Science Learning & Engagement
Learning & Engagement —Show Notes
The Science of SciComm Club is a place dedicated to all things science communication! This space aims to bring academics, scientists, educators, and STEM enthusiasts together to exchange ideas, tips, and tricks on best science communication practices and theories.
This week’s guest is Sarah White—a Ph.D. student researching teaching and learning, a science communicator who develops curricula centered around Disney
In this episode we talked about:
What led Sarah to pursue her Ph.D. in Teaching & Learning
How Sarah started her SciComm project, The Ph.D. Princess
Check out STEM Advocacy Institute
Creating engaging content the combines pop culture & science
Sarah’s personal connection to Disney & its influence on her SciComm work
Disney’s storytelling in comparison to SciComm storytelling
Is there a relationship between STEM identity and our Pop Culture identity?
How has distance learning changed the teaching and learning landscape
Audience questions:
How Sarah sought feedback on the lessons she developed
How does the panel define identity?
Transcript
Stephanie Castillo
Welcome to the scientists, I thought when I hand it over to our, our host today, which is going to be Amanda Coletti. And allow her to introduce us to our guest for today. But thank you all for being here. And excited for today.Amanda Coletti
Yeah, hi, everyone. My name is Amanda Coletti. Thank you all for tuning in. Today, we're going to have a really fun conversation with Sarah White. A little bit about me before we jump in and introduce Sarah. But I am a third-year PhD student studying science communication. And me and Stephanie had this idea to create some sort of space where we can talk about the science of science, communication, theory and practice and all of these great things about science communication that we all love. And recently, we decided to delve into clubhouse and create this space here as a great place to have these conversations.So I'm excited to host my first conversation with Sarah today. Sarah, the first time actually that I found Sarah online actually was when I was preparing an application for the stem advocacy Institute to join one of their fellow fellowships. And I found Sarah on a previous cohort. And I was skimming through all of the previous like presentations from the previous year. And I saw this one project called a PC princess. And I was like, this one's gonna be good. And so I, I saw Sara's presentation there, and follow her on social media. And she has all these really interesting aspects of talk about of engaging your audience with elements of pop culture, Disney specifically. So I'm really excited to have this conversation and welcome, Sarah.
Sarah White
Thanks so much, Amanda. Yeah, SAI was a fun time. And I'm happy to chat more about it. But yeah, Hi, everyone. I can launch into introducing myself a little bit, what I'm doing so I'm Sarah, I use she/her pronouns. I am a PhD candidate at Northwestern University, and I study learning sciences, or actually the study of learning in all aspects, which I think translates really nicely to science communication, but I didn't know that when I started the program. And I launched the PhD princess during my PhD program. And I can talk a little bit more about the story about that. But I try and teach science and the science of learning and teaching to Disney fans of all ages, whether they're kids really interested in learning, or the parents and educators trying to teach them.Amanda
Awesome. I think one thing I wanted to first ask was to tell us a little bit about your story, where you're from, and how you got to be where you are and how you found learning science as something that you wanted to study for your PhD?Sarah
Oh, okay, that's gonna go back farther than I expected. But yeah, that's a good question. So I always loved learning. And I was like, the super nerdy, like, Teacher's pet in school. And I always thought school was really easy. But I realized, like in high school, that that wasn't the case for everyone. And I did a project on teacher tenure and the process of like K through 12 teachers, getting tenure and being able to like never lose their jobs. And like whether that was actually a good idea. So I decided to learn more about education and just the science of learning. In my undergraduate, I went to UCLA and did a cognitive science major, which was much more about the mental aspects of learning and memory. And through that process, it's great. I loved the program. But it was very abstract and lab based and very psych psychology, like lab experiment based. And I wasn't super satisfied with that.I love doing research, I researched language acquisition, and memory and a whole bunch of different things, had some really great research opportunities there and also did a internship at an edtech company that no longer exists, it was a startup, but I think it kind of catapulted me into a direction that got me to where I am today. And really shaped the research that I'm doing right now in my Ph. D program, because I was reviewing like educational games, and apps and all of that and seeing what actually works, what's actually based on research that we know about how learning and teaching works, and a lot of it wasn't but my job was to kind of come up with lesson plans to use these apps and games, no matter how good they were. And that was really frustrating, but I was also very confused of like why are you trusting me as a college student has never been a teacher to do this kind of evaluation. That was a great learning experience. I didn't think much of it at the time. Then the next summer I was a teacher, I did a teaching fellowship called the breakthrough collaborative. And I taught science for 10 weeks to rising seventh graders up in the bay area where I'm from. And I found that teaching was a very, let's say, emotional and empathy heavy process. It didn't use the skills that I wanted to use all of the time. It was so draining, I was coming up with lesson plans on my own, like waking up at 4am in the morning, driving an hour and a half to the school that I was working at, and an hour and a half back. So it was just a really exhausting summer. I loved the relationships I built with students.
