Digital Citizenship Academy
Middlesex District Attorney Marian T. Ryan offers a Civic Online Reasoning program – “Digital Citizenship Academy” -- for any Middlesex County-based high school or youth program interested in participating.
This program provides students access to a first-of-its-kind, best-in-class, and research-based critical thinking and reasoning curriculum developed by the Stanford History Education Group and it is taught by District Attorney Ryan and volunteer Assistant Middlesex District Attorneys.
If you are interested in bringing the “Digital Citizenship Academy” training program to students in your school or program, please reach out to us by emailing: middlesexdigitalcitizenshipacademy@mass.gov
Download sharable flyer here
Background:
In 2022, the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office forged a strategic partnership with the California based and Stanford University affiliated Digital Inquiry Group (“DIG”) to launch this new initiative for Middlesex County students – launching a “Digital Citizenship Academy”.
DIG is a non-profit organization that strives to equip young people with tangible skills to sort fact from fiction online. DIG Executive Director Joel Breakstone also leads the Stanford University History Education Group and received his P.h.D. from the Stanford Graduate School of Education. Breakstone and his colleagues, including Stanford Professor of Education Sam Wineburg, developed a Civic Online Reasoning curriculum based on peer-reviewed research to equip students with critical skills to spot misinformation and evaluate online sources.
The lessons and activities that make up the curriculum aim to provide young people with a skill-set that strengthens digital literacy and empowered citizenship. And the curriculum has been proven to be effective: “A series of studies show that the Civic Online Reasoning curriculum helps students to make sense of the information that floods their screens. We are excited to collaborate with the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office to provide students with the tools they need to effectively navigate online,” said DIG Executive Director Joel Breakstone.
To learn more about the research-based curriculum developed by the Stanford History Education Group, you can visit: https://cor.stanford.edu/research/
Information on DA Ryan's Digital Citizenship Academy:
The “Digital Citizenship Academy” is available to any Middlesex County-based high school or youth program interested in participating – and offers students access to a first-of-its-kind, best-in-class, and research-based critical thinking and reasoning curriculum developed by the Stanford History Education Group.
The curriculum is taught by District Attorney Marian Ryan and volunteer Assistant Middlesex District Attorneys. DIG Executive Director Joel Breakstone, who developed the curriculum with colleagues at Stanford, trained District Attorney Ryan and volunteer Assistant District Attorneys in how to teach the award-winning Civic Online Reasoning program.
The curriculum offers six-sessions (fifty minutes each) to teach students critically important skills such as:
- How to fact check online claims;
- How to investigate clues bearing on a given website’s credibility;
- How to optimize online searching activities.
The curriculum also teaches students to ask important questions when they come across information online, such as:
- Who is behind the information?
- What is the evidence?
- What do other sources say?
The goal of District Attorney Marian Ryan’s “Digital Citizenship Academy” is to work with schools and groups of students across Middlesex County to ensure young people are equipped with the skills they need to discern fact from fiction – whether on Tik Tok, reading a news article online, or assessing a political candidate’s claim. All with the goal of ensuring that students neither come to believe nor disseminate any false or misleading claims and are well-prepared to navigate our interconnected world.
When District Attorney Marian Ryan launched the initiative, she noted the reasons behind the need for this innovative strategic partnership: “There is no question that truth itself is under sustained assault in our Nation today. Our democratic system of government is based on the assumption that citizens can accurately evaluate the world around them and then make reasoned judgments -- by voting in their elections and otherwise -- about how best to proceed as a society…I fundamentally believe that I must, as an elected official, do something concrete to ensure that our young people have the critical thinking skills they need to navigate the online information ecosystem so that we can protect democracy’s sacred and basic premises,” said District Attorney Ryan.
Updates and In The News:
The Boston Globe reported on our Digital Citizenship Academy in a piece entitled, “Lies Spread Faster Than Truth. Can Communities Change That?” – highlighting how this proactive program is a crucial component to protecting young people from falling victim to online disinformation and misinformation and preparing them to become leaders in civic life and the preservation of truth and democracy.
District Attorney Marian Ryan’s 2023 Empowering Girls Conference focused on "Inspiring Engaged and Civic-Minded Leadership". The Conference brought together more than 415 middle school and high school girls from cities and towns across Middlesex County on January 26, 2023, and featured a training workshop that reviewed key skills from the Civic Online Reasoning curriculum.
To Learn More and How To Sign Up:
If you are interested in bringing the “Digital Citizenship Academy” training program to students in your school district or youth program, please reach out to us by emailing: middlesexdigitalcitizenshipacademy@mass.gov