Events

The Melbourne Centre for Behaviour Change is thrilled to invite you to an enlightening talk on critical thinking in education, presented by leading scholar and advocate for evidence-based reasoning, Melanie Trecek-King.

Teach skills, not facts! 

General-education science classes are often our last chance to empower students with the science literacy skills necessary to navigate today’s world. But what is science literacy? Memorising facts and following recipe-like labs? Or understanding the process of science?

This presentation explores a novel course designed to teach the essential skills of critical thinking, information literacy, and science literacy. By emphasising the process of science over content, and providing students with a structured toolkit (FLOATER), students learn how to evaluate evidence for claims. Directly including pseudoscience (e.g., astrology, homeopathy, Bigfoot) and science denial (e.g., climate change, evolution, GMOs) increases engagement, addresses common misconceptions, and teaches students how to recognise the characteristics of good science. Finally, activities in which students create misinformation inoculates them against the real thing.

Attendees will learn how to teach the skills of critical thinking, information literacy, and science literacy by providing their students with a structured toolkit to evaluate claims (FLOATER), including pseudoscience in their classroom, and having their students create misinformation.

We hope you can join us for this informative and thought-provoking presentation. Please register to secure your spot.

In the contemporary global political climate, trans identities are increasingly visible and affirmed but are also targeted and subject to heightened violence. What is often lost in this political paradox is the unique contributions made by trans academics, artists and activists. This in-person roundtable intervenes by centring and celebrating trans history, cultural production, and creativity. It brings together renowned trans scholars who will approach these issues through their current research and practice, helping us to collectively think about trans pasts, presents, and futures.

This in-person roundtable discussion is free to attend, but registration is required. Register here: https://go.unimelb.edu.au/3rks

*Please note: this roundtable will take place at the end of the symposium Sparking joy? Reckoning with queer, trans and gender diverse histories in Australia (sponsored by the Australian Queer Archives, University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Arts, and La Trobe University’s Gender, Sexuality and Diversity Studies). A link to register for the Symposium will be made available shortly.

This event is sponsored by the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Arts, Diversity and Inclusion, and the Gender Studies Program.