Bonni Stachowiak [00:00:00]:

Today on episode number 492 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, Verified: How to think straight, get duped less, and make better decisions about what to believe online with one of the 2 coauthors, Mike Caulfield. 

Welcome to this episode of Teaching in Higher Ed. I’m Bonni Stachowiak, and this is the space where we explore the art and science of being more effective at Facilitating Learning. We also share ways to improve our productivity approaches so we can have more peace in our lives and be even more present for our students. 

Today, I get to welcome back to Teaching in Higher Ed, Mike Caulfield. He’s currently the director of blended and networked learning at Washington State University Vancouver. An early believer in the idea of civic digital literacies, His work in this area intensified in the spring of 2016.His February 2017 work, Webb literacy for student fact checkers won the Merlot award for best open learning resource in the ICT category. Mike was runner-up in the Rita Allen RTI International Misinformation Solutions Award 2018. His SIFT model, a practical approach to quick source and claim investigation, encourages readers to take a minute or two to seek out basic information about sources and claims before they engage more deeply with media, and If necessary, to move on to better material. It is based on research of Sam Wineburg and his own experiences helping faculty to teach critical consumption in the classroom. Mike is also known for his use of collaborative technology in the classroom and worked with Wiki inventor, Ward Cunningham from 2014 to 2016 on the use of Federated Wiki in education. His 2015, The Garden and the Stream, is credited with launching the Digital Gardens Movement. He was an early proponent of the use of open educational resources and worked for MIT as the first director of community outreach for the Open Courseware Consortium in the mid 2000. Mike’s work has been covered by The New York Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education, NPR, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and the MIT Technology Review.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:02:49]:

This episode is releasing on November 16th. So if you happen to be downloading it today and listening, it coincidentally is the very day that the book that we’re discussing, Verified, is being released. Mike Caulfield, welcome back to Teaching in Higher Ed.

Mike Caulfield [00:03:07]:

Yeah. It’s great to be here again.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:03:08]:

I have so enjoyed getting to continue to read your book and learn from you. I’m gonna invite you here as we begin. Could you take us back to a simpler time? Tell us about media when you were growing up.

Mike Caulfield [00:03:21]:

Yeah. We we actually opened the book talking about media when I was growing up and, my co author Sam Weinberg’s a little older, but really really the same sort of environment. An example we use is I don’t know how many of your listeners might be familiar with this. But when I when I grew up, there was a story that this kid that was in this cereal commercial named Mikey had a bunch of Pop Rocks, which was a candy that sort of crackled in your mouth, and a bunch of, I think, soda, and his stomach exploded and ruptured, and and Mikey was dead. And that’s that’s why you weren’t seeing him in in newer life commercials. Life was the the cereal. And and the The thing that we point out in the book is is is if you think about what you had available to you at at that time, All she really had available to you was your idea of whether that was possible. Right? You you weren’t it wasn’t gonna be something that would come to you in the newspaper.

Mike Caulfield [00:04:16]:

There wasn’t an Internet that you could on and look up for a fact check on on on Mikey. So what would you do? You, you know, what we call playground cognition Is you you sit there and some people are like, well, that seems really plausible to me. Right? Like, it does crackle in your mouth. It it maybe it has an explosive quality. You had enough He had enough soda with it. Maybe we could kill someone. And we haven’t seen Mikey. He hasn’t been in any commercials.

Mike Caulfield [00:04:41]:

And, you know, and someone else would say, no. That that makes no sense at all. If that was True. Why would this still be on the market? They wouldn’t still have this on the market if if that had happened. And so you go back and forth, right, because you had no other you had no other options. In the the major point of the book throughout is that we still act that way online. We still sit there and say, well, this seems believable. I will share it, or or, well, that doesn’t look believable to me.

Mike Caulfield [00:05:09]:

I choose to disbelieve it. We still act like we’re on that playground with nothing to help us out, even though we have a world of information at our fingertips. And so we’re all sitting there going, is it is this sort of story plausible when what we really need to do is open up another tab on browser, type in a good search, Get ourselves to some good reliable information.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:05:32]:

I find it a little bit of a relief that I don’t have to rely on my own ability to suss out how Plausible something is. I tend to be pretty gullible, mostly gullible not online, but with interpersonally. It’s I’m pretty easy to Punk as the saying goes, if I know you well, and I and I don’t quite know that you’re teasing me. I have friends who really they’ll they’ll be like, I’m so sorry. I just didn’t think you’d believe me. They’re they’re not wanting to do it, but but I do I rest in that. The other thing that I rest in, I I told you when we had a chance to talk so many years ago that I I have tended to sit to for too long before I got to know you and your work, thinking that somehow this had to rely on a sophisticated set of domain specific knowledge. And what you have Found in your research and Sam as well is that this stuff this stuff is not hard.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:06:25]:

