Teach information literacy with Search Coach

Search Coach, a free tool in Microsoft Teams, provides students context and guidance to ask effective questions and discover reliable sources. Quick lesson plans introduce concepts students can apply in search engines like Bing or Google.

Overview

Search Coach product guide

What's new

Tech Community blog

Get started

Search Coach Learn module

Lesson plans

The Search Coach approach is new for most teachers, librarians, and digital media specialists. Given the limited time to learn and teach new search techniques, we created a repository of short, classroom-ready lesson plans covering Search Coach features on different topics and for different difficulty levels.

Beginner lesson plans

• Choosing a pet (writing unbiased queries)
• Endangered mammals (using a custom filter)
• Folk tales around the world (domains)
• Solar energy news (date range)
• Compassion and empathy (operators)

Moderate lesson plans

• Astronaut food (using domains)
• COVID and mental health (using NewsGuard)
• Early perspectives on social media (using the date range filter)
• How smart is artificial intelligence? (phrasing searches neutrally)
• Indigenous cultures (using country and regional domains)

Advanced lesson plans

• Hip-hop's impact on cultures worldwide (using country and regional domains)
• Celebrity fashion over time (using Domains)
• Civil Rights: The Chicano Movement (using operators)
• School meal nutrition (using Filetypes)
• Impact of AI (writing unbiased queries)

Partner resources

The Digital Inquiry Group

Equip your students with essential skills to navigate today's complex information landscape using Search Coach. Our expert partners at the Digital Inquiry Group offer engaging lesson plans in sciences and social studies, adaptable for many grades and designed to be completed in 1-2 class periods.

The Economist Educational Foundation

Help students explore the impact of misinformation and bias in the news in this Topical Talk teaching resource from The Economist Educational Foundation.

National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE)

Meet the Media Monsters in a lesson plan for grade 3-5 educators, and learn more about NAMLE's resources and community for teaching media literacy in the classroom.