New Year, new leadership style in the chemical sciences
As COVID drags on, mining the movie Ground Hog Day for inspiration can be surprisingly productive. Read one chemist’s take on what he discovered.
Read More >>Pandemic teaching – take two
EDUCATION
With Canada in the midst of a second wave of COVID-19, faculty are breathing a sigh of relief that at least they won’t be asked to navigate a second sudden shift to online instruction. That experience back in March 2020 was dubbed ‘pandemic pedagogy,’ ‘emergency remote teaching,’ or ‘hell’ depending on who you talked to....
Read More >>Global pandemic spawns global classrooms
Like so many educators around the world, I’ve spent more time than usual this summer thinking about what September would bring. Unlike March 2020, when we were engaged in a rushed response to the unfolding global pandemic, the Fall semester would reflect purposeful planning on the part of institutions and administrators, departments and individual faculty....
Read More >>Pandemic pedagogy
EDUCATION
We live in an age of disruption. The sharing economy has likely changed your behaviour around booking hotels, riding in taxis, or ordering food. These massive transformations have been made possible through a combination of technology and human creativity. Yet, nature has once again demonstrated its awesome power as the ultimate agent of disruption. COVID-19...
Read More >>It’s not hard being green
CHEMISTRY FOR ENERGY & THE ENVIRONMENT
According to Andy Dicks, a Teaching Stream Professor at the University of Toronto, being green isn’t difficult. It’s being smart. Green chemistry is cheaper, principally from the perspective of environmental regulations around industry, as producing less unwanted material reduces the cost of waste management. Green chemistry also focuses on recycling chemicals, which reduces the cost...
Read More >>Networking instrumentation for remote access
EDUCATION
When I was younger, I remember visiting a friend whose parents were talking about how their work environment was changing. Their office had only just started using a new form of inter-departmental messages, called e-mail, instead of sending handwritten notes through the intra-office mail. The consequence of this transition was that everyone was required to...
Read More >>Making new educational connections on line
EDUCATION
During my undergraduate degree at Simon Fraser University, I took Japanese as an elective. The course was offered as either an on-campus version or by distance education. That semester I was taking several chemistry classes with associated labs, so I decided to take advantage of the scheduling flexibility that distance education offered even though I...
Read More >>Thinking about thinking in chemistry
EDUCATION
Steve MacNeil has been thinking a lot about how his students are thinking about their thinking in chemistry. Yes, that’s right. The act of thinking or reflecting about one’s own ways of thinking...
Read More >>Transforming failure from a foe into friend
EDUCATION
The destroyer of dreams. That’s how I heard my peers describe organic chemistry, and the professor who taught it, when I was an undergraduate. I remember a student next to me during the final exam quietly sobbing.
Read More >>Opening up textbooks and students’ reading habits
EDUCATION
For several years, during my first lecture of each semester I would invite my general chemistry students to introduce themselves to their neighbours. They would share their name, intended major, and favourite genre for reading.
Read More >>Forging a successful graduate
EDUCATION
How do you take the measure of people and their training? It’s a question asked by employers as they sort through curriculum vitae seeking candidates who have the right skills...
Read More >>Transforming the sage on the stage into a guide on the side
EDUCATION
As an associate professor in the Department of Chemistry at the Augustana Campus of the University of Alberta, he’s well-liked by his students (he has a 4.9 out of 5.0 on a popular professor rating site)...
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