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Richard Walker

I saw and remembered

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Edited by Richard Walker, Thursday, 30 Jul 2015, 01:19

My parents wouldn't understand me now.

Even my neighbors grow rhubarb.

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Richard Walker

Hot From The Kitchen

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12 must-know definitions for the budding kitchenista

Boil: See sauce

Broil: Not common

Confit: Too big

Fillet: Try anyway

Grater: Less reduced (see reduced)

Mincing: Male voice choir

Oath: Used for porridge

Pastry: Predecessor of pay for

Quenelle: Oath

Reduced: Deuced again

Sauce: Painful skin complaint

Tureen: Computer pioneer

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Richard Walker

Evidence Makes us Smart and Stronger

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How do we learn?

Of course it makes a difference *what* we are learning. But evidence suggests that in most fields we will learn better if we structure the new learning.

This is not really a surprise. If we look at informal learning, even in adult life, we see that people fit new information into the matrix of what they already know. Of course they don't know they do this, it's just how they instinctively try make sense of the world. Formal learning often disrupts this process, because it offers fragments  learners can't easily fit in.

Back in the 80s Richard Skemp put forward the notion of a "Schema", which is just another word for a framework really. He was interested in mathematical learning, but I think his message applies in any academic sphere. If you want people to learn, make it possible for them to assimilate new information into an ongoing conceptual structure. Otherwise they'll find it hard to learn, hard to retain what they have learned, and at best the learning is likely to be shallow.

What reminded me of all this was that when looking for evidence of what works well if you are preparing for an exam, I wondered what the latest research pointed to.

I found [1] and from there [2]. I think in many ways this is saying what has been said all those years back, but maybe if we can bring the evidence base together better now these ideas will have more effect.

[1] http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/jan/08/five-secrets-of-successful-revising

[2] http://mindhacks.com/2011/10/24/make-study-more-effective-the-easy-way/

Feedback please!

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Richard Walker

Learning, learning, learning

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Edited by Richard Walker, Sunday, 26 Jul 2015, 15:46

How we learn - and how educators (such as me) think we learn - has always fascinated me.

In the last 25 years or so medicine has embraced evidence-based practice but we in education have been slower in following evidence.

So I liked an article I just read.

I have tried to summarize its message in the graphic above.

The article is here

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/education-why-cramming-gets-a-c/

[If you get a pop-up about Pi, I'm do apologize and think Sci Am should know better.

How I wish I could evaluate Pi. Sorrow fills the heart.]


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Richard Walker

A haiku thinking of winter

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No poem's a blanket.

Even the smallest have tiny holes

Leaking infinity.


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Richard Walker

Goethe

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Edited by Richard Walker, Thursday, 23 Jul 2015, 03:55

Although less remembered now, Wolfgang Goethe was a German polymath and intellectual with gigantic influence in his time and place.

In 1782 he was ennobled by the Duke of Saxe-Weimar and became Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. This was an example of "Herr today, von tomorrow".


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Richard Walker

long ago haiku

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Edited by Richard Walker, Tuesday, 21 Jul 2015, 01:16

i

still remember the morning

your parents were away

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Richard Walker

The Language of Flowers

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Edited by Richard Walker, Tuesday, 21 Jul 2015, 14:24

As more and further evidence that our Team are Close to the Concerns of the Nation and at the same time -

Well and hale in point of body

Healthy in mind

Sound in mental conception

etc. etc

- we offer the following floral arrangement, or 'ensemble of horticulturalist daffynitions'.

Rose: Orthogonal to columns.

Columbine: Purchase of columns. Usually illegal.

Violets: Aggressive problem resolution.

Feverfew: Gosh, I'm hot!

Primrose: Inhibited rose.

Larkspur: Unlikely purring of lark.

Clematis: So come on, eat yours.

Orchid: Metal Mickey.

Speedwell: Dialect comment in first person plural on successful urinary function, for example after communal consumption of Dandelions.

Peony: Still got problems?




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Richard Walker

New blog post

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Mosquito

Summer and the same old thing.

Good luck, let's enjoy it you and I.

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Richard Walker

Silliness Rebuked

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A relative sent a wounding message to me, on the occasion of yesterday's flippant post, as follows

'How does this stupidity make people admire Science?'

We felt this harsh and lacking in educational principles. As a riposte here are some definitions from our companion 'Dictionary of Poesy'.

Verse: Not better.

Ode: A debt.

Sonnet: Snot offit.

Metre: A date.

Dacyl: Non-scary pterodactyl.

Consonance: Not vowels.

Paradox: Two dogs.

Quatrain: Enquiry about presence of drain.

Iamb : Second part of Cartesian saying.

Pastoral: Beyond words.


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Richard Walker

Chemistry made silly

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We have recently begun work on the Uxbridge Dictionary of the Periodic Table. Here are 10 sample entries

Bromine: A mean brother.

Iodine: Thanks Dean!

Flourine: The floor.

Silicon: Pathetic attempt at a scam.

Boron: I'm not interested but continue if you must.

Gold: Similar to rhinitis.

Antimony: Preferring barter.

Zinc: Place for washing dishes.

Arsenic: Buttock injury.

