Post-Observation Reflection, Science One Program, University of British Columbia

Topics: Diversity in Science (2/4/21), Impact in Science (3/30/21), Ethics in Science (4/13/21)

My program mentor Nolan Bett teaches Scientific Thinking and Literacy (STL) lessons for UBC’s Science One program. Science One is an integrated first year program encompassing a full course load of math, biology, physics, and chemistry that students take as a cohort. The STL component of the program is a more general look at scientific thinking and practice. I observed Nolan teach three STL lessons about diversity, impact, and ethics in science.

The lesson on diversity was focused on disciplinary practitioners in academia. Nolan started the lesson with an activity asking students to annotate a slide by writing two of their favorite scientists, before having them cross out any white males. He followed up this exposure of the traditional lack of diversity among prominent scientists by showing a photo of Marie Curie in a group of all males. The bulk of the lecture covered various interesting findings detailing aspects of diversity in science. Some examples of these include that diversity in co-authorship is less than expected by chance, ethnic diversity increased the level of impact (times cited) of published research, careers of women are shorter on average and they are more likely to drop out of research, studies with more female authors have a higher likelihood of including sex/gender related analyses, and there is a gender bias in study participation in neuroscience and biomedical research – a large bias toward males except for studies of reproduction. The takeaway for the lesson was that diversity is a positive thing in scientific research. Also, it may not be apparent in Science One because it is so diverse, but there is a legacy of a lack of diversity in the field to be aware of.

The lesson on impact explored the questions of how scientists choose research to cite, and how the media chooses what to report on. Nolan made the point that much of the research that makes the news as exciting may be cutting-edge and not well established, and there are many instances of these findings not holding up over time. He highlighted that scientists themselves often play a role in contacting media with a press release to stimulate coverage, and that topics that people easily relate to get the most coverage. He showed that articles with media coverage get cited more and posed the question of whether this is simply more impactful research, or whether scientists are influenced by the media in choosing what to cite. To answer this, he used a fascinating study making use of a publishing strike by the New York Times to compare citations for articles they covered and published versus those that they wrote about but were never published due to the strike. It was found that citations were significantly higher for the papers that had coverage published.

The lesson on ethics tacked the topic of questionable research practices in science. Nolan started by posing two difficult scenarios and asked the students to offer their opinions in the chat before discussing them. Then he surveyed the class as to what might be examples of questionable research practices and what percentage of scientists they think have engaged in questionable research practices. The content of the lesson included a study on the prevalence of these questionable practices, information about retractions and context for their numerical (but not proportional) increase over time, and some high profile cases of fraudulent science. This was the final STL lesson of the program, so Nolan concluded with overall takeaways emphasizing the iterative nature of science, the potential influences on what we study and what we find, and the importance of critical thinking.

I really enjoyed observing these lessons and they were valuable for me in a few ways. One is a better understanding of the roles these topics play in influencing practitioner behavior and in shaping the discipline. Another is gaining insight into the workings of an introductory science course, because my university level teaching has all been at the 400 level. Fortunately I had the chance to discuss each lesson with Nolan in pre- and post-observation meetings that we dovetailed with discussions of my lessons, so it was also helpful for me to be privy to his objectives for the learners and his mindset before and after teaching.

I thought each lesson was well designed to immediately get students reflecting and participating by illustrating something jarring, posing difficult scenarios, or asking interesting questions.  This was followed by a great balance of case studies from the literature. Nolan did a great job connecting the theories and general topics to a variety of real-world findings by incorporating several of these interesting case studies. Each one was broken down at a comfortable pace while responding to the high volume of engaged students’ comments in the chat. At the end, sufficient time was provided for general discussion of the subject and its takeaways.

I am interested in “stealing” these topics if I get the chance to teach introductory biology. I think it is really helpful to incorporate general scientific thinking and literacy into the curriculum to complement traditional content. I would also likely use some of the opening participatory activities that Nolan used as I thought they were very effective. These STL lessons and the ones in CATL have shown me the importance of making students aware of difficult subjects in the discipline. Not telling them how they need to approach them, but making them aware of the issues and encouraging reflection moving forward.