Question as an aside, does anyone here have experience with indoor air quality meters? I've had a hard time finding some good recommendations for something reasonably accurate and not too expensive...
I took this unit last semester (at Macquarie University, with David Christian as my lecturer and tutor) and am happy to answer any questions you might have on teaching style or such. Personally I really enjoyed it and found it very thought provoking and interesting (history usually doesn't capture my attention as I like to see a broader view).
I took David Christian's unit last semester at university and had him as a tutor, it was probably one of the most interesting and thought provoking units I've taken! Feel free to ask any questions!
I personally took his Introduction to Big History course last semester and had him as a tutor so my experiences may be useful to you!
1) While I don't know a lot about academic circles from what I gathered his method of teaching history is seen as different but not at all bad, he has connections in other fields who seem to love what he's doing.
2) Can't really answer that unfortunately.
3) David Christian is interesting as he'll readily admit if he doesn't know something in a lot of detail. That said, I found his knowledge to be quite good across all of the history we covered and he answered student questions well, pulling on others with more knowledge if he was unable to fully explain something or was unclear. He does in fact enlist the support of other professors for teaching certain topics, the lecture of the formation of the Earth was given by a Geologist and Evolution was in part covered by Dr Greg Downey, an anthropologist.
I actually really enjoyed the course as, coming from an IT background, it was quite a bit more engaging and interesting and the group discussions in tutorials were very interesting with many good discussions had.