When systems fail

Total suggested time: 45 minutes

Class discussion: Fixing flawed systems

After students have listened to the podcast on their own, devote all or a portion of the next class to a guided discussion about the content, using all or some of the following questions in class.

‘Understanding’ questions

Suggested time: 15 minutes

  • Why did the federal government collect data about COVID-19 the way it did?
  • What data was missing?
  • In what ways did data collection break down between states and the federal government?
  • What potential flaws existed in data published by the COVID Tracking Project?

‘Application’ questions

Suggested time: 15 minutes

  • What surprised you about the government’s methodology for tracking the spread of the coronavirus?
  • How did the government’s systems for tracking COVID-19 compare to the systems you sketched in class?

‘Evaluation’ questions

Suggested time: 15 minutes

  • How perfect does data have to be to be useful?
  • How do the flaws in data collection of COVID-19 impact our understanding of the disease and its impact?
  • As data journalists, how important is understanding the system – how data is collected – when reporting on what the data tells us?