{"id":495,"date":"2011-11-23T21:03:30","date_gmt":"2011-11-23T10:03:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/?p=495"},"modified":"2011-11-23T21:03:51","modified_gmt":"2011-11-23T10:03:51","slug":"effective-learning-in-the-life-sciences","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/?p=495","title":{"rendered":"Effective Learning in the Life Sciences"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Rating:<\/strong> \"★\"\"½\"\"☆\"\"☆\"\"☆\"<\/p>\n

David J Adams. (ed). 2011. Effective Learning in the Life Sciences: how students can reach their full potential. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978 0 470 66157 4.<\/span><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

The whole idea of re-vamping this site was to include areas that overlapped (intersected!) and that added a range of new ideas and discourses to ecology. Here we have one of the first in this new system, a product of collaboration within the UK Centre for Bioscience at the Higher Education Academy<\/a>. The aim of this centre is to support “teaching in higher education to improve student learning in the biosciences” and this book is one product of that. From there it’s initially hard to see where the book’s focus lies. The introduction certainly addresses the need for the student to improve learning but then veers off to discuss how the tutor might facilitate this. If we start with “students are imaginative and inventive individuals, but unfortunately they are rarely given any help to achieve their true creative potential during bioscience degree programmes” then we need to worry about where we are going and what we are doing! It’s this idea that seems to underpin the text. So, how do we improve the situation.<\/p>\n

An opening chapter on creativity distinguishes between the adaptive and the creative individual. It continues by considering some key questions to ask (a la Kipling<\/a>), following this with some creativity techniques, working in groups and the thinking hats! Quite a melange and one that’s difficult to see any focus with. Next up is problem solving, a series of ideas aimed at improving critical thinking and getting the student to take a situation and consider the range of questions that could be asked of it. A contribution on laboratory ideas outline more what one can do that provide a range of techniques that can be employed. Fieldwork is next where again the emphasis is on the range of ideas that can be done, along with a lot about safety, risk, costs, access etc. From here we move to live animal work. This will always be one of the more controversial areas and so these aspects – safety, ethics, legislation are covered in some detail. Up to this stage the focus has been on getting the data and considering ways to improve thinking. Along with this, there comes the research writing and data analysis which is where the next two chapters are aimed. The next contribution, e-learning is an unusual blend of QR codes, USB sticks and university printers! So far, the contributions have been eclectic and not always uniform in design. Bioethics, however, is clear and concise, highlighting a major area of concern in UK Higher Education. Two equally well presented contributions examine the positive use of assessment and feedback and the ways to best communicate work (although, given it’s aimed at students, that might have been the other way around!). A final chapter looking at bioenterprise (presumably tempting students after university) closes the book.<\/p>\n

We were told at the very beginning that the text focussed on the “Scientific Method” (sic) and the practicalities of creative bioscience education. This seems to ignore, for a start, the issue of real science which is obtaining grants and working from there\u00a0 such that the scientific method applies less to the research and more to the grant-getting! I think the real issue here is that despite reading and re-reading, it’s hard to get a real handle on the book. Take fieldwork. Opening phrases about the exciting nature of fieldwork give way to mundane ideas of laminating work and worrying about access and cost. There are some tutor notes in boxes (so is this a student or tutor text?) which give a few ideas and a handy set of references. It doesn’t seem to mention the scientific method, it doesn’t really enthuse the student and whereas the references are useful, it all seems like a set of notes that one needs to dip into as needed. If it’s aimed at the student it seems muddled. They might end up more creative but it would be a by-product rather than a real aim. If it’s aimed at the tutor (i.e. researcher who now needs a few teaching skills), then it should focus more on the conceptualisation of teaching and some real guidance. The aim of this book is laudable and the range of subject matter covered is very good but the actual content, sadly, does little to achieve the goals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rating: David J Adams. (ed). 2011. Effective Learning in the Life Sciences: how students can reach their full potential. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN 978 0 470 66157 4. The whole idea of re-vamping this site was to include areas that overlapped (intersected!) and that added a range of new ideas and discourses to ecology. Here we have one of the first in this new system, a product of collaboration within the UK Centre for Bioscience at the Higher Education Academy. The aim […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":496,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[133,132,47,135,134],"class_list":["post-495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review","tag-creative-teaching","tag-education","tag-fieldwork","tag-laboratory","tag-life-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=495"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":508,"href":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495\/revisions\/508"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/496"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ecogeog.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}