Controversial Science Argumentation Skills for Teachers in the Digital Clinical Simulation Discussion Leader
Name
marvez-gmarvez-sm-cms-2022.pdf
Description
Thesis PDF
Size
2.16 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
5356106f58c2454b51d664cf6a959fc1
Author(s)
Marvez, G. R.
Advisor(s)
Reich, Justin
Date Issued
May 2022
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
Teaching controversial issues is a critical skill for a continuing democracy and to ensure that the next generation of researchers and designers are well versed in critical analysis skills. Despite this, teachers report that they have received little instruction on how to facilitate a controversial discussion with students and are concerned about possible challenges inside and outside the classroom. To address this need, I have designed a digital clinical simulation of a high school science teacher leading a discussion on the ethics of gene therapy with their class of twenty students using a branching structure on the platform Teacher Moments. In a study with 42 participants, I show that this simulation could be useful in raising teachers' comfort with leading controversial discussions, and that the teacher dialogue choices that experienced teachers make differ from those with less teaching experience. This research shows the usefulness of simulations in preparing teachers to lead controversial discussions with students across a number of discussion skills such as asking open-ended questions and deciding where a teacher's opinion belongs in a discussion. Furthermore, I suggest future design work that could be implemented using machine learning methods to improve the generation of student dialogue and authenticity of simulations about discussions.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Program in Comparative Media Studies/Writing
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