You may think you have explained the proof perfectly clearly. But chances are your students haven’t understood much at all! This is the idea from the article ‘Lectures in Advanced Mathematics: Why Students Might Not Understand What the Mathematics Professor Is Trying to Convey’ by Lew et al. The authors conducted a study where they recorded […]

Whether to record lectures or not is a contentious issue amongst academic staff. Some of the most common concerns tend to focus on potential impact on lecture attendance and student learning (in particular, that students will favour the passive act of re-watching a video instead of more effective studying methods).   I, along with some […]

There is extensive research into how our brains work and how people learn most effectively, across all subjects and all ages. But these findings are not well-known by students or by educators! The Learning Scientists (a group of cognitive psychological scientists) are aiming to change this. Here is a digest of their top six effective […]

During a recent workshop on effective revision techniques, a group of students and I had an interesting discussion around the value of taking notes in lectures. We were talking primarily in the context of my first-year linear algebra course, which operates in a flipped-classroom, active learning style. Having explored some research on the subject, I […]

Tips for avoiding procrastination As I mentioned in my last post, I was interviewed for the Personal Best programme on BBC Radio Scotland. They wanted to know what advice I give to students on how they can overcome procrastination. Here’s the link to the programme while it is still available: Personal Best: Procrastination   Here are the main […]

What is this blog about? I have been meaning to start blogging for years but I have been procrastinating. Why have I been avoiding it for so long? The reasons are surely rooted in fear – fear that I won’t dedicate enough time to it and it will lie gathering dust in a corner of […]