12.2 Grill the Guest
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Learning Goals
After this lesson, students should
- Be able to critically examine a piece of contemporary research and pose meaningful questions to gauge the validity and limitations of its results.
- Be able to flexibly invoke and synthesize course concepts in a real world dialogue on science and society.
Context
This is the first of several lessons involving guests. We typically invite a social scientist to share a recent published study of theirs, to be read by students ahead of time and discussed in groups during section. Questions and comments generated during the section will then be collected, a few of which will be posed to the guest during the live plenary. Students are encouraged to base their questions on particular course concepts introduced thus far.
| We have a different guest and paper every year. So, the substance of this lesson can change quite substantially. |
| Blind analysis is a common and easy topic to criticize on, however the students should be reminded that it is not yet widespread in many fields of science, and perfectly valid scientific results can still be obtained without it. |
Recommended Outline
Before Class
- Invite a guest speaker at least one month in advance, consulting the whole teaching staff for ideas.
- Send the article by the guest to students several days in advance and remind them to read it before the discussion section. A briefly annotated version should be made to make it easier for students to skim it and pick out the important information.
- Prepare a seating chart.
- Review PlayPosit and discussion questions and ask faculty, Gabriel, or Emlen any questions you have.
- (Optional) Prepare a presentation.
During Class
- (5 min) Come up with some fun way to assign the roles of spokesperson and notetaker (e.g. earliest birthday in the year, lives furthest from campus). Remind them of the responsibilities of these roles.
- ([#] min) [Description of some module from #Lesson Content]
- (5 min) Collect questions for plenary.
After Class
- Pose any remaining questions to the guest in writing and send a thank you email.
- Collect answers from notetakers for the forum / plenary.
Lesson Content
Discussion Round 1
Not every student may have read or fully understood the paper. So, the first discussion should help ensure that everyone walks away with its main questions, methods, and ideas.
Instructions
In small groups, the students spend 15 minutes discussing all of the following questions and reaching a consensus on them. Then, regroup as a whole class and go through all the questions again.
Questions
- What was the research question of this paper?
- What was the hypotheses of this paper? What was at least one competing (alternative) hypotheses?
- What type of experiment(s)/study did this paper examine?
- What was the central finding of this paper? What were the sources of evidence to support the conclusion in this paper?
- On a scale of one to ten, how strong do you think the central conclusion in this paper was supported? Did you find any weaknesses or concerns about this paper?
- What aspects of this paper did you find particular important or exciting?
- How do you feel the findings of this paper could impact public policy decisions or communications with the public?
Most papers we consider have potential public policy implications. If, for some reason, the paper doesn't, then this question can be ignored.
Discussion Round 2
The second discussion is for the students to develop questions to ask the speaker.
Preparation
Assign numbers to each of the small groups. Generally, each group will be assigned two course concepts. Make sure that the groups and concepts are divided up so that each concept from the list is represented.
Instructions
- (n min) Split the students into six small groups and provide them with their concepts. The students need to think about/discuss how this course concept may or may not have been incorporated into the paper and its content.
- (n min) The students then need to draft a question asking about the incorporation (or lack thereof) for each of their course concepts.
If it is difficult to relate to the concept, encourage the students to try to come up with a hypothetical situation where a concept could have related to the study. They can ask about whether such hypothetical scenarios have come up. - (n min) Each group selects a spokesperson to submit their questions to a [google form].