Improving Online Communication Through Analysis of Observation and Interpretation in A Geology Class (2024)

If I have a discussion board (DB) in my courses I use guidelines similar to the ones provided in this module taken from http://www.difficultdialogues.org/Links to an external site.. I am always impressed by how rarely I run into student’s behaving badly online even when we are talking about divisive subjects such as evolution. Specifically for the Geology course I use the following exercise as part of our first lab to start thinking about the process of science and how humans (and bias) are a part of the process. I adapted this from an OER resource (https://oercommons.s3.amazonaws.com/media/courseware/relatedresource/file/Introduction_Lab_636zHD1.pdfLinks to an external site.). One part that I cut from the original assignment was an exercise to make observations and deduce if a cartoon was depicting a murder or a suicide. I know many people are into detective shows and that this was probably seen as a “hook” to get students interested but I thought it might be too triggering for our first week working together. I’m curious how other people feel about that.

-Excerpts from the two relevant sections of the lab are below (full lab is attached). The first asks students to make observations and then “interpret” what they have observed. At the end of the lab I ask how their own personal biases influenced the interoperations that they came up with. The second section has them look at Venmo receipts and put together a timeline and again “interpret” what happened. It is a little silly since there would not be Venmo statements – we all had a chuckle about how this was set up but then they really got invested in deciding what most likely happened. When the groups shared their views with the class I was able to tie this to how different research groups might come together to discuss findings at a conference and have to defend their positions. It worked really well. I will be tweaking it a bit so that it isn’t about Venmo receipts, but the general process was an excellent exercise for communication and bias in science.

Part 2: Observations and interpretations/evaluations:

1. Write your observations of what you see in the picture. Use each observation to start explaining what could be happening in the photo.

2. Based on your observations and interpretation, what do you propose is going on in the picture?

3. Make a minimum of three observations for each image. Use your observations to write a short explanation/interpretation of how the feature was formed.

Image 1                                                                        Image 2

Part II. Venmo activity – Simulating the endeavor of science.

1. Using the information on the statements, determine the circumstances that surrounded the writing of the bank statements and come up with a storyline for the characters based on the information on the statements. Formulate a tentative explanation for the statements or a “storyline” that fits the statements. Write down your explanation.
2. They are given more statements. How does this new information affect your previous storyline? Formulate a new storyline that takes the new Venmo statements into account. Write down your explanation.
3.  They are given more statements. How does this new information affect your previous storyline? Formulate a new storyline that takes the new Venmo statements into account. Write down your explanation.
4. Select a group spokesperson to report the group-selected explanation (storyline) to the class, so that all may hear different conclusions from similar data.
5. Even if scientists have a strong explanation of a natural phenomenon, they can never be absolutely sure that new data won’t eventually appear and show the explanation to be wrong. What bits of information on the Venmo statements were most useful to your group in formulating a tentative explanation?
6. What information was not useful to your group in formulating a tentative explanation?
7. Why do we say that an explanation in science is “tentative” (this is also known as a hypothesis)?
8. How do your own personal preconceived opinions or biases influence how you interpret your observations?