Written by Dr Josh Heyes
You have probably noticed that the pandemic has brought science and its processes to the forefront of public attention and scrutiny. We have heard the government repeatedly insist that their decision making has been ‘guided by science’. At the same time, commentary by scientists and scientific organizations has pointed out that the role of science is to answer narrow questions objectively through empirical observation, carefully and gradually building workable theories about the properties and behaviour of natural phenomena (like viruses). Other disciplines are more suited to addressing broader questions concerning values, beliefs and meaning where there might not necessarily be an objectively true answers (like what restrictions should be imposed). One insightful comment by Jonathan Van-Tam pointed out that in reality, decisions are not just guided by science but “a combination of science, politics and practicality”.
At LASAR we are very interested in exploring what happens when we teach about the nature of science, particularly how it actually works in the real world and its relationship with other disciplines when informing decision making. However, the heavy restrictions on schools naturally place limits on the extent to which teachers have been able to engage pedagogically with the issues emerging from the coronavirus vaccine. As restrictions ease, we want to support teachers in helping students process what may have been a confusing and difficult year. This ought to be done pastorally, but there are also important opportunities to teach about coronavirus within the scope of subject lessons. For example, the complex issues surrounding coronavirus vaccination, including which groups of the population ought to be prioritized, are excellent opportunity for teachers to build epistemic insight (knowledge about knowledge) as part of their alignment with the National Curriculum.
We designed a workshop on coronavirus vaccinations that was designed to do just that, and recently piloted it with sixth form students. Here’s what happened…
The first part of the session introduced students to epistemically insightful thinking by pointing out the differences between two important questions: (1) how coronavirus vaccines are created and (2) how coronavirus vaccination should be prioritized. (1) is clearly very amenable to science – experiments help us understand the behaviour of viruses, develop theories about how they work, then test medical interventions like vaccinations. However, for (2), while science is needed to inform our thinking, we require other types of knowledge from different disciplines to make our decision.
The second part of the session explored this multi-disciplinary approach further. We asked students to imagine themselves as the chair of a SAGE committee meeting on priority groups for vaccination. They were tasked with coming up with (i) an ‘agenda’ for what questions and problems needed to be addressed (ii) which disciplines’ experts could be invited to address which questions/problems and (iii) what it is about that particular discipline that makes it amenable to the question/problem.
We finished by creating space to discuss one of the ‘Big Questions’ (i.e. questions about human personhood and the nature of reality) nested within a complex real-world problem of coronavirus vaccination – namely the question of how we value life. It is easy to say that we hold all human lives to be of equal worth and value, but when we are forced to prioritize medical resources in an international emergency, things become far more complex and we are forced to make difficult ethical decisions that expose our beliefs.
The session was a great success. 17 students participated and most made active contributions despite grappling with a new online delivery method. Findings suggested that students improved their knowledge of what disciplines are and what makes questions suited to science. Students also developed in their appreciation of the need for multidisciplinary approaches to real-world problems and in their understanding of how to sort questions and problems into the disciplines best suited to answering them. These are all valuable and important skills and align with key parts of the National Curriculum as well as forthcoming reforms that place greater emphasis on knowing about disciplines as well as knowing subject content.
Basing sessions on live issues that are obviously pressing on students’ day-to-day lives is clearly an effective way to help students engage with challenging tasks like thinking cross-disciplinarily.
One student commented that it was ‘really enjoyable and interactive’ and another described it as ‘unparalleled’ – so we must be doing something right!
If you are interested in hosting us to deliver this workshop in your school then please get in touch with Epistemic Insight Research Fellow Josh Heyes at lasar@canterbury.ac.uk
Photo credit: Michael Sanchez on unsplash