Closing the Loop - Conference Diaries Vol III
22 June 2022
I’ve just finished up presenting at my first in-person conference in over two years, and I’ve connected with many amazing teachers and contacts. As I wrap things up on the trip I need to make the most of the fleeting moments of network building and make sure the trip was worth it for my professional development. Travel has a baseline level of stress already so it can be really easy to lose track of every new thing you learnt or any new connections you’ve made. How should you close the loop and solidify all of the progress you made on this work trip after you’ve come home?
Why I Became a Teacher - Conference Diaries Vol II
15 June 2022
There has been a wave of transformation across education to say the least. Our new normal is trying to predict the unpredictable - class sizes, delivery modes, technology, all can change or evaporate overnight. As much as teachers champion life-long learning at university, I don’t think we quite bargained for a life-time of learning condensed into such a short time. With so many things up in the air, it is more important now than ever before to reflect on our origin story in education. What motivated us to become teachers in the first place has to be what keeps us going in this time of uncertainty.
In Transit - Conference Diaries Vol I
9 June 2022
Travel is just opening up again, I recently attended my first in-person conference in over two years. I’ve been to my fair share of conferences, but it’s been a minute and I felt a familiar sense of nerves creeping back in. I’m sure students and ECRs about to attend their first conference have similar sentiments of anxiety, and are a bit tentative about what to make of the whole experience. What should you be aiming to get out of this conference? What I’ve found over the years is that shifting the focus away from my own neuroses towards what I can do for others allows things to click into place. How can you help the conference organisers, your supervisors, or other students on the trip? How does your work allow others to accomplish something meaningful? When you do this consistently, you’d be surprised how much value you get out of the experience for yourself.
Teacher vs YouTuber
2 June 2022
“I want to be a YouTuber” is not what any parent wants to hear from their kids, and it’s an open secret that YouTube causes burnout. It’s hard to build a following and even harder to keep one, and you’re essentially a free-lance contractor at the mercy of the algorithm. However learning all of the skills needed to make YouTube videos and run a YouTube channel has transformed my ability to do my day job in very real ways. Teachers who need to communicate to a diverse range of students and audience in particular have a lot to benefit from YouTube, so today let’s talk through 5 reasons why Teachers should dip their toes into the YouTube world.
Stolen moments (Vol 2)
28 May 2022
I’m in the process of designing a brand new lab course for Semester 2, and the next series of blog entries will be my attempt to “think out loud” and steal some time away from the pressure of looming deadlines... Last time we talked about recombinant DNA technology and how molecular cloning of specific genes can be adapted for citizen science projects. Following on from cloning novel plasmids that encode genes of interest, students can work with their own plasmids, or characterise existing plasmid libraries generated by your research labs to express and purify novel proteins of interest.
The Search
20 May 2022
Researching and finding new information should be a student’s bread and butter, but it’s not always as simple as a “Googling it”… or is it? Some topics have decades of literature to trawl through, and you have to know what’s already out there before you can figure out the last piece of the puzzle. Peer-reviewed articles are the gold standard, but you have to go through hard copies in physical libraries or use online databases with expensive subscription fees. Academic Search Engines like Google Scholar are trying to disrupt this model of information access, but are they worth your time? Can they be a “one-stop-shop” for your reports and assignments, and help you work smarter, not just harder?
Stolen moments (Vol 1)
13 May 2022
I’m in the process of designing a brand new lab course for Semester 2, and the next series of blog entries will be my attempt to “think out loud” and steal some time away from the pressure of looming deadlines... The focus will be on inquiry-based learning in molecular biology labs classes - starting today with DNA + Molecular Cloning. In molecular cloning, if one step fails, everything fails. It is very tempting to have students follow cookbook recipes for each part of the process, but it is more valuable for their learning if you give students more autonomy in the experimental design. You can soften the learning curve by limiting the parameters that students can change.
Counting Birds
5 May 2022
What does Bird Counting have to do with Academia, Science Education, or Teacher development? It was Christmas Day, December 25th 1900, when the ornithologist Frank M Chapman, took hold of the bourgeoning Conservation movement in north America. Instead of hunting birds as part of normal holiday traditions, that year Chapman decided to count them instead. The Christmas Bird Count is one of the earliest examples of Citizen Science - a template of large-scale scientific participation involving members of the general public that is gaining traction across all areas of science. Today let’s walk through how teachers can use citizen science to promote active-inquiry-based learning.
Market Inefficiencies
27 April 2022
Every professional is being pulled in a million different directions, and we have to constantly re-prioritise what is worth our time on any given day. At universities and colleges, research versus teaching is the ongoing conundrum. Spending more time on one takes away from the other, and it can feel like a zero-sum game with you stuck in the middle. Surely there are skillsets shared across the teaching and research domains for early career academics to find new synergies in their professional development? Today’s focus is on communication - the market inefficiency in professional learning that benefits both your teaching and research.