STEM First! Gen. discussion

Hey all:

So, the poll results show that we're interested in the article Bridging Science Education and Science Communication Research. I'm particularly excited about this because SciEd and SciComm seem so similar.
We'll focus on this read until the end of this month, if not earlier. If you have any book recommendations, post in the suggestions or feel free to create a poll.

The editorial: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/p...

Yay! I'll read it all as soon as possible, it looks like a very interesting article!

Same! Will read it this weekend and let you know how it went!

Hey guys! Ellison came up with a wonderful idea: https://make-lemon-cake.medium.com/it...

We could write our impressions and post to the publication at the end of the month! What ya think?

So I'm on page three right now. What I'm gathering is that SciEd is mostly focused on teaching scientific knowledge based on a curriculum, but SciComm is about getting people more interested in STEM.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." ~Mark Twain
The SciComm discussed here is about public engagement, if I'm not mistaken. I'd predict that the article is going to talk about how science educators can use science communication to make their classes/lectures more interesting for their students.

I read the article yesterday. Here are my thoughts:

1) It's been a *long* time since I needed to read a full journal article front to back. This reinforced that journal articles never have been, and never will be, an engaging format for me. (And that's really unfortunate for an article about science communication!)

2) As someone who considers myself a science communicator, it's always felt like a science educator was something different...mainly because science educators often focus on kids, and my target audience is almost always adults. So, I appreciate having the chance to stop and consider the similarities and what each "field" can contribute to the other.

3) I'm a developmental psychologist by training, so the idea of culture shaping interpretation/application of science wasn't surprising to me, but it was really interesting to consider the ways that science has shaped society (pg 138).

4) The ideas of science literacy requiring collaboration (Paper 1) and "soft skills" being super important for science literacy (Paper 2) really resonated with me. I think this is one reason why throwing facts at (for example) anti-vaxers isn't super effective in changing their behavior, but conversations with their doctor seem to be helping.

5) The findings in Paper 3 (that most scientists see value in scientific dialogue but aren't actually willing to do it) weren't surprising to me. I faced this when I was trying to promote effective communication as a scientist at a research organization, and I see it now as a scicomm business owner. I think one of the big causes of this is that science, as a profession, doesn't typically value or reward effective scicomm. The main career currency is publications and funding, and you get the same line on your CV regardless of whether your article was interesting or tragically boring. Also, by the time you're ready to communicate your research findings, you're probably also seeking funding for the next study, so scicomm gets short shrift. One marketing strategy that seems to be gaining traction for me in my business is to frame myself as someone who can take most scicomm work off a researcher's plate so that they can focus on the research tasks that only they can do (or want to do).

6) A few points in this article reminded me of recent talks I've attended:

6a) I recently attended this webinar (https://scienceandsociety.duke.edu/ev...) by Jean Goodwin, through Duke University's Science & Society initiative. She talked about science literacy being a requirement of modern responsible citizenship. I hadn't thought of it that was before, but I completely agree!

6b) This week, I attended a webinar on empathy in scicomm (https://lifeology.io/scicomm/events-w...) by Reyhaneh Maktoufi, through Lifeology. She talked about the importance of science communicators garnering the trust of their audience. She also talked about dialogue with the audience as being one component of earning trust.

Good article pick, Monique! I'm interested to hear others' thoughts!

Lori

Hey Lori:

Thanks for sharing your thoughts; they were very insightful!
I agree that throwing facts at the public isn't very effective. Audiences are much more receptive of things when we communicate one-on-one, human-to-human, showing that we care.
Interesting what you said on point #5, "The main career currency is publications and funding, and you get the same line on your CV regardless of whether your article was interesting or tragically boring." Seems like the funding crisis almost always pops up 😖

~MB

Hey guys! I think we picked a good one for our first read, this was quite interesting, and it definitely gives us a lot to talk about! Here are my impressions.
Now, I am a college student and am thus quite used to regularly consuming academic literature, so my reading palate, so to speak, has adapted to journal articles, but I do agree with Lori that this article is probably not optimally accessible to the general public. This is mostly because of its length and tone; I do think it is great that this article was written mostly free of any niche jargon, because I, myself a newcomer to this topic, was able to read and comprehend it without trouble.
I recall reading sometime last year (in a very interesting book) that educators in general often seem to have the wrong idea of the point of education. Take, since it is most relevant here, science educators; certainly they should desire to give students a solid knowledge base in science, but the point of the class is not for students to remember that the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell - the point should be to introduce students to science in such a way that they are interested in and open to the subject after they leave the classroom, and feeding this interest is where science communication comes in.
This is what came to mind when I was reading the article, because it made me think about how intense efforts to educate students may result in them becoming closed off to further interaction with the subject, which would make the job of the science communicator very difficult, since they are then working with an uncooperative public. I would imagine that perhaps the mismatch between SciComm and SciEd could be smoothed over some with proper acknowledgement of what scientific literacy really is: an understanding of scientific methods, an appropriate knowledge base in scientific topics, and plenty of carefully fostered curiosity.
Once again, I am a newbie to these subjects, but this article reminded me of something I'd already read and I thought I would make note of that connection here! If anyone is interested, the book in question is called "The Death of Expertise: the Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why It Matters." As one can probably infer, it is not the cheeriest of reading material, but it certainly is intriguing!

Hey Ellison!

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this read!
It's true that a greater understanding of what science literacy actually is would better mend SciEd and SciComm together. The purpose of education should be to spark interest in students, not to force them into rote learning.

Also, I'd have to check out The Death Of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters. Sounds like it has some great insight!

~MB \(^^)/

Monique wrote: "Hey Ellison!

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this read!
It's true that a greater understanding of what science literacy actually is would better mend SciEd and SciComm together. The purpose o..."

Hey Monique!

I think it is worth pointing out that science education often seems focused on the exact opposite of sparking interest. In college especially, professors seem to be in contest with one another to see who can assign the most homework, which leads to any one class requiring a 40 hour workweek on its own (no lie: I actually do have a class where the total time spend on classes, studying, homework, and tutoring is recommended to come to about 40 hours each week). This doesn't encourage student engagement or spark interest in science! It smothers them in homework and effectively kills any curious instinct they might previously have been harboring. The focus has to be on real learning and exploratory experiences.

As for the Death of Expertise, I hadn't thought about it in months until I started reading this article and only vaguely remember most of it apart from the general dark tone. The passage in question sprang to mind and I just thought "I'm not such a newbie to SciComm after all! Look at me!"

Hiya Ellison! Sorry for the late reply :q

I refuse to belive this harsh reality, but I must. My mom's studying in a program for educators, so I hear a lot about creating "positive learning environments" and encouraging experiential learning instead of rote learning, etc.. However it seems like it's difficult to practice these issues they discuss and loathe so much. The education system is a workload to deal with, I tell ya. (>_<)

See, we're learning as we read! SciComm seems to be pretty familiar concept even though the name isn't something we bring up all the time. I too felt new to it, then I realized, "Hey, the ideas here aren't really tricky" XD