1. Teaching Scientific Communication within an REU
Bec Batchelor and Val Sloan
September 2016

2. Why teach scientific communication?
Teach critical scientific skills
Awesome presentations
Develop scientific identity
Why teach scientific communication?
Build confidence
Create a community
Provide a “touch point”

3. To address all of these aims, we work hard to make our scientific communications workshops:
Supportive
Active
Engaging
While also providing students with the tools to be scientifically successful!

4. In this presentation we will discuss:
Creating a supportive learning environment
Elements of scientific communication training
Tips on providing feedback
Text-book resources
Ideas for teaching scientific communication in different ways!

5. Building a supportive environment
Be explicit – right from the start, outline expectations of respect and supportive, not-competitive community
Don’t be afraid to address realities – whether it’s a traumatic current event or the challenge of mentor management…

6. Respect & understanding in your summer program
Be respectful of all individuals and their viewpoints.
Listen to what individuals’ lives are like and the experiences they’ve had in the world.
Don’t rush the process of trying to understand a person’s experiences or identity.
Don’t criticize people for being different.
Don’t force your values on others.
Develop trust and openness and allow people to be who they are without pressure or judgment.
SOARS Center for Higher Education
NCAR
UCAR
air • planet • people

7. Being around people who are different from us makes us more creative, more diligent and harder-working
Scientific American, 2014

8. What should I include?
To some extent it depends on your scientific outputs (poster, presentation, paper, all of the above?) and how much time you assign to your workshops!
Student presenting

9. What do I include? Intro to scientific communication
Examples of a scientific paper/poster/presentation
How to read a paper
Elevator speech
Parts of a paper (or poster etc)
Creating scientific posters
Effective presentations
Summary and conference abstracts
Ethics
Other additions:
Work plans and research management
Literature reviews
Peer review
Proposals
CVs and resumes
Professional etiquette
Student presenting

11. Syllabus Examples
A 4- workshop example:
For a 9-workshop example, see the SOARS syllabus – see handout
Syllabus, with content and homework deadlines is shared with mentors in advance (and reminders are sent out)
Student presenting

12. Feedback
Personal feedback is really important! Different ways this can be done:
Writing mentors
Peer review
Time for working in class
You provide feedback on their work*
ALONG-THE-WAY DEADLINES ARE VALUABLE!
* Not highly recommended…

13. Text-book Resources
Eloquent Science: A practical guide to becoming a better writer, speaker and atmospheric scientist: David Schultz
Writing Science: How to write papers that get cited and proposals that get funded, Joshua Schimel
Science Research Writing: For non-native speakers of English: Hilary Glasman-Deal

14. How do I teach it?*
Student presenting
* We know most of you are way more experienced educators than we are! We just wanted to share some of the activities we’ve used….

15. The Elevator Speech
An approximately thirty second summary of your research for a general audience (i.e. gets straight to the point!), that you can pull out on any occasion
You should assume you have a smart listener, but one who doesn’t know anything much about your topic
The Elevator Speech:
An approximately one minute summary of your research for a general audience (i.e. gets straight to the point!), that you can pull out on any occasion
You should assume you have a smart listener, but one who doesn’t know anything much about your topic

16. The Recipe Start with the big picture Explain why we care
Put your research into the context of the big picture
Leave out the specifics and no jargon!
The recipe:
Start with the big picture
Explain why we care
Put your research into the context of the big picture
Leave out the specifics and no jargon!

17. Elevator speech about your REU
The recipe:
Start with the big picture
Explain why we care
Put your research into the context of the big picture
Leave out the specifics and no jargon!

18. What is a scientific poster?
Provide a collection of posters (good and bad)
Ask students to discuss them as they look around
What makes a good one?
What are the components?

19. Silly poster game Discuss the key components of a research project
Invent research
Make a poster
Present it!
Benefits:
The importance of storytelling
Building familiarity with a new format
Practice presenting
Lots of laughs! (cohort building…)

20. For the real thing, templates help!

21. Practice Talks
It’s really helpful to have a practice presentation mid-way through. It really helps you and the mentors check in.
Some ways this can be done:
A formal half-length talk
No prep: describe research to the group
With mentors and staff, present using a white-board only

22. “You teach it…”
I assign teaching about the sections of a paper, creating great posters and giving good presentations to the students. I break them into groups of 4 across our labs.
The rules:
You have no more than 2 hours to prepare
You have 20 minutes to present
Everyone must be included
Be as creative as you like!

24. Why it works Helps with engaging different learning styles
Requires depth learning in order to teach
Builds comfort presenting
Strengthens cohort
Fun!
Hints: Save a time for discussion/debrief; ask questions; collect presentations in advance!

25. The crash course works for posters, presentations and abstracts!
Introduce the format and tips
Provide template
Have class create their presentation
Present it at the end!

26. How to prepare a scientific talk

27. General rule is to use one slide per minute
Figures, plots or pictures which you discuss
Descriptive title and authors
Introduction/Motivation
What is the point of a presentation? To describe your research and interact with the audience. Often prior to publication, a good way to get some feedback.
Methodology
Conclusion
Acknowledgements & future work

28. Today’s Challenge: Create a draft slide show about your project
Add pictures to help
help explain it,
visually

29. Where do I start? Make six slides with this structure:
Topic and authors
Introduction and relevance (motivation)
Methods
Data and Results
Future work
Acknowledgements

30. 2 hours later….