The National Library of Ireland’s new installment of their Discover exhibition, focusing on science, is called Particles of the Past. One of the centre-pieces of the exhibition is a copy of “The Sceptical Chymist” by Robert Boyle, published just over 350 years ago. The story of Boyle is a fascinating one, as it interweaves through a turbulent part of Irish history as well as an enlightening time in the development of science, heralding a new era of chemistry. Yet beyond Boyle’s Law, I have to admit I never knew too much about the “Father of Chemistry”. Boyle’s father, Richard Boyle,…
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Croke-22
Somewhere in the Ministry of Magic or Death Star One, or wherever they Make The Decisions, someone is having a great laugh at our expense. According to the terms of the Croke Park Agreement, lecturers are required to meet with their students and that meeting slot must be a timetabled hour. Therefore I have a sign on my door, saying I am available at a particular hour. Before the glorious Croke Park Agreement came into effect, I was available to meet my students all the time, and still am now. But if I was the kind of student I was…
Student Feedback
One of the peculiar things about our system here is the process of student feedback. Students fill out a ridiculously long survey called a not-so-student-friendly “Q6A” for each module (and more usually for both of two lecturers in a module). This rates everything from the conditions of the room to the helpfulness of the lecturer, with some space for comments at the end. Thanks to our glorious comrades in the Teachers Union of Ireland, the Q6A responses are the property of the lecturer. Therefore to feed the information on to THE SYSTEM, said lecturer will—quite unbelievably in a society obsessed…
Blogoversary
Been blogging for over a year now. The most popular posts in terms of access numbers were: Cognitive considerations in designing e-resources Social Network Sites as an Academic Induction Tool Tabbed template for articulate Why it’s time for vonprond to go Adding Articulate presentation to wordpress.org Podcasting and Screencasting to support lectures Teaching in the laboratory: 1 -pedagogy Constructivism in chemistry Demonstration of the iodine clock experiment Virtual worlds in chemistry higher education Here’s to another year! Social Network Sites as an Academic Induction ToolSocial Network Sites as an Academic Induction Tool
Jennifer Burke Award
After submitting a project on the pre-lecture resource work completed for the Teaching Fellowship, I have won the Jennifer Burke Award. This award is awarded annually by the Irish Learning Technology Association (ILTA) for Innovation in Teaching and Learning. The process was quite an innovative one, and I actually got quite a lot out of it. Submission for consideration of the award cannot be more than five minutes. For mine, I made an Articulate presentation that was a model of the resources that the students see, to try and give a sense of how students would have interacted with it….
Time to abandon Irish and religious education
Today’s Irish Times editorial reflects on the serious decline in standards in the Irish education system. Irish pupils reading, maths and science scores have dropped sharply in the last 10 years to the point where they are at or below average. A not-so-subtle undertone is that our levels before 2000 were artificially higher than other OECD countries because of an essentially mono-cultural classroom. In the last few years, several sacred cows of Irish society have been challenged – everything from the excessive expenditure at FAS right down to giving cars to former Taoisigh and civil servants half an hour to…
Hunt Report in graphic form
Analysis of the Hunt report in graphical format: Using Wordsift: Using Wordle:
The thorny issue of HE teaching qualifications
The Hunt Report contains the following statement: It is not sufficient for academics to be experts in their disciplinary area; they also need to know how best to teach that discipline. They need to have an understanding of learning theories, and to know how to apply these theories to their practice. They need to appreciate what teaching and learning approaches work best for different students in different situations and learning environments… Teachers at other levels of the education system, from primary to further education, are required to have a professional qualification. Professions such as medicine, dentistry, law and engineering have…
Academic Workload
Continuing his Marshall Attack, Prof Higginbotham moved his bishop to b3. He pushed himself up from the large couch and stretched in front of the fire. Time for a lecture. Grabbing some notes from a small table beside the sherry, he went to the window of his ivory tower. A few students were already waiting below, he could see a few more scuttling across the quad. Late, as usual. He opened the window and cast the papers containing the day’s knowledge down to his charges, who eagerly caught them, some chasing the papers in the light breeze. Closing the window,…