So we are gonna I’m gonna invite you to show us how non hard it is by Solving a family controversy for us. Done. Done. Done. Alright. So Let’s let’s just take it into it. Mike is gonna be leading us through what’s called SIFT and he’ll he’ll talk us through it as we go. SIFT is an acronym, so we’ll we’ll get to each letter.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:06:44]:

But the controversy, Mike, 75% of our family is of the mind that the toilet paper roll comes over the top. 25% are outlier who is not me. It is one of our children. I will not specify their gender or would give it away because we have 50% of each gender in our household. But, 25% of the household thinks that toilet paper roll comes over the bottom. I was browsing The the news, the RSS feeds as I am prone to do, and I saw something about a patent that the original patent is out there to Showed that that toilet paper roll supposed to come over the top, and I thought rather than me sift it, why don’t I Wait until I talk to Mike and let him live. But since this is not a video podcast, Mike, you’re gonna kinda have to talk us through the s, The I, the f and the t, how do we resolve this as a household?

Mike Caulfield [00:07:39]:

Yeah. So so let’s start with this. Let’s start with it. The s is stop. Right. And and it says, you know, do I know what I’m looking at here? And that’s an important distinction and one that we try to highlight in the book. A lot of people think the first question you’re asking is, is this True. Right? And that’s that’s actually not a great first question for a number of reasons that are kinda complex.

Mike Caulfield [00:07:59]:

But do I know what I’m looking at here is is where a lot of people go wrong. Right. So you’re looking at something, and I probably should I probably should try to pull this up and make sure I can see what we’re talking about here. So it’s a toilet paper patent?

Bonni Stachowiak [00:08:11]:

Yeah. That’s what I saw as I it was it flew by me. Toilet paper roll.

Mike Caulfield [00:08:16]:

Some sort of picture here?

Bonni Stachowiak [00:08:17]:

Mhmm.

Mike Caulfield [00:08:18]:

Okay. I’m seeing okay. I’m seeing something here. Just type in images, so I’m I’m bringing it up. And let me just confirm with you. It’s this sort of thing? This s Wheeler toilet paper roll, and it it looks like an old timey patent patented December 22, 18, 91. Okay.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:08:38]:

Yes. And I can’t I can’t say that that is the identical version I saw because I actually saw a few different a few different ones. But yes, that’s that’s the gist of it. A very tech technical but also not drawn.

Mike Caulfield [00:08:50]:

Right. Right. Right. And so and so the first thing to realize is you think what you’re looking at. Like, do I know what I’m looking at Here, what what you think you’re looking at is a patent, like an an older patent that shows shows this. And in this patent, you can clearly see What I’m looking at here is the the toilet paper does come over the top. Right? This brings us to a really important point. So that’s that’s the essence.

Mike Caulfield [00:09:11]:

It brings us to a really important point that I think is lost in a lot of critical thinking and fact checking stuff. We often talk about We’re checking claims, we’re checking facts and stuff. Usually, what we’re actually doing is we’re checking evidence. And and that’s a it’s a really Important point to make. And so what you’re seeing here is I mean, one way it’s a it’s potentially a fact. Right? It’s it’s a a picture of this toilet paper. Wow. I’m gonna say toilet paper so many times in this interview.

Mike Caulfield [00:09:39]:

I said I have a picture of this toilet paper. And and and so some people think, well, the Question you’re asking yourself is is this is this real? Is this true? But what you’re actually interested in is is this good evidence for the point I wish to make, which is I am right About toilet paper being this way. Right? And so that’s that’s what you wanna keep in mind as as you go through it. Now I don’t know what source This came to you, but the thing first thing that popped up when I was looking at this was, something on Amazon, someone selling it, It looks like as a poster a poster of this.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:10:13]:

This is perfect. That was not my source, or I probably would have bought it right then and there. Yes. No.

Mike Caulfield [00:10:19]:

And so the question you would ask yourself with Amazon, if you didn’t know what Amazon was, you’d you’d do a very quick search and find out that Amazon is this Is is this online sales website that sells things from a variety of of different sellers? And then you would ask yourself, is this where I wanna get My information on patents from? And and and the answer here is, probably not. You probably Amazon is probably not gonna be first stop on this. Right? In this case, most people do know what Amazon is, but but if you found it on a blog, if you found it through a a person who had shared it, You’re asking yourself, is this person a historian, like a a patent historian, or is this person a comedian? Right? And and, in that case, you probably If it’s not somebody that has some domain knowledge, then you probably want to to move to the next step. The next step would be to find, better coverage. In this case, what we wanna do is we want to see if we can find a better source for this. So I’m gonna see if I’m just here. I’m gonna do a reverse image search on this, which we show people how to do and see if we can yeah. Okay.

