It’s getting tougher to assess how much university students have learnt. In his work as a Mathematical Statistics lecturer, Michael von Maltitz has tried a new way of getting students to learn, and of assessing what they’ve absorbed and retained. Students have to show and discuss how they arrived at their understanding of the subject. They can’t […] … learn more→
Author Archives: Kevin
Teaching mathematical statistics: one lecturer’s way of testing what students understand
Not an echo chamber: abstract v. introduction
Imagine a doctoral researcher finishing their introduction. They’ve carefully crafted the opening pages that situate their research question in the existing literature. Then they turn to write the abstract and, faced with the daunting task of condensing everything into 250 words, they simply lift sentences wholesale from what they’ve just written. The abstract becomes a […] … learn more→
Back at uni? How to help your wellbeing while you study
University can be a time of great opportunities, but it can also be very stressful. Many students need to support themselves financially and may be living away from home. Students are also under constant deadlines and, if in their final years, need to prepare for life and work after uni. My colleagues and I research […] … learn more→
Should unis ditch group assignments?
Is it time to get rid of group assignments at university? Federal Opposition education spokesperson Julian Leeser thinks so. On Thursday, he called for universities to drop group assessments entirely, arguing they are fundamentally “unfair” and “cheapen” degrees. In a speech to the Universities Australia conference in Canberra, Leeser said: Students feel, instinctively, that in […] … learn more→
Will AI accelerate or undermine the way humans have always innovated?
In graduate school, my experimental archaeology professor told a student to create a door socket – the hole in a door frame that a bolt slides into – in a slab of sandstone by pecking at it with a rounded stone. After a couple of weeks, the student presented his results to the class. “I […] … learn more→
It’s never too late to learn a language – adults and kids bring different strengths to the task
There’s a common assumption that if someone starts learning a language when they are very young, they will quickly become fluent. Many people also assume that it will become much harder to learn a language if they start later in life. Research into language learning shows that how old someone is when they learn a language does matter, […] … learn more→
From moral authority to risk management: How university presidents stopped speaking their minds
Throughout the 20th century, college and university presidents spoke out on everything, from wars to civil rights struggles, with a sense of moral authority attempting to guide the course. Their language was typically direct and free of jargon. “Democracy is the best form of government. It is worth dying for,” Robert M. Hutchins, president of the University of […] … learn more→
What is “AI edge” and what is it used for?
To analyze the enormous volumes of data, particularly that generated by the numerous sensors that now populate our lives—from dishwashers to cars, not to mention our phones—we send it to the cloud. To enable faster and more secure calculations, edge computing is developing. Its AI counterpart is edge AI , a way of doing AI without relying on the […] … learn more→
How to learn to write academically and understand complex readings with the help of AI
Academic reading and writing are key skills at university. They allow us to access diverse content, develop more complex thinking, and actively participate in academic life. It’s not just about understanding texts or writing papers, but also about knowing how to argue, synthesize ideas, and communicate them clearly and effectively. However, university students struggle with these types […] … learn more→
Colleges face a choice: Try to shape AI’s impact on learning, or be redefined by it
What happens to a college education when a chatbot can draft an essay, summarize a reading and generate computer code in seconds? The arrival of artificial intelligence in college classrooms has been swift and, for many schools, disorienting. As professors of economics and business management and biology at liberal arts colleges, we are confronting a question that […] … learn more→
