Dear postgraduate students

Everyone says selecting your supervisor(s) will make or break obtaining your degree with a sound mind. This is true. So here are a few of my own tips on just how to do that. I hope it helps.

(Thread)

1. Know what you need from the get-go. As people, and as students, we need different things to succeed. Ensure you know what this is for you and make your search and eventual selection of a supervisor based on that.

2. How do you know which academic does what? Either email a number of potential academics or organise a quick in-person/online meeting with them to discuss their respective research interests. You can either align yourself to these or ask if they’re willing to take you on but...

...supervise a topic outside of their own research interests. It’s not unheard of but just depends on them.

3. Ask them about their supervision style, what works for them and assess whether that sounds like it would work for you. You can love their research topics but if you feel like they won’t be a good enough supervisor, find someone else. Remember you’re going to be spending...

If I finish all of the physics a lesson or two before the end of term, I like to use those spare lessons to do something fun. For the last 12 years I have done a boys vs girls engineering challenge and the girls nearly always win. Here is why...

So, my experience of this is normally allowing 5 or so classes do this activity in any given year, always with the same set up and always with me observing just how it goes. In total I must now have observed the experiment about 60 times.

To be clear I am all for students choosing their own teams and such and I am aware of the false dichotomy of the situation. But generally due to sports, boarding houses etc my crew are quite used to boys as one gang and girls as another.

The activity is bridge building. Two tables are set apart and each team must bridge the gap using only paper, string and 4 clamp stands. The bridge must have a roadway and each will be tested to destruction at the end with weights.

So, I split the class - girls vs boys. The rules are clear. They can't interfere with each other's bridges and they can't test their own bridge. They have about 45 minutes to build something. Let me tell you what then normally happens...

Newlane University Manifesto--12 tenets: 1. Education should be available and accessible to every person on earth; making quality education inaccessible or exclusive is immoral. Education belongs in the same category as shelter, clean water, and basic food.

2. Education should be disconnected from geography. Students should be able to learn anything from anywhere on earth. With few exceptions, tying education to geography is a form of exclusion.

3. Education should be disconnected from a schedule. The most effective time to learn something is when the student is ready, not when the teacher or institution is available.

4. Education should not be admission- or permission-based, but freely available upon the asking. The current admission-based system is a vestige of a scarcity model that could only fit a limited number of seats in a classroom.

(4 continued) No one should have to be admitted or ask permission to learn a subject.

HOW TO COME TO AUSTRALIA (WA) AS A STUDENT

Unfortunately, you can not come as a student to study most trade occupations as they are offered as apprenticeships and heavily subsidised for locals. Only if you want to be a Light vehicle mechanic.

This thread is to help anyone interested and can afford to study in Australia but have 4 O levels or as low as 2 A level points. Most people think Uni when we talk about studying abroad, but do you know you can study in Australia and end up getting a work visa and/or a degree?

The answer is yes, and I will show you how! The information I will share now pertains to Western Australia only, as I do not know how other states go about it.
Before I continue, a note to those who might consider migrating to Australia or might want their kids to end up here.

If you can afford, it is better to come here as a student. Australian graduates have any easy pathway to PR whereas if you study outside Australia you will need work experience first and yet you are not guaranteed of success.

Now back to study stuff.

The equivalent of a Polytechnic college here is Technical and Further Education college, shortened to TAFE. TAFE colleges in WA have courses streamlined for international students ranging from certificate III (equivalent to NC) to Advanced Diploma (HND).

The problem that the ‘lets-shut-schools-for-a-couple-of-weeks-crowd’ ignore is that its much easier to shut schools than to open them. Therefore, the probability is that once schools are shut, they will be shut for months on end, just like last time.

In other words, they are engaging in wishful thinking. The probability is that schools will be shut for months on end whilst online teaching provision will likely be patchy/minimal/inadequate/non-existent like it was last time & educational inequalities will continue to widen.

We’ve learned nothing from the schools shutting for 6 months last yr. Once those schools are shut, they will be shut for months. Online learning will continue to be inadequate, meanwhile big-mouthed Twitter users with no skin in the game will continue to opine on the subject.

The average Twitter user is more likely to be parent to a cat than to a human child. No skin in the game & it shows, quite frankly. The online learning that is available for parents is inadequate & it will be left to parents to utilise their own resources, again.

