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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Science Literacy by University of Alberta

4.4
stars
237 ratings

About the Course

Fake news or good science? In a world where we have access to unlimited information, it is hard to sift through the echo chamber of opinions fueled by emotions and personal biases, rather than scientific evidence. Science Literacy will teach you about the process of science, how to think critically, how to differentiate science from pseudoscience, how indigenous wisdom can inform science, how to understand and design a scientific study, and how to critically evaluate scientific communication in the media. Every module will build your new skill-base with real life examples, and at the end of each module you will have to apply these skills to scientific questions, talking points and controversies in the world. Warning: this course requires an open mind and the ability to self-reflect. In Science Literacy, you’ll hear from special guests: Timothy Caulfield, Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy and star of Netflix’s “A User's Guide to Cheating Death” on pseudoscience Dr. Torah Kachur, Scientist and CBC journalist on science communication (and miscommunication!) Christian Nelson, Citizen Scientist and creator of Edmonton Weather Nerdery, on experimental design Metis Elder Elmer Ghostkeeper and Cree Elder Kokum Rose Wabasca, on the holistic nature of Indigenous wisdom and how it can work with the scientific process Associate Professor in Psychology, Dr. David Rast on uncertainty and decision making...

Top reviews

SL

Jan 1, 2021

This course was practical, informative and presented in an engaging manner. Anyone who wants to increase their science literacy or brush up their skills will find this course valuable.

AG

Aug 26, 2021

A course that is fit for the times. Excellent resource for teachers like myself to help develop ideas to help high school students develop scientific and critical literacy.

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26 - 50 of 84 Reviews for Science Literacy

By Jorge B R

Feb 7, 2022

It is a course, where everything is explained very simply and you learn things that will be useful for life

By Nathalie R

Nov 28, 2020

Feeling more comfortable around other people when we our discussion is about scientific studies.

By Douglas W

Mar 15, 2021

Great mix of reading, video and practice tools. It was a challenging and entertaining course.

By Wendy L C

Nov 19, 2020

Learning the ability to think critically is tough. This course is a great way to start.

By Martin D

Oct 3, 2022

Helped a lot in trying to think critically in this new age of misinformation.

By Rizzalie L J R

Dec 5, 2020

The best course that I have taken. Thank you! WIll always think critically.

By Jay G D

Jan 21, 2021

Thank you very much. This course is so timely. I highly recommend this.

By Steve M

Dec 1, 2020

Well put together with great examples and loved the videos!

By Tajbibi S

May 5, 2021

An eye opener course. Except for drag and drop

By Marisol M

Oct 5, 2021

It was truly transformational! thank you

By Judith R

Jan 9, 2021

excellent instruction and presentations

By Atang M

Nov 10, 2022

The best course. What an insight!

By Daniele F

Sep 22, 2021

didático, digerível e rico.

By Namiz M

May 5, 2023

Thanks very much!

By R.E. o

Sep 10, 2020

very interesting

By AGUSTIN G C

Apr 19, 2022

excellent

By Niels L

Oct 16, 2023

Good!

By Susan K

May 2, 2023

1) It's a bit of a weird mix of assuming you know science reasonably well and assuming you know nothing... I'm not sure if that's an issue with the course itself or an issue with how/if corsera maybe tries to level the type of learning it feeds you. 2) They have a thing where they ask you to match comments under headings - I found this really hard - also there is no way to go back an reorganize the info, if you want to figure out the right answer you have to re-do the whole thing. For some types of information this made sense (like ID and categorize the problem statements and the solution statements). But for others this made absolutely zero sense (like ID which statement is from a conclusion or a methods section..... note: the article we read did not have well defined conclusion and methods sections and the different statements didn't actually match to where they were in the article, nor the type of statement you would write if you were writing a conclusion or method or discussion or abstract.... I'm still not sure how they put things where, and ended up doing that part by scientific elimination logic. Test the hypothesis it goes in place A, if not place A try place B, keep notes so you can rearrange multiple spots at once. They need to fix that - because it was frustrating and no learning happened. Severe mismatch between type of testing and info type provided there. In other places the matching was kind of fun - because the logic of what you are placing where made sense. Like the name the fallacy statements... it made the fallacy section fun.3) There were a number of broken links where I had to go looking on Youtube for the video - I think I found the correct ones... but dudes - it's a university level course, they need to fix those. Plus one video that was completely missing any links at all. I'm going to chalk that up to a platform failure not a course failure.... but the people who made the course need to get that fixed.Finally - did I learn stuff - yes I did. It was also a great review of things I already knew. I wish there had been more concrete instruction around the communicating science module - it was very surface level stuff - which was a disappointment, but otherwise it was tons of fun. I'm giving this an 8/10, with an acknowledgement that it might be really frustrating for a non-science or non-academic to take... especially given the missing links and stuff.