But I was alone in a classroom every day coming up with stuff, and didn't feel like I had any real training, we had like maybe a week of, hey, here's what teaching is, and some guidelines of what you should do. And even just for that summer, I was teaching to a test, and didn't love that, like it was all about, Oh, okay. All the students took this pretest. And we want their scores to go up by the end of the summer, so we can show like funders that we're a good program, and we deserve more money. So that further confirmed Okay, teaching is not for me, I'm gonna go do research and find out what does good teaching look like? And what does the research say about what good teaching and learning looks like? So that's what led me to applying to research programs in learning sciences, specifically because it was more applied than the cognitive psychology that I was already exposed to from my major at UCLA and the research I was doing there. But I was still wanting to have an impact on education, So that led me to Northwestern. And it's been a really interdisciplinary program, and I've had a lot more opportunities to do more internships and enough freedom to start this whole science communication thing on the side. Yeah, I'm trying to, that was a long way to get to just there.
And then I guess the next part of the next phase of the story is how did I get to starting PhD princess. So about halfway through my PhD program, I had to do my qualifying exams, where in my program, we have to do a test or like, we have to write a bunch of essays that kind of combine a whole bunch of theories together on a random prompt that we got, interestingly enough, our prompt was to evaluate a brain pop game of our choice and kind of apply theories that we knew to redesign it or say what the designers were thinking when they designed it, and then had to do like an independent research project. And in the process of doing the independent research project, I realized I was in a really depressed state of mind and really wasn't motivated or interested in my research and found myself procrastinating by watching a bunch of Disney YouTube videos. That was what I was doing in my free time. And I was enjoying it so much that I'm like, Huh, what if I combine research and Disney so that my like, time spent watching all these Disney videos isn't really going to waste and I make it productive procrastination instead of regular procrastination. And that's what led me to the idea of PhD princess.
And I started just writing things of like, what would Ph- what would like Disney Princesses study if they became PhD students or something like that those are like the first things that I wrote. And then I jumped into a science communication class that was offered by the journalism school at Northwestern. And that really opened my mind to like, this can be so much more than just like random blog musings. And turned that into Okay, let me like, not just focus on the like my, my really narrow area of research, which changed a little bit during my PhD, but how can I learn about other things learn about other science that I wasn't getting to pay attention to, when I was only focusing on my one narrow aspect of research. And I found myself falling in love with learning every day, like learning something new every day by trying to communicate it to others. And it was a really awesome experience to see all of these learning theories that I had been studying for my program officially applied to my actual life outside of a classroom, seeing these learning theories in action in my own learning, and then how can I translate that into sharing this information with others? So I see science communication as teaching in a way that combines all of the expertise That I have gotten. Yeah. And then I did a couple of other internships during graduate school that I think, also shaped what I'm doing now. But I can stop there. And we can.
Amanda
that was that was really interesting, I always want to ask people about their stories of how they got to where they are, because I, I know that I have a really roundabout way of getting into science communication. And I think one of the beauty one of the really nice things about this field is that it's so interdisciplinary and that people come to it from different ways. So it was really interesting to hear how it started from your love of learning. And then the sort of frustrations that that happened once you get into higher ed a little bit more, and then kind of incorporating the things you love into what you study. So I think that's, that's really great. So I wanted to ask you to sort of describe exactly what the PhD princess project is, and some more of your motivations for for starting it. Focusing on like, what the problem was that you wanted to address for specifically starting this program.Sarah
Yeah. SoI'm pausing getting all my thoughts together. So when I started teaching Princess, I was like, let me just share like the science of Disney. So as I'm, as I started with, again, those princesses what would they look like as PhD students, so I always wanted this like, element of women in STEM to be part of it. And I also wanted to like, learn about how do actual Disney ride work? What science is there connected to the Disney movies that I love, and especially in Disney parks. So right now, what I'm trying to do with it is teaching science, and all subjects really, connected to Disney characters, Disney parks, Disney movies in general. Because I am then trying to build off of that and turn it into something where I am offering both educational tips and educational resources that I feel like are informed by all of my knowledge in educational theories and experiences from teaching. So I'm trying to make lesson plans. Eventually, I see it being like this kind of Empire, I guess, not as big as the Walt Disney Company that I have no affiliation with them currently. So sorry to disappoint anyone if that was what they were expecting.
