By CTE staff member and biology instructor, Meg Elias. The Lilly Series is a set of posts based on sessions held at the Lilly Conference for Evidence-Based Teaching, October 2015.To teach independent thinking in the college classroom, it is important to give students opportunities to take risks without the penalty of “being wrong.” In my experience teaching science to non-majors, students often hesitate to voice their opinion on any subject, perhaps because they aren’t sure how they would defend themselves if challenged. Jeff Murray’s Pulling the Rug Out session at the Lilly Conference gave me an idea for a learning activity based on an ethical question which would allow students to reflect on and challenge their own beliefs in a safe environment.
In one of
the varied activities during Murray’s workshop, we were given a list of 16 living
things ranging from broccoli to dolphins. We were instructed to assign each item
to a category. Here are my answers:
Acceptable
to kill for want
|
Acceptable
to kill for need
|
Never acceptable
to kill
|
Broccoli
Rose
|
Chicken Cow
Turtle Salmon
Butterfly Rat
Mussel Mosquito
Snake
|
Dog
Monkey
Cat
Horse
Dolphin
|
I found it to
be a very simple exercise, until Jeff asked us to define the rules we used to
separate the organisms. Even though I am a biologist, it was hard for me to verbalize
why I had listed a chicken as acceptable to kill for need, but not a dolphin
(brain size, maybe). In comparing notes with my neighbors, I was surprised to
find out that one of them disagreed with my decision that it was okay to kill a
rose bush “for want.” That conversation forced
me to put into words the difference I see between harming a plant versus
harming an animal (the presence of a nervous system). How then, do I justify swatting a mosquito
that might bite me? Is that really a need?
The
discomfort at having to defend an ambiguous opinion is part of the “pulling the
rug out” that Murray wanted us to experience. I can foresee using a similar
activity within a genetics unit, asking students the acceptability of various
ethical scenarios involving genetic manipulation in plants and animals. Is it
acceptable, for example, to give prospective parents the right to select
embryos that are healthy and free from genetic diseases? Is that different from
artificially selecting the gender of their offspring?
We need to
teach our students that there is value in digging deep and revisiting our
perceptions of the world, even allowing them to change their minds in the
process. Activities that challenge us to
remove subjectivity can expand scientific literacy and build a sense of ethical
responsibility, objectives that should be considered as important as retention
of content.
Read more of
Jeff Murray’s work here:
Murray,
Jeffrey. “Critical Thinking Activitiesand the Enhancement of Ethical Awareness: An application of a ‘Rhetoric ofDisruption’ to the undergraduate general education classroom.” Open Review of Educational Research 2:1
(2015): n. pag. Web. 10 Nov. 2015.
If you'd like to learn more about the Lilly Conference, visit the CTE or contact Meg Elias at clarkm1@star.lcc.edu.
