Do the Research
Check Reliable Sources
Your district or school also provides information on—or access to—digital and print resources that have been locally selected and approved. Your school’s teacher-librarian is a source for selecting resources to support classroom instruction.
The First Nations Education Steering Committee (FNESC) creates and curates First Peoples learning resources for B.C.
ShareEdBC is an invitation-only collaborative platform for B.C. educators and educational contributors to share and find resources designed to support the goals of the B.C. curriculum. TeachBC has downloadable lesson plans, posters, and classroom resources. Both sites highlight primary resources that may spark your interest and engage your students.
What if you find a resource that isn’t evaluated by Focused ED or referenced on the sites listed above? How can you assess its reliability?
For print resources, refer to the publisher’s site to discover more about the authors and illustrators. For digital resources, determine the creation source, and the point of view represented.
Try this little quiz to test your detection skills on discovering creator bias.
Once you’ve checked all these sources of information, you still need to decide about how well a resource will fit with your students.
Let’s look closely at the elements of the selection criteria.