But yeah, I want to be able to do YouTube videos and like a Patreon to help be able to offer as many resources as I can for free because I know teachers don't have a lot of money to spend on resources. And even homeschooling parents prefer things for free. So I want to- but I know that they're also looking for resources that are really high quality, that are informed by educational research and best practices. So I haven't been able to do like active research on, "Oh, do my lessons, create more engagement? Do they create long lasting learning, I haven't been able to do that. But eventually, in the future, I would want to do that to show, "hey, these products are actually effective and based on research evidence, not just research-informed theories." So yeah, that is what I plan to do it with.
And SAI really helped me with that. I came in and applied to SAi, the Stem Advocacy Institute initially, because I had seen Niba of Notes by Niba that she had gone through it and started like her YouTube channel through it and like, oh, okay, maybe I'll start a YouTube channel as well. Because I know that's a part of what I want to do. Because there's so many great educational science channels on YouTube. Not a lot of them are run by women. And I knew that there were science videos that weren't getting at the questions that I was really interested in. Like, there's videos on, like, how do roller coasters work, but there's not a whole lot on Like, something I'm working on now is-this is a sneak peek-I guess of like, what does the movie Disney's Tarzan teach us about language learning and like what research says about language learning that I've studied before. So like, that's a really interesting question. And make an interesting video. So doing videos like that, that are kind of in between, like pop culture theories that are really popular on YouTube and science content that might not be connected to like these questions that everyday people are interested in, and that connect to people's everyday interests, like pop culture, because there's such a big community of Disney fans and pop culture fans in general.
Amanda
Right? Yeah, I love that. That little sneak peek. I'm definitely gonna keep an eye out for that one. Tarzan was one of my favorites. Um, yeah, so So speaking of this, this combination between science and pop culture, I'm wondering, maybe we could take a step back for a more like broad, engaging your audience with science communication, sort of thing. But I was wondering about your approach for creating content that is really engaging that combines both these elements of pop culture and science, in in your projects?Sarah
Yeah. So one of the biggest things that I have learned from being a learning sciences PhD student, is that people are not likely to be engaged in learning if they don't care about what you're trying to teach them. So whether they think it's not relevant to their lives, or they would just rather be doing anything else, it's really important to even have a chance at having some learning success, however you measure that, to have it be connected to the learners' interests. And so I go about it like what's some really interesting question to me. And I think about what are some really interesting questions that my audience would have. So I'm regularly asking on Instagram or on my blog, or on Twitter, like, what kind of Disney questions are you interested in? What kind of science questions is my audience interested in? So I can answer questions that they care about?I try and make it like, I think about what are some, like, days, like national days coming up or something. Or like, what's a Disney anniversary that's coming up? So it's topical, and people might be seeing information related to that in their social media feeds already. But how do I put like a science twist on it? So yeah, I just ask questions either about like, social behavior of like, how there's, people always comment about Disney manipulating you, that's like a very clickbait-y title, people put on YouTube videos. And it's usually about like all of their marketing tactics, and especially about using smells, in their parks, like they'll pump in smells of food to try and get your mouth to water, like, Pavlovian classical conditioning with like the bells to get dogs to want food and salivate. And they put those smells in and so I'm like, okay, but how does that actually work? from like, a science of smell perspective and like an engineering perspective. So yes, they might be doing it, but how does that work? So getting at that question of how do things work, peeling back the layers, because some people that are Disney fans want to preserve the magic. And I kind of take the approach that peeling back that layer of magic and showing how it's based in science can be even more interesting and rewarding. But yes, definitely thinking about what is what are my audience's interests? And how do I frame that in like a really interesting question and give them an answer that's engaging and connects to even an interest they didn't know they had, or a new dimension of Disney that they hadn't necessarily thought about before.
Amanda
Hmm. Yeah, it's like peeling back the magic and finding more magic inside.Sarah
Yes.Amanda
Yeah. And I love that you ask your audience what they want to know as well. Because there's, you know, the classic science communication, adage of knowing your audience and being audience centered and your communication. And a lot of people like spend a lot of time thinking about what their audience wants. But to actually ask them is a really important next step to sort of validate exactly like, what are you-- what you're thinking is really what they're thinking as well. And then new things can pop up with that all the time. So that's great that you incorporate that into your social media as well.Sarah
Yeah. Oh, there's one other aspect I wanted to mention that, like, maybe just as important as someone's interest is considering their prior knowledge. Because everything that we learn connects back to what we already know. And that's sometimes how misconceptions can form or misunderstandings of things because we take new information and integrate it with information that we already have, and sometimes you might not integrate it properly. But I want to know, like, Disney fans know a lot about Disney.But I also have a lot of scientists and science aficionados that follow me that aren't as Disney focused as I am. So it's a lot of balancing between Okay, how much Disney detail is too much and how much science detail is too much. And figuring out okay, what are the things that I need to explain that are more fundamental that a science expert might know, but a Disney fan who doesn't have a lot of science training wouldn't? So it's a lot of balancing that and taking like, Okay, if people already know that Disney does this thing about pumping in smells, they might want to know more about that. So thinking about what do they already know? How can I build on that and connect it to something new?
