This is another re-post from Talking Teaching. I know that whole interactive-engagement thing is becoming the norm in schools, but I thought it might be interesting (for teachers, in particular) to see some of the back-story 🙂 After my lecture today one of the students said, "I like your lectures, they’re interactive. You make me […]
Continue readingYear: 2010
a new hominin from siberia?
The latest edition of Nature carries an item that raises the possibility of another new – & recent – new hominin species, this time from Siberia (Krasuse et al., 2010). A few years ago, when the story about Homo floresiensis first broke, I remember commenting to my classes that it was probably only a matter of time until […]
Continue readinghumour with a serious message – the vaccine/autism ‘debate’
From time to time the ‘debate’ around vaccinations re-surfaces in the headlines. A number of other NZ bloggers have addressed this (here, & here, for example). It’s a much hotter topic as in the US, where a number of high-profile ‘anti-‘ groups keep vaccines in the public eye for all the wrong reasons. Don’t get me wrong […]
Continue readinghey hey it’s friday – and the darwin awards are out :-)
The Darwin Awards have been around for a few years now. They’re given to those people who – by some act of breath-taking stupidity – have removed themselves from the gene pool. (Though you could argue that most of the recipients should be excluded due to age….) The (definitely posthunous) winner of this […]
Continue readinghow not to do science: the scole experiment
I listen to quite a lot of podcasts. Lately I’ve been listening to more than usual. I’ve had the flu (I’m assuming that’s what it was, since colds tend not to come with fever, chills, & sore joints) & listening to stuff was easier than reading. Anyway, I digress. One of my current favourite podcasts […]
Continue readingbelief & knowledge – a plea about language
I suspect that for many of my first-year Biology students, the sheer weight of new terms they come across is perhaps the most daunting thing about the course. In some ways learning biology is rather like learning a new language – with several thousand new words swamping the page (& the brain) over the course of […]
Continue readinghow biology teachers can respond to intelligent design
Creationism is a recurring issue for teachers of biology. It can come in many forms (eg young-Earth creationism, old-Earth creationism, & so on) but – despite what many ‘IDers’ would say – its most recent incarnation is as intelligent Design ‘theory’, or IDT. (I use the quote marks advisedly; Intelligent Design doesn’t offer any evidence […]
Continue readingoverrun with creepy-crawlies? maybe not…
I blog a fair bit about the way science stories are (mis)represented in the press. And when I do, I always wonder what the original press release (from the intitution to the media) would have been like. Now Ben Goldacre’s posted an excellent item on one such release. The release in question came from a […]
Continue readinghow do we teach students to question what we say?
This is a re-post of something I’ve written for Talking Teaching. I’ve reproduced it here because I think the notion of teaching things like critical thinking & the nature of science are just as relevant here as they are in a discussion about teaching itself. I’ve just been reading a post by Tim Kreider, over […]
Continue readingcross-species hanky-panky
My first-year students & I are currently studying plants. This is actually something of a balancing act from my perspective as a reasonably large proportion of the class didn’t study the ‘diversity in plant structure & function’ standard back in year 12 (or don’t remember doing so), so I’ve got to bring them up to […]
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