Mike Caulfield [00:11:26]:

It comes up here. And then in the, reverse image search, I see a lot of things. I’m scrolling. There’s a lot of people actually sewing posters of this, I imagine, because they they’re happy that perhaps they won the argument. But none of that is looking good to me. And so instead, what I’m gonna do Is I’m going to take this name here, s Wheeler, that is on this. I’m gonna take this name, which is s Wheeler, And we’re going to do it says toilet paper roll. I’m trying to type around my microphone here.

Mike Caulfield [00:11:58]:

And we’re gonna say patent. And we’re just gonna what we’re trying to do here is we’re just trying to get something better than all these people selling prints. And the first thing that comes up actually once I do that, once I type that in Is something from Google Patents. And this is actually the the real US patent. It has a PDF attached to it. It’s from it’s from the actual patent office. And I will show it to you here. Here it is.

Mike Caulfield [00:12:26]:

And so that that’s right there. Not only have we kind of inadvertently used the trace, we’ve actually traces to the very first Source, which is the t in SIFT, and we find that, yes, this is actually a photo from the very first patent of toilet paper, And it shows the role coming over the top. Now there’s a couple things there. The the first thing is I think what we’ve shown is that this Evidence is what we thought it was. Right? And that’s what we’ve really demonstrated. It’s not necessarily it’s true or false enters into it. But the the main thing is we thought that this was a patent. We thought it was a patent from the the 18 nineties as it as it displayed, and we thought showed this, and that’s that’s in fact what it is.

Mike Caulfield [00:13:08]:

There still is this larger question, which is, well, I think I think, the person in your house that maybe disagrees could come and they could say, well, is it always for the inventor to determine the the the best for more practical use. Right? But but what we can say is that this is really solid evidence on your side. It’s not necessarily conclusive, But it’s not fabricated. It’s not miscontextualized. It doesn’t turn out to be a joke. It’s not a it’s not something that’s actually from 1970 3 long after toilet paper was invented is something that I think is is really solid evidence. It takes a while to talk through that. Right? In practice, though, what we find is that that if you Put those moves together, and we’re not talking.

Mike Caulfield [00:13:51]:

In practice, we find that it takes about 90 seconds. So so that’s that’s that’s the idea. And and again, it doesn’t necessarily show I just wanna I just wanna make sure we’re not we’re not being unfair to the other member of your household. It doesn’t necessarily show that you are absolutely right, but it does show that this is likely that that this is the strong evidence That you initially thought it was.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:14:15]:

You recommend to start with these non serious things, and that’s So that’s the way that you lay this out in your teaching and and why has that been so important?

Mike Caulfield [00:14:25]:

Yeah. So non serious or or non Polarizing. And and part of the reason why is that, you know, there’s a lot of talk about how we can’t agree on On on what is true or what is what is evidence or all of these all of these things. But it turns out when it’s when it’s something that’s not Particularly polarizing, you don’t find much disagreement that this is how you would go about it. Right? Like, as we do this thing with the toilet paper roll and and you say, well, okay, we traced it back. We found the original patent. Here it is from patent office. Here is the picture.

Mike Caulfield [00:14:56]:

It’s the same picture. You don’t find a lot of people saying, well, hold on a second. Who are you to say that? Right? I mean, you might if you were really dug into this issue. But people, when they’re presented with something that doesn’t feel threatening to their identity, to their identity immediately recognize the fairness of this way of going about treating evidence. It’s it’s not it’s not really controversial. People also recognize the fairness of this sort of thing when they are trying to make their own point. Right? When they’re making their point, They absolutely they say, well, look, I found this is from the patent office. This is from the time.

Mike Caulfield [00:15:32]:

It’s original. People understand that when they’re making their own point. But it can be a little stressful When someone is is making points against something that you believe deeply, and that the the the risk is someone’s kinda walking you through these steps. And they’re doing it with something that that starting with something that maybe you believe very deeply, and it can feel a little Aggressive towards your belief. Right? There’s a couple other things and and these are kinda woven throughout the book. There’s a couple other things when you think Through that, one, we we do start with these kind of these goofy things or these things that that most of the people that we’re we’re talking to might support. Another piece of it is just the same thing I was I was doing a 2nd ago. When you do it with something serious, one of the things I’ve developed over time Is a is just a phrase that, you know, if we found out say we found out this was fake.

Mike Caulfield [00:16:25]:

Right? The the phrase I would probably say to you if I had found out it was fake is, I’m not saying your claim about the right way to use toilet paper is wrong, but I’m saying you can’t show it with this evidence. Right? This evidence is not good. In in part of what we have to do, I think, to get to a better place in society is to understand there is a separation between those 2 things, that that I’m I’m not I’m actually not attacking your belief. All else I’m saying is if you wanna demonstrate your belief to me, I need a better piece of evidence. Or conversely, if you presented something It is really strong evidence that you’ve presented something that’s very strong evidence, but the belief is separate from that. And and that’s one of the things that I think is Is important for us to distress because what we really wanna do with the book is not show that certain beliefs are What we wanna do is show that if you’re trying to demonstrate your beliefs, there are certain norms you have to play by. And if you’re trying to see if something supports someone else’s beliefs or your beliefs, you have to do these these sorts of investigations to see if they they suit those norms.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:17:30]:

Would you talk about your experience in moving from the less controversial to the more polarizing, and what you have found helpful in, in, educating others about about using these moves when it really feels a lot more like, it matters. It actually is gonna matter to my life versus the toilet paper, which by the way, Would that person, however, they wanna replace the role as long as the roles are getting replaced, I don’t really care.

