Citizen science

Citizen Science in the
Classroom
MARC BOUSQUET, EMORY UNIVERSITY
NSF IDEAS LAB, MARCH 31-APRIL 2, 2014

Citizen Science is…
Crowdsourcing Big Data:
Donated labor and funds
Learning is informal & incidental
Intellectual engagement of participants
zero to minimal

Citizen Science could be…
Digital Self-Publication of Undergraduate
Research:
Student-framed research questions
Original primary data collection
Public scholarship—sharing suggestive
findings with interest communities in the
academy and beyond.

MAPs vs BLOTs:
Big Lectures and Online
Tests vs Mediated
Authentic Participation
(MAPs): Pedagogies of
content delivery (BLOTs)
are at odds with
participatory, inquiry-based
pedagogy (MAPs).
In pedagogies seeking
authentic participation:
Students frame their own
research questions and can
make a real contribution to
the scholarly conversation.

Authentic Participation
requires a working
knowledge of the existing
discussion. This can take
the form of a
representative rather than
comprehensive review of
the existing scholarly
literature. The
representative lit review is
essentially a thumbnail
“map” of the discourse,
leading to a space where
the student can make a
modest contribution.
For most students this is a
radical re-orientation of
their relationship to
scholarship, which they’ve
been taught to use to
“support arguments.”

A real contribution to the
existing scholarship does
not need to be systematic
or generalizable. It can be
enough that a student’s
findings are suggestive,
provoking further effort.
Particularly when “sharing”
means digital publication:
Working with human
subjects requires
thoughtful training, even
where an IRB is not
involved.

From BLOTs to MAPs:
For innovative educators, the fundamental shift is
away from a model of “delivering content” to
students and toward active learning practices. If
the highest order of active learning is authentic
participation, what kind of support do students
and faculty need for teaching that facilitates
actual participation in academic, professional and
public discourse?
Although the percentages in this image are highly
debatable and hotly contested--especially by
corporate-sponsored researchers heavily invested
in profits from passive learning--most education
researchers believe that the basic contention of
the learning pyramid is sound. Active learning
radically outperforms passive learning.

#1. Rethink Academic Writing
For most faculty, academic writing assignments are simply alternate forms of
testing both course-specific and generic learning goals: How well did you
understand the material? Can you make an argument?
Conventional writing assignments, especially “researched writing,” usually also
test the “hidden curriculum” of schooling: Are you able to engage in or acquire
copyediting to produce “standard written English”? Can you meet deadlines? Do
you respect the authority of professionals? How quickly can you patch together
source materials without actually plagiarizing?
But is “argument” the model for academic and professionals writing? Do we
“use sources” to “back up” a hastily-conceived thesis statement?
Patchwriting is bad writing.
Machine scoring can easily replicate human scoring on essays—including much
researched writing—because the cycle of assignment, production and
assessment is so mechanical.

#2. “Writing” is Media Production
The term “Writing Program” hardly captures the need
for institutions to support advanced media literacies in
communicating across the curriculum.
Since college writing is—or should be--more than an
alternate testing format and vector for the hidden
curriculum: Leading programs support faculty in
developing the proficiencies essential to their graduates’
future professional lives.
Competency in academic and professional
communication now assumes a suite of media-
production literacies.

#3. Proficient Writers Compose in:
Hypertext media: Websites and webpages, framing the
output of digital tools, charts, graphs, printable
documents, films, interviews….
Tactical media: “Spreadable” interventions or memes
designed to draw attention, spark action, draw readers,
recruit collaborators….
Quantitative media: Data visualizations, charts, graphs,
posters, interactive calculators, searchable databases,
simulations, models…
Professional social media: Comments, notes, definitions,
reviews, downloadable articles, archives, encyclopedia
entries….

Web 2.0 Never Killed Hypertext
The explosion of bandwidth permitted the transmission of traditional media as well as new
social media and more sophisticated digital tools—all of which can be consumed and produced
without knowledge of web architecture, much less code. As early as 2000, some observers
claimed that “hypertext is dead.”
But for prolific content creators, particularly of multiple media and tool outputs, the problem
becomes one of curation: How can one organize, display, and help readers navigate one’s work
across incompatible platforms?
Many institutions bought into out-of-the-box “digital portfolios” that were costly, rigid,
unnecessarily secure, looked amateurish and enabled institutions to put the word “digital” in
front of traditional output.
Many individuals rely on Wordpress blogs and the huge Wordpress developer community.
Without at least a minimal knowledge of code, most amateur WP sites look like blogs.

