Letters Remain

Category: learning

  • Indefinite Memories

    There are many substances in the brain thought to be responsible for maintaining long-term memories. Now, research is showing that by blocking one of these substances, the enzyme PKMζ (PMKzeta), we could ‘erase’ certain memories. The hope is that the opposite could work, too: The drug [ZIP] blocks the activity of a substance that the brain apparently…

  • Economics Lectures

    I was introduced to Stephen Kinsella—Junior Lecturer in Economics at Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick—through his beautiful looking economics presentations available on SlideShare. Of course, the problem with (the majority of) beautiful presentations is that they lack context and thus, without a voiceover, end up being a confusing set of beautiful pictures with scant text. Not…

  • Poverty Education

    In an article where the somewhat controversial philosopher Peter Singer—author of Famine, Affluence and Morality—argues that the teaching of the issues surrounding world poverty should not be confined to specialist courses and should be an educational priority*, I was shocked by the clarification of something I’ve oft wondered about the definition of poverty: The World Bank defines extreme…

  • Grade Inflation

    With news that Cambridge University is to demand A* grades at A-Level as a prerequisite for entry (a grade that currently doesn’t exist), there is much in the news about ‘grade inflation’. However “grade inflation” is actually the answer; the problem is “grade distortion”: True grade inflation would mean each grade was equally devalued, with…

  • Paternal Age and Child Development

    Advanced paternal age at conception has previously been shown to affect the resulting child’s health in many ways. Now, advanced paternal age has also been associated with impaired neurocognitive abilities (“the ability to think and reason, including concentration, memory, learning, understanding, speaking, and reading”). Advanced paternal age showed significant associations with poorer scores on all of…

  • Risk Analysis Education

    Ron Lieber of The New York Times asks, Could the current financial crisis be breeding an entire generation of risk averse traders? Kevin Brosious, a financial planner in Allentown, Pa., polled the students in his financial management class at DeSales University on the percentage of their portfolios they would allocate to stocks right now. The…

  • Academic Earth

    Academic Earth is the latest addition to my growing collection of online lectures from leading universities around the world. The site currently includes lectures from Berkeley, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford and Yale on topics ranging from Entrepreneurship to Law, and Economics to Psychology.

  • Portfolios Instead of Diplomas

    Jeff Jarvis agrees with teacher Mark Pullen’s opinion that the education system should be modified to produce portfolios instead of, or in addition to, qualifications. Perhaps we need to separate youth from education. Education lasts forever. […] What if we told students that, like Google engineers, they should take one day a week or one…

  • The Bible a Prerequisite for Understanding Literature?

    Poet Laureate Andrew Motion (incidentally, the first Poet Laureate to not hold the position for life) suggests that the classics and the Bible should continue to be taught in school, as to cease doing so will prevent a whole generation being able to understand great literature and culture. I can’t help but find myself agreeing…

  • Complex Concepts, Explained Better

    “Learn Right, Not Rote” is the tag line for Better Explained; a site explaining concepts in mathematics and programming intuitively in order to make learning easy and—God forbid—fun! For example, the explanation of natural log is excellent. via SMBC