Mike Caulfield [00:17:54]:

Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, so there’s a couple there’s a couple things Right. So so the first thing is that I have found in my practice that at least up through freshman year Or or I’m sorry, 1st year 1st year college that students are much less polarized about things than people think. And in fact, A lot of the students are not engaged with news at all, and only a subset of those engaged with news are are heavily politically engaged. Now there are some there are some differences in some ways that things like TikTok and other things are are mobilizing people. They’re they’re in information environments That either have news or a news adjacent, but their awareness of the news environment, their awareness of sort of these larger elite Political elite driven narratives, they’re actually quite low except in a couple cases. The one one case they found that was an exception was issues around gun control, and that that makes sense Because the students are coming from an environment with lockdown, security measures, and so forth, there’s a lot of attachment to positions there.

Mike Caulfield [00:18:56]:

But most most things are not. Most things are not. You know, people people often came up to me after these things and said, well, what do you say to the student who says, well, the New York Times is a communist organization. Like, how can I trust that? And I’m like, I’m just glad they know they’ve heard of the New York Times, you know. I mean, some and some students I mean, There are times it’s probably a little better known, but if you get to something like the Washington Post or you get to something like the Atlantic, I mean, the students don’t know what the Atlantic is. And so even the cable news stations, the the students are not the bulk of students are not highly aware of those. So this idea that students come in To us, the and they’re just sort of already irretrievably polarized around these issues and so forth. I it’s just it’s just not not true.

Mike Caulfield [00:19:40]:

The second point I’d make is Is this, that my theory of change on this is not actually, sort of, is not actually that we take The entire population of people coming through the educational system and we raise their skills a little bit. Right? I mean, I hope that happens. Right? I really hope that happens. But what I’ve actually found when I’ve studied how online rumor is disseminated, how misinformation is disseminated, Which is is the core of my job right now looking at how these things flow through systems is that the real The the the real impact is not in a little bit of facility for everybody. The the real impact Is that you have a number of people within a community that kind of keep other people in check. And I refer to this person as the family fact checker. Right? And they’re not there they’re not there necessarily to convince their mom or their their uncle or their brother or whatever, A friend. They’re not necessarily there to convince that person they’re wrong, but when that person brings up something that’s wrong in front of a bunch of other people, They’re the person that says, okay, I’m gonna check this really quick.

Mike Caulfield [00:20:54]:

And they check it really quick, and they’re like, hey, John. I appreciate your passion, but I I think on this point, Yeah. I I found this reporting more plausible, and they they they link to it. And the the idea there is not necessarily they’re gonna convince John. Right. The idea there, always, a lot of people are looking at what John said, and they really like they really like the other people looking at that not to be pulled into it. So they’re trying to do some sort of social correction. And so this book to me I mean, one, I I do think it is designed to be a book, used either as a sort of sidecar book in a larger class or in in a 1st year class as a textbook.

Mike Caulfield [00:21:33]:

Absolutely, we wrote it With students in mind. But for the broader audience, because we were trying to straddle the these 2 markets, for the broader audience, the broader audience to me Is the family fact checker. It’s the person who is is finding that, a relative is sending them a lot of emails that they’re getting that are kind of Fishy. And and and and they’re the person that has to sit there and say, no. This is a scam. Right? This is a scam. Please don’t do that. Or or yes.

Mike Caulfield [00:22:02]:

Actually, this this is a this is a reasonable source. And this is a book for for that person. And we the hope is That these people that do this already have some method, but but have a very laborious method, a method that’s not highly efficient, can get this book. And then because they’re able to check these things in in 90 seconds, in 2 minutes, are more apt when someone, You know, advances some nonsense to be able to to to do that efficiently and quickly and effectively.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:22:34]:

The other thing that you and Sam do so well is that we should be asking ourselves, and this is all the way back to the s in SIFT where we stop. Why are we looking? What is what is our interest in this? And that’s a really helpful navigator. It is something I have had to do pretty delicately. I work at at a religiously affiliated university. So when a topic like abortion comes up, I always have to before I show your video, they they take the 3 hour, I always go, Okay. I have to, like, pre do it. I mean, you say it perfectly well, but I just like, let’s this these are really strong feelings that Some people have or actually, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have strong feelings around that issue. It’s like Yeah.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:23:12]:

Like, let me tell you in advance the point he is about to make. He is not trying to make he’s just like, where would you go for general medical information for your children is the point that he’s making. And and so when we have those Really really strong feelings. I think it does help us stop us, like, why am I looking? What what is it that I’m hoping to get out of this? What is what is my own Vested interest and the more we have those really visceral visceral feelings, the more I think we do have to stop and and you share just then then If we have those feelings, maybe we’re not using the most sophisticated parts of our brains, and therefore, maybe we don’t just pass this off to other people as if it’s been really sussed out well.

