Yesterday I was giving a short talk to a group of early career researchers doing a two day workshop. I have good memories of doing the same workshop when I first began at my current workplace. I remember folks coming in and speaking to us and how actually, a couple of ideas I got from... Continue Reading →
Check list process for university course planning and design
It's the first lecture, and the bright or bleary eyed students will be turning up to hear what is in for them for the semester. But the work started long before. And I don't mean lecture preparation. Lecture preparation is one of the last things that happen in my course design process. Here is my... Continue Reading →
What I learned about emailing students… from my two-year-old.
I recently posted about writing emails to lecturers in New Zealand universities. I made some suggestions for appropriate email etiquette in NZ based on deconstructing a few representative emails and my own personal preferences. The flipside of the story is of course lecturers who email students in anger, frustration, annoyance and with little sensitivity to... Continue Reading →
Writing First Year Geography Lectures
I've been very quiet in the blogosphere recently. Mostly because I have been preparing new lectures for a section of a first year course I am teaching. I taught first year almost exclusively in my first academic job at Macquarie University, and since I was starting at scratch with topics I had never lectured on... Continue Reading →