Monthly Archives: February 2024

Teaching writing goes beyond writing and essay exercises

Teaching writing goes beyond writing and essay exercises

“The times are bad, children have stopped obeying their parents and everyone is writing books,” lamented Cicero in one of his most epic harangues. And many today would be tempted to adopt this phrase from the famous Roman orator as their own. It is a phenomenon that repeats itself throughout history: each generation tends to neglect or […] … learn more→

How entrepreneurship education can be more inclusive

How entrepreneurship education can be more inclusive

Organizations with resources to support entrepreneurs often overlook their own organizational roles in amplifying stereotypes of entrepreneurs as primarily masculine, white and technology-focused. Globally, women are less likely to benefit from entrepreneurship education and training, particularly in programs supporting high-growth enterprises. When entrepreneurship programs do consider inclusion, most focus on gender without considering age, ethnicity, race or other identity […] … learn more→

Peer review isn’t perfect − I know because I teach others how to do it and I’ve seen firsthand how it comes up short

Peer review isn’t perfect − I know because I teach others how to do it and I’ve seen firsthand how it comes up short

When I teach research methods, a major focus is peer review. As a process, peer review evaluates academic papers for their quality, integrity and impact on a field, largely shaping what scientists accept as “knowledge.” By instinct, any academic follows up a new idea with the question, “Was that peer reviewed?” Although I believe in the […] … learn more→

Venture capitalists are backing a ‘steroid Olympics’ to find out what happens when athletes are doped to the gills

Venture capitalists are backing a ‘steroid Olympics’ to find out what happens when athletes are doped to the gills

For many, elite sport is the quintessential human endeavour. It drives ferocious competition, captures unconditional tribal loyalty, and rewards the victors with fame and fortune. As the Olympic motto declares, the limits of human performance are there to be tested – faster, higher, stronger. But what would happen if the boundaries were not just pushed, […] … learn more→

Amid growing legalization, cannabis in culture and politics is the focus of this anthropology course

Amid growing legalization, cannabis in culture and politics is the focus of this anthropology course

Title of course: Anthropology of Cannabis What prompted the idea for the course? Whenever I taught my medical anthropology course, I noticed that students were most curious about the section of the course that deals with the uses of plants, fungi and other species for a range of medical purposes. Those purposes included healing, psychological […] … learn more→

Getting started

Getting started

My job is to help people get funding. I occasionally get requests from friends and family to help them with a funding application. I love these requests – I get to show them what I do, and help them with something that they need. It reminds me that different types of funding need different approaches, […] … learn more→

The ABC of organising your time

The ABC of organising your time

Lots of we scholarly peeps struggle to find time to write. Time is on pretty well everyone’s list. So we keep looking for better ways to manage our time so we can get more time to write. My proprietary university software seems to want to help – it now issues a weekly bulletin, whether I […] … learn more→

The Academic tidy up

The Academic tidy up

Happy new year everyone! It’s summer here in Australia, where we take a long break. I want to talk about Tidying in this post, but first – some news: ‘How to fix your academic writing trouble’ continues to be a strong seller after 5 years, but Large Language Models (LLM) like Chattie G (Chat GPT) are now part […] … learn more→

60% of Australian English teachers think video games are a ‘legitimate’ text to study. But only 15% have used one

60% of Australian English teachers think video games are a ‘legitimate’ text to study. But only 15% have used one

Are you worried about how much time your child spends playing video games? Do they “hibernate” for hours in their room, talking what seems like gibberish to their friends? Fresh air and life away from gaming are undeniably important. But it may help to know our research shows many English teachers are thinking seriously about how gaming […] … learn more→