Amanda
Mm hmm. Yeah, it's so interesting too, because I feel like I've heard of that somewhere, as like a clickbait-y sort of title. But like other businesses do that as well. Like it's a business strategy too, of trying to market people with with smells and with temperature in the room and, and things like that as well. But in regards to Disney, I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about your personal experience in connecting with with Disney, and what it's meant to to you and your life a little bit. I know that for me, growing up, the two biggest things in my life were Disney, and Harry Potter. It definitely shaped me growing up as well. So I was wondering what that has meant for you.Sarah
Yeah. So I like the movie that I watched the most as a small, small child was Lion King. I watched it every single day, lions were my favorite animal like, that was the beginning of my love of Disney. And then my family was lucky enough to be able to go to Disneyland because we had family down in Southern California. So we went not every year, but at least once a year, a couple of years, and loved going to the parks, with my family, with my extended family. And then I went to Disney World for the first time during graduate school with some of my college friends. And I had kind of forgotten about Disney to some extent, like I went to UCLA and didn't go, I went to Disneyland a couple of times while I was half an hour away. And I'm like, "Oh, that was a mistake," after I went to Disney World. Because it was it just reopened that love of especially like the Disney music.I think that's what draws me in the most because I've been a musician since I was in like, first grade learning to play the piano. Disney songs have always been a huge part of my life. And I have a playlist now that's getting me through my PhD that's like a whole bunch of positive Disney messages. And so I think Disney helped me, like dream big. I mean, that's kind of one of their biggest things, right is setting goals for yourself and going after them no matter what the roadblocks might be. But I think there's also recently been a really big push of showing women especially doing lots of things, and especially doing more sciency things, I think, and showing people who you might not think of as scientists or not who WE might think of as scientists, we probably have a much broader definition than the average Disney fan of who can be a scientist and trying to push Disney to do that even more.
I think I've also learned more recently about how much Disney cares about nature and the environment and how much Walt Disney pushed for that, with the movies that he was making, and how much that has become part of the company now and how they're trying to be sustainable. And I think that's all about science. So I've been trying to follow all the news of like, how are they being sustainable? How are they re- inventing new things, I have like a Google Scholar scholar alert for new Disney patents because you can also get alerts on patents. They're always coming up with new technologies and innovating in that way. And that uses a whole bunch of STEM knowledge and practices. So really trying to highlight that because that has always inspired me to see what what cool new things are they going to come up with next. And how are they going to use that technology to tell stories about new characters that will also be inspiring.
Amanda
Mm hmm. I love that. I love how you mentioned the music. I know after Moana came out, I had that soundtrack on repeat, driving into work. Just the music is just particularly magical, which I love. And I also played the piano as well. So when you said that I was so excited. Yeah, so Disney is known for its storytelling, as you mentioned. So I'm wondering if or how you thought about Disney storytelling in combination with science storytelling, as well, if that's part of your engagement with your audience as well.Sarah
Yeah, I think I can always try and do more of it. But I think what Disney does so great in their storytelling is coming up with a narrative that is usually pretty easy to follow and having really engaging characters and Some of the science communication classes that I took in the journalism school, we spent like multiple weeks diagramming out the narratives of different science communication projects like with now I can't- it's just like the narrative arc of like, what are the the actions that lead up to a climax, and then the falling action. And just like the hero's journey, Disney does that. All the time, I know, I had to do an analysis of hero's journey in high school I like analyzed the Princess Diaries, because that was one of my favorite movies.And so that has also come into my science communication, as well of like, Okay, what is that main message I want to get across? By the end of what I'm saying? And how can I make that point, kind of throughout? Whatever I'm writing, or if I'm making a video. And that's like the endpoint. But it's something you always have to think about throughout any of your science communication projects. And then how can you kind of do some of these narrative arcs of what can you build towards or What can you can you have a question? That's like throwing a wrench into what the original plotline was, if you're having a plot of like, you start off with a science question that you're trying to answer, and then you want to eventually get to an answer, but sometimes that answer isn't as clear cut as you would think.
So having kind of questions that are contradictory, or bringing up some other line of reasoning, are really good ways to kind of follow that narrative arc. And then a third component, is if you can bring in characters of scientists themselves of like, telling the stories of how they got to whatever answers they got to, or stories about them as people, in addition to just what their science was like, and how they got to their science answers, but what about them contributed to that? is also it's harder for me to do. It's something that I try and do and have done like a separate series of posts with, like, okay, here's a Disney character. And here's a scientist whose work is really related to that Disney character just to increase representation of women scientists specifically.
