convince many people because the Catholic Church was the authority of the time.

This week I have been using the materials about authority.  I get a little in the weeds with they who do we believe if they are both authorities part.  Does that happen to anyone else?