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Education Bookcast

Dec 20, 2016

In this episode, I review a paper from the Foreign Service Institute (FSI) about language learning and teaching. The key insights are eleven:

  1. Mature adults can learn a foreign language well enough through intensive language study to do things in the language (almost) as well as native speakers.
  2. "Language-learning...


Dec 20, 2016

I wanted to share some things I learned from my trip to the US this summer, and what my own experience of running maths circles has been like so far.

This episode includes:

  • Discussion of the Summer Math Circle Institute;
  • Tips and techniques learned from the Institute;
  • My own experiences of running maths circles;
  • Potatoes...


Nov 12, 2016

Interview with Robert Kaplan, co-author of Out of the Labyrinth (the book we looked at in the previous episode), co-founder of The Math Circle, and the man behind the Summer Math Circle Institute course (which I attended this summer). 

Robert Kaplan tells of his colourful background, his experiences starting and running...


Nov 12, 2016

This is a book that I have more of a connection with than many of the others I cover on the podcast. I first bought a book by these authors when I was 17, and didn't read it until literally ten years later. It was a fascinating recreational maths book. I then discovered that they were involved in alternative maths...


Oct 26, 2016

Have a go at some of these:

An athlete's best time to run a mile is 4 minutes and 10 seconds. How long would it take him to run 5 miles?

It takes one orchestra one hour to play a symphony. How long would it take two orchestras to play a symphony?

On a ship, there are 13 goats and 12 sheep. How old is the captain?

Among...