But it's important in journalism, I think more so. And can I think could be a bigger part of science communication to tell the stories of the people and interweave that with kind of these, we call them explainers in journalism of like you alternate like, okay, here's what someone did. And then you take a pause, and like, this is why what they did is important, and here's the science explanation of what they did and why that's significant, and what you need to know about it in order to understand the next part in their story. So yeah, those are some of the main aspects of storytelling that come in that I'm considering when I am writing things. That didn't get out the audience piece. But it's kind of how can you tell a story that's engaging for your audience? And how you do that is using some of the really tried and true aspects of storytelling that we see in Disney of narratives and good characters and driving towards a message at the end.
Amanda
Right, yeah. And I love how you're trying to highlight people's experiences in STEM and their scientists' stories of their experiences as well. Especially highlighting people's stories that haven't been told before, is super important as well. One of the concepts that I studied and oh, Stephanie is studying this as well as stem identity. And I'm not sure if you've come across that in, in learning sciences or in science communication at all. But I was wondering about the relationship between stem identity and our sort of cultural identities with with different pop culture items. So I'm not sure if that's something that you've or a term that you've come across, but I was wondering about the connection and how different types of identities can can intersect like that in learning?Sarah
Yeah, that's a really good question. I haven't studied stem identity in particular, but in learning sciences, we do talk a lot about different identities and how do the communities that we're in shape, the identities that we have, and there's actually a big part of learning sciences that sees identity changes as learning so not even just like a change in behavior of like, Oh, I know this new word and what it means, but like, Oh, I can interact with others in a new way. So that is part of like, what I'm trying to do in a way of like, Okay, if I write about a Latina scientist or I write about non-binary scientists and put that out into the world, can someone see themselves in that person? And then see, oh, I do belong in science, and I can do the same kinds of things that they can do.And I know the Geena Davis Institute has a lot of research on this. And I know the If/Then She Can I guess it's like a movement or it's a hashtag for sure. And they have an Instagram account does a lot of sharing those statistics and highlighting people's stories as well. And I've really appreciated the work that they are doing to try to increase the the efforts of Okay, let's show more people doing science, than the scientists that we see in older Disney movies that are all white men in lab coats when I never wear a lab coat doing my science, but I still consider myself a scientist, even if I'm a social scientist. But I'm curious more Yeah. Can you say more about this STEM identity and pop culture identity? Because there's, I want to know more about how you research that and then maybe I'll have a better answer and application for it.
Amanda
Sure, yeah. No, I really liked the thing where changing identity is an aspect of learning that, that was just so fascinating. I think the thing with with STEM identity that I'm looking at, I don't know if Stephanie's doing something a little bit different with hers, but is how people think about themselves in relationship to stem or to science. So some definitions of it is related to how people think of themselves as a scientist, I think of STEM identity is a little bit more broad and a little bit more inclusive, where anyone could have a STEM identity and their experiences with science and how they use science to make everyday decisions. Or even if someone is not a scientist, but they're really interested in the brain or something like they can have a certain level of STEM identity as well. So and one of the other aspects of identity is that we all have different types of identities, different parts to our identities that sort of intersect with each other. Right?So from hearing you talk, it sounds like you have a pretty strong science identity and a pretty strong identity related to, Disney that's like part of your experiences in life, it's part of your interest. So it's like both of those things can intersect in certain ways. So I guess that's I just find that really interesting that different elements of our identities can can match up with with science and our interests, and how that kind of shapes who we see that we are.
Sarah
Yeah, I think that makes me think of I love the idea of like everyone can do science, like you don't have to be a scientist like in a lab or anything to do science, you just have to be asking questions about the world and making observations as part of science. So that's something that I try and imbue in the lesson plans and educational resources that I'm working on. And when I'm evaluating resources to be able to share with parents and educators of like, okay, does this align with my values of trying to encourage anyone to be a scientist and not necessarily just like the science that we would see in school when we went to school, because science in schools is changing a lot with some new standards that are trying to encourage people to just make observations and question things and drive science content more about not like, oh, memorize these scientists and what they did, but to engage in the practice of science of asking questions and figuring out how can I find an answer to this question? And how can I collect data to help me answer this question? And what do I do with the data once I have it? Because even the people in marketing at Disney are kind of doing that. They probably don't consider themselves scientists. But as someone that has done some ed-tech user research, and often had to interact with marketing teams like oh, yeah, you have all this data on who your users are, and what their behaviors are. And that is science. And we need to take that information and do things with it, to try and either get more people to buy our products or to just see what's working and what's not. And that's an element of science that probably doesn't get considered as science most of the time.Amanda
Absolutely. Yeah, I know, in my experience, I did my Master's in neuroscience program. And now I'm doing my PhD in a communication program, and even just talking to communication researchers that's a social science, but sometimes they'll just call themselves researchers and not scientists. Because they just don't see themselves that way. They see themselves as a researcher, but not a scientist, which is so interesting, because I feel like a lot of people in traditional STEM fields like, those are sort of the same thing. But absolutely, people in communication go-to marketing, right?Typically, they have marketing or similar to the communication degrees. So it's really all like applied elements of science and of social science research. But one other thing that I wanted to ask, given sort of the current state of learning right now and at home learning and distance learning, how do you think that has really impacted either your program or people trying to learn science topics? I know, I've heard a wide variety of experiences where everyone's sort of tired with online learning, or sometimes it's better for people who struggle to learn in the classroom, and they sort of appreciate online learning. So I was wondering what your your sort of thoughts were on that specifically with, with science and and with your project as well?
