Darren Hudgins

and it’s my responsibility to make it better.

I am the founder and lead of Think Do Thrive. I work with educators, school leaders, districts, and school organizations to help build ‘community of practice’ experiences that promote critical thinking, creativity, and instructional strategies. I believe in crafting engaging experiences where educators can safely practice the skills and mindsets necessary to help empower our social servants. This approach also strengthens human capacity efforts, drives action, and inspires the souls of educators so that all students can thrive.

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Transforming School Experiences

I established Think Do Thrive to empower individuals, a goal aligning with my teaching and coaching approach. This approach focuses on fostering learning, exploration, and growth, so much so that it’s in the company name.

Think: I aspire to assist people in regularly assessing their perspectives, whether by introducing new tools, techniques, narratives, or methods for fostering a community's development in order to maximize the potential of an idea.

Do: I advocate for engagement, curiosity, and experimentation through play and activity. The development of social and emotional skills is rooted in firsthand experiences and subsequent reflection.

Thrive: Our mindset determines whether we view challenges as ordeals or adventures. These skills are honed through iterative processes of contemplation and action.

Best Selling Author

In addition, I am also the co-author of two books, the bestselling Developing Digital Detectives: Essential Lessons for Discerning Fact from Fiction in the ‘Fake News’ Era (ISTE 2021) and Fact VS Fiction: Teaching Critical Thinking In The Age of Fake News (ISTE 2018).

Developing Digital Detectives

Essential Lessons for Discerning Fact From Fiction in the ‘Fake News’ Era

From the authors of the bestselling Fact vs. Fiction, this book offers easy-to-implement lessons to engage students in becoming media literacy “digital detectives,” looking for clues, questioning motives, uncovering patterns, developing theories, and ultimately, delivering a verdict.

The current news landscape is driven by clicks, with every social media influencer, trained and citizen journalists chasing the same goal: a viral story. In this environment, where the race to be first on the scene with the most sensational story often overshadows the need for accuracy, traditional strategies for determining information credibility are no longer enough. Rather than simply helping students become savvy information consumers, today’s educators must provide learners with the skills to be digital detectives – information interrogators who are armed with a variety of tools for dissecting news stories and determining what’s real and what isn’t in our “post-truth world.”
Authors:
Darren Hudgins is a passionate advocate for creating learning experiences that drive educators of all kinds and their students to think, do, and thrive. He believes in this mission so much that he conceptualized and currently leads Think | Do | Thrive, LLC. Here he uses his 20+ years in education, edtech, and coaching to inspire critical thinking, champion active learning, and create opportunities for educational communities to improve. He is also the co-author of two books, the bestselling Fact VS Fiction: Teaching Critical Thinking In The Age of Fake News (ISTE 2018) and the newly released Developing Digital Detectives: Essential Lessons for Discerning Fact from Fiction in the ‘Fake News’ Era (ISTE 2021). Let's untangle this world together, thinkdothrive.org.

Jennifer LaGarde has spent her entire adult life working in public education. She has served as a classroom teacher, a teacher-librarian, a digital teaching and learning specialist, a district-level support staff member, and a statewide leader as a consultant for both the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction and the Friday Institute for Instructional Innovation. A passionate advocate for readers and libraries, Jennifer currently teaches courses focused on emerging literacies and young adult literature at Rutgers University. Library Journal, The American Association of School Librarians, The New York Times, and The Carnegie Corporation have all recognized Jennifer’s work. When she’s not busy working, Jennifer spends time reading, hiking, chasing her two dogs, and drinking too much coffee with her husband, David, in Olympia, Washington. Follow Jennifer’s adventures at librarygirl.net.
- Instructional strategies for combating fake news, including models for evaluating news stories with links to resources on including lessons on fake news in your curricula.
- Examples from prominent educators who demonstrate how to tackle fake news with students and colleagues.
- A fake news self-assessment with a digital component to help readers evaluate their skills in detecting and managing fake news.
- A downloadable infographic with mobile media literacy tips.
The companion jump-start guide based on this book is Fighting Fake News: Tools and Strategies for Teaching Media Literacy.
Amazon
ISTE

“This is not only a book for teachers and students, this is a book for all of us as we navigate the world of information overload. It reminds us of our collective responsibility as ‘human beings living in an information-saturated world’ to build our digital detective skills and interrupt the misinformation, disinformation and malformation.”

— Chris Tuttell, librarian, South Garner High School, North Carolina

Fact vs. Fiction

Teaching Critical Thinking Skills in the Age of Fake News

Help students discern fact from fiction in the information they access not only at school but in the devices they carry in their pockets and backpacks.

The advent of the 24-hour news cycle, citizen journalism and an increased reliance on social media as a trusted news source have had a profound effect not only on how we get our news, but also on how we evaluate sources of information, share that information and interact with others in online communities. When these issues are coupled with the “fake news” industry that intentionally spreads false stories designed to go viral, educators are left facing a new and challenging landscape. This book will help them address these new realities, providing strategies and support to help students develop the skills needed to effectively evaluate information they encounter online.
Authors:
Darren Hudgins is a passionate advocate for creating learning experiences that drive educators of all kinds and their students to think, do, and thrive. He believes in this mission so much that he conceptualized and currently leads Think | Do | Thrive, LLC. Here he uses his 20+ years in education, edtech, and coaching to inspire critical thinking, champion active learning, and create opportunities for educational communities to improve. He is also the co-author of two books, the bestselling Fact VS Fiction: Teaching Critical Thinking In The Age of Fake News (ISTE 2018) and the newly released Developing Digital Detectives: Essential Lessons for Discerning Fact from Fiction in the ‘Fake News’ Era (ISTE 2021). Let's untangle this world together, thinkdothrive.org.

Jennifer LaGarde has spent her entire adult life working in public education. She has served as a classroom teacher, a teacher-librarian, a digital teaching and learning specialist, a district-level support staff member, and a statewide leader as a consultant for both the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction and the Friday Institute for Instructional Innovation. A passionate advocate for readers and libraries, Jennifer currently teaches courses focused on emerging literacies and young adult literature at Rutgers University. Library Journal, The American Association of School Librarians, The New York Times, and The Carnegie Corporation have all recognized Jennifer’s work. When she’s not busy working, Jennifer spends time reading, hiking, chasing her two dogs, and drinking too much coffee with her husband, David, in Olympia, Washington. Follow Jennifer’s adventures at librarygirl.net.
The book includes:
- Instructional strategies for combating fake news, including models for evaluating news stories with links to resources on how to include lessons on fake news in your curricula.
- Examples from prominent educators who demonstrate how to tackle fake news with students and colleagues.
- A fake news self-assessment with a digital component to help readers evaluate their skills in detecting and managing fake news.
A downloadable infographic with mobile media literacy tips.

The companion jump start guide based on this book is Fighting Fake News: Tools and Strategies for Teaching Media Literacy.
Amazon
ISTE
Audiobook

“A thought-provoking resource for teachers and librarians seeking to foster their students’ critical thinking.”

— Laura Fields Eason, Parker Bennett Curry Elementary School, Kentucky, SLJ

Attitude is the difference between ordeal and adventure.

Let’s start an adventure!

A Community Approach

Over the years, I have met many amazing people who have helped me become the person and resource I am today. This has allowed me to build a network of skilled professionals. Once we understand your unique needs and build a plan to support you, if we are not the best fit, we can match you with the most suitable expert from our diverse team of professionals.

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