Creating and Evaluating Privacy and Security Micro-Lessons for Elementary School Children

TL;DR

This study develops and evaluates privacy and security micro-lessons for elementary and middle school students through an iterative, teacher–driven co-design process. It combines a formative study to identify design needs with a design-and-evaluation study that yields four modules (Digital Citizenship, Digital Security, Digital Privacy, and Critical Data Literacy) delivered as short, classroom-friendly sequences. Findings show that micro-lessons are flexible, engaging, and capable of increasing both student and teacher awareness, but require careful alignment with grade bands, infrastructure, and ongoing professional development. The work provides design implications for integrating privacy and security into K--8 curricula and highlights practical considerations for classrooms and districts adopting such resources. It also points to future expansion of topics and broader evaluation to measure learning outcomes directly.

Abstract

The growing use of technology in K--8 classrooms highlights a parallel need for formal learning opportunities aimed at helping children use technology safely and protect their personal information. Even the youngest students are now using tablets, laptops, and apps to support their learning; however, there are limited curricular materials available for elementary and middle school children on digital privacy and security topics. To bridge this gap, we developed a series of micro-lessons to help K--8 children learn about digital privacy and security at school. We first conducted a formative study by interviewing elementary school teachers to identify the design needs for digital privacy and security lessons. We then developed micro-lessons -- multiple 15-20 minute activities designed to be easily inserted into the existing curriculum -- using a co-design approach with multiple rounds of developing and revising the micro-lessons in collaboration with teachers. Throughout the process, we conducted evaluation sessions where teachers implemented or reviewed the micro-lessons. Our study identifies strengths, challenges, and teachers' tailoring strategies when incorporating micro-lessons for K--8 digital privacy and security topics, providing design implications for facilitating learning about these topics in school classrooms.

Figures (6)

• Figure 1: Study procedure of micro-lessons design and evaluation
• Figure 2: Photos of the co-design session held in S2.
• Figure 3: Structural components of our micro-lessons.
• Figure 4: A work-in-progress design of study module 3 (Digital Privacy) when developing initial micro-lessons.
• Figure 5: Final lesson plan design for lesson 1 (day 1) in module 1: Digital Citizenship.