John A. Pollock - 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

How People Learn: Stories from Transmedia for STEM and Health Literacy

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

But what is the problem?

– Let’s think about science literacy in our country.

– How science literacy impacts health literacy.

  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.

The story is out there:

2009!

1995!

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.

PISA

Programe for International Student Assessment

(15 year olds)

Average (white)

USA 36th

2012!

Let me show you a clip from

WAITING FOR SUPERMAN

Directed by Davis Guggenheim

Let’s talk about reading a bit more.

2009 Program for International Assessment (PISA) Reading (15 year olds)

Average USA 24th

Science literacy among adults.

J.D. Miller (2010) Adult science learning in the Internet era - 2010. Curator, 53, 191- 208.

But only 28% could read the New York Times - Science or understand NOVA

Civic Scientific Literacy, 1988–2008.

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

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.

Below Basic Basic Intermediate Proficient

Prose 50 33 15 2 Document 51 29 18 1 Quantitative 61 26 11 2

Percent adults with Below Basic health literacy

Health Literacy!

2 1/2 - 1 million years ago

Scientific American boisei habilis Scientific American

2 1/2 million years ago

1 1/2 million years ago

Simple Stone Tools

Recent discovery of 150 tools from 3.3 million years ago

1 1/2 million years quality tools and …

Scientific American

1 million years ago

Control fire! And story telling...

– Humans have been telling stories and listening for a million years.

– Humans love a good story.

Lots of time and lots of climate variation.

www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/ctl and www.koshland-science-museum.org

Mt. Toba Explodes

But there is more than just weather. *!404 ppm!

X!

So what’s next after Mt. Toba & the Genetic Bottleneck …

Telling stories with pictures that last a long time…

that are extremely accurate.!

that animate the event.!

Bhimbetka, India

and make us really wonder.!

Then it warmed up.

10,000 years ago

The warm-up gave us a chance to adapt:

  Cultivation - spreading seeds

  Selective breeding - desirable traits

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

Things began to happen fast

5,000 to 8,000 years ago an age of invention Riding horse Wheel & plow Sail Written language

Beer recipe 5,100 years ago

The British Museum

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)

But the Scientific Method by Descartes and others about 400 years ago…

Musée du Louvre!

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.

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

Process

Why telling stories counts

How to 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)

Focus on Fundamental Principles

Example #1: Understanding medications significantly increases self-responsibility among heart recipients.

McAllister et al Prog Transplant (2006)

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

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

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.

The comic book:

The iPad video:

  What we have learned.

•  Children –  Average Improvement 64%

–  Range of improvement -8% to 300%

•  Parent –  Average Improvement 7%

–  Range of improvement -19% to 53.8%

Before! After!

1! 2! 3! 4! 5! 6! 7! 8! 9!

1.0!

2.0!1.5!

0.5!0.0!

2.5!

Question No.!

Mea

n sc

ore!

What’s Next: A new video game on the immune system.

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.

Example #2:

the video game…!

Audience Testing & Evaluation

 game should have progressive difficulty

  students want more complex objectives

  splinter is boring

  What we have learned.

What’s Next: A new video game on the immune system – take 2.

Audience Testing - Formative Evaluation

7th Grade

Example #3:

Winning game levels 1 - 3 !

clears Benny’s acne.!

Level 4 - viral infection!

Level 4 – viral infection!

  “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 we have learned.

What’s Next: A board game.

You don’t always need an App.

A board game with Gerra Bosco and others

Something new:

Do kids learn when they watch a digital dome show?

Example #4:

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

Knowledge item: Item type: % Correct Before Show:

% Correct After Show:

1. What is a stem cell? Multiple choicea

28 76

3. Is there blood in your bones? Yes/No 41 97

6. What does extracellular matrix mean? Multiple choicea

13 68

Did children learn from the film?

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

  children learned from a single exposure

  children learned equally well from both styles  Though they prefer animated characters telling the story

  children learned to visualize and draw new complex systems

  What we have learned.

What’s Next: Facing the fundamental principles of evolution head-on.

Part of Darwin2009: A Pittsburgh Partnership www.sepa.duq.edu/darwin

Art and Science: Spiral of Life

Example #5:

Example #5:

The challenge:

www.pewforum.org/files/2013/12/Evolution-12-30.pdf

Influenced by religion and politics: 43% of Republicans believe in evolution versus 67% of Democrats

Public Views About Human Evolution

Script by David Lampe

Developed with ETC

Darwin Synthetic Interview

Also used in Pittsburgh Public School

(enrollment ~27,000)

Did you learn anything?

69%

Would you recommend this to a friend?

76%

Darwin Synthetic Interview

Post-Survey Total respondents: n=3954

“Ask Darwin!” A Synthetic Darwin Interview. A museum interactive kiosk installed in the Carnegie Science Center.

First depiction of a tree-like diagram. Charles Darwin's notes 1837.

Darwin had one: All Life is connected by common ancestors

We need an image for Evolution

In the top 20 of the most downloaded papers from Leonardo (MIT Press) for 2012, 2013, 2014 & 2015.

Spiral  of  Life  V:  Animal  Evolution  App.  18ft    x  10ft  Pittsburgh  Zoo  &  PPG  Aquarium  

Used as an interactive space where children can place their drawings on the spiral.

Spiral of Life V: Bird Evolution App. 7 ft x 6ft

National Aviary

 70 % (n=3476) reported ‘satisfied’ to ‘very satisfied’ with their level of enjoyment, learning, and information

 48% were able to correctly identify where humans evolved, even though humans were not explicitly marked on the image.

  “Please identify the region with the origin of life.”

  What we have learned.

 70 % (n=3476) reported ‘satisfied’ to ‘very satisfied’ with their level of enjoyment, learning, and information

 48% were able to correctly identify where humans evolved, even though humans were not explicitly marked on the image.

  “Please identify the region with the origin of life.”

  What we have learned.

What’s Next: let’s see what we can learn from television.

Aviary Science Center

Zoo

Correct Position 60.30% 29.63% 24.30%

Top Left/Top Middle 12.50% 38.00% 42.90%

Sample size (n) 976 1080 3584

A television show pilot for PBS.

Kids explore science. Broadcast September 2010 WQED•Pittsburgh

A story of broken bones and much more…

Creator – John Pollock Executive Producers – John Pollock & David Caldwell Produced in collaboration with Planet Earth Television

Audiences surprise us with some bits of knowledge, but people almost always mess up how big is big.

Brief step back: Other things that we have learned along the way…

Study how people learn from the SCIENTASTIC! TV show.

We also find:

Significant Increase:

•  Kid’s belief that science helps them understand what they see around them.

•  Willingness to find an expert and ask them questions.

Ulna?

An hour-long special for Public Television.!

Kids explore science.!

Focus on SLEEP!National Broadcast 2014/2015!

What’s Next: Let’s build and adaptive, branched, interactive e-reader/e-book.

“City Hacks and the Search for Sleep” !By Kate Messner & John Pollock!

Together with :

•!

•! “City Hacks and the Search for Sleep” !By Kate Messner & John Pollock!

Together with :

“City Hacks and the Search for Sleep” !By Kate Messner & John Pollock!

Together with :

•!

“City Hacks and the Search for Sleep” !By Kate Messner & John Pollock!

Together with :

•!

Together with :

Synthetic Interview – the app!!

Transmedia with rich visual and strong narrative can help:

•  improve reading literacy and engage the aliterate

•  improve science literacy and spur curiosity about everyday science

•  add new dimensions to problem solving skills

•  can strengthen visual understanding of complex systems

Thank You!

[email protected]!