When I originally wrote this piece I’d been immersed in enrolments for the new (2009) year. The last week wasn’t quite so bad as we were just dealing with the B semester, but nonetheless, the registrar & I have seen a lot of students needing program advice. So I thought I’d run through some suggestions here, that might […]
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choose wisely… (redux)
This post is really for students in year 12 (or 11) who are still finalising their subject choices. While I’m talking about Biology here, the same applies to other disciplines. Deciding at the last minute (ie when applying for uni) that you want to be an engineer is not ideal if you’ve never studied maths […]
Continue readingif you’re thinking of taking Scholarship biology…
… you might find the following post helpful. I wrote it a couple of years back but the points I was making then are just as relevant now. By now some of you may be thinking about entering for the Scholarship exam at the end of the year. I thought it might be helpful to […]
Continue readingdishwashers of doom
I don’t know what worried me more about this article in The Registrar – the implication that my dishwasher & its fungal denizens might be out to get me (which I suppose could necessitate returning to Plan B: the Significant Other; after all, I do the cooking, so he can wash up!), or the rather piss-taking […]
Continue readinggearing up for an olympiad
I’ll be off to Taipei in 3 weeks’ time (a little less, actually – eeek!) to attend the 22nd International Biology Olympiad. I’m going as an observer with the New Zealand IBO team, in order to get a first-hand look at how the competition is run, because – – in 2014 we’ll be hosting the 25th […]
Continue readingon academic honesty
I’m marking at the moment (essays & dissertations) and also (when I need a break) reading James Lang’s book On Course: a week-by-week guide to your first semester of college teaching. (Yes, I know I’ve been teaching for yonks, but I know there’s always something new for me to learn & also it’s nice to look […]
Continue readingthe discussion you have when you’re really having a discussion
One of the (many) things I enjoy about teaching is seeing students develop the confidence to take part in discussions & present (& defend) their own views on the topic du jour. Classes where that happens are really seriously enjoyable. And so it was on Friday, when I was in a tutorial class & we […]
Continue readinghelping students think like scientists
Today I was involved in a session on ‘large-group teaching’, run by our Teaching Development Unit. (Secondary teachers can probably skip this post as most likely what I’m going to talk about is pretty much routine for you.) Why? Well, there’s a fairly common perception that ‘the’ model to use in large first-year science classes […]
Continue readingthe human family tree gets even more complex
Once upon a time, a long time ago when I was a high school student, I remember being taught about human evolution as a fairly linear, straightforward narrative. OK, there were those ‘robust’ australopiths (aka Paranthropus) on a dead-end side branch, but otherwise species followed species – beginning around 14 million years ago with Ramapithecus (or Sivapithecus) – until you […]
Continue readingbats and exam questions
The third question in last year’s Schol Bio paper was about bats – specifically, the ecology, behaviour, and evolution of New Zealand’s only two extant native land mammals, the lesser short-tailed bat & the long-tailed bat (Mystacina tuberculata & Chalinolobus tuberculata respectively). The long-tailed bat is a relatively new immigrant, arriving from Australia ‘just’ a […]
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