Items to share: 5 May

Education Focus

• A Graphic Syllabus Can Bring Clarity to Course Structure | Faculty Focus Some of us have been doing this for years--but it's still a good idea.

• A Liberal Decalogue: Bertrand Russell on the Ten Commandments of Teaching | Brain Pickings

• Who are you protecting when you praise a dud performance? (BPS Research Digest) A general point, but relevant to feedback and even teaching with q & a.

• Dilbert and PowerPoint Thanks to David Stone for the link.

• The Learning Paradox (Farnam Street) On "productive failure" (another version is here). This works for students who will not be de-motivated--an appropriate "mindset" is critical. (See also Tim Harford's latest: "Adapt; why success always starts with failure" [2011])
  

General

• Who Killed Men's Hats? Think Of A Three Letter Word Beginning With 'I'  (NPR)  US-centric, but an ingenious account

• A 5-Step Technique for Producing Ideas circa 1939 (Brain Pickings) It originates from the world of advertising, but this account packages it well for a handout or presentation.

• Two Hundred Years of Surgery: Gawande (NEJM) Fascinating, but not for the faint-hearted!

• The Storytelling Animal: The Science of How We Came to Live and Breathe Stories (Brain Pickings)
  Maria Popova on Jonathan Gottschalk, and his own piece: Why fiction is good for you (Boston.com)

• Non Cogito, Ergo Sum (More Intelligent Life) Yet another piece on decision and action, to go with Kahneman and co.

• How To: Assemble a large hadron collider (Boing Boing) IKEA, meet CERN!

• British WWII propaganda movies to view and download (Boing Boing)  About 120 of them, mainly about 10 minutes each, some in colour. Made for overseas consumption, and quite unashamed, but fascinating.

• How to cook onions: Why recipe writers lie and lie about how long they take to caramelize. (Slate Magazine)

• Geoffrey Hill, Laureate of Rain (Nigeness) Almost makes you want it to keep raining, the better to enjoy the poetry.

• A.E. van Vogt: A Centenary Tribute van Vogt (1912-2000) was an SF author driven by big ideas and intense action.

• Against Chairs Silly opening, but overall an interesting account of the history of the chair. Don't just sit there!

• Pseud's corner-- a film about Slavoj Zizek I'm getting all post-modern... I'm drawing attention to this only in order to encourage you to ignore it. Although since the linked article takes a similar stance, perhaps two negatives make a positive? A few years ago, I did spend/waste almost a working week trying to suspend disbelief and evaluate this guy, from his own writings; so Zizek (or his gullible academic acolytes) robbed me of time which I could have spent more profitably washing the car or cleaning the cooker or doing practically anything. They deserved (perhaps) seconds, and I gave them hours.

• Don't panic: what statins tell us about understanding risk statistics The media are both technically poor and ethically cavalier about how they tell stories about risk--this is a good canter round the course.

• The Management Myth (The Atlantic, June 2006) Matthew Stuart: "M.B.A.s have taken obfuscatory jargon—otherwise known as bullshit—to a level that would have made even the Scholastics blanch."

• How free is the will? Sam Harris misses his mark (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) A critical review of the book, but also a good overview of the debate.

• Why Finish Books? by Tim Parks (The New York Review of Books) Or lists of links?