Sarah
Yeah, yeah, I definitely could go on and on about how distance learning is affecting learning and could potentially change our formalized education system for the better, hopefully, but we'll see. But yeah, with respect to the things that I'm doing, I was really motivated actually, like, I had this idea for making lesson plans for more than a couple of years. And then once the pandemic hit, I feel bad that I like took advantage of it in a way of like, oh, wow, this is an opportunity, rather than, like a drawback of like, I can create things for people to be able to use at home. And I did a lot of user research with parents that were doing homeschooling for the first time or had their kids at home doing distance learning and like, what are you struggling with, and a lot of it was, yeah, the students weren't engaged, they wanted them to not have as much screen time because they were on zoom all of the time. They wanted them to be able to just do things that were fun again, and potentially, that could involve some of their friends in safe ways. And a lot of these parents also talked about, like kits, like subscription kits, where they will a box shows up at your door with a whole bunch of like little projects that you can do that are science-based or creativity-based or both. And they appreciated that they wouldn't have to like, go to the store that they weren't comfortable doing. Buy a whole bunch of materials that if they like found a lesson online that they were excited to do or something that it would be easier that everything just like came to them at once. And they didn't have to like, try and get stuff off of Amazon or just planning out the whole expedition of going to a store to get supplies.So I definitely took that in mind when I was kind of crafting and adjusting the lesson plan that I had been working on to be like, Okay, what can I make that is doable, just at home. And eventually, I would love to do kind of subscription boxes like that, because it's something that people are really engaged in and willing to pay for. Because getting paid for scicomm is hard to do. I haven't figured that out yet, but SAi helped a lot with trying to figure out some sort of business plan. But yeah, so making lesson plans of like, okay, yes, I can put it all on Google Docs, and make it accessible on just like an iPad as well as printable, like, I have an option of like, I can send this to you, I can print it out for you. In case, you don't have the Wi-Fi capability to do this whole project that includes a lot of videos and stuff like that. So it's thinking about how do I adjust it to something that is, can be done completely online, but could also be done, not online, because parents want their kids to be away from screens, and because not every kid has access to Wi-Fi all of the time.
So that I think is one of the biggest things that parents are really wanting with learning and adjusting to learning right now. But I think overall, that distance learning can be really good. I think it's been helpful to just think about like, why do we have schools the way that they are? And why isn't this a better time to just let kids pursue their interests and do that in whatever way they want. And because a lot of the interests that they might have would still touch on a lot of the standards that schools are trying to meet day today, but they'll just do it in a way that is interesting to them and they're probably a lot more motivated to learn things in order to be able to do and that aligns with a theory of learning called like constructionism. Like constructing and it's about like kids can be really or any learners of any age, not just kids, are motivated by being able to produce something that they can share with others and be able to get feedback on.
And I think, zoom, and a lot of these online events have really enabled that in certain ways of being able to connect people more and being able to get feedback from a wider audience. They're just at the end of a few button clicks. But giving the space for students to be able to produce something that's not just a test, and showing their demonstration of knowledge on a test, because that's not super meaningful. It can be meaningful to some students like I was a teacher's pet and was super motivated by getting good grades. But I think I would have retained a lot more information if I was motivated by just being able to share information with others, myself, instead of just demonstrating it on the test.
Amanda
Right, so like once you take the test you immediately forget all the info. So before I open it up to the listeners here to ask them their own questions, I just had to ask, Who is your favorite Disney character and why.Sarah
Okay, I have like a top three, I guess. Sorcerer Mickey is, like, who I relate to most as a PhD student, I think because he is literally an apprentice, feels like he's drowning, and that is relatable.And then the other two that I really like are Rapunzel because again there's a PhD connection she's in her tower and finally gets out of her tower and that's what I'm trying to do with science communication like take things out of the ivory tower and get them out into the world, plus she's just like an absolute sweetheart and her songs are great. And then the last one that's actually weird I guess or someone who people don't usually think of is Atta from A Bug's Life she's like the main princess and she has a lot of anxiety, but she appreciates the inventiveness and learns to appreciate the inventiveness of Flik and his very science minded brain.
