A behind the scenes interview with Professor Christopher Barnatt, Director and Producer of a new TV documentary on what we perceive to be real, and what, if any, future lies ahead for us.

The TV documentary was televised in April 2009 and was based on a book written by Professor Christopher Barnatt in 1997, also entitled Challenging Reality, which focused on momentous change across history. The new television series developed this theme further, with input from numerous other experts at the University of Nottingham, across three episodes looking at human achievement, geography and communications and the individual and their role in society.

April 2009

Suitable for Undergraduate study and community education

Professor Christopher Barnatt, Associate Professor Business School and Director Producer of "Challenging Reality"

Professor Christopher Barnatt has worked in the Business School at the University of Nottingham for around 19 years, where he is now Director of Teaching. Outside of that role he teaches computing and technology modules, mainly on undergraduate programmes. He is currently researching in the areas of Future Studies, Web 2.0, and green computing, and is actively involved in research, online teaching support and development in a variety of media termed as "Higher Education 2.0".

Outside of the University he is the author of ExplainingComputers.com and ExplainingTheFuture.com, as well as a regular contributor to the Morning Show on BBC Radio Nottingham and "The Night Before" on Kerrang! Radio.

Student readings examine the Boy Scouts of America's policy of excluding gays, as well as efforts by scouts themselves to challenge discrimination from both inside and outside the organization.

This is an information sheet on the species, Chamaeleo jacksonii, provided by the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology.

This is an information sheet on the species, Chamaeleonidae, provided by the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology.

The Chandra Astrophysics Institute (CAI), a Chandra X-ray Observatory–sponsored program run by the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, was intended for students from the Boston area from a wide range of academic backgrounds with a limited opportunity to directly experience authentic science. 
The CAI was a year-long program to train for and take part in authentic astronomy projects. Participants built employable research, technology, and collaboration skills and the background knowledge necessary to understand how research science is done. Investigations of different astronomical systems were undertaken during a five-week summer session at MIT. Participants, mentored by MIT researchers and educators, then applied these skills to undertake research projects in x-ray astronomy based on observations made with the Chandra X-Ray Observatory.

Learn about the Chandra X-Ray Observatory's telescope system, science instruments, and spacecraft system in this interactive activity adapted from NASA.

This video provides a comprehensive introduction to the role of coral reefs, the physiology of corals, and the impacts of ocean warming and acidification on coral survival. It highlights experts from the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences and the University of Miami.

This video addresses acidification of the ocean and the ecological and economic implications of the resulting pH change on marine life. It includes information about how ocean acidification resulting from increased absorption of CO2 from the atmosphere is affecting ocean species such as sea urchins and oysters. Scientists from the University of California at Santa Barbara discuss their experiments with sea creatures in acidic sea water. There is an associated lesson plan and classroom activity that has students test the effects of CO2 on water pH.

The Changing Story gives you assignments, resources, and examples to use in your teaching and learning. It will also help you think of ways digital stories can be used in your teaching, and help students harness the power of visual storytelling.

Learning Framework: Effective Strategies for College SuccessChapter 1: Manage the Transition to College 

Brought to you by Ascend at Los Angeles Pacific University.

This video explains different types of modalities and appropriate use cases.

This video segment adapted from NASA describes the basic characteristics of our star, the Sun.

To prepare for this exercise students read about the processes that operate at plate boundaries and how they are related to the distinct patterns of seismicity, volcanism, surface elevations (e.g., ridges versus trenches), and seafloor ages characteristic of different boundary types. During the week the assignment is available online, students have access to:
(1) an index map that locates three boundaries they are to study; and
(2) four maps from Sawyer's Discovering Plate Boundaries website that provide the data mentioned above.Â

Student tasks are to:Â
(1) document patterns in each type of data along the three targeted boundaries; andÂ
(2) use these observations in conjunction with their understandings of the processes that operate along different types of boundaries to decide whether each of the targeted sites is most likely to be a divergent, convergent, or shear boundary.Â

