The 2024-2025 cycle of LINANGAN officially came to a close last 10 February 2025 with a session dedicated to discussing techniques needed to effectively equip students with the necessary skills for identifying and countering misinformation. The talks were heavily anchored on the pedagogical approaches of Speech 30: Public Speaking and Persuasion and LIS 10: Information and Society.
Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Assoc. Prof. Jose Carlo De Pano formally opened the program with his opening remarks wherein he briefly provided an overview of the several key factors that contribute to the continued spread of misinformation and disinformation. He further underscored the critical role of GE courses in addressing these challenges, highlighting that GE courses provide an avenue to teach students to develop a particular attitude to properly discern and critically take in information.
The first lecture for this session featured the discussion of Asst. Prof. Regina B. Gochuico from the Department of Speech Communication and Theatre Arts, College of Arts and Letters. Asst. Prof. Gochuico primarily highlighted in her talk the pedagogy of Speech 30 and its role in equipping students and faculty alike with the important misinformation discernment skills that subsequently cultivate classrooms that foster critical information production and consumption. She also provided sample activities and class outputs as well as specific theories and readings she employs in her class in teaching Speech 30.
The second half of the program was led by Asst. Prof. Dridge Paul Reyes from the School of Library and Information Studies. In his discussion, Asst. Prof. Reyes specifically highlighted misinformation in the context of the academe, grounded in the pedagogy of LIS 10 and his experience teaching the course. He underscored the importance of helping students develop the necessary skills to assess information to safeguard them against manipulation, intellectual dishonesty, and biased narratives. Similar to Asst. Prof. Gochuico, Asst. Prof. Reyes also introduced online resources and classroom activities he employs in his course that attendees can utilize in their own classes to reinforce information literacy among students.
After a short break following the conclusion of the two lectures was an open forum,where attendees were given an opportunity to ask more questions. Salient points raised included the ethical implications of using “shadow library” websites such SciHub and Library Genesis, challenges and techniques in integrating media literacy into GE courses not inherently related to media, and strategies to foster critical thinking and writing skills without dependency on AI tools among students.
Through sharing of teaching methods and techniques employed by the UP Diliman GE faculty and integrated discussion of pressing societal issues, the LINANGAN sessions served as a platform for academics and educators to enhance the teaching and learning of general education courses. Recorded live streams of all nine LINANGAN episodes conducted from April 2024 to February 2025 are available on GEC’s Youtube channel.
