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Academics Writing Too Fast?
Interesting piece … look out for the words that are used! We all know that academics, under constant pressure to publish, are writing too fast, with little time and even less inclination to craft...
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Face-to-Face Feedback Required?
Can the way that we mark, and return feedback make a difference? Instead of simply returning marked scripts to students, academics at Edinburgh Napier University invited first-year biomedical sciences...
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Gets my travel juices going…
… but the bigger question is can academia be done differently? For many early career academics, feeling run-down, overworked, underpaid and pressured to perform is all part of the job – something to be...
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Work/Play?
Interesting piece in Times Higher Education - danger of appearing a workaholic … my life is definitely rather unbalanced but tried to address with 4-day week + consultancy – the 4 days keep taking...
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Power in Silence
An interesting look at the use of silence in teaching (I’ve experimented with the use of silence in some of my speaking engagements): In “If silence is golden, we should invest in it during seminars”...
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Don’t Forget the Questions ….
Interesting .. considering am just ramping up for a couple of conferences, but some interesting advice on the kind of questions to expect/prepare for at conferences: Cary Cooper, distinguished...
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Meetings: Good or Bad?
I was fascinated by this piece in Times Higher Education about the power (or otherwise) of meetings. I have been to my fair share of tedious meetings, but also find regular meetings, particularly if...
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Is an academic research career possible?
Hmmm, having left Manchester saying I was never going to work in a University again, never move so far north again … and after time with LICC, that I was clearly destined for secular work… There is a...
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The ‘Unconference’ in the Classroom?
Interesting reflections from Kevin Fong re the impact of attending an unconference on his thinking on teaching: The unconference originated in Silicon Valley, where in the late 1990s...
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“You Get Out What You Put In”
Universities are now devoting large chunks of time to trying to help students to understand that they need to put their own effort in – and often the more (if well focused) – the better. It’s...
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Rudeness in Academia?
It’s definitely there! Is it really required? I am not really interested in working with people who focus on criticism over critique, a core difference in attitude: And this, in Bloom’s cheerfully...
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MOOCs are damaging Mentoring?
Having spent a significant chunk of today talking about mentoring, an interesting piece to come across in Times Higher Ed: I have spent nearly my whole life, since kindergarten in 1956, in love with...
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Lectures Still of Value?
http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1380002 Really interested in the debates about teaching styles, especially re: lectures: By the 1970s, educational scholar Donald Bligh had written one of the first...
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The Power of Words (@timeshighered)
This is an interesting piece on the power of words: It is only an imaginative use of language that allows for the emergence of new ideas and a new understanding of ourselves and the world we live in....
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“I shouldn’t really be here” says @timeshighered
Been thinking about ‘Imposter Syndrome’ etc a lot recently, so here’s an interesting story from Times Higher Education about so many academics feeling like frauds: On a recent train commute to work, a...
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#TimetoTalk with Historian Barbara Taylor
In the Times Higher Education today there’s an interview with Barbara Taylor, a historian who is the subject of The Last Asylum. “By the time Eve was published in 1983,” she recalls when we meet at a...
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Times Higher: Is there still a place for lectures?
The end of this piece made me laugh: Not that lecturers themselves are necessarily so wedded to such high-minded considerations. One extremely distinguished English literature professor habitually...
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Creating ‘Networking Buzz’
Enjoyed this piece, as I’m always looking for ways to connect people up and make the most of that knowledge – let’s stop reinventing the wheel, and put our heads together: The forty delegates were...
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PhD: Has the quality dropped? If so, who’s “to blame”?
This is rather concerning (but not particularly surprising, as we’ve heard all those complaints about GCSE, A-Level, degree level standards dropping, etc.) re PhD doctorates. Really, by the time you...
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A call for Interdisciplinarity
Having had a role promoting interdisciplinarity, and taken a job where I can be part of a team within an academic context – an interesting argument for more working together in the humanities: Why not...
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