learning & teaching contexts

Learning & Teaching Contexts

My learning and teaching contexts are both broad and varied. As I move through my life, from one day to the next, I cannot help but learn and as I learn I cannot help but teach,

although my teaching is not always structured, and my learning is seldom formal.

I learn through observation....

Observing termite behaviour at a field site in Tygerberg Nature Reserve in the Western Cape of South Africa

...and teach by demonstration.

Undergraduates learning how to photograph agarose gels to visualise PCR products.

I learn from backboards....

Notes from a talk on the long-term negative genetic effects of stress on young children.

...and teach on computers.

Resources loaded onto the Vula site for the Write Science course I co-facilitated at the University of Cape Town (UCT).

I learn from academics....

Interviewing Dr Emese Bordy (right) with Vera Frith (left), as part of the Integrated Literacies for Learning in Science (ILLS) research project.

....and teach to children.

Pointing out interesting fauna and flora to my daughter on a nature walk, just outside the town of Barrydale in the Tradouw Valley, South Africa

I learn at conferences...

Inaugural lecture at the Higher Education Learning & Teaching Association of South Africa (HELTASA) Conference, 2012.

...and teach in consultations.

A one-to-one consultation with a postgraduate student in the UCT Writing Centre.

I learn in seminar rooms...

A regular Friday seminar in the department of Molecular & Cell Biology at UCT.

...and teach in classrooms.

A teaching opportunity during the s.e.a.Teach course.

I learn from papers...

A journal article describing a multilocus phylogeny of the world Sycoecinae fig wasps (Cruaud et al., 2013).

...and teach with pictures.

Visual teaching aids used to describe the process of PCR.

I learn from one...

A meeting with my supervisor and mentor, Dr Colleen O’Ryan.

....and teach to many.

HUB1011F students doing a written exercise during one of my academic literacy lectures at UCT.