I’ve been marking a couple of student assignments today. I won’t go into the details, but as part of it they had to process some data and plot some graphs. The graphs showed values that varied considerably – some thousands of times bigger than others. I had expected (assumed = bad move) that the students […]
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I hate statistics
A week or so back I walked into the lecture room to give a lecture on electromagnetic waves, and was promptly asked: "Marcus, how much statistics do you use in your research?" My initial reaction was to think "what has this got to do with electromagnetic waves?" and then, realizing that clearly it had nothing […]
Continue readingCompartmentalized learning?
One of the benefits of me undertaking a teaching qualification is that I am now a lot more conscious of the kinds of thought processes my students are using. (The best way to do that is to talk to them). This year I’ve noticed how ‘compartmentalized’ students’ learning appears to be. What I mean by that is that […]
Continue readingScience, openness, and conspiracy theory
Hopefully, now that 20 March has passed, people feel a bit more confident in assessing for themselves the abilities of Ken Ring (and others) to predict major earthquakes. No doubt the offenders will try to wriggle out of it by claiming that a M5.1 aftershock in Christchurch was ‘close enough’, but I’m afraid Mr Ring that […]
Continue readingThe mysterious centripetal force
Last week I came face to face with another physics misconception with some of my students. I do think that, as I get more experienced teaching, I’m getting better at picking up on where students are having problems. But it’s a very difficult thing to do. Last week it was circular motion The students were looking at a fairly simple problem […]
Continue readingBessel functions
I vaguely remember the following conversation from back when I was a PhD student. Student A: What’s a Bessel function? Student B (waving his arms about): It’s a wavy thing – goes like this, doesn’t it? Me: Sounds vaguely familiar – I think we did it in third-year. Student A: But what IS it? Me: […]
Continue readingReflecting
Over the summer a lot of the engineering students here have been out on work placements. At the end of the placement, they write a report on it, which is then assessed. These reports get shared arouhd the staff in order to do this, so I’ve got a few to do, which are beginning to […]
Continue readingIf it ain’t broke, don’t fix it
With teaching semester almost upon us, here’s a thought for you university lecturers out there. I’ve been at a teaching workshop this afternoon, where we’ve been discussing how teaching and research can link together – i.e. that they are not two completely inseparable activities, as we often think. There were a number of presenters (I […]
Continue readingSlowdown in activity
[Somehow the original version of this has been garbled by some bit of computer software somewhere. Hopefully this version makes sense. My thoughts and prayers for those in Christchurch and their loved ones] My apologies in advance for what will be reduced blogging in the next three or four months. The following statistics show the […]
Continue readingThe bed of nails
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hG7lGZqWFpM You may have seen a bed of nails demonstrated. You may even have done it yourself. I’ve laid on a bed of nails before (it’s not desperately comfortable but it doesn’t hurt) though what this video does is a bit beyond what I think I’d like to try. So why is it possible? It […]
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