Hopefully, neither you nor I will ever find ourselves in court, undergoing a medical procedure, or taking an important exam. If any of those circumstances arise, the outcome is likely to be much better if the ordeal takes place in the morning rather than the afternoon. That is because the research shows that most people have more energy and a more positive outlook in the morning rather than the afternoon, and that includes judges and surgeons!

I especially like the practical tips included in sections called The Time Hackers Handbook. Many of them, if not most of them, are straightforward and easily implemented. And in case you are not really sure when your best time is day is, Pink provides a way to help you find out.

Highly recommended.

Like many people I suspect, my only knowledge of Fibonacci is the number sequence named after him. However, he wrote a book about solving what were, in effect, algebraic equations, in such a way that merchants could easily follow his methods and adopt them as their own.

Unbelievably, Fibonacci was forgotten not long after his death, which may explain why it took 800 years to translate his book into English.

Apparently, his approach lies at the heart a modem finance systems such as Discounted Cash Flow (assuming the terminology used in the book is the same as what I was taught in my Economics degree).

Finding Fibonacci is a memoir of the authors’ quest to find out about Fibonacci. It is highly readable and even, in places, quite exciting. If you are interested in the history of mathematical thought, this book will not disappoint.

This is very well set out. It takes each standard, and gives you ideas on how to achieve it, and what success in this context looks like.

Readable, with plenty of examples, it is certainly a great reference book. Although it was published in 2016, the standards it refers to were published in 2011, and the introduction to the Standards was updated in June 2013. The only caveat is that the latest terminology update took place in 2021, and I'm not sure how that impinges on the main contents of the book.

However, the “good practice” guidance is still useful I think, and so this might be worth a look. But as always, of course, caveat emptor — let the buyer beware.

I have long been an advocate of teaching through games, whether in the form of role play (such as are called Strike!), simulation (Stockpiler) or computer-based. When I was teaching Econnures I realised that I could have taught quite a chunk of the synabus if I'd been able to run Sim City on the school network, but I had neither the budget now the hardware to make that a possibility,

The value of this book is that it explains why some games help students learn. Even if you don't have the games referred to (not on a which require a computer anyway) you could pubably find some you could use instead.

However, although the book is interesting and explains things well, I'm not fully confident in recommending it. It's twenty years old, games have moved on since then, and there doesn't appear to be a more recent edition. If you come across a relatively inexpensive used version it might be worth a modest investment though.

I'm reading the 2007 edition of this book, so as you'd expect, some of the websites and resources mentioned are no longer available,

Nevertheless, there are some good ideas here, and suggestions on getting organised, keeping a project moving, and assessment. I daresay the most recent edition is good value, though I haven't actually seen it.

In my last school teaching job I introduced an ICT/Computing curriculum that was centred on project-based learning. I can verify from first hand experience that it kept students highly engaged, and helped them to develop skills such as working with others and independent research. But it does take some planning and, I think, a degree of trust in the students.

The edition of the book in front of me is nicely written and very well-structured.