Amanda
That's like the cutest thing ever so much. It's funny, I haven't seen A Bug's Life in a long time. I feel like that's one of the ones that I sometimes forget about so I'll have to revisit that and keep an eye out for that.Sarah
Yeah, it's pretty, it's an underrated one for sure, the animation is very early animation and you can tell, but you appreciate it more and the music, the soundtrack is pretty good, even though you probably wouldn't recognize it as A Bug's Life, if you weren't watching.Amanda
Right. I know my favorite is Belle from Beauty in the Beast, classic.Sarah
I'm wearing Belle socks!Amanda
Oh my god. As a kid, I just love to read I was that nerd it was raining all the time. So I related to her with that. And actually, when I signed up, I went to go adopt my, my cat that I have now, her name already just happened to be Belle, and so I thought it was fate.Sarah
Precious.Amanda
So yeah, so I want to give the audience a chance to come on up and ask Sarah some questions as well so if anyone has any questions, feel free to raise your hand on the bottom there and we can bring y'all up.Stephanie Castillo
I want to start off with a question real quick for Sarah we're excited to have you on here, really enjoy the conversation. We're like the last thing that you talked about in terms of like, okay, when we think of designing learning. Yeah, I guess design learning and also kind of like your little entrepreneurship, that's a little passive-aggressive, your entrepreneurship journey. And starting PhD princess. I like, I really like the fact that you have like this, like how did you go about collecting user, user feedback on like your mission or like the products that you're going to be, you're trying to offer for like your future client like how do you go about that process of getting feedback from parents?Sarah
So that was something I was encouraged to do both by like SAi as well as another entrepreneurship coach I had as well as a design based classes that I took in my PhD program because we have three strands: cognition, socio-cultural theories and design-based learning how to design for learning.So I went about it by developing a survey, because I had developed some surveys before. It was like a quick like six-minute survey and I found a couple of Facebook groups of parents, that's a lot of where parents are, I guess I scoured the internet like where are parents hanging out. There's like homeschooling and Disneyschooling Facebook groups so I posted the survey there and just asked if people were interested in talking to me in more depth, and doing like some interview questions. And I had a couple of people bite and then I also like posted on my Instagram platform, reaching out to anyone that followed me if they knew any parents that were homeschooling or had a distance learning child at home, asking if I could talk to them about like what are their biggest struggles right now, what's working well, where do they get information about learning, where are they finding resources that they really like, just to kind of get a sense of what, what other parents think is good because their criteria could be very different from someone whose research is literally on how teachers select online resources, and knows the research on, like, what criteria teachers are using and what criteria teacher educators might want them to use instead. So yeah, surveys and interviews and then as a thank you for participating, I offered them like a free version of the lesson plan. It was, well currently still asking people to pay for it but I will likely be offering everything for free.
Stephanie
Have you gotten any feedback from your lessons yet from those who have like paid for it or that you have given it to them? Have you received any feedback from teachers or is like that's the next step of kind of like, you know, how do you reiterate your, your lesson plans to kind of fit on like the needs of the teacher, the needs of the parent and also kind of like the needs of the student.Sarah
Yeah, I've got a little bit of feedback from parents who tried it, and haven't gotten feedback from teachers because this one was designed primarily to like be used at home or in the parks, which is a whole other context for learning, and they've said that like wow, this information is really great, and the questions are really interesting, but their kid just like it was in, like, maybe, August I think that I released them and kids were like still just like, I just want to focus on, like school and prepping for school but also focus on just like enjoying the last bits of summer. So I don't think I got as positive, of a reception as I was anticipating and I've been trying to figure out how can I adapt it to not just be like, oh answer these questions but actually make it even more project-based and more open-ended and flexible for a kid to take the things that they're learning and apply it to something that they care about rather than the projects that I came up with, that I thought would be interesting.Stephanie
I think that's always the hardest but that's like a good thing, you know, at least gives you like a direction of like where to go, and like I know you checked out, like the startup company that I'm kind of like working with. But I wonder like what before handing it off to Rey's question is just kind of like what is your— what is your like teaching philosophy, and how are you like, how are you intertwining like do you have a teaching philosophy or like, you know like what is the main takeaway of like the research that you're doing to make sure that you're creating something that meets the needs. I don't know if that was a good question, never mind. I'm giving it to Rey.Sarah
It's a big question. And, yeah we can go back to a whole teaching philosophy, but again, maybe I'll try and answer it quickly. I want it to be as student-centered as possible and like not didactic. I want to be like very interactive, activity-based rather than just like Hey sit and watch this and answer some questions. Yeah and then trying to take what do I know from research. So it aligns a bit with these constructionism theories that I talked about and I'm trying to figure out how can I do that more with other content areas as well.Stephanie
