This is a very relevant question in the light of the government’s recent announcement of its intention to tie a proportion of tertiary funding to student completion and retention rates. (This decision is presumably driven, among other things, by relatively low rates of retention and passing papers/courses, which lead to questions about whether we’re getting […]
Continue readingYear: 2010
writing that essay
Found this today (while procrastinating…) Now, while the cartoon is funny, the message is not (& hopefully some of my first-year students are reading this – pay attention, guys!). Leaving an assignment to the last minute is not a good strategy for success – not in science, & not in any other area either.
Continue readinga blog for talking teaching
This is really an advertorial, I guess 🙂 But Marcus, Fabiana & I have got together to set up a blog for talking about teaching, called – fairly predictably I guess! – Talking Teaching. So for those of my readers who are teachers (secondary, tertiary, whatever) – please feel free to join us there. We’re hoping to […]
Continue readingthe age of mammals
The last 65 million years have sometimes been called ‘the Age of Mammals’ (although I’m inclined to think it should be the Age of Insects, or perhaps – as it’s always been – the Age of Bacteria; after all, in terms of sheer number of individuals, bacteria have got to be the dominant life form […]
Continue readingthe bca vs simon singh
Over the last few months many science bloggers have been watching – with considerable interest – a libel case taken agains science writer Simon Singh by the British Chiropractic Association. Singh had used the word ‘bogus’ in describing treatments offered for a range of ailments, including asthma and ear infections. (Similar claims-by-implication are made in […]
Continue readingevolution supressed in new zealand? i think not
While searching for some background on another post, I happened across this headline on the Herald site: University denies author’s PhD claim. I went on to read the story, as it’s always a bit of a concern to see people claiming credentials and the supposed awarding institution denying that this is the case. And a statement from the […]
Continue readingtoday’s big earthquake in chile
Friends rang us in great excitement this morning to ask if we were following the news about the big earthquake in Chile, and of tsunami alerts that had been issued for coastal areas around NZ. (The answer was actually ‘no’; I’d just got in from a walk with the puppy & hadn’t turned the radio […]
Continue readingthe oversized naughty bits of female spotted hyenas
When I visited Pharyngula today I saw that PZ had posted a video about spotted hyenas. Female spotted hyenas. And that reminded me of one of the late Stephen Jay Gould’s wonderful essays on the same subject. (Gould remains one of my favourite science writers -although, having said that, I do find some of his later […]
Continue readinghow i became a science teacher
I’ve been reflecting on my teaching career lately, partly because I have to write a teaching portfolio. It occurred to me that talking about how I came to be where I am now might perhaps be interesting to some of you who are thinking about your future. In my experience, at least, things don’t always go […]
Continue reading$60 a time
In the Dean’s office we’ve spent the last few weeks working on enrolments. As always, there’ve been students who – for whatever reason – haven’t met our re-entry requirements, & so the registrar & I have to interview them before admission. And as always, there’s a subgroup of those students who attribute their poor results […]
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