Counting Corrections

7 Apr 2022

The problem Over the last few years I have reviewed many student assignments, both at undergrad and PhD level, and as a favour for friends (or friends of friends), as…

Presentation Timings

17 Mar 202217 Mar 2022

The challenge One of the assignments I set each year is for a group of students to prepare a narrated powerpoint presentation. It's a useful exercise (I think), the students…

Excel numbers from Word tables

1 Nov 202112 Mar 2022

Compared to the last academic year, we can do more face to face teaching. We just need to be savvy about how it's done! Social distancing is still in place…

JSmol in Moodle

9 Jul 202110 Jul 2021

Feel free to skip the blurb and get to the instructions section below. The blurb When I studied undergrad chemistry at Glasgow we needed to buy textbooks and a simple…

HPLC analysis on a spreadsheet

11 Jun 202111 Jun 2021

Help! Covid means we can't huddle four or five students round an HPLC system. Any lab-based HPLC experiments we do will take ages! And that's before we decontaminate each HPLC…

Snakes and Ladders at Monte Carlo!

4 Nov 202029 Jan 2021

I have been playing around with simple Monte Carlo modelling systems for a while. I started doing this because I realised that if I was to design games for teaching…

UV analysis on a spreadsheet

2 Nov 20203 Dec 2020

Aaarrrggghhh! An increase in Covid numbers in Scotland (and especially Glasgow) has meant we've had a weeks notice to swap our UV labs from face-to-face to online. I've rehashed one…

NewU

20 Aug 202024 Oct 2020

In this post I want to share my thoughts about a new system of Higher Education (HE): one that is open, inclusive and equal.  Over the lockdown months I've been…

MCQ musings

30 Jul 2020

Background: A few weeks ago I logged into a Zoom session being run by the staff development unit at Strathclyde Uni. The topic was multiple choice questions (MCQs) and seemed…

Class emailer

22 May 202027 May 2020

Over the summer I'll be running online teaching sessions via Zoom to try and support some of our MSc students through their transition from 'student learners' to 'active researchers'. The…