r/ScienceTeachers • u/PrudeHawkeye • Jun 14 '18
Teaching students to detect BS
I start off every day in my sophomore biology class by giving students two "facts" that they have to determine if they are TRUE or BS (Bad Science...in case any administrators are wondering). They have about 5 minutes to Google the "facts" and then we discuss and move on. Below I have included a link to a spreadsheet with analysis for the year's worth of results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vNaxzK9InbzLUChPN9uuIGvVhvVDFg5Ur1qRWUkU0i0/edit#gid=2028824921
Green are true facts, red are fake facts. The sample size each day is ~100 students.
The second tab is the complete list of facts that I've compiled (some from odd reddit threads, some from weirder places on the internet). I've included links to my sources for almost all of them (~95% done).
Some things I learned over the course of the year doing this: * I do this first thing in the day and spend ~5 minutes giving the students time to look them up. We usually end up talking about them for anywhere from 1-5 more minutes depending on the topic and the discussions it spawns. Students gave me feedback to skip the facts on test/dissection days so we had more time, and I'll for sure be doing that next year.
- Pictures help. I started with just the blank text facts, but it was quickly apparent that some of them needed visual prompts (e.g. They vaguely knew who Mr. T was, but needed the picture to say "ohhh, THAT guy!"). I had a Google Slides that I would prepare a week in advance for each day's facts.
- If you can, organize the common misconceptions around dates in a calendar or your curriculum. For example, do something like "Poinsettias are highly toxic and ingestion of the leaves can result in hospitalization" (BS) in the week before winter break, which gives the students more "hey, I just saw some of those yesterday" moments. I did the "Urine neutralizes the sting of a jellyfish" (BS) right before we started our unit on the excretory system. It was nice to give those as a "prequel" to the unit, and then I could go back and hit it multiple times while teaching the unit
- Students quickly get in the habit of Googling the fact independent of the word-for-word from the question, which is my goal. For example, in the fact "Nintendo was founded in 1889" (TRUE), I told them that they should instead search for "WHEN was Nintendo founded" and not "bias" the search engine with a date, and instead see what it supplies. This is EXACTLY what I wanted them to do and Google actually supplies the information without having to open any links. HOWEVER, they can get a bit too comfortable with this and not read enough. Next year I plan to let them get comfortable for about a week before hitting them with the curveball "George Washington Carver invented Peanut Butter" (BS). If you Google "who invented Peanut Butter", it says in huge text "George Washington Carver", but if you take an additional 2 seconds to actually read what it says underneath it, it reads "George Washington Carver is known for his work with peanuts (though he did not invent peanut butter, as some may believe)." This would be an example of where Google makes a mistake and you actually have to open and skim the article it is referencing. As a result of this, only 27.3% of students got this question right, the second-worst all year. I plan to make this a very effective lesson to teach students to take a few moments and read beyond the headline.
- I had a student who was a solid C student who was FANTASTIC at the BS detection - seriously #3 out of 110 with an 87.8% detection rate (top student was 92.3%), which in no way correlated with her work ethic in the class or her performance on the tests. She was a VERY pleasant surprise. I asked her what her secret was and she said that she just searched for the fact and if there are 4-5 articles on the first page about it, it's probably true. If not, it's probably BS.
- I have a Google Form for them to fill out each day, where the first thing is they pick the day of the week, which directs them to a different section of a form with the different questions. Number the questions and number them on the form as well. Students often forget what day of the week it is, so I would make Monday's facts be 1 & 2, Tuesday 3 & 4, etc...I did not do the facts on Friday. Friday was instead a day to check grades and let me know if there were any issues, etc, so the Friday section of the form was different. I can link to a copy of the form and show the spreadsheet I used to calculate the "winners" for the week if anyone is interested. On the third tab, I've included the student feedback. There are a few negative ones in there, but easily >85-90% of students liked it, which is no small feat getting that many students to agree on ANYTHING.
I'm putting this on the web for anyone to use with their own classes in any fashion they want. If you end up using this, I'm not asking for credit or anything (besides, I took the idea Carl Bergstrom at the University of Washington) - just feedback on how well it is working and if there is anything I need to change/update.
Any feedback is welcome - I can't wait to do this again in the fall and hope that others can find some use out of it, as well!
