CRAAP and SIFT – Is there something better?

[Elizabeth Hutchinson Participant]

I recently came across this interesting article called Dismantling the Evaluation Framework which started a  discussion after I shared it on Twitter. CRAAP and SIFT have their uses to engage students as a starting point when teaching how to evaluate websites but we should now be teaching lateral reading and are these checklists what we should be starting with anymore? What is the best way to teach lateral reading? Certainly not as easy as a list…

This becomes even harder when trying to teach lateral reading to younger students at primary level.  Not sure I would use CRAAP in primary myself but SIFT is certainly something that is a good starting point. Are CRAAP and SIFT good enough these days or is there a better way to teach this?

I would be really interested to hear your thoughts.

[Matt Participant]

Hi Elizabeth,

When I got to my school we were using RADCAB, https://www.radcab.com/ I stopped using this and instead used the evaluation criteria recommended in Guided Inquiry by Kulthau et. al. I renamed it QPACE. My experiences with these are that teachers like something that is easy to remember to teach to their students. I agree with you though that it is a much more complex set of skills that we need to teach to our students than just an evaluation checklist.

Some resources that I have found which I want to explore further and incorporate into my information literacy instruction include:

1. Stanford University’s Civic Online Reasoning website, https://cor.stanford.edu/ has lessons that teach students how to evaluate what they read online.

2. the ACRL’s Framework for Information Literacy in Higher Education, https://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework. I think the ACRL’s decision to rework the information literacy standards into six concepts that can be explored with students has helped to make information literacy a topic that I can discuss with my teachers and students.

The challenge that I see is teachers like all other humans look for something easy they can remember. Teaching a research process is not as easy as teaching them CRAAP or SIFT. So how do we package teaching the research process in a way that gets them onboard with moving past CRAAP and SIFT to teaching a more integrated set of skills to students?

Best regards,

Matt Rose

[John Royce Participant]

Great question, Elizabeth  – and a very pertinent article to share, thank you.

I rather think that the proactive approach suggested in the article may be too abstract, too advanced and not sufficiently structured for most of our students.   The Framework for Information Literacy which gets a mention in the article is intended for Higher Education – and even there not all students appreciate or even want to know how knowledge is built; I think Doug Brent’s Senior Students’ Perceptions of Entering a Research Community holds true.

Which is not to say that aspects cannot filter down into secondary and primary education, in age-appropriate ways. They should and they do – especially schools which are inquiry-led, learner-focused.

While I agree that CRAAP and CARDS and ACCORD and ABCD and similar evaluation tools may be too simplistic and unhelpful, I would not give up on SIFT just yet – and nor do the authors of the article, their proactive strategy is built upon SIFT, “Building on SIFT strategies,.. ” they say, and this is very possible, even at our levels of education.

A huge element of SIFT is lateral reading – seeing what others say about the article, following up the sources used (and seeing what others say about these sources, looking for accuracy, looking for bias or vested interest), looking for what is not there as well as what s there, eventually going to The Source.

I wonder what our students will make of the May/June 2021 edition of The American Journal of Health Behavior, bought up by JUUL to promote research into electronic smoking;  JUUL just happens to be one of the world’s biggest manufacturers of e-smoking devices so might just have a vested interest; there are also questions to be asked about a journal which allows itself to be bought up, even for just one issue.

One advantage of acronyms is that they make for a set of easy-to-remember strategies and help ensure that we remember to cover all the bases.  Perhaps what we need is not something better than SIFT (or even CRAAP etc) but a better and maybe deeper set of questions to ask as we pursue each element of our chosen evaluation tool?

John

[Elizabeth Hutchinson Participant]

Hi John

Thanks for your comment. Your insight is really helpful and I love the fact that you think that SIFT etc still has a place within a school setting. It certainly makes it easier to explain and teach with such strategies to younger students.

What I find intriguing about many inquiry skills is that they lead back to questions. Something I think should be recognised as a major skill.

I would love to help come up with some great questions that link to SIFT if anyone is up for it.

Elizabeth

[Elizabeth Hutchinson Participant]

Hi Matt

Thanks for the two resources you mentioned I will check them out. I agree that we all love simplicity but understanding that it does not stop there is definitely part of the process. How do we engage teachers and students enough to lead them further into inquiry. Many believe that they have ticked the box in teaching evaluation and our conversations need to encourage them to think beyond this. I have found that the new Inquiry Skills spreadsheet has helped me focus on ‘what’s next?’ If you haven’t seen it properly yet you should really check it out.

Best Wishes

Elizabeth

[Matt Participant]

Hi Elizabeth,

Thank you for pointing me to the new Inquiry Skills spreadsheet. I had been using the older FOSIL (2009) Inquiry Skills Framework up to now. Can I ask, is there any blog post written as a how to guide for using the new FOSIL (2019) inquiry skills framework? It would just be helpful to see how the creators of this document envisioned it being used. If there isn’t such a document, how do you use it for curriculum planning and teaching? If I am creating a curriculum map for at what grades levels are teaching which inquiry skills at my school do you think this would be a useful document to reference?

Thank you for your guidance regarding this,

Matt

[Elizabeth Hutchinson Participant]

Hi Matt

I have been creating Moodle courses over the last few months and have just completed my third one called – Raising awareness of your school library and your expertise through your Library Management System: Using your library catalogue to teach digital literacy. One of the videos within this course explains how to use the Inquiry Skills Framework which you might find useful. Here is the link to all three courses in case you are interested.

It would certainly be a great document to reference for your curriculum map.

Elizabeth

 

[Darryl Toerien Keymaster]

Thanks, Elizabeth, and Matt for asking the question.

I would definitely transition to the 2019 framework, even though the 2009 framework is still fundamentally sound.

As Barbara writes, the 2009 framework was reimagined in 2019 “to adapt to the changing information, education, and technology environments, as well as the increasing diversity in our student populations”. Furthermore:

The re-imagined ESIFC includes increased or new attention to pre-kindergarten, multiple literacies, digital citizenship and civic responsibility, multiple perspectives, personalization of learning, design thinking, student voice and agency, and social and emotional growth. Different sections provide a PK-12 continuum of skills, identification of priority skills for every grade level, and graphic organizer assessments for the priority skills.

I am hopeful that I will soon be able to write about this more fully, because Blanchelande College is a PK-12 school and have begun to think more purposefully about how to align each phase of the school with the 2019 framework.

I will also flag this question / topic with Barbara, who, as originator of both frameworks, will be best placed to shed light on the intention for their use.

Darryl

[Elizabeth Hutchinson Participant]

Hi Matt

I have decided that the recording of how to use the Inquiry Skills Framework will probably be more useful here. It is very basic but hopefully gives you an idea of how it works.

You will find the link here 

I hope you will find it useful.

Elizabeth

[Matt Participant]

Hello Elizabeth,

Thank you for sharing your educational video about how to use FOSIL. It was helpful for clarifying how I can use it.

Best regards,

Matt

[Elizabeth Hutchinson Participant]

Glad you found it useful Matt! Not my best video but it gets the idea across well enough I hope.

Best Wishes

Elizabeth

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