Steps
- Materials: 2 glass jars, a set of marbles, pompoms, beans, etc. Label one jar “true” and one jar “false”.
- Select a SIFT prompt for the class (See Daily Sift Practice for tips on identifying prompts.) After introducing the claim, have students apply whatever SIFT strategies they choose to evaluate the claim.
- As students share what they’ve learned, add marbles to whichever jar (true/false) is suggested by the new information and context that students uncover.
- Give them beans or marbles or something to put in different glass jars that will slowly accrete, accumulate until there is a clear preponderance. But also realize a preponderance isn’t certainty, but you’re never going to get certainty.
Considerations
- This exercise provides a visualization of the concept of moving toward better information, while understanding that absolute certainty is hard to come by. Students may approach evaluating sources with a very black and white thinking. They may want to just know the “right answer”; is this source/claim/information good or bad? But both the complexity of a given situation and the challenges of sorting through information online mean that absolute certainty isn’t a realistic goal. The SIFT and COR frameworks are about building context around a source or claim to improve our understanding of how it was created, by who, and for what purpose. During this process it is likely that we will feel more confident about our assessment of the accuracy of the information, but unlikely that we will attain absolute certainty.
- This exercise could also be used to introduce a discussion on how different types of evidence are valued or about the value of staying open to new evidence..