Linus is an instructor in environmental science who teaches a general elective course on sustainability. As a standard practice, Linus implements a simple bi-weekly formative assessment in which he passes out note-cards to his class and asks them to respond to two prompts on either side of the card: (1) “What’s working for me.”; and, (2) “What’s not working for me.” Linus finds that his notecard feedback helps elicit valuable insights on his teaching strategies, as well as uncover underlying confusion or tensions in the class.
When reviewing his most recent stack of notecards, Linus notices a repeated confusion emerge in the students’ feedback related to his last lesson on climate myths and climate change denial. It seemed that students were flummoxed by the concept and were not able to comprehend his lecture. Linus inquired about the theme at the next class and offered to resolve any confusion or answer any additional questions. As students were raising their hands and joining in the discussion, he noticed that all of the students who vocalized confusion were international students. It became apparent that students from other parts of the world did not have a frame of reference for phenomena like scientific myths and climate change denial.
Linus was taken aback at his oversight but resolved to address the issue in this class and his other classes. After clarifying for his current group of students, he amended his lesson plan to leverage possible global perspectives from the students in his courses. Going forward, Linus invited students to share their experiences (with or without) the climate change debate and whether the climate change debate was an active discourse in their hometown, region and country of origin.
- The Issue: Linus has assumed incorrectly that all of the students in his class understand and have a frame of reference for scientific myths and climate change denial.
- The Deliberation: Through his standard bi-weekly assessment and subsequent in-class discussion, Linus is able to identify that the international students in his course are confused by the concept.
- The Growth: Linus raises his own consciousness to the cultural specificity of his own understanding of the course content and is able to alter his instruction to invite student perspectives and peer-to-peer discussion on experiences with science myth and denial.