Education Innovations Profile
Congratulations to Dr. Michael Wong on the Nancy Chick Article of the Year Award (2023) from the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL), the largest scholarship of teaching and learning society in the world. Dr. Wong, along with his student partners, Ahmed Al-Arnawoot and Katrina Hass, worked to develop an interactive visual novel (similar to video game-like novel) that incorporates fiction and storytelling to facilitate science process skills among undergraduate students. Together, they are the first
Canadian recipients of the award!
Science educators recognize science process skills as important yet difficult to teach. Barriers to teaching these skills include feeling unequipped, lack of time, and student disengagement. To address these barriers, the team developed an activity that takes one to two hours to facilitate, is easily implemented in the classroom, and engages students. Their activity is a visual novel that incorporates storytelling, fiction, and music. Students work in small groups to read the novel and generate hypotheses about a series of seemingly odd events described in the story. They then share their hypotheses with the class. This activity encourages students to practice a host of science process skills, including collaboration, making observations, generating hypotheses, and engaging in scientific discourse. Their visual novel serves as a tool for science educators who are looking for a simple, yet interactive activity to facilitate the development of science process skills among their students.
Read more about the innovation HERE
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Do you know of an outstanding education innovation that deserves recognition?
MERIT invites you to submit nominations for our Education Innovations Profile!
This new segment will be featured in our monthly newsletter to spotlight educational initiatives in the Faculty of Health Sciences.
Here's what we need:
- A concise 100-word description of the innovation.
- 1-3 hyperlinks to relevant websites and/or publications.
- Names and positions of the key team members behind this innovation.
- An image is encouraged but not necessary.
Don't miss this opportunity to share your or someone else's remarkable work with our community!
Submit your nominations to merit@mcmaster.ca
Submissions accepted on a rolling basis.