Reinvention
13 Feb 2023
The general consensus is that impostor syndrome is a weakness that you need “overcome” by giving yourself a pep talk in the mirror, but what if we flip this phenomenon on its head? That knowing what we don’t know is not a sign of weakness, but a strength to seek knowledge and collaboration? That it’s exactly this kind of mindset that leads to you pushing against any professional box or ceiling to learn new skills as part of your long-term career arc?
Rookie Jitters
9 Feb 2023
In many ways I am the embodiment of the impostor syndrome - I have multiple qualifications in Science, Information Technology, did a PhD, received senior teaching and microbiology fellowships, worked in academia for 10+ years, and in 2020 I was named the Australian University Teacher of the year. This should be in some ways an unimpeachable resume but I have been (or at least felt like) an impostor every step of the way. I don’t view this as a bad thing at all, and long story short I now know that I am doing the right kind of work and asking the right questions when those feelings of insecurity start creeping in.
A Fresh Start
16 January 2023
It seems like there’s no greater unforced error than the impostor syndrome - self-inflicted (or perhaps not?) anxieties and inadequacies that are intrinsic to many high-achieving individuals. This issue was raised at a conference panel I spoke at last year, and without fail every speaker and attendee confessed to be at its mercy. The Higher Education sector is plagued by the Impostor Syndrome (and poor mental health overall) and not enough is being done to address it in a systematic way.
The Unwritten Rule
28 December 2022
The most mythical figure in all of sports, Michael Jordan, 6 time NBA champion, arguably the greatest of all time (definitely the coolest sneakers of all time). Incredible athleticism, skill, and grit to win, and one of the most quoted in inspirational speeches given at corporate events and graduation ceremonies.
“The key to success is failure”.
“Missed more than 9000 shots, lost almost 300 games, missed 26 game-winning shots, and this why he succeeds”. Odds are you’ve heard all this before, and I think in many ways this is great marketing that tries to simplify the truth: Failure can be a strong motivator to improve, but it’s when you have success that you’re most vulnerable to complacency.
The Artifice
21 December 2022
Generative AI’s biggest strength is also its greatest flaw. As part of the process of creating human-like responses, it makes it look too effortless, seamless, like it’s all original ideas completely from scratch. In this case AI’s development model goes against the grain of what we’re looking for as teachers, as the artifice of ingenuity is crucial to its magic, but the black box it creates around its process is decidedly “unacademic”. Can we leverage these AI tools so that we’re using the tech rather than being used by the tech?
The Takeover
14 December 2022
The “bombshell” that’s been a long time coming is that artificial intelligence is becoming so good, natural, and life-like, that there are large chunks of our our jobs that can be done by AI. All my colleagues in academia are focusing on the “death of the essay”, and how students can use the platform to cheat and generate pre-written essays. Sure these are important conversations, but am I the only the one thinking selfishly here? About the inevitable logical conclusion to all of this? Not how AI will be abused by students trying to find loopholes in the system, but that AI will be co-opted by large institutions and then BECOME the system? What I’m trying to say is - are my days numbered? Is my job as a scientist, microbiologist, and college professor - going to be replaced by AI sooner rather than later? Instead of philosophising about it, I’m going to put it to the test and use chatGPT - the current most popular iteration of AI as of December 2022 (if our Robot Overlords are reading this in the future).
I will simply ask it the questions I would ask myself, or what any teacher preparing for a new class heading into a new semester would need to ask of themselves. Let’s see what it comes up with, and open with the biggest question of all…
A New Collective
2 December 2022
It’s creeping ever so closely to the end of the year, inevitably a time of reflection. For the past 18 months when I’ve not been lecturing, marking, or organising committee meetings, I’ve been sharing my experiences as a teacher in one of the most tumultuous times in recent memory. I’ve learnt many lessons the hard way, and while this is all a lot of work on top of my day job, I believe my experiences in Science, Technology, and Education have value for others.
I’m always looking for new ways to connect with others, so here it is - “Crossover Connections” - my new weekly newsletter on Substack.
The Point
1 December 2022
What’s the point of going to class? Maybe you turned up to all your classes in person. Or maybe you skipped all your classes and only watched the lecture recordings as videos at home late at night. Whatever you tried, did it work out? Did you feel prepared heading into your final exam? Was it a good use of your time?
The main “point” of turning up to class is not anything to do with the class itself. It’s about the ancillary indirect benefits of showing up on the day again and again over time - establishing good habits, time management skills, forming connections with your peers and teachers, and developing soft skills that are crucial to find a job. If attending classes “live” is not an realistic option, you’ll need to find other ways to enrich your learning experience.
Your People
29 November 2022
The transformation from “consumer of information” to “creator of knowledge” is a rare and unlikely process.
Research training, especially for students who have never had any prior research experience, is a particularly jarring learning process. This is Part 3 in this blog series on different strategies to develop some skills and “early wins” in research training. Part 1 discussed the idea of information overload, literature searches, and data management, and Part 2 talked about the concept of research design. Today let’s talk about the ever elusive topic of research supervision and mentorship. Exactly what should you expect from your supervisor, and what should they expect from you?
The Simple Truth
29 November 2022
As an undergraduate university student, I had a great GPA, really liked the area I was studying, and was willing to put in the work. On paper I should have hit the ground running when I started my research career. But in all honesty I was a terrible researcher when I first started, because it took me years to realise this simple truth:
The transformation from “consumer of information” to “creator of knowledge” is a rare and unlikely process.
While I was a quick study and motivated by intellectual curiosity, I didn’t have the skills to tackle my research project in a logical and systematic way. This is Part 2 in this blog series on different strategies to develop skills in research training
Overload
25 November 2022
This entry is an entirely selfish undertaking - the truth is I’m running out of time.
