Indeed! Great day for Aussie chemistry. Richard Robson's work is finally being properly recognised. Congratulations also to Kitagawa and Yaghi. #ozchem

It started ok when asked re isobutanol vs 1-butanol but then it butchered the iso-butanol structure. Yeah... so like a middling undergraduate not PhD.

P.s. the main reason the lecture is not already dead is that both admin and many academics refuse to face the issue. For admin it is particularly hard because once we ditch lectures we MUST lower student to staff ratio as we shift to more active learning methods. Admin hates that! + some academics.

Exactly. Let's stop passive lectures and turn our contact hours into active learning. It is the only way. Students enjoy learning by doing. They don't like lecturing, they prefer to watch videos in their own time.

Microscopically yes, some might. Long term/macroscopically the lecture is still dead. You should hear also what kids like mine at high schools say about these old fashion passive methods of teaching. The next generation is going to be even more brutal. Let focus on labs, discussion groups and such.

That is like when teachers tried to ban calculators. Let's face it, this battle is lost. The lecture is dead. Frankly it isn't bad. We should focus on teaching by doing, not 18th century style preaching from the altar.

Yep... I don't know why we have done that already. We did this of course during covid but then some people wanted to turn back the clock after covid and bring back conventional in person lectures. It is a lost cause. Let's focus on hands on DOING stuff, not "preaching".

Stop doing "live lectures"(just do videos etc) focus our contact hours on hands on activities (labs!), discussion groups. Students WANT TO do stuff but they see no points in wasting their time on conventional lectures when they learn that stuff online.

Add me please

P.s. and if good researchers is defined by a local cabal of like minded researchers that is not necessarily a good thing for an agency that should funding innovative risky ideas. There is a fair amount of groupthink in some Australian research communities.

What is your field? I heard the opposite from many in the physical sciences, e.g. quantum physics and synthetic chemistry.

I reviewed for half a dozen European agencies and they are not that different from the ARC. Our problem is that we don't have experts on the panels that don't have COI. We need more int involved especially at the panel level.