CSICon Sunday Morning Papers Presentation
The Center for Inquiry’s annual conference, CSICon, has a wonderful tradition of giving newcomers the opportunity to give short presentations at the Sunday Morning Papers sessions. This last year, I had the honor of presenting about one of my favorite topics: inoculation activities for educators to use in their classrooms.
Thankfully, Rob Palmer (The Well-Known Skeptic) compiled information from each of the six speakers for Skeptical Inquirer and created a YouTube playlist for all of the talks.
The following is from the section about my talk, “Inoculating Minds Against the Infodemic by Creating Misinformation”:
“General-education science courses are often the last chance we have to teach students what science is, how it works, and why it matters. Unfortunately, many courses start with a recipe-like “scientific method” and spend the rest of the semester having students memorize science “facts.” Not only is there no single “scientific method,” “facts” can change. And they’re easy to look up.
I used to be part of the problem. For years, I taught introductory biology, unsuccessfully trying to convince students that science was awesome. But I couldn’t help but wonder: Is this what students need to know? Am I equipping students for a life in a science-based world? I didn’t think so. So, I developed a course that teaches skills, not facts. These skills––critical thinking, information literacy, and science literacy––help students make evidence-based decisions and protect them from potentially harmful misinformation.
I use three techniques to teach these essential skills. First, I use a variety of types of pseudoscience. It’s fun, engaging, and addresses misconceptions head-on. Second, I provide a structured toolkit (FLOATER: Falsifiable, Logical, Objectivity, Alternative explanations, Tentative conclusions, Evidence, and Replicability) and give the students a lot of opportunities to practice. And third, I use inoculation theory, which is the subject of this talk.
On a personal note, this was my first CSICon experience, and it was an honor to speak at the Sunday Morning Papers presentations. I only recently “discovered” the skeptic community, and three of my articles were published in Skeptical Inquirer in 2021: “Teach Skills, Not Facts” in January/February, “A Life Preserver for Staying Afloat in a Sea of Misinformation” in March/April, and “How to Sell Pseudoscience” in September/October. It was such a pleasure meeting countless new friends I made online during that brief time. I feel like I found a home!”