Do you have a favourite lecturer?

If so, have you ever wondered why it's that particular person who does it for you?

A couple of years ago whilst doing a qualification I had to write a reflective assignment on who my educational 'hero' was. I picked a psychology lecturer I had had during my undergraduate degree called Bianca Raabe. She stomped into a lecture theatre at the beginning of my second year, waving a book on social constructionism and proceeded to deliver a 50 minute diatribe on why mainstream psychology was flawed (at best), corrupt (at worst) or incompetent (at somewhere in the middle).

I was in love within 27 minutes.

What my reflective assignment made me do was reconsider whether it was Bianca's delivery which I liked (challenging, combative, committed) or the lecture topic itself (confusing, new, divisive).

Or is it the case that sometimes the topic chooses the lecturer? By which I mean is there such a thing as a typical social work lecturer, a typical social psychology lecturer or a typical academic librarian?

You tell me.

What I do know is that my favourite student groups are typically, questioning, enthusiastic, honest, truculent and entertaining.

So if you ever find yourself mid-lecture thinking 'I really like this woman telling me stuff' ask yourself if it's really the singer you like, or the song they're singing?

Congratulations to the winners of the mixed up words competition

Last week I wrote a thing demonstrating how people could still read mixed up text and promised a prize for the first student to return the message to me unscrambled.

Well quite a few of you did it so I extended it to the first six students who responded. The students who are going to receive posh chocolate from this shop in Leighton buzzard in the flavour of their choice are as follows:

Annie Gova
Harriette Lea
Sam Bradley
Sasha Austin-Seade
Sajeda Begum
Lorna Hill

Well done to all.
The winners now need to tell me which flavour of bar they'd like and I'll do the rest. Follow the link above to see the choices.

And a special well done to those who spotted my (ahem) deliberate mistake concerning the word 'sentences'. With that level of scrutiny you'll go far!

New report covering police response to domestic abuse allegations

There seems to have been a rash of reports in the last 12 months covering different aspects of domestic violence.

The latest, published today, is an in depth review of how a selection of police forces have responded to victims. It makes uncomfortable reading for police and victims alike. Whilst the report does highlight pockets of good practice, there was scathing criticism for the vast majority of constabularies.

I'd always encourage you to read original sources over second hand accounts wherever possible (especially if you're going to reference the report obviously) and with that in mind the whole thing can be found here. That said, if you'd prefer a shorter account of what the report says, the BBC has a good mix of video, audio and text here covering the issue.

Let me know if you'd like any help with the strategic reading or referencing of such a document.

Heer's a nveol way to senpd fvie mitneus

Waht cnstaonly aezams me is the peowr of the hmaun mnid to srot intfmoairon itno ubndstanedrale cnhkus. We get beodbamrd wtih ifno all the tmie and yet soohmew we cpoe.

So wehn I raed aoubt how msot peploe cluod mkae sesne of stnnsees, eevn if the wrods are qitue msesed up, I thgohut I'd tset it out.

And to mkae it ientsreintg I'm ofrfineg an ebidle pizre to the fsrit stdnuet who sedns tihs mgesase bcak to me in the rhigt odrer.

New report published on violence towards women

I heard a new report being discussed this morning and I was sort of listening with one ear until I suddenly heard mention of the sample size. Then I started giving it my full attention. The report, which made claims for the amount of violence perpetrated against women was pretty shocking, but as remarkable was that 42, 000 women had been interviewed for the survey. That is a huge sample. I often see published reports where 20 individuals have been interviewed and that isn't unremarkable.

I've suggested to students in the past that sample size is a rough and ready measure of how robust a report's findings might be. Clearly, there are lots of ways that research can be not so good, but when I see exaggerated claims being made for very small scale samples my bad research detector starts going off.

The current research (which looks extremely robust) published by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) reports that roughly half of women in the UK have been victims of physical or sexual abuse. A more detailed breakdown of what the report offers can be found here.

For further details, have a look how the Independent newspaper reported the research from here.

Peer to peer learning

I've always seen it as a sign of self confidence when students say 'I don't know how to do that', whatever the 'that' might be. It takes courage to admit what you lack. The temptation is to bluff it but that isn't really a long term solution. One way forward is through peer to peer learning which is purely a fancy way of saying let's give students the opportunity to learn from each other. 


Many of you do this already but I'm keen to promote it more. One thing I'm trying to increase are the number of teaching sessions which involve students from multiple courses. So what you might find is when you ask me for a one to one teaching session it'll become a one to two instead and include someone else who you may not know. So far these have been really interesting sessions as students have sometimes advised each other on possible solutions to problems without me needing to intervene. And I learn something new in the process.

The best teaching sessions always involve an exchange of ideas, so if you end up taking part in one of these small groups I hope it benefits you.