Educational inequalities will widen into a chasm. It will be a disaster for children, especially primary school-aged children, & for what? Where is the evidence that school closures minimised the spread of C-19? But the average Twitter user need not worry, their cat will be fine

For months, but especially after the new CDC school recs came out, supporters of reopening all schools now have been peddling the idea that schools across the country have been open all year successfully. This argument is used to push for ALL schools to be opened now.

A long 🧵

Though some schools in the U.S. are open & doing well with safety protocols, many places used as examples of opening success have profoundly unsafe schools & are neglecting covid safety. Some have been lucky not to have outbreaks and other issues--it's not that they're safe.

In the last few weeks, I've been in touch with teachers in Ohio, Florida, Texas, Wisconsin, New Jersey, Utah, and Pennsylvania.

(Thanks to @eduwonkette_jen @GeoRebekah and @saribethrose for the threads and forums that have helped me meet SO MANY teachers this year).

I collected the accounts of dozens of teachers. Obviously, this isn't an exhaustive list and it isn't a study! It's what teachers on the ground in some states are experiencing. And it's easy to see why so many in our profession are so frightened this year.

Here's the list:

There are currently open schools in the US that are being hailed as "successful" that have:

▪️no safety protocols at all besides contact cleaning, in some districts
▪️some districts with no mask mandate
▪️classes in windowless rooms, some with full classes of 20-30

Given @GavinWilliamson failure to apologise this week for 'last-minute' decisions on schools policy during the pandemic, we thought it might be useful to put to together one handy thread of every U-turn from the @educationgovuk since April last

Free school meals will come up a lot in this thread, but here is the first governmental U-turn before the Easter Holidays. (2/43) #FSM

.@educationgovuk then decided not to fund #FSM in the following half-term break, they changed their minds after a public outcry.

Taking a break from #FSM, we head straight into the #Alevels2020 exams debacle, with Scotland’s grade U-turn putting pressure on the @educationgovuk (4/43)

Ministers in Westminster were determined not to U-turn

I have news about online teaching and reading workload, friends.

I have experimented with REDUCING the number of readings I assign for a class. This is hard in overview courses because you always feel like they should have "the lay of the land" and master all that there is.

HOWEVER...

My students have performed BETTER with reduced reading workloads.

Undergrads focus on ONE reading per week, while having 3 more available "if they so happen to have the time to read them" (they often do try to read these extra readings).

Masters' level students have appreciated taking a "let's just take things more slowly" approach.

Doctoral level students felt somewhat weirded out that I wasn't assigning three books a week. Though they appreciated it.

What I have drawn from my experiences:
- Workshops work.

Having a section of the class that is "hands-on, let's get writing/analyzing/thinking/reading" as a workshop fulfills two goals, for me:

1) Cements my students' understanding of the method.

2) Helps them have actual time to think and read and write rather than rush through.

Depth and breadth are issues we need to compromise on.

- Do I want them to read more broadly or more deeply?
- Do I want them to become more expert in a few things or become more generalist-type people?

These choices are malleable, as is our context.

What is NOT malleable:

What if you could avoid competition forever?

How to Build a Personal Monopoly with @david_perell + @jackbutcher

THREAD👇

1/ What is a personal monopoly?

The intersection of...

• Curiosity: What do you care about?

• Competence: What are you good at?

• Character: Who are you?

These combinations SHRINK the area of competition.

"Competition is for losers."
@peterthiel

2/ Where to Start

"You can't connect the dots looking forward: you can only connect them looking backwards."
-- Steve Jobs

Trust your curiosity and intuition.

Only curiosity creates uniqueness.

3/ BUTCHER'S FRAMEWORK

DICE = Diverge, Converge, Emerge

DIVERGE (Collect Dots): Pursue things you're interested in

CONVERGE (Connect Dots): Find the connections among interesting things

EMERGE: You've found where to start. Now attack it everyday.

4/ "Make a single decision to eliminate 1,000 decisions."
-- @tferriss

For @visualizevalue + @jackbutcher: How do you visualize something to make it simpler?

Eliminate anything that doesn't compound towards achieving that goal.

