Guest Author • Dec 21, 2019 •
John MacCormick You’d think that with low unemployment and ever-improving technology for distance education, the proportion of tertiary students studying part-time would be on the rise. But it’s not. There’s a puzzle here that may help to reveal some of the challenges our tertiary education system faces in meeting the skills needs of New Zealand’s workforce. The number of people … Read More
Marcus Wilson • Jul 23, 2019 •
Hello everyone. It’s been a long while since I was blogging, but I am back again now. The second-half of the year is rather less hectic for me, so I have some time to get back to this. I’ve been considering recently the learning that students have achieved in our first year paper “Physics in Context”. This is a paper … Read More
Eric Crampton • Aug 24, 2018 •
New Zealand’s low PISA rank seems, in part, due to Kiwi students not taking the test very seriously. Akyol, Krishna and Wang develop a measure checking whether a student is taking the PISA test seriously (leaving questions blank while having time left, for example), and see whether it affects country rankings compared to simulations where children take the test … Read More
Guest Author • Mar 20, 2018 •
Tamar Carroll, Rochester Institute of Technology and Lara Nicosia, Rochester Institute of Technology This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. Movements like #MeToo are drawing increased attention to the systemic discrimination facing women in a range of professional fields, from Hollywood and journalism to banking and government. Discrimination is … Read More
Alison Campbell • Feb 28, 2018 •
Professor Karen Burke da Silva was the keynote speaker at Day 1 of the 2017 First-Year Science Educators’ Colloquium, held in Wellington. Her topic: Transforming large first year science classes: A comprehensive approach to student engagement. Currently at Flinders University, she’s been instrumental in setting up an ‘integrated teaching environment’ that’s seen a drop in withdrawals, and a marked … Read More
Laura Goodall • May 19, 2016 •
Teachers have been shown to underestimate Māori children’s academic capabilities, which their achievements end up reflecting. But Pūhoro, a forward-thinking science academy, has now been set up to support Māori youth in reaching their true potential. Naomi Manu and Mana Vautier give us the lowdown. One thing that people really don’t like to talk about is prejudice. But we all have … Read More
Michael Edmonds • Jul 07, 2011 •
Last night I had the pleasure of spending the evening helping supervise 57 year 12 students as they competed in the CPIT/NZIC* Year 12 Chemistry competition. At this time of year, with marking, timetabling and other “joyous” tasks it is easy to feel a bit jaded, and the idea of spending an evening with 57 year 12 students might not … Read More
Grant Jacobs • Apr 21, 2011 •
Regular readers will know that I have previously written about that only a fraction of science Ph.D. graduates go on to work within academia long-term and related thoughts. Nature has published an editorial and a collection of articles (all open-access) looking at possible ways governments or institutions might alter the Ph.D. to perhaps reflect … Read More
Grant Jacobs • Sep 22, 2010 •
Two recent posts from (parts I and II) review a graduate student forum where two university staff members presented their thoughts about career paths. I’d like to use these as an opportunity (well, excuse) to pull together in one post some of things I have previously written on this topic, about science-based careers outside academia. Read More
Grant Jacobs • Nov 09, 2009 •
Universities could do more to expose their students to a wider range of uses of their science degrees. A couple of years ago I was at a national molecular biology conference. In between sessions they held a forum for (post-graduate) students, offering a panel of senior scientists presenting what the students might expect in their futures. Read More