By Beth r

Mar 5, 2021

I came to the course as a scientist and lecturer who wants to teach science literacy to college freshmen. I "knew" the value of science and the process, but I did not know the components that go into teaching it. The course was valuable to me. It inspired me to think about the process and to reflect on expereinces. It also provided great ideas on examples and apporaches to teaching to others. Thanks from Cornell University!

The interviews were helpful. The topics were relevant. The exercises were the least effective component, especially in weeks 4 and 5. I did not participate in the discussion forums, mainly in the intersts of time, but when I did look into the one for week 4, I saw that the comments were not cohesive nor helpful, anyway.

The gems of the course were 1. including traditional knowledge for consideration, 2. awarenwss of bias, 3. effects of uncertainty & hallmarks of pseudoscience, 4.video on scientists' changing theory of hte universe and 5. Dr. Kachur's interview.

The areas for improvement are 1. most of module 4, espeically discussions of stats. They are not quite relatable. 2. all drag and drop activities on Modules 3-5 They are too difficult to understand. Consider including a few examples. I could not figure out what was being asked of me in several of them. 3. ALWAYS identify when more than one selection is required to get an answer right on a quiz, and 4. lost opportunity for examples of social media misinformation. They examples in modules 1 & 2 were so wonderful. I had hoped fr equally enlightening examples for the laster modules.

By Don M

Nov 30, 2020

Overall, this was good course. Most of the readings and videos were interesting. Some of the drag & drop exercises were excessively long and the fact that you had to start from scratch if you made an error made them irritating. On the positive side, I liked the instructors and their overall style and approach to the material. I also liked the interviews with Timothy Caulfield, and Torah Kachur, among others. There was lots of good information about the scientific method, logical fallacies, statistics, the peer-review process, and scientific communication (in the media and on social media) - all of the things I would expect in a course like this. Obviously, the course could not go into the details of how to perform some of the statistical calculations, but it did highlight the need for greater statistical education not just among the public, but among journalists, and scientists themselves. On the negative side, while the sections on indigenous knowledge were interesting, I don't think they were appropriate for this specific course since, as far as I'm aware, such knowledge was not gained through the use of the scientific method. I also felt in a few cases the discussions, questions, and issues were too political and designed to get students to associate certain policies and ideologies with scientific literacy. It's for those reasons I gave the course a 4 / 5 instead of 5 /5.

By Loretta H

Dec 1, 2020

The videos were very informative, interesting, and easy to understand, Presented information is a very clear and concise manner. Enjoyed watching the guest speaker presentation, they gave a different prespective on how to view science. The phrase modern science is about numbers and how, while the traditional view is about relationships and why, really had an impact on me. Some of the Drag and Drop were very confusing, and wasn't really connected to the information just presented. even after a couple attempts, i still had difficulty figuring out the correct answers.

By Annie F

Dec 7, 2020

The science that I learned in the course was fantastic. At first i couldn't get the drag and place to work which was frustrating , and I found for some of them I couldn't really understand the subtle differences of my mistakes in placing things in the wrong box. But what I learned about studies and how to look at them critically was fantastic. I live in a community with a large number of people who fall prey to internet garbage that influences their decisions. For example abut vaccines, there are still people here who believe that vaccine causes autism.

By Julieta G

Apr 11, 2021

I really enjoyed the course a lot. I learned many new things and reviewed other information. The videos were excellent! I am giving four stars however because at times it felt that content was not distributed equally throughout the weeks, making it hard to plan study sessions. Also, some things were really hard and more videos or clearer examples would have been nice, like when studying statistics. All in all, however, I really enjoyed myself and learned, which is why I did this in the first place. Thanks!

By Claudia R

Sep 16, 2021

It's been awhile since I looked deeply at a scientific journal, or was really sceptical of the media I am consuming. I will apply the information I've gleaned from this course to future readings, be they scientific or media derived.

Also, this course should/could be mandatory for returning students. those of us who have been away awhile need a remider

By Donna-Jean Z

Jan 19, 2022

This was a mini-review of a course I took 30 years ago on the same topic. I enjoyed it for the refresher and got caught up on the jargon. Worthwhile for sure! Easy for someone that has no understanding of how to determine or define valid and reliable information.

There are places that could use improvement but it got the message across.