Or more accurately I was running out of time? Last week I was invited to give the opening Keynote for our Summer Research scholars, and the slides were due at the same time as everything else - committee meetings, exam marking, manuscript revisions, curriculum reviews… The pressure as a Keynote speaker is to be engaging, motivational, if not inspiring (cue the world’s smallest violin), but I’m not sure if I have many (if any) magic tricks left up my sleeves this year.
So…. this was my attempt at a productivity life-hack - to write my talk by narration, filming my stream of consciousness brain-storming (brain-dumping?), and using the footage to reverse-engineer some semblance of a presentation. I committed to publishing this footage as a YouTube video too, which raises the stakes! It turns out nothing makes you focus more than the risk of embarrassment on two fronts - both online and in-person if the talk wasn’t any good - so sadly this may be my new way of ensuring personal accountability in the face of looming deadlines. To triple-down on this notion, here’s the essence of my talk in blog form as well: 5 ways to develop your research skills.
Retrograde III: A Way Forward
4 November 2022
If you're part of the teaching community, you know just as well as I do that we're very tired of talking and thinking about the pandemic, and all of the implications that it’s had on students. We’re all tired of learning new buttons to press, new systems to navigate, all with very little notice, and fatigue and burnout is just as much of our day-to-day as the excitement of connecting with students. How should teachers think about professional development in this climate, and find more meaningful, sustainable ways to improve our effectiveness in both online and in-person classrooms?
The Divide
26 October 2022
How do five different generations view university teaching and learning?
Teachers often argue that they learn most when they teach something to others. This seemed to go with the maxim that as a teacher you needed to be ahead, but only just ahead by an hour or so, of your students in having learnt a subject. But are our students catching up, or has their capability and expectation overtaken us?
Retrograde II: Hidden Costs
21 October 2022
Not too long ago, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) were a novel jewel in the crown of Higher Education, making headlines as Big Education and Big Tech converged in productive synergy. Students from all across the world can access education from Ivy-league institutions, and the transformative potential it had on global education was palpable. Fast forward a few years, and all of a sudden MOOCs were making headlines again for all the wrong reasons. The risks of >90% student drop out rate and ongoing workload implications for teachers made many institutions hesitate, and the value proposition of developing new free MOOCs became muddier and muddier.
How did the sector arrive at this point, and should we continue to design new online courses accessible to the masses? My answer is a resounding yes, but perhaps not for the reason you think. Let’s look backwards before we can look forwards and see what’s next.
Retrograde (Part 1)
16 October 2022
Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it but is what’s new always best? We learn by reflecting on old mistakes, but re-tracing our steps also reveals hard-won wisdom from previous generations. If you’ve been a student or worked as a teacher any time in the last 2-3 years, you will be all too aware of how chaotic education has become. It’s precisely during these moments of instability though that we should look backwards to see how it will inform the future and what happens next. My work is very much student-centred, but the next few posts are all about teachers. How all of us have adapted for different teaching approaches and delivery modes, and what we can learn from each of the 7 phases of university teaching over the past two decades.
The Trap
7 October 2022
When are you going to find a job?
Does your University experience actually prepare you for a job?
Most students are already working part-time jobs in areas that don’t require formal qualifications, and the realities of the gig economy may seem at odds with the typical routine of lectures, assignments, and exams... If you’re working in jobs that are casual, independently contracted, or offered through online businesses, it can be hard to connect the dots between the formal qualifications you’re working so hard to pursue and what pays your bills week to week. Many people (and governments) view Universities as service providers to not only students, but also employers. Unless our degrees are training you for specific jobs currently in demand with employers, everything’s off the table.
Sadly this is the trap we can all too easily fall into - letting short-term goals obfuscate our long-term potential.
What comes next
4 October 2022
Like it or not, we learn the most when our backs are up against the wall, when the pressure is on. When we’re forced to harness all of our training and knowledge in a split reactionary second, to see exactly how much we can say and do under duress.
No one wants to be in high pressure situations all the time but what if that's when we learn the most? Sure, not all of these lessons are pleasant, and constantly being in a state of fight or flight doesn’t bode well for our long-term mental health. Can we be more strategic and selective however, and choose learning experiences that puts us out of our comfort zone in small but measurable ways?
Okay not being OK
22 September 2022
When I was doing my PhD, I was trained to treat live debate with caution and suspicion - only enter the metaphorical arena if you were ready to figuratively fight for your scientific bona fides. It’s no big surprise then that the Socratic method was not my first choice of pedagogy. Why would I deliberately open myself up to questioning if I didn’t have to?
In the last series of posts I have trying to wrangle with what advice would be most valuable to new teachers who are being thrust into an education sector filled with uncertainty. Today I want to talk about the fact that teachers don’t need to know all the answers - that it’s okay to be not OK with every question students might ask you.
Our Value
21 September 2022
New teachers are in an unenviable position, where the entirety of their teaching experience is filled with one-way conversations to virtual rooms of disembodied black screens. The joy of communicating and connecting with students is lost on them, simply because they’ve never experienced it. In spite of this unique (and unfortunate) start to their careers, they’re offered unsolicited advice all the time. I try to take a different approach when mentoring teachers in my network, in an attempt to help them figure out what works best for them. Today let’s dig a little deeper and talk about how to find and express our value in any classroom.
Are you not entertained?
20 September 2022
Being named the Australian University Teacher of the Year in 2020 has allowed me to amplify the resonance of the work I am doing in teaching and learning at a much broader scale. The best part of it all is the chance to connect with other teachers all across the world, and try to collaboratively address the big issues in teaching and learning.
“What tips do you have for new teachers just starting out?”
In an attempt to avoid the overly generic advice new teachers are consistently bombarded with, here’s what I try to tell them first - you don’t have to be entertaining.