This activity gives students practice in map reading, interpreting the likely tectonic setting of a boundary by pulling together constraints from several types of data, and collaborating with their classmates in an online environment. The activity also provides a foundation for understanding a wide range of phenomena that are discussed later in the semester in the context of plate tectonic processes.
Modifications on this activity from the community

Show More
Show LessContributed by Tom Hickson
I also use a version of Dale Sawyer's Discovering Plate Boundaries exercise in an online course. I used the basic idea of this activity and moved in onto Canvas, our LMS. Here is my adaptation of the activity, with maps and examples, illustrating how I have implemented it:

Description of the assignment: Student handout, ONLINE_ Characterizing Plate Boundaries (adapted).pdf (Acrobat (PDF) 166kB Feb19 21)
Answer sheet for students to record observations and interpretations: Target Boundaries: Student answer sheet (Acrobat (PDF) 1MB Feb19 21)
World map with Target Boundaries (Acrobat (PDF) 483kB Feb19 21)

Maps of the "target boundaries" -- my selected areas of focus for the exercise:

Example map, Boundary 3

Provenance: Thomas A. Hickson, University of St. Thomas
Reuse: This item is offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ You may reuse this item for non-commercial purposes as long as you provide attribution and offer any derivative works under a similar license.












Example map, Boundary 2

Provenance: Thomas A. Hickson, University of St. Thomas
Reuse: This item is offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ You may reuse this item for non-commercial purposes as long as you provide attribution and offer any derivative works under a similar license.












Map example, boundary 1

Provenance: Thomas A. Hickson, University of St. Thomas
Reuse: This item is offered under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ You may reuse this item for non-commercial purposes as long as you provide attribution and offer any derivative works under a similar license.

Teaching Tips
Adaptations that allow this activity to be successful in an online environment
Sawyer's Discovering Plate Boundaries is a jigsaw exercise in which students collaboratively develop an empirical classification of plate boundaries by first studying an individual data set (e.g., seismicity) and then working as part of a multidisciplinary team to develop a composite classification for the boundaries of a single plate using several types of data. In order for the classification to be truly empirical, students are not introduced to the "traditional" classification of plate boundaries till the end of the exercise.Â

In adapting this assignment to the online environment I have:

(1) asked students to prepare by becoming familiar with the standard classification of plate boundaries and the processes that operate at them;Â
(2) limited their work to three targeted boundaries of different types; andÂ
(3) provided guidance about which features to look for in the each data set. I have found that these modifications help online students, who often work alone "on their own schedules", to avoid getting "lost" and frustrated with the assignment and to compensate for the lack of collaborative input they would receive in a classroom setting.

Elements of this activity that are most effective
The success of this exercise is really seems to depend on how well a student follows the directions. If a student learns about the geologic differences among plate boundaries, makes careful observations, and thoughtfully compares his or her observations to the expected patterns he or she typically does quite well based on answers to the follow-up questions. If, on the other hand, a student simply looks up the types of the targeted boundaries on a map and then attempts to "back out" the observations that he or she thinks should fit, the result is often inconsistency and a poor score on the questions. (I can often tell which approach a student is taking based on the queries they post to the discussion board, but rarely seem to be able to get those who are trying to work backwards through the assignment to change direction.)
Recommendations for other faculty adapting this activity to their own course:
To date my experience developing an engaging online exercise to help students learn the principles of plate tectonics has only been partly successful. I think that having such an exercise is critical, however, because this topic provides the framework for so much of what we learn in the geosciences. Based on my efforts to adapt elements of Discovering Plate Boundaries to an online environment I would offer three recommendations.

(1) Provide examples. Confronted with an unfamiliar map students are sometimes confused when asked to decide if seafloor age, for example, is uniform or variable along the length of a boundary. Showing them what you mean using snapshots from a map can often clear questions like this up quickly. Similarly, for written work a single example that gives them a clear sense of "what you're looking for" and can often head off a lot of questions.
(2) Choose the boundaries you ask students to study carefully. The scarcity of documented volcanism along a mid-ocean ridge or the burial of seafloor age belts by sediment along a trench can result in student observations that are correct, but problematic for correctly assessing the nature of a boundary.
(3) Stay on top of student questions and comments, and be prepared to make well-publicized "mid-course corrections" if something you thought was clear turns out to be misunderstood. These minor corrections happen naturally in face-to-face classes but can require real diligence to catch and correct in the online environment.