Hafnium: 50% of Holmium.



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Richard Walker

New blog post

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Dragon

Haven't I said I love you?

My sparkles show this is so.

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Richard Walker

The Moon Under Water

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My local pub was drowned tonight. I just got back. I'll explain later.
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Richard Walker

Before The Fall

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Edited by Richard Walker, Thursday, 16 Jul 2015, 23:12

On the far side of nowhere

Two poets were inventing people.

"Where shall we keep them?"

"In a garden."

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Richard Walker

Down a bright stream

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Edited by Richard Walker, Thursday, 16 Jul 2015, 02:41

Tonight at the Moon Under Water, someone read out an article about rhino horn. Then someone else mentioned whale hunting. 

This reminded me of the Inky Fool blog (IFB).

What's the connection between Vikings and a well-known coffee chain? 

From memory of the IFB.

In Yorkshire (sub-question, where did Yorick come from and why did he get dug up in Elsinore?) there was a place the Anglo-Saxons called 'Sedge brook'. Sedges are a sort of grassy plant that like the verges of streams, but they are pretty common. It's a bit like calling a moor 'Grasmoor" I suppose.)  But the sedges must have seemed distinctive enough to name a small village for them. It's quite sensible when you think about it though. The Strand is just a strand=beach and there must be many beaches. Sedgebrook wasn't Redbrook or Rushbrook, which would have been easily distinguished.

Along came the Vikings and had a big local influence, so it got renamed 'Star beck'. You can see the words are the same but Vikings and Anglo-Saxons just had different dialects. 

Back to coffee. As The Inky Fool describes some people from Starbeck acquired the surname 'Starbeck' because that's where their ancestry was from. Back then not everyone was a good speller. So we got 'Starbuck'.

People called Starbuck crossed the Atlantic to Natucket Mass.They became big in whale hunting. They were so famous that when Hermann Melville wrote 'Moby Dick' he called one of the ship's main people, apart from the obsessional Ahab, Starbuck.

Now, when the founders of Starbucks were searching for a company name they looked in Moby Dick. I'm not sure why really but the notion isn't silly and turned out rather well.

To go back to the beginning. Regulars at the Moon Under Water hate rhino and whale hunting.

So perhaps the human race is becoming more honourable in spite of all.


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Richard Walker

Clerihew

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Sherlock Holmes

Detested combs.

When the game was afoot he didn't care

About having unruly hair.

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Richard Walker

Funeral haiku

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Edited by Richard Walker, Wednesday, 15 Jul 2015, 00:43

Dead three years

We dug my grandad up

And washed his bones in wine.

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Richard Walker

Fers Igiles

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Edited by Richard Walker, Sunday, 12 Jul 2015, 03:22

Here's my attempt at an Old English translation. It's probably a bit ungrammatical (comments welcome!) but perhaps Alfred the Great would have a rough idea what I meant.

'igil' is the same as modern German 'igel' = hedgehog, and the online Anglo-Saxon dictionary only knew about snails.

igil
gepíled dom-bana snægles
fære sped on þín burgweg ofer-forþgang

I was very surprised to find this very small exercise made Anglo-Saxon look somehow look much more familiar.

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Richard Walker

An Anglo-Saxon Haiku for a Hedgehog

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Hedgehog

Spiked doom-slayer of the slug

Fare well on your road-crossing.

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Richard Walker

Clerihew

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Charles Dickens

Kept several chickens.

One pecked him on the wrist

While he was writing 'Oliver Twist'.

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Richard Walker

A Hedgehog Crosses the Road

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Edited by Richard Walker, Saturday, 11 Jul 2015, 01:48

Tonight - just a few minutes ago - I saw a hedgehog cross the road near my home.

These little animals used to be common but now seem quite rare, so I was really pleased to see it. But what amazed me was that it knew where to cross. I heard a rustling in the undergrowth and I was pretty sure it was a hedgehog. So I stood stock still. Pretty soon it emerged, and scuttled across the verge towards the pavement, as though it was going to cross the road. It was late and there was very little traffic but still I felt anxious.

Then the hedgehog retreated to the verge and ran off quite a way. I quite thought it had given up the thought of crossing. But no! It was looking from the right place to cross.

There's a crossing for wheelchairs. Not a textured pavement for people with low vision, simply a dropped kerb on each side of the road. The hedgehog clearly knew about this, and when it found the spot across it went as fast as its little legs could carry it. I was really surprised. I guess I shouldn't have been. A four inch kerb is tough if you have two inch legs, and hedgehogs are smart little beasts.

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Richard Walker

New blog post

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A moon is never lonely

But people can be.

So where are you hiding.

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Richard Walker

Cold Hands Transfiguration

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Edited by Richard Walker, Thursday, 9 Jul 2015, 03:43

My hand on the left was warm

Where I held Time at first

On the right I held the orb of Beauty but jumped then

Thrown up into the sky

But willing to go.


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Richard Walker

Come on Time

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Edited by Richard Walker, Thursday, 9 Jul 2015, 01:45

Time.

You'll win.

We will have a good fight first.

No mercy of course.

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Richard Walker

Consolation

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If we had never had been, you and I

We would still have loved.

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