Story telling in STEM poster

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TEACHING STRATEGIES IN THE SCIENCES:
THE ANCIENT ART OF STORY TELLING
Karobi Moitra, PhD
Department of Biology, Trinity Washington University, College Of Arts And Sciences, 125 Michigan Avenue NE, Washington DC 20017. Email: MoitraK@trinitydc.edu
THE ANCIENT ART
OF STORY TELLING
RESEARCH METHODS
1. Students were administered pre course and post course tests
consisting of 10 questions, the results were graphed in MS excel
and 2-tailed paired t-tests were carried out to assess if students
improved their results on the test post course.
2. A survey was administered to the students post-course
to determine the influence of the story-telling pedagogy
employed in the course.
3. Student surveys were conducted using the standard Trinity
course evaluation online survey - specifically student
comments about the course were pooled.
4. Research papers were consulted to research background
information.
STORY TELLING IN AN
INTRODUCTORY GENETICS
CLASSROOM
THE RECIPE FOR
AN EFFECTIVE STORY
RESULTS
ASSESSMENT DATA
CONCLUSIONS &
DISCUSSION
LECTURES MODIFIED
FOR
STORY-TELLING!
RESULTS
.
Stories are
effective
educational
tools
because
listeners
become
engaged
and
remember
the story
Find a
good story to tell
Build the
framework for your
story
Add the
educational content
Finally put it all
together
Storytelling predates writing. The earliest forms of
storytelling were primarily oral combined with
gestures and expressions.
The Australian aboriginal people painted symbols from stories
on cave walls to help the story-teller remember the story.
With the advent of writing and the arrival of portable media,
stories were transcribed and shared all over the world.
Homer the great Greek poet was a storyteller who lived around
850 BC. The Iliad of Homer is the oldest work of western
literature.
I This class was definitely worth taking.
I like how she kept the class an interesting learning experience overall.
This class was a class worth-taking she is an awesome teacher.
Really enjoyed the class this semester.
STUDENT COMMENTS
Graph 1. Pre and Post-Course Assessment Data for Introductory Genetics, BIOL 241 [Fall 2012/2013 compiled]
The students were given 2 assessments, one at the start of the course and the same one at the end of the
course. The assessment contained 10 questions and the time given to complete the assessment was 20
minutes. Graph 1 shown was plotted in MS-Excel and shows the percentage of correct answers per question,
before and after the course was taken [n1= 20, n 2=17].
[BIOL 241-Fall 2012 & Fall 2013 data compiled].
! Story-telling engages students and as a result they
are able to learn better
! The story-telling technique lends itself very well to
the unique Trinity demographic
! Students enjoy this technique of teaching
! Student evaluation data shows significant gains
in knowledge over the semester
I have demonstrated in this pilot study that story telling in the Genetics classroom
engaged at-risk students and motivated them to do well on subsequent tests. This
method of teaching can be introduced into science pedagogy to motivate and
engage students. In the future, I will conduct more in-depth surveys to address
more specific questions to improve this kind of pedagogy.
References: 1. Cajete, G, Eder D, and Holyan R. Life Lessons through Storytelling: Children's Exploration of
Ethics. Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2010. 2. Wells, S. The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey.
Princeton University Press, 2002.
INTRODUCTION
THE TRINITY STORY
Story telling is an ancient art which originated long before the
written word. Stories can be leveraged as effective educational
tools because they engage the students and enable them to
easily recall facts from the story. The course Genetics 241
(Introductory Genetics) was designed keeping this in mind. The
student learning assessments show that this choice of
pedagogy proved to be an effective teaching method.
! To determine if story-telling is an effective tool in teaching an
undergraduate Genetics course
! To assess student learning outcomes pre and post course
! To evaluate if this mode of pedagogy is suited to the unique
Trinity demographic and if the students were engaged during
the course and enjoyed this type of pedagogy
AIMS & OBJECTIVES
ABSTRACT
Trinity students are usually the first generation in their family to
go to college. The Trinity mission - teaching women who have
limited access to education has allowed us to remain a traditional
women s college. Accordingly we have created a science
curriculum to maintain rigor and high expectations while
delivering courses to students that are under represented and
under prepared.
We have focused on pedagogy rather than
distilling course content
Graph 3. Post-Course (Story Telling) Survey Data for Introductory Genetics, BIOL 241, Fall 2013. The
students took the survey before final exams. Graph 2 was plotted in MS-Excel and shows the number of
students responding to each statement [n= 9].
0.0
10.0
20.0
30.0
40.0
50.0
60.0
70.0
80.0
90.0
100.0
Pre-Test Post-Test
AssignmentScores(percent
correct)
Graph 2. Box ad Whisker Plot of pre and post
test scores demonstrating gain in knowledge.
The distribution of scores are plotted above.
The black boxes make up the middle half of all
scores (the second and third quartiles) with the
median score dividing the two middle quartiles.
The whiskers represent the range of the upper
and lower 25% of all scores. The average
scores are indicated with red circles.
Change in ability observed:
The difference between the pre-test and post-
test scores (47.6%) was statistically significant
using a two-tailed paired t-test: t(16), p < 0.001.
The magnitude of this difference has a very
large effect size (Cohen's d = 3.36). The class
did much better on the post-test than they did
on the pre-test. There has been a tremendous
gain in knowledge over the semester.
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Q1#STATE#
MENDEL’S#LAW#OF#
SEGREGATION.#
Q2##NAME#THE#4#
BASES#FOUND#IN#
DNA.#
Q3#NAME#THE#
TYPE#OF#BOND#
THAT#HOLDS#THE#2#
STRANDS#OF#DNA#
TOGETHER.#
Q4#WHAT#IS#THE#
‘BACKBONE’#OF#
DNA#COMPOSED#
OF?#
Q5#WRITE#DOWN#
THE#
COMPLEMENTARY#
STRAND#
Q6#WHAT#IS#THE#
CENTRAL#DOGMA#
OF#MOL#BIOL#
Q7#WHAT#IS#
MEANT#BY#
TRANSCRIPTION?##
Q8#WHAT#IS#AN#
ALLELE?#
Q9##WHAT#IS#
MEANT#BY#A#
KARYOTYPE?#
Q10#DEFINE#THE#
TERM#MUTATION.#
Percentage#of#Correct#Responses#
Assessment#QuesSons#
Compiled#GeneScs#Assessment#Data#Fall#2012,#Fall#2013##
Pre/Course"Assessment"%"
Post/Course"Assessment"%"