The “cutting edge” lecture for schools: help or hindrance?

Like many colleagues, I quite often give talks for sixth form groups about recent developments within my subject specialism. There are plenty of good reasons for doing so: sharing enthusiasm for your discipline; encouraging prospective students to go to university (ideally your University); bring students, and their teachers, up to date on the latest developments in the field.

However, it is in regard of the last of these points that I’ve had increasing concern. These worries are prompted by my experience marking past papers completed by my son during his recent round of exam revision. In science subjects in particular the markschemes are very prescriptive and inflexible, they don’t seem to allow for a candidate to expand upon the expected points. There is no room for crediting knowledge over and above faithful regurgitation of the core content. That would be bad enough, but my bigger concern is that introducing the students to knowledge which more up to date than the specifications might actually lead them to give a rich and factually correct response penalised because it disagrees with the anticipated answer.

What content might fall into this trap? The most obvious examples would be developments in stem cell biology, especially innovations associated with induced pluripotent stem cells. Granted this work has now led to a Nobel Prize, but I expect many markers will not have kept pace with the field. Similarly, other areas of genetics may have moved faster than the “official” A level line.

I will continue to give lectures for schools, the benefits definitely outweigh the risks, but I do carry this gnawing worry. Maybe an examiner out there can put my mind at ease about this (maybe not).

In praise of Psychology (as an A level)

Do you like Green Eggs and Ham?

I don’t think this warrant’s a spoiler alert, but if you don’t know the punchline of Green Eggs and Ham, you may want to skip to the next paragraph. In Dr Seuss’s classic book, the central protagonist is pestered by Sam-I-Am to try the eponymous delicacy. The man declines, insisting that he does not like green eggs and ham. When, however, he is finally persuaded to give it a try he find that, contrary to expectation, he is actually rather partial to this culinary concoction.

It seems to me that there are a good few people around who have a Green Eggs and Ham approach to A level Psychology. The Russell Group universities do not consider it in their list of “facilitating” (i.e. those it considers worthy-of-study) A level subjects*. Similarly, the snooty attitude of my elder son’s previous school in not offering Psychology was one of the main factors in the decision for him to move for his sixth form studies.

AS level psychology includes thorough evaluation of key studies

My suspicion, however, is that a significant proportion of those shunning Psychology have never actually looked into the content of the course. If they had done so, they might have been in for a pleasant surprise. Over the last few days, whilst helping the aforementioned sprog with his revision, I have been reminded of just how good the content of the AS level is (at least for the OCR specifications, I can’t speak for the course offered by the other boards).

The course is built around analysis of 15 classic studies. There are good descriptions of what has been done and why. However the feature for me that really makes the content valuable is the emphasis on evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of each study. The lessons about the importance of reliability and validity of data would be good grounding for students wanting to do a degree in any of the sciences. The discussion of ethical issues and, where applicable, what the investigators did to mitigate against them is also applicable for anyone intending to conduct research at any level.

On the basis of some of the manuscripts I’ve reviewed over the years, I couldn’t help feeling as well that there are a number of university-level teachers setting out for the first time to do pedagogic research who might usefully pick up on some of the do’s and dont’s of experimental design onto which this course sheds some light.

So, in short, I have had a Green Eggs and Ham conversion regarding A level Psychology and, with apologies to Dr Seuss, I say to  “the Russell Group” and others who dismiss it out of hand, “Try it, try it and you may. Try it and you may I say”. Oh, and if you really didn’t know the ending of GE&H… sorry.

*If you are interested the facilitating subjects are: Maths and further maths; Physics; Biology; Chemistry; History; Geography; Modern and classical languages; English Literature.

Is there a gene for oversimplistic analysis?

Earlier today I had the privilege of attending* the annual Sluckin Memorial Lecture given by eminent Oxford neuroscientist and academic blogger Professor Dorothy Bishop. Dorothy’s theme was ‘Developmental dyslexia and other neurodevelopmental disorders: Distinct syndromes or part of normal variation?‘. There was much in the talk worthy of blogging here, but since I’ve got a stack of final year dissertations to mark I will, for the moment, limit myself to reflections on one point that she raised.

Slide 19 in a presentation by Dorothy Bishop available on Slideshare (click image for link)

As with many conditions in the genomic era, there is a desire to find the underlying genetic ’cause’ for dyslexia. This search is not without justification. For example, classic comparison of monozygotic twins (“identical” twins, i.e. same genetics, notwithstanding any epigenetic influences) and dizygotic twins (“non-identical twins”, no more genetically related than any brother or sister) strongly implies that there is a genetic component to dyslexia.