What does it take to sustain screwiness in the way the world works? Mostly, it's just good people, trying their best to get us to a better place... within constraints which pretty much preclude us actually getting anywhere! A case in point with

These authors come across as hugely committed to something we might all agree upon: improving young people's experiences of physical education through better school-based-interventions. Sounds great? Agreed, & pretty much everything about their study models best practice 🥳

Sadly, established "best practice" involves further embedding the medicalisation of PE as if it should be about the potential contribution of physical activity to everything from quality of life, self-perception & cognition to the likelyhood of becoming healthy & active adults 🤯

We're reminded of the Chief Medical Officer's "recommended guidelines of 60 min of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) per day for healthy growth and development" 👇 This is a focus on what we can easily measure (generic) rather than on what we might value (individual).

We get recognition that PE "is not merely an opportunity for children to engage in PA" but that's linked to its role in "the development of knowledge & skills to foster their PA engagement throughout life" - so further focus on health outcomes. A long way from @meaningfulPE 🙄

Now, what exactly is an applied epidemiologist, and why are they needed? In the late 90s- early 2000's there were a series of articles in AJPH, AJE, JECH, and IJE dedicated to answering these questions. I'll focus on Stephen Thacker's review.

He states, “The applied epidemiologist is by definition an activist, moving rapidly from findings to policy, putting epi knowledge to good use. The 21st century epi must do all these things while maintaining a foundation of high-quality epi research and practice.”

Susser warns the field of what he considers “the black box paradigm… the current international focus on risk factor epidemiology.” He advocates for expanding our academic training to include socializing epis to “keep the improvement of the public’s health as a primary value”

Morabia argued that epidemiology has historically found its balance in the tension between the search for causal relations and the improvement of public health; overemphasis on either perspective puts epidemiology at risk of losing its value.

How does this play out in real life? I’ve been an applied epi for 13 years, working mainly in local, state, and federal health agencies. My work has focused on conducting cool analysis that lead to policy or systemic change.

Happy Monday!

We combined a list of helpful resources from @TundeTASH and @myfreelancehq

This thread entails TOP TEN (10)

🤝 Sites to learn Excel for free

🤝 Sites for online education

🤝 Sites for your career

🤝 Sites for interview preparation

🤝 Skills you can do with little or no experience

🤝 Tech skills in demand

💡 Top 10 Sites to learn Excel for free:

Search for these on Google:

1. Microsoft Excel Help Center

2. Excel Exposure

3. Chando

4. Excel Central

5. Contextures

6. Excel Hero

7. Mr. Excel

8. Improve Your Excel

9. Excel Easy

10. Excel Jet

💡💡 Top 10 Sites for Free Online Education:

Search for these on Google:

1. Coursera

2. edX

3. Khan Academy
4. Udemy

5. iTunesU Free Courses

6. MIT OpenCourseWare

7. Stanford Online

8. Codecademy

9. Open Culture Online Courses

10. TED-Ed

💡 Top 10 Sites for your career:

1. LinkedIN

2. Indeed

3. Careerealism

4. Job-Hunt

5. JobBait

6. Careercloud

7. GM4JH

8. Personalbrandingblog

9. Jibberjobber

10. Neighbors-helping-neighbors

You know what I don’t miss? Parent teacher conferences.

Most of Rocketkid’s teachers were lovely, but we had two that still stick out in my mind as sad/hilarious.

The first one, he was in elementary school. The teacher said it was ‘important’ for us to come in.

1/

So we worried about that for two days until the meeting. What could be wrong? It’s scary for parents to be left hanging like that.

So we meet his teacher, goatee and sunglasses...we live in the boonies and yet there’s something here like he’s trying to be a player.

2/

Not like a lady-player, like he’s got an image of himself in his head. We like teachers, but this guy’s manner is just weirdly kind of pushy a little bit.

Anyway, we sit does in the kid chairs, he’s behind his desk, again, weirdly focused on ‘power,’ somehow.

No idea why,

3/

We ask about our son, he acts as if he forgot that’s why we’re there, says some random stuff, all normal, nothing at all worthy of a conference. I mean, contact and communication is important, but thus just feels off-the cuff entirely.

4/

So then suddenly he gets really intense, but pretends being casual. Like it just occurred to him.

And he says to me, ‘So, I hear you’re a writer.’

What?

I tell him yes, I write comics and some animation and stuff.

He says. ‘I looked you up.’

5/