Mike Caulfield [00:23:51]:

Yeah. And there’s couple couple points there. And again, I I come back to this idea. We we’ve been talking to some in another research project. We’ve been talking to some teachers about different different frames for this sort of work. And particularly the way that misinformation I don’t know if it was ever a great frame, but It’s become increasingly it’s it’s developed cultural associations with I’m coming here to tell you that your beliefs are wrong. Right? And that’s never, For me, at least, has never been what it is. In fact, from an educational perspective, it’s actually the opposite.

Mike Caulfield [00:24:26]:

Right. One of the things this is something that came out of a conversation with a teacher just last week. And as I was talking about this this separation between evidence And belief that, like, you believe what you want, but you gotta bring evidence to the table that’s good. Right? That you’ve checked, that you know the context of, know where it came from. And this, teacher said, you know, one of the things I think about is when I teach students to write, the thing I constantly say to students is the reason why I’m being hard on the way this is written is I want people to take you seriously. Mhmm. I’m not here to tell you your belief is wrong. But if you’re arguing for your belief, I want people to take you seriously.

Mike Caulfield [00:25:05]:

In the way that you’re going about this year, people aren’t gonna take you seriously. And that’s I I wish that was the frame that we could get to, with a lot of this. The idea from a personal empowerment Perspective. The idea of using something like SIFT is to make sure that when you enter the public arena and you try to make your case For a belief that I may not agree with. Right? I want you to make the best case possible. As as a person teaching you, I want people to Take you seriously, and that’s much more important to me than winning any argument. And it’s much more important to me than what you end up believing. Right? I I want I want you, right, to have the tools to be taken seriously.

Mike Caulfield [00:25:47]:

I also want you to argue in an ethical way. Right? I don’t want you to use stuff that you know Is a lie, and they don’t want you to use stuff, you know. There’s a bunch of of different intersecting concerns. But primarily when we look at this, I think people wanna be taken seriously, people wanna be thought of as reasonable, and you can’t do that if you just forward Nonsense to people. People are not gonna take you seriously, and it’s very painful. It’s very painful to people when they’re not taken seriously. So, I mean, this kinda come around full circle on that. I think one of the problems is people forward nonsense.

Mike Caulfield [00:26:19]:

Other people say, well, that’s nonsense. And they don’t This surely understand why it’s nonsense or understand how they could have known it was nonsense, and they get very upset. And then, that develops this That develops this feeling that, oh, well, the fact checking process is something that’s sort of it’s a weapon being used against me to to to push me out of the public sphere. That’s not the case. Like, we want you in the public sphere. And this book will actually show those people, like, how do you find And and verify evidence that will cause people to take you seriously. And and people will not be able to discard by simply saying, Did you look up the web did you look up the Wikipedia article on the website? Because they’re a really iffy organization.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:27:03]:

Yeah. So I I have students and you Guide us through this and I asked them to journal about the conspiracy theories. Have you or any person that you care about ever believed in a conspiracy theory? And I had a young woman who came through some years ago and was talking about the speaking of controversies Here in the United States, we have listeners all over the world, but you probably have heard of our election here that was rather controversial and she said, Well, I you know, I am one of those people. Some people think this is a a conspiracy theory, but I know it’s true because I know what I saw. And I chose not to interrupt her and it’s we had she hasn’t even gone through. This is the very beginning. We’re just starting to think about how we feel about these things. But talk a bit about context, and specifically context for video, because I know that’s something we should really really be thinking about.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:27:55]:

And especially as, you know, I I saw some Boxes of ballots and they were moved. And could you could you talk us through how we think about about context in in especially video clips, but but not limited to that?

Mike Caulfield [00:28:08]:

Yeah. And so we have a whole chapter on video and a bunch of the examples on on video, at least one of the Prominent examples on video comes from the election. There’s, another one from the initial invasion of Ukraine, and I I think a third one’s a conspiracy theory About child trafficking like a QAnon thing. And the thing that a lot of these share Is is exactly what you’re saying that that someone has seen something, and they know what they saw. And the thing they saw was real. It’s videotape. Right? It’s Security camera footage, right? And the again, this kinda comes to this idea of evidence, right? The the idea that they have is well, you’re Telling me this thing is not true when I saw this thing. Right? But the the real question, the reason why we ask, is this what I think it is rather than is this true, Is because, very often is not what they think it is.

