Tonight I started watching ASMCUE 2022 sessions. The first half-hour session I watched (I skipped the CourseSource one since I participated in that one and didn’t want to watch myself!) was entitled “Session. A storytelling approach to microbial metabolism: improving attitudes and functional knowledge.” Jake McKinlay is an Associate Professor at Indiana University. McKinlay teaches a course on bacterial metabolism and runs a research program on this topic. Their goal is to engage students in a subject that has a “large amount of details and negative preconceptions.” McKinlay is interested in storytelling and use of graphics and comics. The course they teach is BIOL 350: Microbial Physiology and Biochemistry. The story is following a single E. coli from a cholera outbreak in Bangladesh. With cholera, E. coli exits and enters a river. It is able to swim and returns to another host to fend off cholera thanks to a Type VI secretion system that it picked up. The illustrations and graphics shared by McKinlay are amazing. Students participating were surveyed pre/post the intervention. For each lecture, they start with a brief overview of the story. Survey data and student grade performance were analyzed. McKinlay concluded that “storytelling is having a neutral effect on grades. McKinlay asked: how far will you stray from realism to establish an emotional connection with learners. McKinlay asked: should we humanize pathogens for the sake of storytelling? McKinlay noted that there are seven basic plots: rags to riches, the quest, overcoming a monster, rebirth, comedy, tragedy, and voyage and return. These plot lines can be simplified to separation, initiation (journey/trials) and return. This session gave me several ideas for courses and Delftia that I hope to test out!