There is stronger evidence than this, particularly for a correlation between dyslexia and the catchily name gene DCDC2. A 2005 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, a “Premier League” academic journal, showed a link between specific mutations in this gene and reading disability. A subsequent paper by Tom Scerri and colleagues (including Dorothy) found that a particular Single Nucleotide Polymorphism (a SNP, i.e. a particular base change difference in the DCDC2 gene) was associated with 31% of dyslexics. It was also found in 23% of the control (i.e. non-dyslexic) group, but nevertheless the difference the two is statistically significant (p = 0.005).

And the winner is… (part 2)

As many readers of the Journal of Left-Handed Biochemist will know, I was shortlisted for the UK Bioscience Tutor of the Year in 2012. Due to ill health I was unable to complete the second phase of the application that year and the organisers generously rolled over my application to 2013. In the end I was runner up in the competition, with Prof Tim Birkhead FRS from Sheffield being the winner.

Part of the application required the production of a video (mine is here). I thought it would be fun to let you in on one of the “tricks of the trade”. With all the Richard III excitement at Leicester in the Spring, I only had limited access to video support. Carl Vivian, with whom I’ve worked regularly on a variety of project including the Model Organisms in Biomedical Research and the Power of Comparative Genomics films, was operating the camera. So who was I talking to so earnestly in the interview? Carl’s erstwhile colleague Mr Monkey.

Monkey is an experienced interviewer who has worked previously for Channel 4

Action Learning Sets: Improving projects with a little help from your friends

I’m just staggering over the finishing line at the end of a marathon round of residential education conferences in which a nine-day burst saw me attending the Higher Education Academy STEM conference (#HEASTEM2013), the Society for Experimental Biology meeting on Tools for Evaluating Teaching (#SEBTET13) and the Heads of University BioSciences Spring Meeting (#HUBSSM2013). It will be months before I’ve had time to ruminate on all the various new ideas that emerged, directly or indirectly, from these sessions. This post will focus on just one “quick win” which I picked up from the middle event. In a short session, Peter Lumsden from the University of Central Lancashire modelled the use of an Action Learning Set for sharpening up the design of an educational research project.

And the winner is… (part 1)

Our video The Power of Comparative Genomics was shortlisted for an in-house production award at the National Learning on Screen Awards, which took place on the 18th April. The awards “celebrate and reward excellence in the use of moving image and related media in learning, teaching and research”. Nominees in other categories included productions for the BBC and the Oscar-nominated (and multiaward winning) short Head Over Heels.

As it turns out, our category was won by the Celebrating Dickens Documentary, produced by the University of Warwick. However we didn’t come away from the evening empty-handed. Our video was given a Special Commendation, an honour which includes the rather fetching green logo now sported on the right-hand side of this website (and a larger copy within this post). In making their decision, the judges praised The Power of Comparative Genomics for keeping momentum and viewer interest in a complex subject. The clarity of graphics (produced by David Wickins from Multimedia Services at the University) was also commended.

The full list of winners for 2013 can be seen here.

The Power of Comparative Genomics received a Special Commendation

Guide for Citing Audiovisual Materials

During the past couple of years I’ve been part of a working group set up by the British Universities Film and Video Council to draw up guidelines for the correct citation of Audiovisual. The fruits of our labours are published today.

The new guidelines offer recommendations for the correct citing of a wide range of media formats

In an era when increasing emphasis is being place on multimedia, it seems almost unbelievable that this is the first serious attempt anywhere in the world to produce an authoritative guide for what information to include when citing radio, film, TV and a plethora of other media.

As John Ellis, Professor of Media Arts at Royal Holloway, has noted, “Citation exists so that you can find the source of any quotation. The rules have long since been worked out for print sources. However, for moving image and sound, no-one quite knows what to do, so references are usually imprecise and sometimes left out completely.This guide now makes it possible for any writer [including students] to lead their readers to the exact audiovisual source they are discussing.”

The process of producing the new guide has been fascinating (far more so than it might sound!) Once you start to scratch the surface you start to realise the vast range of the different sources, formats and so on that might need to be included. The guide is shared with the academic community in the knowledge that it will very likely need refining, especially as new formats for sharing AV information are developed. Nevertheless I’m proud of this first edition and encourage any of you who are using and citing audiovisual materials to refer to it and, where appropriate, to suggest refinements.