We prepared active learning activities, lesson plans and materials for interdisciplinary recitation sections. These lessons were intended to be delivered by recitation faculty and/or TAs. The activities were meant to reinforce the content delivered in the large lecture session.
The Mystery Article exercise aimed to reinforce learning about the peer-review process and the difference in levels of scholarship of different types of information.
Students, working in small groups, were given envelopes containing six articles on science topics. These included a blog article, a Wikipedia article, a scholarly encyclopedia article, an editorial published in Nature, a journal article and a magazine article.
Students then worked in groups to discuss and consider aspects about the articles like authorship, trustworthiness, intended audience and other aspects of quality.
The 'big reveal' at the end of the exercise is that the scientific journal article, that was published in Science, was prominently retracted due to fraud (see [this Nature News article][1] for the story). This acts as a prompt to discuss the peer-review process more deeply, as well as scientific integrity and ethics.
See the provided files for [the list of articles][2] used, the [lesson plan][3] and [the prompt slide][4].
[1]: https://www.nature.com/news/2006/060109/full/060109-8.html
[2]: https://osf.io/vgkbd/
[3]: https://osf.io/ec4fj/
[4]: https://osf.io/rzbqg/