Hypertext Editors Permit Hub Sites

Most students have hypertext literacy as
readers. Few have composed in the medium.
I have required hypertext composition in
almost every class I’ve taught since 1997,
usually requiring multiple sites flowing from
the hub.
As a first learning project, I generally ask
students to create a site with a strong
personal connection--to an issue, activity or
group they’re passionate about. Memorials
are common choices.
Usually I encourage connecting the personal
to some form of civic engagement or action.

A simple analytical hypertext
can involve identifying issues
and stakeholders and perform
the intellectual work of
mediating between them by
offering a solution.

Most college faculty
understand the importance
of revising student writing.
They also know that many
students are reluctant
revisers, identify the
process with copyediting,
etc.
I have found that
re-versioning is a highly
effective alternative. Most
students willingly revise
when moving from
successful hypertext to
printable writing. They
already understand the
need to make significant
changes, prune tangents,
write transitions, etc.

Even when in the broad
research topic is
assigned by the
instructor-as in this
“living the low-wage
life” project—student
work can be most
effective when shaped
by a sense of strong
personal connection.

I distinguish between analytical texts
(“researched writing”) and texts
presenting original research. Texts
contributing primary data most
resemble our own research writing
if they engage the existing discourse
on the model of “joining a
conversation” rather than “making
an argument.”

A simple representative
lit review is a challenging,
rewarding, task: The first
paragraph maps major
trends in the scholarship.
A second paragraph
identifies a blank spot (of
neglected research) or
bright spot (of conflicting
research) on the map.
A third paragraph
identifies the nature of
the writer’s contribution
to that blank or bright
spot.

Imaginative Digital Tools
Can Support Core
Academic and
Professional Literacies
Cody’s Bitstrips cartoon version of a lit
review is a stage in the process. It allows
him to envision the players in the existing
conversation not as the building blocks of
an argument as real people in a web of
existing relationships that he’s trying to
enter.
As a preliminary draft of the lit review it
shows great success but also room for
development. Since Cody’s original
contribution is a regression model, he
may need to spend more time situating
his contribution in the conversation
regarding how data is currently used in
education policy.

Sitebuilding is the core literacy of a
“personal cyberinfrastructure.”
As part of the first-year orientation, each student would pick a
domain name. Over the course of the first year… students
would build out their digital presences (and) assemble a
platform to support their publishing, their archiving, their
importing and exporting, their internal and external
information connections. They would become, in myriad small
but important ways, system administrators for their own digital
lives. In short, students would build a personal
cyberinfrastructure, one they would continue to modify and
extend throughout their college career — and beyond. –
Gardner Campbell, A Personal CyberInfrastructure (2009)

With digital publication projects
in even one or two courses, and
a service project for a cause,
plus a site tour for potential
employers or grad admissions
committees: The personal
cyberinfrastructure of a near-
future typical student is
becoming enormously complex.
Most millennial student site-
building was tied to college-
supported publication and is de-
activated 1-5 years after
graduation.
As students demand more stable
hosting for their effort, who has
stepped in?

Tactical Media: Memes & Visual
Rhetoric
A little quantitative literacy
in there as well.

Tactical Media: Public Option Annie

Tactical Media: Target Ain’t People

Tactical Media: Educate Me Now

Quantitative Media: Graphs & Charts

Quantitative Media: Infographics

A concluding
thought
exercise:
On the majority of campuses, many disciplines already
have “swapped,” by adopting writing-related outcomes,
usually as part of a WAC or WID initiative.
But as we move toward a digitally rich model, DWID or
CID/CAC vs WID/WAC, with a far richer suite of
literacies, are we missing the opportunity for “writing
programs” and digital humanities courses to adopt
outcomes involving quantitative literacy?
Isn’t composing with maps, charts, graphs, images,
infographics, models and simulations an almost
inevitable element of composing for professional
audiences?
Contact: Marc Bousquet, Emory University
pmbousquet@gmail.com
Can you imagine a digitally-rich
humanities class that might
realistically adopt such
quantitative-literacy learning
outcomes as:
1. Demonstrate proficiency in
quantitative reasoning in various
forms of communication-written,
graphic, numerical, and symbolic.
2. Apply statistical tools and
inferential methods to matters of
cultural or social significance.
–Gavin, Wilder & Bousquet,
“Spreadable STEM”
What if We Swapped Learning Outcomes?

Citizen science

More Related Content

What's hot

Viewers also liked

Similar to Citizen science

More from writing in the curriculum

Recently uploaded

Citizen science