Items to share: 9 June

Education Focus

• How should mathematics be taught to non-mathematicians? (Gowers's Weblog)  A long and engaging post on a sixth-form "Use of Mathematics" curriculum--but in a good way.

• The Neurocritic: G r e a t e r / l e t t e r / s p a c i n g / helps reading in dyslexia

• The Benefits of Making It Harder to Learn  (The Chronicle of Higher Education)
  Not only a matter of "cognitive disfluency" but also of a degree of cognitive dissonance, perhaps. The comments are worth reading, too.

• A Technological Cloud Hangs Over Higher Education (The Chronicle of Higher Education) A bit of a jeremiad, but principally about how technology is mediating the encounter with subject-matter (particularly in the sciences) and hence distancing students from it. Some interesting links from the comments on the PowerPoint trope.

• Will Your Citations Pass or Fail?  (The Chronicle of Higher Education) Since it's the season for examiners' ritual complaints about the quality of referencing, here's a glimpse of what's involved at a professional/obsessional level.

Other Business

• The history of the paper clip: It was invented in 1899. It hasn't been improved upon since. (Slate Magazine)

• Haslam (2012) Toilet psychology  Redressing a history of neglect...

• Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee (The Atlantic) Picture gallery (the first one is brilliant).

• Mrs Windsor, anyone? (FT.com) on the conspicuous failure of republicanism to make any progress in the UK.

• Urbanscreen Light: Sydney Opera House (YouTube) The projection onto Buck House at the Jubilee concert had nothing on this.

• Leonardo of the Deep - "Gas pods" (small bumps on the roof of a car) are claimed to increase fuel efficiency by mimicking the effects of similar bumps occurring naturally on whales and lobsters.

• Atul Gawande: Failure and Rescue (The New Yorker) In medicine, it's not the ability to forestall failure which counts in survival rates, it's the capacity to respond and recover when it's happened.