Designing Drugs

The media discussions are your opportunity to research and discuss a topic related to biology that is of interest to you. You will work with your lab team to select, research and lead a discussion of the article, podcast, website, etc.  You will post your article or a link, along with any prep that you want the class to do, to Canvas by 12 pm one day before your presentation.  You can post as a Discussion on Canvas, send to a course assistant or me to post as an announcement, or email to the class. (I’m not sure which method is actually best at getting students’ attention.)

Your group will be responsible for running the entire discussion (planning the activity, calling on students, directing the conversation back to the main topic if it strays too far off, keeping the discussion flowing, etc.).

Your group should conduct some additional research (beyond what is shared with the students) for information to enrich the conversation.  You should also have a list of questions prepared to facilitate discussions.  You can either send these out as “thought questions” when you share the media or just pose these questions during the discussion.

You can use any classroom format you’d like (full class discussion, small group discussion, “silent discussion”, Think, Pair, Share, game playing (Kahoot, Jeopardy), debate, etc.)  Plan to spend approximately 30 minutes of class time on your media discussion. 

The media discussion counts as 1 HW assignment, with all team members receiving the same grade.

Some of the things that you should consider when selecting and preparing the media discussion.

• Is the source you’re sharing reliable?  Steer clear of random websites of organizations/people with an agenda for information (unless that’s part of your plan!)
• Does the article provide a satisfactory level of details?  If a scientific study is described, do you have any idea how many patients were involved?
• Is there any inherent bias in the article?  For example, if you’ve found an article on a pharmaceutical company’s website, are the results presented as unbiased as they would be if you found the article on a government website?  On the other hand, are all government websites unbiased?
• Be aware of the difference between primary literature (the published results of a scientific study) and secondary literature (the magazine, newspaper or other report of research that was published in the primary literature).  Was there a scientific study involved in the topic that you’re discussing, or is it a bunch of speculation or theory?  Note that you do not have to cite data from a scientific study, but you should be aware of the pros and cons of using different types of sources.
• Is there enough in the article to generate a stimulating discussion?
• In addition to the scientific content, does the article raise interesting ethical, political, social or economic issues to discuss?

Resources:

Many resources are acceptable for the discussion article and your background research.  Some potential sources of articles are Scientific American, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, New Scientist, Time Magazine, Science or Nature magazines, Popular Science, The Scientist, Wired, NPR podcasts and TED talks.

Some past topics include: Note that you do not have to relate your discussion topic to that week’s class content.

• Genetic Literacy Project-GMOs
• Vaccines-The Reality Behind the Debate
• Synthetic Life   Biologists are crafting libraries of interchangeable DNA parts and assembling them inside microbes to create programmable, living machines
• Science closing in on aging gene   Experts believe they are a little nearer to tracking down a gene that may influence how long you live.
• Picturing DNA:  DNA and Race
• The Ethics of Medical Marijuana
• The Race for the $1000 Genome
• 24 Hour Living (use of Modafinil to enhance productivity)
• Google’s New Moonshot Project: The Human Body