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In the world of engaged learning, teachers are inspired by students. I teach primarily classes in African American literature, many of which answer requirements for General Education credit. Because General Education enrollment consists of students from colleges across the university, I have the opportunity to introduce a diverse group of students to the works of Charles Chesnutt, whom I describe as “the most famous Cleveland writer you’ve never heard of.” Inevitably, despite their diverse academic majors, all agree that what they are learning needs to be shared with teachers in the Cleveland Metropolitan school system. Yet while there are numerous websites devoted to Charles Chesnutt, few pay more than passing attention to his association with Cleveland, where Chesnutt was born in 1858, returned in 1883, built one the city’s most successful court reporting businesses, and wrote continuously until his death in 1932.

Works in this series were created as part of an open pedagogy assignment for Professor Eckelmann Berghel's HIST 3920: History of White Rage course in 2021 Spring at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

Each work in this series profiles a Chattanooga citizen working toward racial justice based on primary source materials and oral history interviews.

Jeremy Nelson (Stanford University Libraries) and Erik Radio (University of Colorado) present 'Chatting with your Catalog: Exploring the use of LLMs with FOLIO LSP' during the AI & Bibliographic Data session at the Fantastic Futures ai4LAM 2023 annual conference. This item belongs to: movies/fantastic-futures-annual-international-conference-2023-ai-for-libraries-archives-and-museums-02.

This item has files of the following types: Archive BitTorrent, Item Tile, MP3, MPEG4, Metadata, PNG, Thumbnail, h.264 720P, h.264 IA

Students will examine and evaluate both college and high school students' support of and involvement in the World Wars. Students will research both photographic and textual resources in order to produce factual information about how students reacted to World Wars 1 and 2. This lesson will culminate in a student-driven Socratic Seminar style discussion which will allow the students to verbally articulate their findings from the resources provided. This lesson was created in partnership with the Alabama Department of Archives and History.

Short Description:
Proteins play vital roles in most biological processes; these roles include acting as catalysts for physiological reactions, as regulators for those reactions, or as structural framework around which these processes can occur. Proteins’ complex organization of diverse functionality in 3D space leads to an astonishing range of function for living organisms. Understanding this intimate relationship between structure and function is the backbone of understanding the natural world and is the key to controlling it. Data dashboard

Word Count: 13793

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This set contains 14 YouTube videos, created by Dr Niek Eisink and Dr Tjalling Canrinus of the Faculty of Science and Engineering of the University of Groningen. These instructional videos all deal with different laboratory techniques that are highly relevant for chemistry students and researchers, as well as others who work with chemical techniques in their day-to-day work. The following 14 topics are discussed in this set:

- Recrystallization
- Reflux setup
- Distillation
- Extraction
- Gloves
- Volumetric flasks
- Vacuum filtration
- UV-Vis spectrophotometer
- Thin Layer chromatography (TLC)
- Column chromatrography
- Schlenk line
- Greasing glass joints
- Micropipettes
- Rotary evaporator

The videos aim to be useful tools for current students and staff, professionals who are looking for a refresher on fundamental laboratory techniques, and other educators who want use these videos in their teaching and lab instruction.

This course uses an open textbook University of Michigan Chemical Engineering Process Dynamics and Controls. The articles in the open textbook (wikibook) are all written by teams of 3-4 senior chemical engineering students, and are peer-reviewed by other members of the class. Using this approach, the faculty and Graduate Student Instructors (GSIs) teaching the course act as managing editors, selecting broad threads for the text and suggesting references. In contrast to other courses, the students take an active role in their education by selecting which material in their assigned section is most useful and decide on the presentation approach. Furthermore, students create example problems that they present in poster sessions during class to help the other students master the material.