Mentored Teaching Project
I strongly believe that being able to effectively communicate science is an extremely important skill undergraduate students must learn. Often, we hear brilliant scientists give less-than-stellar seminars because they simply can't communicate their research to a diverse audience. To combat this, I created an assignment where students had to communicate science to a different audience than their usual professor. The idea behind this was that students would have to learn to paraphrase empirical research and who have to "translate" science from standard scientific jargon into layman's terms. My hypothesis is that students in the group that wrote their assignment in the form of a newspaper article will better comprehend the content in the journal articles and the course material related to those journal articles compared to the students who wrote their assignments with the professor as the audience (as measured by an 8-question ungraded multiple choice assessment).
Students from PSY 409 (Developmental Psychobiology) were randomly assigned to one of the following groups by the professor:
Here is your assignment for this week:
Objective: The students will be able to relate and explain what is presented in class and journal articles to a specific audience.
Task: Write a short commentary about 2 of the 3 assigned scientific articles as you normally would. The third commentary (on whichever of the assigned articles you choose) should be written as if you are writing it for New York Times readers and should be 300 words or fewer. Be creative and include a headline for your article. As usual, all three writing assignments will be handed in at the beginning of that discussion day. The commentary should be thorough and written in a tone appropriate for the given audience (New York Times reader or Professor Lonstein). In your New York Times article, be sure to include brief background, the methods they used, any caveats, and a clear take-home message. You may want to read this article on prescription drug use in pregnant women for an example of newspaper article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/01/health/research/prescription-drug-abuse-soars-among-pregnant-women.html If you have questions, please email Dr. Ragan.
Here is your assignment for this week:
Objective: The students will be able to relate and explain what is presented in class and journal articles to a specific audience.
Task: Write a short commentary about the 3 assigned scientific articles as you normally would with your audience being Professor Lonstein. As usual, all three writing assignments will be handed in at the beginning of that discussion day. The commentary should be substantive and give your thoughts about the specific topic the authors studied, the theories they suggest, the methods they used, and/or something you would have liked the authors to have explained better. You may want to read this article on prescription drug use in pregnant women: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/01/health/research/prescription-drug-abuse-soars-among-pregnant-women.html If you have questions, please email Dr. Ragan.
Assessment for Mentored Teaching Project
I gave the students the same ungraded assessment twice in the form of multiple choice and true/false questions (see below). The first time the students took the quiz was 2 days after the lecture material was presented before they discussed the writing assignment material. The follow-up assessment was 2 weeks later.
Students from PSY 409 (Developmental Psychobiology) were randomly assigned to one of the following groups by the professor:
Here is your assignment for this week:
Objective: The students will be able to relate and explain what is presented in class and journal articles to a specific audience.
Task: Write a short commentary about 2 of the 3 assigned scientific articles as you normally would. The third commentary (on whichever of the assigned articles you choose) should be written as if you are writing it for New York Times readers and should be 300 words or fewer. Be creative and include a headline for your article. As usual, all three writing assignments will be handed in at the beginning of that discussion day. The commentary should be thorough and written in a tone appropriate for the given audience (New York Times reader or Professor Lonstein). In your New York Times article, be sure to include brief background, the methods they used, any caveats, and a clear take-home message. You may want to read this article on prescription drug use in pregnant women for an example of newspaper article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/01/health/research/prescription-drug-abuse-soars-among-pregnant-women.html If you have questions, please email Dr. Ragan.
Here is your assignment for this week:
Objective: The students will be able to relate and explain what is presented in class and journal articles to a specific audience.
Task: Write a short commentary about the 3 assigned scientific articles as you normally would with your audience being Professor Lonstein. As usual, all three writing assignments will be handed in at the beginning of that discussion day. The commentary should be substantive and give your thoughts about the specific topic the authors studied, the theories they suggest, the methods they used, and/or something you would have liked the authors to have explained better. You may want to read this article on prescription drug use in pregnant women: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/01/health/research/prescription-drug-abuse-soars-among-pregnant-women.html If you have questions, please email Dr. Ragan.
Assessment for Mentored Teaching Project
I gave the students the same ungraded assessment twice in the form of multiple choice and true/false questions (see below). The first time the students took the quiz was 2 days after the lecture material was presented before they discussed the writing assignment material. The follow-up assessment was 2 weeks later.