When noticing and digital skills meet: How preservice teachers' perceptions of digital source evaluations are shaped by noticing.

As media experts have renewed their calls for improved media and information literacy curriculum in schools, researchers have investigated instructional strategies for teaching source evaluation. One such strategy is lateral reading, in which the user evaluates the veracity of information presented by following "links within a source and do supplemental searches on names, organization or topics" (University of Texas Libraries). Such a strategy not only builds learners' skill in digital source evaluation, but it develops a skeptical stance that can guide them as they engage in independent web investigation. The purpose of this research study was to investigate what preservice teachers noticed after watching a student read laterally and their perceptions of the benefits of reading laterally. Through engaging in noticing during a video of a student thinking aloud while reading laterally, preservice teachers developed an emerging understanding of lateral reading and the benefits of implementing the lateral reading strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]