Predicting the Future and the Scientific Method

    It is time for an old draft to come to light. I started writing it several years ago, as you can see but it appears that it is now that becomes more appropriate.

    On August 21st, 2017 we in the USA experience a natural wonder. A total Solar eclipse. The shadow of the eclipse narrow band spanned across the whole northern USA from Oregon in the west to South Carolina on the east coast. This event was special for many reasons and gave us the opportunity to think about the wonders of the natural world.
    As I prepared for my presentation at Warner Pacific University where I guided people through the phenomenon as it was occurring, I started thinking about how humanity has experienced solar (and lunar) eclipses and how metaphorical they have become. The first experience of course was un-expected and the explanation for the event was metaphysical, attributed to supernatural forces, and some eclipses became the signal for some ominous event. But then science happened.
With scientific knowledge a sense of predictability came, if one knows how something works, say the solar system, then future events (like eclipses) can be unmasked and previous events can be explained.    

"Total Solar Eclipse 2017 Path USA Map" by NASA Goddard Photo and Video is licensed under CC BY 2.0

    This for me is the power and importance that science has. Being able to predict.

    Predictions even though may appear simple they can be misrepresented or they can become the force to cause the prediction (a self-fulfilling prophecy) or they might be the cause that what is being predicted doesn't occur. For the first case, I can mention how as I was explaining the eclipse with a map of the USA with a shadow of where the eclipse would be seen some people misinterpreted the map thinking that the eclipse would be occurring at different times in the US as in the map the shadow was marked with the time. So if it was 9:00 AM in PDX it would have 12:00 PM at NY. People would interpret that as if the shadow of the eclipse was moving from PDX to NY taking three hours to get there not realizing that, in fact, 9 am in PDX is the same time as 12 noon in NY; even the caption in the picture talks about a path!

    The second kind of prediction where we have a self-fulfilling prophecy is when an economic model predicts that there will be a scarcity of some product, as we saw in recent times with the COVID-19 pandemic and toilet paper, causing citizens to hoard toilet paper and thus scarcity. 

    The third kind of prediction is when people react to the prediction thus making the prediction fail. That is the case of the movie Soylent Green that predicted in 1973 that NY city would have 40 million people by the year 2022. This prediction was on a film that represented the feeling of society at the time and was based on statistical projections based on good data at the time. What did happen then was that people realize that the future exposed on the film was not what they desired for their lives and therefore stop moving to NY creating a new trend that made the initial prophecy fail.

    Today, in the midst of a pandemic, we are wondering about the immediate future and the long term. How can we know what kind of future are we creating with the actions we are taking now? Are we going back to normal? Are we going to create a new normal?

    The answers to these questions will take a lot of discernment. But one thing I am sure of is that science should have a central role in decision making. We need to learn how to interpret data obtained by different means. We need to view the environment as integral to our own human existence. We can't forget how everything is connected and how wrong and stubborn ideologies will backfire.

    As a teaching professor in STEM, I feel especially obligated to ask these questions and to help my students develop critical thinking so they will not fall prey to conspiracy theories abundant today in our cyberspace. 

    

The Truth Abaout Test Scores and Grades

It has been a long time since I blogged about science teaching and science education. It is not that there are no more things to talk about, but because other things have come my way, distracting me from this topic. So today I am returning to writing about it because the times require an examination of the situation, in particular to online education.

Halfway this past spring semester 2020, in the USA we had to change the way we do school due to the Coronavirus pandemic. The change was dramatic and affected all around the world. In our case, the main change was that we had to deliver instruction via the Internet. Unintentionally other aspects of the life of the student were affected as well, like for those who were graduating and couldn't get the proper commencement celebrations. For me, one thing that stood out was the way we do the grading of a course, and of course for the students as well. That is why I need to articulate some ideas about grading.

What is it about grades that get in the way of education?

Is it the social stigma of a "good grade" that inhibits the performance of students as they focus more on them than on the actual knowledge, Skills, and Convictions that are supposed to be what education is all about?
Let's focus on STEM education. Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics have been the driving force of progress. Medicine and in general the wellbeing of our society depends on well-trained professionals in these areas. Many students, young and old, are getting into STEM because they see a bright future.

What are the proficiencies that education is to develop?

These questions are difficult to answer, as the socio-economic conditions framing the context of the relationship between students and their learning is very complicated, it is a complex environment. The complexity comes from the multiple dimensions of the situation, starting with who the student is as an individual, and who is the student supposed to be. Who is the student as a product of his/her environment, and who is the student supposed to be as a product of his/her environment?
Where is the student coming from?
What is the student's background? And, even more difficult, where is the student going?
Where is the student now?
What is the context that the educational institution provides for the success of the student?

Science students, in particular, have to face a series of prejudices, misconceptions, and lies.
On the one hand it has been traditionally supposed to be an area for exceptional, rare, mainly white males, individuals who must sacrifice an open and fun life like any extrovert would enjoy. "In the good old days" these individuals couldn't be good looking, socially active, nor popular with their peers. They were labeled as "nerds."

Making scientists social heroes has been an uphill battle for many years. Few in the past have obtained recognition when due to a social crossroads the moment is right. But in general, it is the economic success of those in STEM that makes it attractive to study.

Coming back to misconceptions. Having a good grade average has been the myth of success. Many students believe that in order to get into a recognized institution to obtain a diploma that allows them to enter the work-force at a high level of income, they need good grades. To the extreme of thinking that an average grater than 3.5 is necessary in order to succeed. This is a major impediment in students' performance as thinking about the grade blocks the student to thinking about the subject matter. The stress of the possibility of getting a low grade highly inhibits the potential of understanding the material that they have to master in order to be able to perform professionally.

That is the main issue with grades as obstacles for proficiency.