In fall 2015, the Science Literacy Teaching Journal Club focused on approaches for improving specific aspects of students’ science literacy. The topics we discussed, such as development of critical thinking, assessing reliability of sources, etc., are useful for all students.
Week 1
Reading:
Rowe, M. P., Gillespie, B. M., Harris, K. R., Koether, S. D., Shannon, L. J. Y., & Rose, L. A. (2015). Redesigning a General Education Science Course to Promote Critical Thinking. CBE-Life Sciences Education, 14(3). http://www.lifescied.org/content/14/3/ar30.full
Week 2
Reading:
This week we will focused on approaches for improving specific aspects of students’ science literacy. We continued our discussion of the paper from week 1, and also read the following two articles that describe the assessments from the Rowe et. al paper:
Read how the CAT assessment has been implemented: Stein, B., & Haynes, A. (2011). Engaging faculty in the assessment and improvement of students’ critical thinking using the critical thinking assessment test. Change: the magazine of higher learning, 43(2), 44-49. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00091383.2011.550254
Focus on the MATE questions in the appendix: Rutledge, M. L., & Sadler, K. C. (2007). Reliability of the Measure of Acceptance of the Theory of Evolution (MATE) instrument with university students. The American Biology Teacher, 69(6), 332-335. https://www.nabt.org/websites/institution/File/pdfs/american_biology_teacher/2007/069-06-0332.pdf
Week 3
Reading:
Flener-Lovitt, C. (2014). Using the Socioscientific Context of Climate Change To Teach Chemical Content and the Nature of Science. Journal of Chemical Education, 91(10), 1587-1593. http://pubs.acs.org/doi/ipdf/10.1021/ed4006985
Week 4
Reading:
Allchin, D. (2011). Evaluating knowledge of the nature of (whole) science.Science Education, 95(3), 518-542.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/sce.20432/full
Midterm Assessment of Teaching:
This was Week 4 of the term, and a great time to plan a midterm assessment of how things are going in your class. TEP recommends asking students two simple questions, and perhaps a few others to address issues specific to your course. Consider asking these questions with an online survey (e.g. through Canvas):
– What’s working well in the course and helping you learn?
– What constructive suggestions do you have for improving the course?
Once students have completed the survey, thank them and talk about the results in class, even if you won’t be implementing any of their suggestions! This makes the students realize that you actually care what they think (and predisposes them to evaluate you favorably in the future). The conversation also makes it more likely that you will follow through on any planned changes. For details on how to implement the survey in Canvas, please see the TEP website Midterm Feedback page.
Week 5
Reading:
Majetic, C. & Pellegrino, C. (2014). When science and information literacy meet: an approach to exploring the sources of science news with non-science majors.College Teaching, 62(3), 107-112. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080.
Week 6
Reading:
Brickman, P., Gormally, C., Francom, G., Jardeleza, S. E., Schutte, V. G., Jordan, C., & Kanizay, L. (2012). Media-Savvy Scientific Literacy: Developing Critical Evaluation Skills by Investigating Scientific Claims. The American Biology Teacher, 74(6), 374-379. http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1525/abt.2012.74.6.4
Week 7
Reading:
Spillane, N.K. (2013). What’s Copenhagen Got To Do With Chemistry? Using a Play to Teach the History and Practice of Science. Journal of Chemical Education, 90(2), 219-223. http://pubs.acs.org/doi/ipdf/
Watch this trailer of the play Copenhagen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Week 8
Reading:
Walton, K. L. (2014). Using a Popular Science Nonfiction Book to Introduce Biomedical Research Ethics in a Biology Majors Course. Journal of microbiology & biology education, 15(2), 240.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4278488/
Smith, K. C. (2014). Ethics Is Not Rocket Science: How to Have Ethical Discussions in Your Science Class. Journal of microbiology & biology education, 15(2), 202. http://jmbe.asm.org/index.php/jmbe/article/view/784/pdf_140
Week 9
No meeting due to the Thanksgiving holiday.
Week 10
Reading:
This week we wrapped up by reading about student evaluations:
Shadow, L. and M. Weimer. 2015. A new twist on end-of-semester evaluations. Faculty Focus Blog. 23 November 2015. http://www.facultyfocus.
Weimer, M. 2012. End-of-course evaluations: making sense of student comments. Faculty Focus Blog. 28 November 2012.http://www.facultyfocus.
Berrett, D. 2015. Can student course evaluations be redeemed? Chronicle of Higher Education. http://chronicle.com/article/Can-the-Student-Course/234369