Category: Education - Page 2

What you said about Open Education Resources

Dr Eva Sharpe, HE Policy Officer at the Society of Biology, reports on the results of our survey into the use of Open Education Resources Earlier this summer, I blogged about a Society of Biology project to promote the use of Open Education Resources (OER) by the bioscience community. As one strand of the project we’ve been collecting existing bioscience resources which we’ll be promoting through a new website launching this autumn. Over the summer we surveyed HE bioscience teachers on their current use of OER, any barriers they have found, and comments on our plans for the new website. Here I summarise the responses. Only half of our respondents were currently using or creating OER. Those that weren’t using OER gave a mixture of reasons, from only teaching postgraduate courses and therefore needing very specific teaching resources, having excellent “in house” content available, and a pool…

The Everyday Brain

by Zara Gladman On Friday 19th October 2012, schools, universities and individuals across the country will attempt to set a record for the World’s Largest Memory Game. Guided by neurobiologist Dr Daniela Peukert, I stuck on my thinking cap and took a journey around this highly complex organ . . . We all have one. Einstein’s was smaller than average. The scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz pined for one. I am of course talking about that squidgy, tofu-like lump of “grey matter”, encased in your skull: the brain. This amazing organ controls just about everything you do, from making a cup of tea to falling in love. The biggest part of the brain, the cerebrum, can be broadly divided into two regions called “hemispheres”. Generally, the right hemisphere controls the left side of the body and vice versa. The right hemisphere is also associated with functions like creativity and…

The Virtual School: calling all biologists!

Guest blog by Frédéric Kastner from The Virtual School The Virtual School’s vision is to create an innovative, free education resource that allows children from all over the world to learn about biology. To help us achieve this we’re asking for support from passionate biologists, whatever their background. You can share your love of biology and help inspire a new generation of scientists by recording a fun 2-3 minute audio presentation. The Virtual School designers will then add images and memory triggers to your voiceover and create an engaging lesson for the KS3 and 4 curricula (that’s 11-14 year olds, and 14-16 years olds). Interested? Here’s how to get involved: You record your 2-3 min audio explanations with our easy-to-use online tool. It is an easy and fun process! Our design team enhances your explanations using effective imagery & other memory triggers to make your lesson even more impactful….

Have your say on Open Education Resources

Eva Sharpe, Higher Education Policy Officer, Society of Biology calls for people to fill in a HE teaching survey There are many excellent teaching resources publicly available for lecturers to use and re-use in the biosciences across various websites, publications and discussion forums. Although some of these resources are featured in specific online repositories such as Jorum, many are hosted directly on institutions’ own websites and require a bit of searching to find them. Preliminary results of a survey we’re currently carrying out suggest that the main barriers to the use of Open Education Resources (OER) are that people don’t always know where resources are located or can’t find what they are looking for. The Society of Biology recently received funding from the Higher Education Academy and JISC through their OER Programme to work with the Heads of University Biosciences (HUBS) to address this by promoting the use of OER by the bioscience community. As part of…