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Teaching in a Time of Momentous Change: Opportunity to Present Your Innovations during the EELSI Poster Session

By Jamie DeWitt posted 11-19-2020 15:39

  

Change in instruction this year has been monumental as everyone has adjusted to realities enforced by the pandemic. But challenges spur creativity. Faculty have found new ways to provide instruction in a virtual world. The SOT Education, Ethical, Legal, and Social Issues (EELSI) Poster Session is a fantastic way to share innovations. And this year, you do not even need to leave school or get on an airplane to participate! Please schedule time to develop an abstract to submit by the December 1 deadline.

Toxicological education happens at multiple levels. Toxicology can be taught or shared in a formal classroom or seminar setting, in virtual recordings that are shared to broad audiences, and even in hands-on settings (when they were allowed and are allowed again!) where middle school students learn about household hazards and where to find them. These educational activities take time, effort, and creativity to organize and implement. Sometimes they do not work as we had hoped, and sometimes they are enormously successful. In either case, we have learned about toxicological education.

The focus of the Annual Meeting EELSI Poster Session is to share experiences of educational activities that focus on toxicological education in a broad sense; past topics have included learning objectives for undergraduate courses, science outreach/school partnerships/risk communication, affordable toxicology laboratory activities, summer research experiences for high school and undergraduate students, active learning and problem-based learning in toxicology, career development training programs, and translating toxicology to the public. SOT also welcomes abstracts addressing issues of equity and inclusion, such as the impact of diversity on research quality and productivity and evidence-based approaches to improving recruitment and retention. And this year, we expect to see “teaching toxicology in the time of COVID” as a major emphasis and welcome submissions that demonstrate the creativity of toxicological educators operating under unprecedented conditions!

These types of abstracts have a slightly modified set of directions, as they are “studies that do not describe laboratory or field experiments, such as reports on educational, ethics, legal, or social initiatives.” In this case, please follow the SOT abstract directions and:

  • Describe the research or assessment approach instead of experimental procedures
  • Summarize the study’s results or findings explicitly
  • Clearly articulate implications for the target audience(s)
  • Clearly describe the impact on the practice of toxicology and/or risk assessment if abstracts are describing new initiatives or science policy in the regulatory community

To write an effective education abstract, we recommend that you identify the activity and its connection to toxicology; describe how the activity informs, or is informed by, literature or national calls to action; define the population(s) being served; describe learning outcomes/objectives for the activity and the details of the activity that can inform other practitioners and/or educators; and explain how the effectiveness of the activity has been evaluated.

EELSI Abstract Consultation

If you would like comments before you submit, please contact the designates from the SOT Faculty United for Toxicology Undergraduate Recruitment and Education (FUTURE) Committee or the Education and Career Development Committee (ECDC).

As SOT allows one person to be the presenting author on only one poster, if you are already the presenting author on a research poster, consider including a graduate student or colleague in the development and presentation of the EELSI poster.

Visit the Abstract Submission Site for more information. This video link gives a perspective on what SOT poster presentations will be like.


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