Mike Caulfield [00:29:01]:

Right? And so for example, there’s a video that shows people in Georgia After after a number of workers have gone home, people in Georgia pulling out boxes of ballots From under a table and starting to count them, is described as people pulling out suitcases of ballots or suitcases of Unmarked ballots or pre marked ballot, whatever it is. Or sometimes it’s just described as people pull pulling out, cases of ballots. Right? And it’s just sort of left there. And the video is real. Right? The video is real. But, you know, what is the context? The context is these are not suitcases. They’re actually Security boxes that were sealed up and then unsealed according to the process. The people are on a security camera, like, from, like, you You know, I forget, like, 4 different angles.

Mike Caulfield [00:29:53]:

It’s certainly not something that’s happened surreptitiously. There’s a supervisor in there. Everything in there is According to the the normal process, these ballots in the suitcase are being pulled out aren’t some sort of secret, like, additional ballots. The ballots that they haven’t gotten into processing earlier in the day, they had initially thought that they would take a break. They were then told by the I I believe the The the governor’s office or the state office said, no. We want people to continue. We want the results as soon as possible, and so they restarted. That’s all it is.

Mike Caulfield [00:30:27]:

Right? It’s just a bunch of people restarting the count after being told to that they needed to count faster. But to a person what what a person tends to think is, Look, I saw I saw the video there. And one of the problems with our monitoring environment is because things aren’t sort of checked in the moment, If you push on that and you say, well, okay, well, that was it. And they’re like, well, what about this? Because there’s there’s literally hundreds of these things that piled up over time. And it turns out They’re almost all or all miscontextualized. But to the person that Lived it. It feels like experience. They watched it happen, but it’s just that the context they had was was so was so different That they were left with this this interpretation.

Mike Caulfield [00:31:11]:

It’s really hard. One of the things I’ll I’ll just say is, it’s so much easier to dislodge that belief In that interpretation in the moment or even directly after it during that day than it is to dislodge it Even a week later. Right? Because at that point, it’s already set. People have an emotion about that. And when you say it didn’t happen, it feels like you’re rejecting their trauma, their experience. Right? And, so it’s just really difficult to go back Go back and do that.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:31:44]:

Alright. Last question before we get to the recommendations segment. It’s an easy one. I’ll just toss it in there, I say sarcastically. So artificial intelligence, This has certainly been spoke about a lot of how do we how do we navigate this, how do we handle this emerging and seemingly ever changing, new set of Knowledge. I shouldn’t say new. I just I just got done, with a final work on my scholar in residence at the University of Michigan, Dearborn, this morning and, was reminded about, you know, in the fifties, in the sixties, the kind of stuff that was happening around artificial intelligence. But anyway, What feels new to so many of us, but is not new.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:32:24]:

Could you tell us a little bit about how we can rest a bit in using the skills that we may already know or may start to practice after reading your book. And I think having an example specific to artificial intelligence of how we might use those skills would be helpful to people. Yeah.

Mike Caulfield [00:32:40]:

Yeah. Sure. Yes. This sounds so self serving, and so I apologize for that. But it it really is true that what The the sort of dissemination of these newer artificial intelligence models means for this is is that these skills become more important. And the reason why is this. It’s really the same set of skills. The thing that we’re doing in the book is we’re trying to get people away from Using plausibility as their metric.

Mike Caulfield [00:33:07]:

Right? Does something, like, look plausible? Does it feel authoritative? Right. And we’re trying to get them to very quickly go and find out what other people think, find out where the thing came from. The example with the toilet paper, we’re we’re trying to figure out, hey. If we go back to the patent office, can we actually find this in the patent office and not just on a poster On amazon.com. Right? If we have the poster on amazon.com, but there’s nothing in the patent office, that doesn’t look so good. Right? So When you think about AI, take take AI that is used to produce images. Right? It can make with some errors, but it can make kinda convincing images. And even if it’s not making fully convincing images now, in the future, it will make more convincing images than it is now.

Mike Caulfield [00:33:52]:

So it’s only gonna get better. So how do you solve a problem? Like, is this actually a a picture of Biden Joe Biden, I don’t know. Hitting somebody with a golf club or something. I don’t know. I I feel like I’m defaming Joe Biden. But, you know, is this is this a real picture? Right? Well, the way that people tend to do this, they look at it. Right? And they they ask themselves some questions. They play again the Mikey game.

Mike Caulfield [00:34:16]:

Right? The the Mikey and the Pop Rocks game. They say, Well, do I think Joe Biden would have done that? Or does that golf club look a little bit photoshopped? Or, you know, and they go and they they play this This sort of game. But the real question is, like, who took this photo? Like, where was it taken and when was it taken? He’s the president of the United States. If someone took this photo, Right? There’s a lot of people that know when that happened, where it was taken, and who was behind the camera. Right? If I can’t find that, I don’t trust it. If on the other hand, I go and I look and I see, oh, nope. Actually, here he was at the golf course, and here’s the photographer and so forth, Then that’s that’s step 1. And then if it turns out that when I look at the broader picture, okay, maybe it was maybe it was real, But actually, it’s a weird angle, and it looks like something’s happened that’s not.

