Designing Team-Taught, Multidisciplinary Courses to Tackle Socially Contentious Issues in Higher Education

Widespread mis/disinformation and public distrust in science have emphasized the need for general education programs to create targeted instruction that promotes scientific literacy, especially among non-science majors. The College of Arts and Sciences at Texas A&M University has designed a team-taught, multidisciplinary two-course series called Contemporary Issues in Science, which tackles socially contentious issues in cosmology, geology, biology, and chemistry. The courses equip students to evaluate scientific claims, understand the nature of science, and recognize common mis/disinformation tactics. A team-taught model was used, as no single faculty member can credibly address all content areas. It also helps emphasize the notion that scientific consensus requires a multidisciplinary effort. Special care was needed when constructing the course, and both sociocultural and cognitive science perspectives were considered during the planning process. Evidence-based instructional strategies, including explicit teaching of the nature of science and use of the claims–evidence–reasoning model, combined with identification of mis/disinformation strategies, were implemented to support learning outcomes. Herein, we present both a practitioner-oriented description of course design and preliminary research findings on student outcomes.