Items to share: 1 December

Education Focus

• Universities could be encouraging students to cheat, without even knowing it theconversation.com 'We have plenty of evidence that classrooms which orient students towards mastery learning produce more substantive and longer-lasting levels of learning than those which orient students towards performance. A substantial line of research also suggests that when students perceive their classrooms as primarily performance oriented, they are more likely to cheat.'

• Cal lecturer's email to students goes viral: "Why I am not canceling class tomorrow" | CAA It's all about the virtues of a college education, prompted by a campus strike, which the lecturer is not joining. I find the reaction alien! 

•  Has OFSTED Changed Since Last Month? | Scenes From The Battleground

Other Business

• Dozens of Labs Respond to Call to Bolster Reliability of Psychology Research scientificamerican.com

• Did You Have A Good Pee, Mr. Rhino? On talking to animals

• The Science of Hatred - The Chronicle Review 'What makes humans capable of horrific violence? Why do we deny atrocities in the face of overwhelming evidence? A small group of psychologists say they are moving toward answers. Is anyone listening?' (Probably not--the ideas have been around since the 1950s, and have been conscientiously ignored.)

• “Let All Your Thinks Be Thanks” andrewsullivan.com. For Thanksgiving, of course.

• Kerning, spacing, leading: the invisible art of typography theconversation.com
   
• How to write about the north (Stuart Maconie) newstatesman.com 'Remember that different rules apply here and you must get the terminology right. Shoreditch is “edgy” whereas Longsight is “dangerous”. Bow is “real”, Whitehaven is “run-down”. Hackney is “gritty and bracing”, Rotherham is “bleak and menacing”. Other good words to drop are “blighted”, “desperate”, “red-brick”, “eyesore”, “hen party”, “fake tan”, and “Greggs”.'