Mike Caulfield [00:35:04]:

Again, I’m already even if it’s not AI, I’m already on the better track. Right? Because I’m I’m dealing with the context of it. I’m dealing with the source of it. I’m dealing with the provenance. The big thing to remember with AI is is in a world where anything can seem authoritative, provenance Matters more. Knowing where it came from is gonna matter a lot more than knowing whether it looks looks credible.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:35:28]:

Before Mike and I get to our recommendations, and we’ve got some good ones for you today, I’d like to take a moment to thank today’s sponsor, and that is TextExpander. Text expander is one of the first things that I install on any computer and I consider to be an an central part of my computing life. How TextExpander works is you easily set up what they call snippets. These are short, easy to remember little snippets of text that you type and soon as you Finished typing, it will expand to either something that is longer so that you can type less and say more, Or it’ll expand into something that’s harder for you to remember, like for me, harder for me to remember my work phone number since I don’t Give it out or use it very often. So TextExpander, sometimes when I talk about TextExpander, I think people are gonna Think that with all the cool things you can do with it, it’s hard to learn. It’s very easy to learn and you don’t even really have to remember your snippets. We’re actually using a collaborative team version of TextExpander now. And so sometimes we’ll set up something and I just don’t remember what the little snippet is to expand to that larger text, And I just type the keyboard shortcut to bring up a search bar, and I can just search for whatever it is.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:36:45]:

And my my fingers are it’s kind of that muscle memory thing where it’s It’s just so easy for me to use and really allows me to expand my use of TextExpander even further. So head over to text expander.com/podcast. You can redeem 20% off your order and have a chance to check out what TextExpander is all about. Thanks once again, TextExpander, for sponsoring today’s episode. This is the time in the show where we each get to share our recommendations. I have 3 of them.

Mike Caulfield [00:37:15]:

Oh, you have 3? Okay.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:37:16]:

I have 3. I’m gonna go quick though.

Mike Caulfield [00:37:17]:

Alright.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:37:18]:

1st, I I if it’s not obvious to everyone listening as I gush over getting the chance to talk with Mike Caulfield again, I wanna recommend Verified, How to Think Straight Get Duped Less and Make Better Decisions About What to Believe online by Mike Caulfield and Sam Weinberg. This is a tremendous book. I Couldn’t wait to get my hands on it and and it lived it exceeded my expectations. It’s wonderful. I’m gonna recommend that you combine it, If you’ve not already taken it with the SIFT 3 hour mini course, and I’m gonna link to both of those in the show notes as always, because there’s something about if If you have, as I did, a lack of confidence in yourself to be able to do this, you’re going to quickly see this is all doable. This is all this is a set set of steps that Any of us can do, and it’s gonna help you walk it through. You even can keep a journal, which is what Mike recommends as you go, And I found that to be a really helpful practice. I even decided to challenge myself and I have a YouTube channel that is practically non existent, but I decided to go public With my learning, this is known as learning out loud.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:38:22]:

And sure I I’m sure I made some mistakes as I went, but it just felt good to put that little bit of accountability I say anyone can do this and here I am, you know, bumbling my way fumbling my way through trying this. And I do I do have more confidence today, But it’s out of what and Mike, I don’t know if you would ever remember this, but we exchanged when I first started using it with students. I went through it myself first and then started using it with students. I was like, This is like magic and you’re like, yes, it is magic. I mean, it’s real if you’ve not done it before, it really is kinda magic and it brings a lot of Hope and joy to me in my teaching. So wanna recommend those 2 things. I almost didn’t recommend this final thing because it is polarizing. And Mike, you had mentioned gun legislation and gun rights and that being a very polarizing issue.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:39:06]:

The reason I’m deciding to recommend this anyway is it’s really Mike’s fault. No. I’m kidding. Mike had mentioned something about really the that you want people to be able to make good arguments. And so I am sharing this because I think that this this Author has made a good argument against the when guy gun violence happens, that this is not a good time to talk about it. We need to it’s not not respectful to the people impacted. And I know him because he’s a geeky podcaster and likes To use Mac computers and all this, his name is John Gruber, and the title of this article is the aftermath of a massacre is always the right time to Push for Gun Legislation. And he talks about a recent I mean, just pick a day, pick a week, gun violence, and how people say that’s not the right time.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:39:57]:

And he’s puts that argument in other circumstances where, you know, when when He gives the example of September 11th, and we didn’t say, well, that wasn’t the right time to talk about things then. And so it’s a definitely a If you have really strong feelings about gun violence, it’s definitely one of those. It’s not, this is not a middle of the road, both sides kind of a thing. I just found it a compelling argument and an important one for us to be pushing back on our lawmakers here in the United States and saying this is not normal and we absolutely We can and should do better. So if that’s not your thing, you’re not gonna wanna click on that link as I mentioned, but I did wanna share it. I I I just think when we are making these good arguments, it’s it’s helpful to share them. So, Mike, I’ll pass it over to you for your recommendations.

