Presenting science

Scientists are innovative in the lab but bound by tradition when presenting that science. Thanks to the hard work by those in the field of science pedagogy, K-12 and undergraduate education has advanced tremendously in recent years, yet those gains haven't translated to how scientists teach other scientists. The presenter speaks for a while, shows some slides, and has an open Q&A session. The only thing that's changed since the 1950's is that we use Powerpoint rather than Kodak and laser pointers instead of those long stick things. For my PhD defense in October 2022, I tried 2 tweaks in hopes of improving learning and equity. Here’s what I did, how it went, and how to do better.

No one likes surprises. Prior to my defense, I outlined my plan with my committee and asked for their assent. Thankfully, they said yes. Then at the start of the talk, I explained to my audience how this talk structure would differ from the traditional format, and why.

Problem 1: A traditional talk is a lecture, even though pedagogy shows that lectures are a sub-optimal way to learn, at least for K-college STEM (https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1319030111) For those at the upper levels of academia, the traditional lectures have been... ok. But can we do better?

Tweak 1: If we want an audience to learn, then we need to give them time to think. I used a “punctuated presentation” where each of the 3 parts in my talk ended with a 60 s pause where I stopped talking and let people think about what I just presented.

To guide their silent thinking, I showed a QR code on the pause slide linked to a google form. I asked folks to type in their thoughts: “What did you find interesting? What questions do you have?”

The goals here are 1) to activate “Retrieval Practice” which strengthens learning (See: https://science.org/doi/pdf/10.1126/science.1199327) and 2) to get feedback for me, post-defense.

Problem 2: Traditional talks are also flawed in the Q&A: several teams have quantified how women are not equally included in these Q&As (e.g., https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0202743). That means less visibility, less networking, and less professional benefit from the Q&A time.

Tweak 2: Carter et al suggested “it could help both women and men to provide a small break between the talk and the [Q&A], which would give people time to formulate a question and try it out on a colleague” and provide folks a chance to leave if needed. So I tried that too.

How did it all go? It bombed. At least, it did in the first practice run with my group (soooooo many :thumbs_down_emoji: on that zoom meeting). Thanks to their wise feedback (e.g. “You need to be very clear about what you want us to do and when”), the defense talk went great!

It was strange to see my audience type away on their phones in the middle of my defense, but I was honored by their participation! And during the intra-audience discussion, I couldn’t help but smile as I over-heard snippets of their conversations.

As a speaker, the google form was super helpful! I got 35 responses, which isn’t 100% participation, but it’s way more 0%! Folks wrote thoughtful questions, useful comments, and constructive feedback. 10/10 will do again!

Sure, some people probably used the pauses for email or whatever. That’s fine. The goal was to make the time more valuable for them, however they choose.

Did they actually learn more? And did the intra-audience discussion make the Q&A more inclusive? I honestly have no idea. Sadly, I was unable to conduct a statistically sound study in the middle of my defense. More on this coming soon though.

What could make next time better? I setup the g-form for anonymous entry, but next time, I’d include the option for people to share their name / contact info. That could help facilitate networking.

I’m not sure how to best improve on the traditional format, but I am sure that we (as scientists) can experiment.