USCOTS Keynote “Communication Rumination: Engaging with Sci-comm & Edutainment”
Thanks for attending (or viewing here), and here are key references/resources (in order of mention):
statistical birthday song satisfies CDC’s recommended 20 seconds for handwashing!
I taught doubling growth on an episode of a PBS-station kids show and reflected on it (and on parallels between outreach and teaching) in a Journal of Humanistic Mathematics paper
Schonger & Sele (2020). How to Better Communicate the Exponential Growth of Infectious Diseases, PLOS ONE, 15(12), 1-13.
great framework and examples in van der Bles et al. (2019). Communicating uncertainty about facts, numbers and science. Royal Society Open Science, 6: 181870. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.181870 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/epdf/10.1098/rsos.181870
JSDSE papers on counterintuitive examples (Appendix C of Lesser & Kephart, 2011) and striking demonstrations (Sowey, 2001) are types of educational hooks (Barkley 2019)
lottery outreach page has my lottery limerick, song, video, articles, etc. that can be useful to refer reporters and readers to (I also made a page for my Pi Day outreach)
recent NSF-funded science song projects include NIMBioS Biosongs Project, Project SMILES, and VOICES; example statistics songs include a definition jingle and a conceptual pitfall about p-values
simplicity caveats include avoiding “spread” (Kaplan et al.), “in the long run” (Lesser et al.), and “how would you explain that to your grandmother?” (Levy blog)
https://CAUSEweb.org/fun offers some usage guidance, literature, and a searchable collection of statistics educational fun items free to use in your classroom; also see work by Lesser, Pearl, etc. on STEM educational fun items and papers and humor
some sci-comm journals are International Journal of Science Education (Part B), Journal of Science Communication, Public Understanding of Science, Science Communication (rare article on teaching statistics in the communication literature: “Of course I’m communicating; I lecture every day”); here is some discussion on the challenge of defining sci-comm
discipline-based communication resources in mathematics (NCTM Communications Handbook and https://www.ams.org/publicoutreach/) and statistics (Statistical Significance, Stats and Stories, World of Statistics, etc.)
Mannshardt’s Amstat News piece on “flipping the paradigm” for communication
Wired magazine’s video series of explanations in 5 levels of increasing complexity for particular topics such as machine learning [for a further illustration, my teaching the topic of polls/surveys at increasing levels of complexity starts with an episode of a TV show for lower elementary schoolers and then a syndicated newspaper supplement for upper elementary schoolers]
increase engagement (and/or your own big picture insight) by trying briefer communication formats: a JSDSE webinar (prepared part = 20 minutes), a 3-minute thesis competition (details), a 2-minute video abstract (example; tips), 90-second elevator pitch contest, 75-second radio program script (e.g., weather statistics, capture-recapture), a 10-second jingle or limerick!
my research on Spanish-speaking emergent bilinguals learning statistics has been reported for researchers (Nov. 2009 SERJ), for teacher educators (2020 book chapter), for teachers (spring 2011 STN), and for a general adult audience (a fall 2016 alumni magazine)
communication with cartoons/comic strips: an article abstract, government education about Big Data, courtroom science
story (and YouTube video) about Mike Morrison’s template for better conference posters
Wagler/Lesser 2016 eCOTS videoposter illustrating 3 tools for assessing instructional materials’ readability
analyze communication patterns in your classroom (e.g., Lesser & Kephart JSE paper)