Rholl Drew A, Cheeptham Naowarat, Lal Archana, Kleinschmit Adam J, Parks Samantha T, Mestrovic Tomislav
Department of Biology, North Park University, Chicago, Illinois, USA.
Department of Biological Sciences, Faculty of Science, Thompson Rivers University, Kamloops, British Columbia, Canada.
J Microbiol Biol Educ. 2023 Feb 22;24(1). doi: 10.1128/jmbe.00163-22. eCollection 2023 Apr.
Even before coverage and updates on COVID-19 became a daily event in mainstream news, mass media was already full of science-focused current events stories. While relevant to our everyday lives, many popular press science articles overstate conclusions, misstate details or, at worst, purposefully spread disinformation. This iterative news analysis and writing intervention was designed to increase the visibility of real-world applications of microbiology in current events (including and beyond the 2019 coronavirus disease [COVID-19] pandemic), thereby engaging students and cultivating motivation through a positive perception of course content in accordance with expectancy-value theory. This intervention can be scaled and has been successfully used in both large- and small-enrollment microbiology classes as an active learning strategy. Students engage in science literacy at multiple levels, starting with identifying credible sources, then summarizing news articles, relating them to course content, conveying the main ideas to lay audiences, identifying in turn misleading or omitted ideas, and finally writing potential exam questions on the topic. This multifaceted analysis allows students to interact with material at many different levels in a self-directed manner as students seek out and choose articles to share with their peers. To date, anecdotal evidence suggests positive gains in student interest and perceived value of studying science.
甚至在新冠疫情的报道和更新成为主流新闻的日常内容之前，大众媒体就已经充斥着以科学为焦点的时事报道。尽管这些报道与我们的日常生活相关，但许多大众媒体的科学文章夸大结论、错误陈述细节，或者最糟糕的是，故意传播虚假信息。这种迭代式的新闻分析与写作干预旨在提高微生物学在时事（包括2019冠状病毒病[COVID-19]大流行期间及之后）中的实际应用的可见性，从而根据期望价值理论，通过让学生对课程内容产生积极的认知来吸引学生并培养他们的学习动机。这种干预可以扩大规模，并且已作为一种主动学习策略成功应用于大班和小班教学的微生物学课程中。学生在多个层面上参与科学素养的培养，首先是识别可靠的信息来源，然后总结新闻文章，将它们与课程内容联系起来，向普通受众传达主要观点，接着识别误导性或被遗漏的观点，最后就该主题编写潜在的考试问题。这种多方面的分析使学生能够以自我指导的方式在许多不同层面与材料进行互动，因为学生们会寻找并选择文章与同龄人分享。迄今为止，轶事证据表明学生对学习科学的兴趣和感知价值有了积极的提升。