Thank you, Sarah. I'm going to give it off to ReyAudience Member
Hi all, thank you. This is an awesome conversation. This is kind of question I think for all of you because I think we all kind of study that too. I'm wondering about the difference between like what is what is identity, how do we define identity and how is that different from someone's behavior, someone's attitude. Yeah, I'm kind of trying to figure out what that whole identity thing is. Thank you.Stephanie
Also a loaded question rightSarah
That is a great question. I'll try to answer it and then I think Amanda has some really great things to say. Some of the theories that I think are best or most helpful for thinking about identity to learning scientists are communities of practice, and thinking about, like when I said thinking about changes in your identity and how you participate in a community is evidence of learning. So we look at, like, the examples of that are like butchers and seamstresses and like how they can change what they're doing of like, oh I was an apprentice versus now I'm like a master seamstress or master butcher or like being able, how other people see you and how you see your self is the change of identity, kind of evidence that you have learned, because you are treated differently in the community that you are in as well as you perceive yourself differently in relation to everyone else. So that's just one example.Amanda
Yeah, I feel like it's such a great question and it's something I've been thinking about for a long time, with STEM identity but in, in looking at some of the research that I've been delving into a little bit lately. I feel like there's so many different ways to define identity and that scholars are still debating how to define identity. But one of the definitions that I sort of like, is that identity is sort of how we think about ourselves and how we see others think about us. So it's like internally motivated but also our perceptions of our external reality. So, it's, it's sort of like we create stories based on who we think we are. So it's like, what, what's the story of ourselves, and that's how we see our identity and I think that's like narrative identity theory or something like that in the literature I can't remember the exact name of it now, but so I really like to study identity through stories, and the stories that shaped who we are. So, Sarah when Sarah was talking about learning experiences and how you're in this great science class it's really engaging. And did your activities and it boosts your confidence in learning science and you produce something. And so you have this self-efficacy for producing and doing science. It all contributes to your identity as well. So that's just how I start to think of it now but it's it's such a broad question, I just love it.Stephanie
I wonder if that's one of the difficulties Like, everything is the defining that's what something troublesome not troublesome but something that I've encountered a lot it's just like, there's so many different definitions for the word identity, depending on like the context of, like, what, like what like the context for like whatever it is that we're talking about, or the subject that's related to, like, even for like STEM education like STEM identity. I see a lot of identity in terms of the environment that you're in. So like for, you know, students of color, or like underrepresented communities, then that's like okay like being around their peers or how their professors treat them or are they predominantly in a white institution or just like a more diverse institution. And yeah, the way that they perform in their classes or how they see themselves when they do well in these classes, and how all of that plays a role in like different aspects of them, their identity to science, or their identity as like a science person.But,you know, outside of this like academic talk like this is problematic in the sense of like, you know, I know in this political climate, I don't know if this is taking it too far but like the political climate that we're in, like how there's a lot of like, I've been seeing a lot of on both sides of the aisle with this like, I don't know if I should say this, you know this is like you know there's tribalism or like is that problematic that like when we're studying these things we're like, assuming that like all minorities have like this experience and like, you know it, and someone like I had a conversation with someone saying like, like you know my social science isn't like that valid of science because we know people are so complex, and, you know, at the individual level we're so complex depending on our, like, you know, all the things that we experienced in our in our life and and whatever shapes us and it's just kind of like, you know, even though we have like all these academic terms to say that it's like we're only capturing just like a small fraction of like how that person is ident like identifying at that very moment and it's always constantly changing these definitions are changing so it's just like this existential spiral, just like me going, like, Oh, what is this research that I'm doing.
So you know I just like, you know, it's kind of hard to kind of capture what it means to measure identity and how that we can use that in order to better engage with communities that we're trying to, to, to share science with, and I don't know it just like that's kind of like my existential two cents, right of this kind of like conversation of how we're measuring because even with Rey's research Rey is looking at how to like, like, you know producers like that produce science content, like how they like how they define themselves in the space is so different than what academics would define that space and it's just kind of like what you know. I guess like, our job as science communications researchers then is just like how do we best capture I guess this identity at this very moment and try to capture all the nuances without, you know, also generalizing, everyone's experience, I don't know where this was going, but that was kind of like my existential thoughts that I've been having with just kind of contextualizing my research in terms of like the climate that we're in right now.