It’s that time of year when school students become seriously focused on exams. This year has been messy for student learning, and has affected some students more than others, but the NCEA external assessments and the Scholarship exams are going ahead pretty-much as normal. I’ve taken some interest in the Scholarship Physics exams over the […]
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What is climate science?
In the last few weeks, I’ve been working with some colleagues at the University of Waikato to construct a first-year course introducing Climate Change Science, with a bit of a NZ focus. This would be suitable for students of all backgrounds (not just science students although those would likely be the majority). It’s not that […]
Continue readingTeaching physics without the physic[al]
As we emerge from ‘lockdown’* it’s time to start reflecting on how we, as a tertiary teaching establishment, have been continuing to provide quality teaching to our learners. Like most places, The University of Waikato has a rapid transition to online teaching. From what I hear from colleagues and students, through official and unofficial channels, […]
Continue readingWhy I hate Rube Goldberg Machines
You might not know them by name, but you know the idea and have seen the movies – Rube Goldberg machines serve a trivial purpose that but are stupendously overcomplicated. A classic is the Honda Cog advert – a machine for unveiling a banner. It goes like this: And, for those who have stockpiled too […]
Continue readingThe numbers are the numbers, except when they’re not.
I’m not quite sure of what to make of the new figures for COVID-19 (as we must now call the novel coronavirus – though I’m not sure the capitalisation is correct) from Hubei province: Image from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-51495484 The spike yesterday is a consequence of a using a different way of defining a case – one based […]
Continue readingAnother BIG idea about physics
Further to my post a couple of weeks ago about BIG idea physics, I think I should add a further one. To do so I’ll use the words of one of my favourite physicists*, Paul Dirac. It seems to be one of the fundamental features of nature that fundamental physical laws are described in terms […]
Continue readingIs car washing so bad we need to ban it?
Apparently, some people enjoy washing their cars. Each to his or her own, I suppose. I mean, some people like duck shooting, some people follow Coronation Street, and some people’s idea of a good day out is to sit on a grass bank at Seddon Park and watch cricket all day. (Guess which one I’ll […]
Continue readingHow to cheat at university
A couple of days ago I attended (and spoke at) the University of Waikato’s “LearnFest” event. There were lots of talks and sessions on very diverse aspects of teaching, mostly at tertiary level. One was by Myra Williamson from Te Piringa Faculty of Law here at Waikato, on Contract Cheating at Tertiary Institutions. Now, I […]
Continue readingStudent evaluations of teaching effectiveness tell us nothing about teaching effectiveness
I thank my colleague Chris Lusk for bringing this paper by Uttl, White and Gonzalez to my attention. Many universities and polytechnics acquire Student Evaluation data on courses and teacher quality at the end of a course. There are different ways this can be done – here at The University of Waikato students are asked (online) […]
Continue readingLanguage in physics teaching
Hello everyone. It’s been a long while since I was blogging, but I am back again now. The second-half of the year is rather less hectic for me, so I have some time to get back to this. I’ve been considering recently the learning that students have achieved in our first year paper “Physics in […]
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