Continuum Publishing Group

100 ideas for teaching design and technology.

Spendlove (education, University of Manchester, UK) draws on best practice in teaching and locates it within a design and technology (D&T) context in this collection of 100 ideas for teaching, learning, and assessing D&T in secondary schools. Each idea is presented in one page, with entries divided into eight sections. The first section addresses the rationale for teaching D&T, the place of D&T in the UK's National Curriculum, and the place of D&T in global education. Later sections cover designing, using technology, extending the curriculum, structuring learning, teaching different types of students and learners, and assessment. A final section looks at learning styles, involving parents, and encouraging self esteem. There is no subject index. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Deleuze and Guattari's Anti-Oedipus; a reader's guide.

In one of the more interesting partnerships of the postmodern era, Deleuze and Guattari collaborated to produce a work that answered the complex questions posed by the uprisings in Paris in May of 1968. Anti-Oedipus and its authors burst simultaneously into view in 1999, just long enough for these two very different men to find their similarities and not too long for people to forget the point of Paris. As Buchanan explains in his lively text, the result was a call to action throughout the intellectual community. Buchanan works readers through the theory and praxis of this seminal work (and includes a fascinating section on the renovation of psychoanalysis) and then takes them through the text with well-reasoned commentary. Buchanan's final shots, in the form of commentary on the work's reception and influence, are fascinating. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Developing number sense; progression in the middle years.

Whether as the result of the wide introduction of calculators and computers or shifts in ideas about getting children to solve problems rather than perform drills, thinking about mathematics teaching has changed substantially and often in the past few years. Here Anghileri gives teachers ways to help children make sense of numbers and approach problems with a set of strategies for calculating answers. With dozens of samples of ways to present materials (along with their theoretical and pedagogical underpinnings) and examples from exams (both good and bad), she shows how children can learn to understand numbers and make sense of operations, develop additive and multiplicative thinking, calculate with measures, work with decimals, use functions with fractions and percentages appropriately, and solve problems with numbers. This also should work very well in teacher training. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The ethics of climate change; right and wrong in a warming world.

To augment and support the scientific and political aspects of climate change, Garvey presents in plain language some initial perspectives on where the oral weight falls in the changing planet, and how that weight ought to translate into action. If we agree that our societies and our lives will have to change, he says, what role should values play, and what values should play a role, in the new directions we take. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Freud; a guide for the perplexed.

Freud's exploration of the human mind, particularly his own, is significant to fields of study far beyond its initial application to treatment through psychoanalysis. However, getting the gist of these bits and pieces is impossible without understanding the trajectory of Freud's entire concept and the evolution of his ideas. Surprenant gives social science and humanities students a solid background in the full range of Freud's work, including the psychoanalytic cure, the juxtaposition of stories and mechanisms, dreams and their representations, affect and representation, meta-psychology and economics. The result keeps those bits and pieces from straying and focuses readers on essential elements and intellectual contexts. The bibliography also serves well as a list of recommended reading. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)