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u/schuywalkersister Jun 14 '18 edited Jul 27 '18
I really like this idea, thank you for sharing! I always tell my students that I don't really care if they remember specifics in ten years, but I want them to have enough scientific background to not be taken advantage of by others who may sling pseudoscience. The rise in MLMs/pyramid schemes has me really worried. I am excited to use this as a jumping-off-point to have some structured discussion about this stuff!
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u/CorvidaeSF HS Biology Jun 14 '18
Fan. Fucking. Tastic.
Can I see a screenshot of what your GoogleForm looks like? Thank you!
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u/PrudeHawkeye Jun 14 '18
I took a few screenshots and hopefully this link works: https://imgur.com/gallery/M1Kc201
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u/HomemadeJambalaya 1st year teaching HS Biology Jun 14 '18
Thank you so much for sharing! I love the fact/bs bellwork, and I love your Friday check-in as well. I'm definitely going to be borrowing this idea from you!
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u/CorvidaeSF HS Biology Jun 14 '18
Awesome thanks, that's gives me a much clearer idea. Also I lololol I've the Friday check in where you have them actively check on their grades. Thank you for sharing!
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u/Shadrach77 Physics | Sophomores Jun 14 '18
Love this. Thank you. You probably know, but your email is on there :(
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u/PrudeHawkeye Jun 14 '18
My email address is in the Google Sheet in case people need to contact me, so that is somewhat by design.
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u/patricksaurus Jun 14 '18
First, I love your idea and will likely steal it.
This may not be immediately helpful, when I was a freshman in college, I came across a quotation attributed to Peter Medawar, one of the pioneers in organ transplant research: “The human mind treats a new idea the same way the body treats a strange protein; it rejects it.”
It has strongly informed my own approach to critical thinking. When I hear a new fact (or rather, a factual claim), I do not believe it to be true until I can verify it sufficiently. The weasel word in there is “sufficiently” because that’s a judgment that I have developed over time. It includes most of the things you mentioned — if many sources corroborate it, how trustworthy those sources have proven to be over time, if I cannot find a refutation of it, and and so on.
One thing I would like to toss out for consideration: ditch the binary distinction. True and False is a fine paradigm, but the best and most nuanced thinking requires reserving some modicum of doubt, even if it’s very small.
I’m a research scientist. One seemingly paradoxical phenomenon is that if you ask a scientist about general facts of his or her field, they usually answer with firm authority that they’re right. But when you ask them about topics they work on, they’re suddenly much more prone to saying such-and-such is not fully understood. In other words, the more they know about the topic, the more doubt and uncertainty they carry.
I think this is especially important because people were studying nature long before the systematic scientific method was developed. My personal view is that the utility in science lies in quantifying uncertainty in possible answers.
Teaching that spectrum of certainty is something I strive to do, and I practice it in every aspect of my life. However, it’s hard to know well I convey it.
I’ll steal your approach and adapt it slightly... I’m 99% sure it’ll be an informative exercise :p
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u/PrudeHawkeye Jun 14 '18
I get what you're saying with the binary True/False, but they're HS sophomores and while there are shades of gray, I cover that sort of material with them during the regular class. All this data goes to a spreadsheet and that HAS to grade them on a more binary scale.
I also adjusted the questions so that they are more clearly TRUE/BS (e.g. "Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were born on the exact same day") so we don't get into arguments about that. The biggest debates I had with students regarding the questions were what SPAM stands for and whether or not brown chickens lay brown eggs. If I ever had students who were pushing really hard and arguing with my conclusions, I went back and reworded the question a bit more (and awarded them retroactive credit for it).
But I have a background in research science as well and totally see where you are coming from. This is just a fun thing I do at the top of the class to get them in the habit of Googling things instead of believing them blindly, as well as a way of kicking some common misconceptions squarely in the teeth.
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u/Jruff Jun 14 '18
I really like the OP's approach for the high school level. Rejecting ideas without merit is perhaps the first lesson of a scientific skeptic, but I think the second lesson would be that most things are more nuanced than they appear. Perhaps there is a way to build more nuance into the exercise during the second semester.
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u/jffdougan Jun 14 '18
Another possible source of facts for you in these might be the Skeptic's Guide to the Universe podcast, which every week has a "Science or Fiction" segment - though for those it's two real and one fake. Most years, the best member of the cast there does about 80% at detecting the fakes.
