I’ve been posting my Golden Retriever pup’s diary on Facebook for a while. As a result I have been have been deluged with requests for a book version, from, oh, I don’t know, maybe two people.
Well, here it is.
It’s the first six months of the life of Posy the Pupperino (the first four months are documented here). Continue reading
The latest in a long line of R&D strategy documents from the UK government reveals some promising evolution in its strategic thinking. But while it touches on a wide range of complex and interacting challenges, but the precise direction of travel is still unclear
It’s easy to be cynical – and hard to see past the immediate threats posed by the government’s multiple mishandling of the Covid-19 Continue reading
Recently, the Prime Minister announced an ‘apprentice guarantee’ saying ‘I think it’s going to be vital that we guarantee apprenticeships’. Sounds good. How should that be translated into practice? Certainly, at the moment apprentices are having a tough time of it under the conditions of the pandemic, with businesses going under and on-site learning massively disrupted if not impossible in Continue reading
At the start of our curriculum revision process three years ago I read many pedagogical articles about project-based learning. In addition to espousing the benefits and relating success stories, some of these articles detailed risks; difficulty in ensuring that all students are exposed to the key concepts, problems with adjusting to the learning style especially for first-generation college studen Continue reading
I don’t suppose there are many people in the country who currently feel grounded, confident they know how their lives will unfold and happy with that trajectory. At the moment, uncertainty seems the name of the game, responsibilities multiply and jobs – assuming you still have one – are changing radically. Not so long ago, wfh was an acronym that would have conveyed nothing and Zoom more usually m Continue reading
The lockdown might have flattened the curve of infection and death, but it has also flattened the curve and swell of life. Existence has shrunk to fit within four walls; life ‘outside’ has largely been compressed within the flat rectangles of my phone and computer screens.
You might think that, as an academic, I would revel in the life of the mind, the kind many of us now have to accept whether w Continue reading
We are poised on the edge.
As the world teeters between spring and summer, cloaked in lush green and bursting into flower, there is a sense that our pandemic lockdown is coming to an end. Not all at once, of course, and not anywhere close to normal, but it is happening.
Freedom: a secluded swimming hole on the River Darent, last week, just before diving in
Continue readingThe pandemic is teaching each of us individually many things. Some may be things we might not want to know about ourselves: how resilient we are; how well we cope with four walls and a screen, perhaps with no other adult in sight; and how to stay optimistic in the face of global uncertainty. Other things may be more immediately useful. In that category I would certainly include mastering a range o Continue reading
Having written my last post titled “Preliminary lessons from a global pandemic” on March 8, before my self-imposed sequestration at home for the past 6 weeks, I find it too depressing to write a sequel on additional lessons. Much has been said about the complete failure of leadership in the US, and unfortunately, most of it is true. In fact, it’s often far worse than one could se Continue reading
