On Wednesday we ran our first whanau tutorial with the first-year students – a class for those students who identify as Māori. The driver for this was the observation that a disproportionate number of the Māori students in my first-year class didn't do well in our first test, & as a result I asked Kevin, our Faculty's senior […]
Continue readingYear: 2015
slugs, and snails, and … facials?
Today's Life/Style section in the Herald on Sunday brings us the latest 'beauty trend' to hit our shores: the snail facial. Yes, you read that correctly. Apparently one can (if one has a sufficiency of funds) already purchase Snail Soap, which contains "snail slime, virgin olive oil, honey and extracts from medicinal plants". The slime […]
Continue readinghow do we assess teacher quality?
This is a post originally writing for Talking Teaching. It's a difficult question for universities, but an important one at a time when they are increasingly under scrutiny for the quality of their educational outcomes (read: student completion & retention). It's a difficult question for individuals too! Way back when I was a secondary teacher, […]
Continue readingtips for effective on-line science outreach
As you'll have gathered, I'm finding Facebook – and now Twitter – great sources of information, whether it's for teaching, sharing with my students (& others!), or blogging about. And today, this paper popped up on my Twitter feed: Ten Simple Rules for Effective On-line Outreach. Because it's published on a PLoS journal (in this […]
Continue readingsustainability and on-line learning…
… and serendipity! I've just participated in a great AdobeConnect session, run by the university's Centre for e-Learning, on the interfaces between academic publications and social media. It was fun, educational, & thought-provoking & has provided something of a spur to my own thinking about the value** of social media in this particular sphere. (For […]
Continue readingwarmth, empathy – and science communication
I recently started following Kevin Folta's blog, Illumination. (I'm sorry I didn't come across it earlier; it's very good.) His latest post quotes a comment from a Kansas farmer, made on a site opposed to Monsanto & its production of GM crops, noting that the commenter is showing some excellent communication skills. Sometimes I think those of us […]
Continue reading10 mistakes we all make when interpreting research
Will Grant & Rod Lambert, from the Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, listed these 10 common mistakes in an article published in The Conversation. And as they say, if we're honest we've probably made at least one of them at some point. This article would probably be a really useful resource […]
Continue readingperhaps cancer and cardiovascular disease aren’t such ‘modern’ diseases after all
One of the books I'm currently reading is the excellent The Man Who Touched His Own Heart, by Rob Dunn. It's a fascinating and beautifully-written narrative of how our understanding of both the heart and of ways to treat its disorders have developed over the centuries (& yes, I will review the book properly when I've […]
Continue readingthe sonorous war cry of a very angry frog
I've always liked frogs. I remember, when I was probably around 4 years old, being fascinated by the tadpoles that Dad brought home in a big jar from a farm pond. Mum explained about how they'd gradually metamorphose (thought I doubt she used that word!) & we watched their legs slowly grow & their tails […]
Continue readingmusic to learn by
This was first posted over on Talking Teaching. I’m always looking for interesting ideas that might spark student engagement. A couple of days ago this rap video popped up on the ScienceAlert FB page: As you can see, it’s a fun post with a serious message & – I think – an excellent piece of science […]
Continue reading