Design

Personas

Name: Lily
Age: 9
Grade: 4th Grade

Background:
Lily recently started using a tablet for school and entertainment. She often watches short videos and reads fun posts online.

Pain Point:
She sometimes sees shocking or exciting posts and doesn’t know whether to believe them. She feels curious but also unsure. She usually clicks first and thinks later.

Behavior Pattern:

Trusts colorful and emotional content
Believes posts with many likes
Rarely checks who created the content
Doesn’t know what “evidence” means

Personas

Name: Ethan
Age: 10
Grade: 5th Grade

Background:
Ethan loves watching short videos and gaming content. He thinks he understands how the internet works and often tells others, “I know what’s fake.”

Pain Point:
He believes he is smart enough not to be fooled. However, he often trusts content that matches his interests or confirms what he already thinks.

Behavior Pattern:

Clicks quickly when content feels exciting
Trusts creators he “likes”
Thinks high views mean credibility
Rarely questions emotional headlines
Overconfident in his own judgment

Stakeholders

Client

Role: Teachers / after-school leaders deliver the lesson

Need: Short, plug-and-play activities + clear instructions

Influence: Decide if and how the program is used in class

Participants

Role: Grades 1–9 students practice the routine

Need: Simple steps + many examples + repeated practice

Influence: Their performance shows whether learning worked

Key Stakeholders

Role: Parents, school admins, librarians/counselors support adoption

Need: Student safety, classroom fit, and clear outcomes

Influence: Approve, promote, or block implementation

Learning Goal

High-Level Goal

Students are able to make safer and more informed decisions when encountering online information.

Learning Objectives

Remember

Remember these three common signs of misleading content (e.g., exaggeration, lack of source, emotional manipulation).

Understand

Explain why emotional or exaggerated language reduces the credibility of information.

Apply

When faced with a new post, proactively apply the "three-step check method" (Who posted it? What is the evidence? What is the motive?).

Analyze

Identify which elements, through screenshots, increase or decrease the credibility of the information.

Evaluate

Provide at least two reasons for deciding whether to "trust, ignore, or verify" a post.

Content Outline ：Module 1: Identifying Red Flags

These are fundamental skills students must master to trigger their alertness.

Exaggerated Language: Identify sensational headlines (e.g., "You won't believe it..."); identify messages that overuse exclamation marks or all capital letters.
Emotional Manipulation: Understand why some information is intentionally designed to evoke anger, fear, or extreme excitement; identify expressions that appeal to emotion rather than facts.
Missing Metadata: Identify posts without a clear author, posting date, or unknown source.

Content Outline ：Module 2: The Evaluation Toolkit

These are the specific standards students need to use to verify information after identifying warning signs.

Source Credibility: Differentiate between official accounts/reputable media outlets and ordinary personal accounts; check the reliability of the account's past posts.
Evidence Cross-Checking: Learn simple search techniques: Has this event been reported elsewhere? Identify whether images might be misused (mismatch between text and image).
Intent Analysis: Consider: Does the poster want to share knowledge, sell something, or change my mind?

Content Outline ：Module 3: Decision-Making Framework

This is the final step in turning knowledge into action.

The "3-Step Check" Routine: Stop: Immediately stop sharing or commenting. Investigate: Use the tools mentioned above to check. Decide: Decide whether to keep or discard the information.
Action Outcomes: Trust: Trust and refer to the information. Verify: Verify further. Ignore/Report: Ignore or report false information.

Workflow

We try to keep our workflow simple and clear.

We meet regularly as a team and stay in touch to make sure we’re aligned. During meetings, we use Google Docs to record detailed discussions, ideas, and research notes. This works as our full working archive, where nothing gets lost.

Since Google Docs can become long and hard to navigate over time, we use this Google Site to organize and summarize our key ideas. Important elements like personas, problem definitions, research insights, and learning goals are structured here in a clearer and more visual way.

When preparing for milestone presentations, we pull content from both our Docs and the Site to create Google Slides. This helps us turn detailed discussions into focused and structured presentations.

Overall, this workflow helps us move from messy brainstorming to organized thinking, and finally to clear communication.

How we teach it

We keep it simple and repeatable for grades 4-6. Students learn one clear routine and practice it many times with examples. The goal is to build a habit, not memorize a long lecture.

Core routing

Pause → Who? → Proof? → Decide.

Pause means stop before you believe or share.

Then students ask quick questions and make a safer choice.

Activities

Scenario practice: Teacher shows an exaggerated post screenshot; students practice “Pause” and spot red flags.

Role-play: Poster vs Checker; the Checker asks “Who?” “Proof?” and “What does it want me to do?”

Sorting game: Students sort post cards into Trust / Not sure / Check more and give 1–2 reasons.

Why

Practice in class makes the steps automatic.

Students can use the same routine later when they see posts online.

It supports safer decisions before sharing or believing.

Reflection

At the beginning, our idea kept shifting — from different topics to different audiences. We realized the real issue wasn’t the topic itself, but that our scope was too broad and unclear. --Jiaming

We narrowed our research scope to focus on a few high-quality goals instead of overteaching, using Bloom’s Taxonomy to refine broad goals into specific, measurable objectives. ---Charlotte Gao

Struggled teaching format for children, because a lecture-style approach felt too abstract. So we chose a simple and practice-based activities so children can learn by playing. --Zinan Chen

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