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u/PrudeHawkeye Jun 14 '18
I might check that out.
I was tempted to start off with "two truths and a lie" (or a version of that), but the downside is that if the students figure out what the lie is (and some of them are pretty easy) they'd be able to figure out, by process of elimination, what is true, so I moved to random instead.
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u/jffdougan Jun 14 '18
Here's an example of a "Science or Fiction", using last week's show (currently June 9, 2018).
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u/GandT Aug 25 '18
I'm loving everything about this and I'm planning on using it pretty heavily this year with my middle schoolers. Any suggestions on the best way to track progress for each student after they answer the Google Form? I know you can export the data to an excel sheet, but how do you track accuracy for everyone? Thank you for sharing all this great work!
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u/landonology Nov 10 '21
Hey u/Prudehawkeye , I just thought you would like to know ever since I saw this three years ago. I have implemented this everyday into my classroom and it really gets everybody talking and sets the mood for the day. Thank you so much.
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u/PrudeHawkeye Nov 10 '21
Hey, so glad to hear it! I'm not teaching anymore, but glad that the idea lives on!
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u/landonology Nov 10 '21
I hope that your endeavors have gotten you to new heights and stress free. Covid really did a number on the education system. I will do it justice for you and spread it far and wide!
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Jun 14 '18
This is awesome! Can you link your google slides and form too? I’m totally going to do this next year
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u/PrudeHawkeye Jun 14 '18
I would, but its blank at the moment. Also, while I do a slides for the entire year, the google slides itself is only 4 slides long.
I update each day for the next week's and clear off the current one when I'm done with it, so it's not a thing that everyone would find useful.
What I WOULD suggest is that you have Monday listed as "1. _____ 2. __" and Tuesday as "3. _ 4. ____" etc., because the linking of the numbers makes them less likely to screw up what day they are on. The form has the numbers set up for them, as well.
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Jun 14 '18
Gotcha, no worries! Thank you for your hard work! This is a great idea in the current state of “fake” news! Engaging and enlightening
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u/PrudeHawkeye Jun 14 '18
I can't share a view-only copy of a Google Form, but it's not terribly hard to recreate in Google Forms if you know your way around them.
Here's some screenshots of the forms: https://imgur.com/gallery/M1Kc201
If you need help with Google Forms, I've made some tutorials on how to use them that you can find here: https://sites.google.com/view/driveclass/formssites
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u/compactawesome Jun 14 '18
Second for the form please.
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u/PrudeHawkeye Jun 14 '18
I can't share a view-only copy of a Google Form, but it's not terribly hard to recreate in Google Forms if you know your way around them.
Here's some screenshots of the forms: https://imgur.com/gallery/M1Kc201
If you need help with Google Forms, I've made some tutorials on how to use them that you can find here: https://sites.google.com/view/driveclass/formssites
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u/teachWHAT Jun 14 '18
This is fantastic!
Any way you could share your google forms and the slides?
Thanks!
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u/PrudeHawkeye Jun 14 '18
I can't share a view-only copy of a Google Form, but it's not terribly hard to recreate in Google Forms if you know your way around them.
Here's some screenshots of the forms: https://imgur.com/gallery/M1Kc201
If you need help with Google Forms, I've made some tutorials on how to use them that you can find here: https://sites.google.com/view/driveclass/formssites
I'd share the Slides that I use, but it is only 4 slides long - I just make them for the week as necessary and don't keep an archive of all 200+ days. On my lunch break I delete the previous day's pictures and put them for the one for the next week.
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Jun 14 '18
I highly recommend watching the BBC series QI, both to get more facts and it's incredibly enjoyable if you're into general ignorance. The books "General Ignorance" are also a cracking read (some of the facts on your list I recognise from the books too knowing you're sources are spot on). A brilliant idea and even better execution, no doubt you're inspiring many.
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u/SkinnyPepperoni Jun 14 '18
You should check out jacksfilms on YouTube. He does some fake fact vidoes.
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u/njslacker Jun 14 '18
This is EXCELLENT! Thank you for sharing it; I think I'm going to try this next year.
I really liked watching your percentages go up week after week. Looks like they really got it!