Day One: Wednesday, 27 July 2022

Part 2: Eur/Afr/M.East

Keynote, Introductions:

Papers, Showcase

00:44:06 Elizabeth Black: If anyone wants to type a question into the chat, I can pass it on as well.
00:47:10 Elizabeth Black: Welcome to people just joining us online. We have just started the discussion following the keynote.
00:55:44 Cosma Gottardi: Just a comment. I teach chemistry, and I’m very grateful for this talk. It has widened my perspective on the question “What is a University for?” and allowed some reflections that are much deeper than the day-to-day thoughts of e.g. “how do I best draw this reaction for students to understand it”.
00:59:37 Anna: There are a number of studies exploring benefits of studying a language to the study of other subjects, such as maths (can’t give any specific references right now, unfortunately).
01:01:53 Anna: Also important to note that there is no war going on between Humanities and STEM!
01:04:06 Milan Oncak: A brief comment: I believe we should work more actively against specialisation. I am teaching physics at a university in Austria and our students go through three common years (physics, mathematics, a bit of programing – no chemistry, no biology, no humanities unless they actively decide for them). During their Master’s studies, they are then specialized in a very narrow field. Of course, this limits their abilities to think across the specializations and goes against the idea of univesity (“universality”) itself. I wonder if this is a common experience of other teachers.
01:09:49 Anna: In the “pursuit of truth” I think we need to think interdisciplinary.
02:07:53 Milan Oncak: My name is Milan Ončák, I am an assistant professor at the University of Innsbruck, working in chemical physics. Nice to meet you all.
03:00:27 Elizabeth Black: Any other questions from online participants?
03:01:00 Christopher Hand: Thank you – I have to step out for a meeting with a PhD supervisee. I’ll hopefully be able to rejoin later
03:02:37 Elizabeth Black: Thanks Marina!
04:59:08 Elizabeth Black: Hi everyone online this afternoon! Please do post questions or comments into the chat during the session.
06:01:14 Anna: I think that the course you are providing in writing skills sounds really important!
06:07:16 Elizabeth Black: Sorry – please could the question be repeated for the online audience?
06:07:50 Birgit Pitscheider: I think it is easy to blame someone else (especially another institution) but playing the blaming game does not really help
06:08:11 Elizabeth Black: Thanks for clarifying that.
06:08:54 Elizabeth Black: Thanks Giga!

Roundtable

00:17:42 Elizabeth Black: Please post questions or comments into the chat during or after the presentation. Izhar is happy to answer questions during the presentation as well.
00:19:38 Mirjam Brady: What this person said to you is what I feel some of my colleagues (in Psychology) only think 😉
00:24:14 Mirjam Brady: Can you come and work in Aberdeen please?
00:34:31 Cosma Gottardi: @Iyzhar, that is so right!! THANK YOU, this is so useful. As Scholars of Teaching and learning, we need to read 50 papers first, that is SO important. Thank you for highlighting that there is in fact no other way!!
00:35:42 Elizabeth Black: yes – I think that this comes up often in SoTL contexts too.
00:36:13 Elizabeth Black: Although that is a more practitioner enquiry oriented area of study.
00:42:37 Anna: I find the notion of danger of bias very interesting. If I came to you and wanted to write about a political issue, or on race, LGBT, religion etc – what would you ask me?
00:43:06 Scott Ramsay: Re: Mirjam’s comments – I typically teach the gap/niche paradigm myself, and I have a biomedical background so most of my field’s research is looking for answers to questions that are philosophically answerable, but I guess even we have ground-up articles in the form of case studies. If someone is prescribed medication that results in a novel side-effect, for example, that observation is worth highlighting to people in a short paper.
00:43:49 Mirjam Brady: Everyone is ‘biased’ – it’s not a negative term. The importance is to be aware and fully reflexive throughout your work.
00:49:28 Mirjam Brady: It depends what aspects of empathy you are interested in… Are you assuming a realist, contextualist or constructivist approach?
01:02:07 Elizabeth Black: Although presumably sometimes someone might be researching into attitudes and so that information would be relevant?
01:02:51 Mirjam Brady: I was thinking that too, Elizabeth. Not all qualitative research is phenomenological.
01:04:20 Scott Ramsay: https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2021.4783
01:08:17 Anna: thank you
01:09:15 Mirjam Brady: Thank you!
01:09:24 Milan Oncak: Thank you

[wpdatatable id=4]