Building a Partnership with a Campus Communication Center

Abstract

Although abundant evidence in STEM education literature emphasizes the incorporation of both primary literature analysis and communication of science into the undergraduate classroom, biology educators are rarely given the necessary support to teach students how to present scientific data from primary literature. Consequently, students often receive limited training in this valuable skill. We report on a collaboration between a biosciences instructor and communication center director who together designed a workshop to teach undergraduate students in a laboratory course to present material from primary literature sources. The workshop taught content selection, slide design, and oral delivery skills using authentic, content-based materials and student models. Following the introduction of this workshop into the course, student performance on the presentations, including their apparent understanding of scientific concepts, improved noticeably. Establishing partnerships such as this one can improve the efforts of biology educators to teach effective science communication to our students.

Analysis of Inclusivity of Published Science Communication Curricula for Scientists and STEM Students

“…We found n = 81 published science communication trainings that met our data set requirements. The trainings represented n = 33 programs primarily targeted toward undergraduate students ( Squier et al ., 2006 ; Watson and Lom, 2008 ; Walton and Baker, 2009 ; Halverson and Tran, 2010 ; Cronje et al ., 2011 ; Brownell et al ., 2013a ; Lemus et al ., 2014 ; Goldina and Weeks, 2014 ; Whittington et al ., 2014 ; Train and Miyamoto, 2017 ; Alder, 2018 ; Aune et al ., 2018 ; Beason-Abmayr and Wilson, 2018 ; Begley, 2018 ; Clement et al ., 2018 ; Grzyb et al ., 2018 ; Kimber et al ., 2018 ; Lancor and Schiebel, 2018 ; Lopes et al ., 2018 ; Mayfield et al ., 2018 ; Mehltretter Drury et al ., 2018 ; Petzold and Dunbar, 2018 ; Pruneski, 2018 ; Rauschenbach et al ., 2018 ; Schwingel, 2018 ; Kothari et al ., 2019 ; Vollbrecht et al ., 2019 ; Hoover et al ., 2020 ; Métris, 2020 ; Garza et al ., 2021 ; Kelp and Hubbard, 2021 ; Wack et al ., 2021 ; Wrighting et al ., 2021 ), n = 34 programs primarily targeted toward graduate students ( Trumbull, 2002 ; Stamp and O’Brien, 2005 ; Laursen et al ., 2007 ; Trautmann and Krasny, 2009 ; Crone et al ., 2011 ; McBride et al ., 2011 ; Webb et al ., 2012 ; Bishop et al ., 2014 ; Goodwin et al ., 2014 ; Kohler et al ., 2014 ; Kuehne et al ., 2014 ; Neeley...…”