John A. Pollock - How People Learn: Stories from Transmedia for STEM and Health Literacy

1. How People Learn: Stories from Transmedia for STEM and Health Literacy John Archie Pollock, Ph.D. Professor • Biological Sciences Co-Director of the Chronic Pain Research Consortium Director of the Partnership in Education www.duq.edu/pain • www.sepa.duq.edu

2. Outline  Motivation –  Sharing science with the general public creates learning opportunities – But there’s a problem  Process – Why telling stories matters – How to focus on Fundamental Principles – Knowing your audience  What we have learned –  Narrative matters –  Visual learning is strong

3.   Motivation ? ‘Two Cultures’ - C. P. Snow Rede Lecture - Two Cultures, 1959. ‘Scholarship of Integration’ - Ernest Boyer Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1990. The Scientist/Communicator can add a useful dimension to the discussion and teaching of science. But what is the problem? – Let’s think about science literacy in our country. – How science literacy impacts health literacy.

4. The story is out there: 2009? Chris Mooney makes the point that: People integrate new information based on their pre-existing worldviews, and that failure to account for this fact will lead to continued failures in science communication. 1995?

5. PISA 2012? Programe for International Student Assessment (15 year olds) Average (white) USA 36th

6. Let me show you a clip from WAITINGFOR SUPERMAN Directed by Davis Guggenheim

7. Let’s talk about reading a bit more.

8. 2009 Program for International Assessment (PISA) Reading (15 year olds) USA 24th Average

9. Science literacy among adults. Civic Scientific Literacy, 1988–2008. But only 28% could read the New York Times - Science or understand NOVA J.D. Miller (2010) Adult science learning in the Internet era - 2010. Curator, 53, 191- 208.

10. National Assessment of Adult Literacy (NAAL)? http://nces.ed.gov/naal/? 1992 90 million adults score in the lowest categories 2003 110 million adults score in the lowest categories

11. Weak health literacy costs the U.S. health care system at least $240 billion/yr. The below basic person is not necessarily below basic in all assessment categories. Health Literacy? Percent adults with Below Basic health literacy Below Basic Basic Intermediate Proficient Prose 50 33 15 2 Document 51 29 18 1 Quantitative 61 26 11 2

12. Scientific American Scientific American boisei habilis 2 1/2 - 1 million years ago

13. Simple Stone Tools 1 1/2 million years ago 2 1/2 million years ago Recent discovery of 150 tools from 3.3 million years ago

14. Scientific American quality tools and … 1 1/2 million years

15. Control fire! And story telling... 1 million years ago

16. – Humans have been telling stories and listening for a million years. – Humans love a good story. Lots of time and lots of climate variation.

17. But there is more than just weather. 404 ppm? *? Mt. Toba Explodes X? www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/ctl and www.koshland-science-museum.org So what’s next after Mt. Toba & the Genetic Bottleneck …

18. Telling stories with pictures that last a long time… that are extremely accurate.? and make us really wonder.? that animate the event.? Bhimbetka, India

19. Then it warmed up. The warm-up gave us a chance to adapt:   Cultivation - spreading seeds   Selective breeding - desirable traits 10,000 years ago

20. Cities Çatalhöyük - a city 9,000 years ago (Turkey) – Thousands of people – Cultivate wheat This is an artist’s impression of Çatalhöyük. Image credit: Dan Lewandowski

21. Things began to happen fast 5,000 to 8,000 years ago an age of invention Riding horse Wheel & plow Sail Written language The British Museum Beer recipe 5,100 years ago

22. Writing took off: Epic of Gilgamesh (4,100 years ago) Hammurabi’s laws (3,800 years ago) Egyptian Book of the Dead (3,500 years ago) Torah (Pentateuch) (2,800 years ago) Musée du Louvre? But the Scientific Method by Descartes and others about 400 years ago…

23. So what do I think: With a million years of evolution, our brains are wired to tell and listen to stories. We are not necessarily wired to read. We have to learn that. We are not necessarily wired to think critically about science and health. We have to learn that.

24. What to do? Tell stories Use great visuals (scientifically accurate) Follow fundamental principles that relate to your audience Reinforce the message across media platforms Challenge your audience to actually read

25. Process Why telling stories counts How to focus on Fundamental Principles

26. Focus on Fundamental Principles Example #1: Here is the challenge: Kids who receive an organ transplant frequently fail to take their medicines. 32% among kidney recipients 31% among liver recipients 16% among heart recipients Many kids die. Dobbels et al Pediatr Transplant (2005) Nevins Pediatr Transplant (2002) Griffin Elkin Pediatr Transplant (2001) Rianthavorn et al Transplantation (2004)

27. Example #1: Understanding medications significantly increases self-responsibility among heart recipients. McAllister et al Prog Transplant (2006)

28. Example #1: Teach patients about Prograf (anti-rejection drug). Among other things, they need to know about: •  IL-2 •  T-Cells •  Immune System – relevant cell biology •  Central Dogma – DNA RNA Protein

29. What we did. Lawrence, Stilley, Pollock, Webber, Quivers (2011) Promoting Independence and Adherence in Pediatric Heart Transplantation. Progress in Transplantation, vol. 21, 1, March 2011, pg 61-66. PMID: 21485944

30. What we did. Started with a booklet designed by university hospitals. Create a patient survey based on booklet In the form of a comic book Flip Books – for things that move or change Places to write comments and questions Places to doodle The comic book was then turned into a simple animated video story.

31. The comic book:

32. The iPad video:

33.   What we have learned. 2.5? Mean score? 2.0? 1.5? 1.0? 0.5? 0.0? 2? 3? 8? 9? 1? 5? 6? 4? Question No.? 7? Before? After? •  Children –  Average Improvement 64% –  Range of improvement -8% to 300% •  Parent –  Average Improvement 7% –  Range of improvement -19% to 53.8% What’s Next: A new video game on the immune system.

34. Example #2: Video Games on the Immune System •  It’s NOT a Battle Zone! •  The immune system is a vast distributed intelligence. •  The immune system collects information and makes decisions.

35. the video game…?

36. Audience Testing & Evaluation

37.   What we have learned.  game should have progressive difficulty  students want more complex objectives  splinter is boring What’s Next: A new video game on the immune system – take 2.

38. Example #3: Audience Testing - Formative Evaluation 7th Grade

41. Winning game levels 1 - 3 ? clears Benny’s acne.?

42. Level 4 - viral infection?

43. Level 4 – viral infection?

45.   What we have learned.  “game is fun because it is really difficult”  students appreciated being able to pause and read about their characters (the immune cells) and then got better at game play  students learned about the immune system What’s Next: A board game.

46. You don’t always need an App. A board game with Gerra Bosco and others

47. Example #4: Something new: Do kids learn when they watch a digital dome show?

48. An Experiment: Wilson, Gonzalez, Pollock (2012) Evaluating learning and attitudes on tissue engineering: A study of children viewing animated digital dome shows detailing the biomedicine of tissue engineering. Tissue Engineering (Part A), vol 18, no. 5 576-586. PMID: 21943030

50. Did children learn from the film? Knowledge item: % Correct Before Show: % Correct After Show: Item type: 1. What is a stem cell? 28 76 Multiple choicea 41 97 3. Is there blood in your bones? Yes/No 6. What does extracellular matrix mean? 13 68 Multiple choicea Children’s drawings on the survey. Wilson, Gonzalez & Pollock (2012) Evaluating learning and attitudes on tissue engineering: A study of children viewing animated digital dome shows detailing the biomedicine of tissue engineering. Tissue Eng Part A. 2011 Sep 26. [Epub ahead of print] PMID: 21943030