Project introduction and background information
Our course 'science communication 2.0.' contributes to students’ insights on how citizens (‘lay people’) understand scientific and technological developments, how experts tend to respond to these public reactions, and how the interaction between experts and citizens can be improved in ‘post-truth’ times. This requires a different attitude than merely transmitting knowledge; students (as future experts) should know how to dialogue/have effective conversations with people of different backgrounds. The plan therefore:
- Develops a flexible teaching format
- That addresses both natural and social science students and stimulates collaboration between them during the course (simulating the later professional situation)
- Builds a corpus of interesting real-life cases together with the different programmes involved, that can be used during the course, and in the students’ group work
- Provides an extensive and updated literature review of science communication 2.0
- Develop ways to let students produce their own video clips/blogs/vlogs to present their project with
Objective and expected outcomes
The aim of this innovation plan is to develop a new teaching format (structure, methods, literature) for educating students in science communication 2.0. The format should fit natural science students as well as (a smaller portion of) social science students. Also, the format should be flexible - being able to address both smaller and larger groups of students, as the group size may fluctuate over time, and diversity among the students.
Results and learnings
This course will invite students to choose their own topic/domain/case, to which they can apply – step by step – the theoretical insights obtained during the course. In this way, they will actively give shape to their own learning processes.