Teach Secondary Issue 13.6

Off the Shelves Brilliant titles for you and your students to explore Coderspeak–The languageof computerprogrammers (GuilhermeOrlandiniHeurich,UCLPress,£20) The underlying assumption of Coderspeak is that programming is a purely objective- based affair that involves identifying a problem, breaking it down into its component parts andwriting some code to address the issue. In the real world, however, there’s rathermore to it than that, as this examination of the field froman anthropologist’s perspectivemakes clear. Conway’s Law, for example, states that an organisation’s systems reflect the way people within that organisation communicate with one another. Heurich goes on to also consider whether code should be ‘beautiful’ or ‘brief’, andwhen it’s best to simply ditch legacy code rather than continue building on it.This bookwon’t necessarily help a student pass a computing exam, but it will almost certainlymake them amore aware, and thus better programmer. ReviewedbyTerry Freedman (see bit.ly/Eclecticismformore details) Bjork&Bjork’sDesirable Difficulties inAction (JadePearce& IsaacMoore,JohnCatt,£12) There’s a fine line betweenmaking something too easy for students, and so hard that they just can’t get it.The original work on which this volume is based has perhaps been honouredmore in the breach than in the observance.What Pearce andMoore have therefore done is summarise recent research concerning fourmain desirable difficulties,while providing practical guidance to inform teachers’ practice and students’ independent study.There are plenty of examples of how the theory can be applied – and across a range of subjects, at that – but while the authors’ concision is to be admired, there’s a sense that not everything is quite as fully explained as it could be.That said, there’s an extensive list of references for anyone wishing to go deeper, and overall, it comes across as a very useful work. Highly recommended. ReviewedbyTerry Freedman MakingSenseOfChaos –ABetterEconomics for aBetterWorld (J.DoyneFarmer,AllenLane,£25) According to traditional economic theory, consumers act perfectly rationally, aided by perfect information. Needless to say, real-world behaviour can be relied upon to throw up a few...exceptions to this view of the world. Farmer’s position is that we can no longer rely on traditional economic theory, due to themodern prevalence of both powerful computers and huge datasets. Thus,we should instead embrace ‘complexity economics’,which entails the running of sophisticated computer simulations to discern likely outcomes in different scenarios – especiallywhen it comes to ‘surprise’ shocks, such as the COVID pandemic.The contentsmight not be the best set text for GCSE economics students, but it presents a highly readable and convincing case against the economic status quo, andwouldmake for a great supplementary text. ReviewedbyTerry Freedman 46 teachwire.net/secondary