Free Professional Development Opportunities 2025

We're pleased to offer a variety of free professional development opportunities.

We will hold a series of one-hour online webinars in the coming months:

Introduction to Civic Online Reasoning: Teach Students to Sort Fact from Fiction Online

The Digital Inquiry Group’s Civic Online Reasoning curriculum, based on research with professional fact checkers and tested in classrooms across the country, teaches students to effectively evaluate online content. During this interactive webinar, participants will consider the research behind the curriculum, review free curricular materials, and discuss how these resources can be integrated into their own classrooms.

Reading Like a Historian with Digital Literacy

Explore new Reading Like a Historian lessons that teach students to evaluate online sources. During these sessions, participants will experience model lessons, receive access to new curricular resources, and identify strategies for integrating proven digital literacy approaches into history instruction. Participants are encouraged to attend multiple sessions, as each webinar will feature different curriculum materials.

Civic Online Reasoning in Your Context

Consider how to integrate digital literacy instruction into the courses you teach. During these webinars, participants will engage with Civic Online Reasoning lessons designed for use in different academic subjects, identify opportunities for digital literacy integration, discuss potential barriers to integration, and receive new curricular resources. Participants are encouraged to attend multiple sessions, as each webinar will feature different lessons and assessments.

Reading Like a Historian

Explore new Reading Like a Historian lessons that feature documents from the Library of Congress. During these sessions, participants will experience model lessons, receive access to new curricular resources, and identify strategies for integrating materials into their classrooms. Participants are encouraged to attend multiple sessions, as each webinar will feature different curriculum materials.

Beyond the Bubble History Assessments

Learn about new Beyond the Bubble history assessments that feature primary sources from the Library of Congress. During these webinars, participants will explore model assessments and identify opportunities for formative assessment in their context. Participants are encouraged to attend multiple sessions, as each webinar will feature different assessments.

Throughout the summer and into the start of the school year, we're offering free asynchronous online courses. Each course includes evidence-based approaches to teaching digital literacy, instructional videos and simulations, discussion boards, and optional webinars.

The courses will be live for five weeks, and participants can complete them at their own pace. Participants who successfully finish a course can request a certificate of attendance that verifies the professional learning hours completed.

Reading Like a Historian with Digital Literacy

In this 2-hour course, participants will learn how to integrate digital literacy into the history classroom and explore free, research-backed curricular resources from the Digital Inquiry Group.

This course will run August 18 to September 30. Click here to enroll in the course.

Using Wikipedia Wisely

In this 2-hour course, participants will learn how to teach students to use Wikipedia as a starting place for verifying online information. They will debunk common misconceptions about Wikipedia and explore free, research-backed curricular resources from the Digital Inquiry Group for teaching students effective online evaluation strategies.

This course will run August 18 to September 30. Click here to enroll in the course.

Civic Online Reasoning

In this 10-hour course, participants will learn how to equip students with research-backed strategies for evaluating online information and explore free curricular resources developed by the Digital Inquiry Group. The course also addresses common student misconceptions and the pitfalls of outdated approaches to teaching digital literacy. The course includes three modules:

Module 1: Search Like a Fact Checker with Lateral Reading
Module 2: Verifying Claims on Social Media and Click Restraint
Module 3: Evaluating Different Types of Online Sources

This course will run August 18 to September 30. Click here to enroll in the course.

Basics of Evaluating Online Sources

In this 3-hour course, participants will learn how to equip students with research-backed strategies for evaluating online information, with an emphasis on the skill of lateral reading. They will also explore free, research-backed curricular resources developed by the Digital Inquiry Group. The course will include one module: Search Like a Fact Checker with Lateral Reading.

This course will run August 18 to September 30. Click here to enroll in the course.

Important: The content of Civic Online Reasoning (3-Module Course) and Basics of Evaluating Online Sources (1-Module Course) overlaps, so educators should enroll in either but not both.

If you have any questions about our webinars or online courses, please email learn@inquirygroup.org.