Mike Caulfield [00:40:44]:

Yeah. So first, I’m gonna recommend a entire field of study. So that just a really small recommendation. But the the thing I’ve been getting into over the past Couple years is a field called argumentation theory. And very often I I I find at least, sometimes We don’t encounter disciplines that have a lot of the answers we’re looking for because we just don’t know the search terms. We just don’t know the name of the thing. And, one of the things I found is that, this this field of argumentation theory, which is how do people in ordinary life, come to agreement on what is reasonable and what is not. Right.

Mike Caulfield [00:41:19]:

It’s it’s at the intersection of rhetoric and, epistemology. It’s it’s it’s a kind of a combination of those. And I just found that the field to me has had such illuminating insights, on all of this. If you want a book that sort of kicked it all off, there’s a book by a guy named Stephen Toulmin, from 1958 called The Uses of Argument. But also just world is your oyster if you if you type in argumentation theory and sort of browse the way that people in this discipline approach approach this issue. It’s it’s just fascinating to me because I think it I think it, it just it just made so many things clear to me that that I think we had discovered in our educational work, but We hadn’t fully fully theorized. So that’s pretty deep and heavy. I I think the second thing I would recommend is a video game.

Mike Caulfield [00:42:06]:

I got this video game called Starfield. I don’t know if other anybody here, knows what that is, but, you know, it’s it’s this sort of open universe game where you I I can’t explain. It sounds video games all sound so dumb when you talk about them. But it’s an open universe game where you go and you build your little moon bases and Upgrade your ship and sort of build your little space empire, and it’s got like a 1,000 different planets in it. It’s just a gigantic game. And what I found at least Is that in these times, sometimes I need I’m a very goal driven person, and so it’s hard for me to detach from work because Work has goals. I like I like goals. I like making progress on goals.

Mike Caulfield [00:42:50]:

And so I try to relax, but I I I end up I end up gravitating back towards Some form of work. And what I found at least with this game, Starfield, and maybe I mean, other people for other people, who knows? Maybe it’s Minecraft or something. I found that this is good because I I I can get I can get addicted to the the in game goals of of building my little space empire, And it can keep me away from work, which I which I do need a a break from. Yeah. Apart from that, I I feel like I should have had 3 recommendations here, but it feels incomplete. But apart from that, I I think I’m Just gonna take a point of privilege, and I’m I’m just gonna I’m just gonna recommend the book. Verified is a book that Sam and I first Conceptualized. 1st talked about writing back in, oh, jeez, early 2018.

Mike Caulfield [00:43:40]:

And the idea of the book was always that there’s a whole bunch of books there that Talk about, here’s the big problem with misinformation. And then there’s other books that are are very thick textbooky things that are like information literacy, and you got a chapter or 2 on this And we just wanted to make a small book that had the most said all the most important stuff in it, you know. And so so yeah. I’m sorry I’m sorry to end with recommending the book, but it it took from 2018 to now to get a publisher to really see our vision of that book. We’re so thankful that the University of Chicago saw what what we wanted to do and supported it. So I’m just I’m gonna encourage you. Sorry. I’m gonna encourage you to pick it up.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:44:22]:

I there’s absolutely nothing to apologize for. It’s a wonderful book and there’s so many good examples in there. I mean, it really is. It Crosses over so many context of our lives and things that we’re interested in, and so I could I absolutely think there’s nothing to apologize for. And, Mike, it’s such a pleasure to get to talk to you again. Thanks for coming back on Teaching in Higher Ed.

Mike Caulfield [00:44:41]:

Thank you.

Bonni Stachowiak [00:44:44]:

Thanks once again to Mike Caulfield for joining me for today’s episode of Teaching in Higher Ed. Today’s episode was produced by me, Bonni Stachowiak. It was edited by the ever talented Andrew Kroeger. Podcast production support was provided by the amazing Sierra Priest. If you have yet to sign up for the weekly emails that come out from Teaching in Higher Ed, head over to teachinginhighered.com/subscribe. You’ll receive the most recent episodes, show notes, as well as some other resources and goodies that don’t show up in the regular show notes. Thanks so much for listening, and I’ll see you next time on Teaching in Higher Ed. 

Teaching in Higher Ed transcripts are created using a combination of an automated transcription service and human beings. This text likely will not represent the precise, word-for-word conversation that was had. The accuracy of the transcripts will vary. The authoritative record of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcasts is contained in the audio file.