Mehr als eine Mathematikstunde: Platons Menon

For the past two hundred years in German educational science the ‘maths lesson’ of Plato’s Meno has received attention – always to be celebrated as a masterpiece of Socratic teaching. Yet, by taking only the ‘maths lesson’ into account the negative ending of Meno is overlooked. Thus, because generally the ‘maths lesson’ is used as an example for a positive Socratic maieutic teaching method, a second possible medical, ‘therapeutic’ link between a midwife, with which Socrates compares himself in Plato’s Theaetetus, and a torpedo fish, with which he equates himself in Meno, is usually overlooked.     

“Listen Then,or, Rather,Answer”: Contemporary Challenges to Socratic Education

The popularity of Jacques Rancière in recent work in educational philosophy has rejuvenated discussion of the merits and weaknesses of Socratic education, both in Plato's dialogues and in invocations of Socrates in contemporary educational practice. In this essay Jordan Fullam explores the implications of this trend through comparing Rancière's educational thought to an analysis of the relationship between dialectic and stultification in Plato's Republic. This task clarifies what is useful in the recent wave of scholarship that brings Rancière's work to bear upon Socratic education, and what we might redeem in the practice of teaching that Plato assigns to the character of Socrates in the Republic. Fullam also draws on the educational literature on Socratic education to provide further context to explore the usefulness of both Rancière and Socrates for contemporary teaching.     

Bildung,Subjectivity and New Information Technologies

The author suggests that educational philosophy should benefit from addressing questions traditionally asked within discourse in the philosophy of mind, namely: the relation between the mind and world and the problems of intentionality (or aboutness), meaning, and representation. Peirce's semiotics and his category of creative abduction provide a novel conceptual framework for exploring these questions. A model of reasoning and learning, based on Peirce's triadic logic of relations, is analysed. This model, it is argued, is fruitful for overcoming the paradox of new knowledge that was first debated by Socrates in his dialogue with Meno.     

Four Educators in Plato's Theaetetus

Scholars who have taken interest in Theaetetus' educational theme argue that Plato contrasts an inferior, even dangerous, sophistic education to a superior, philosophical, Socratic education. I explore the contrasting exhortations, methods, ideals and epistemological foundations of Socratic and Protagorean education and suggest that Socrates' treatment of Protagoras as educator is far less dismissive than others claim. Indeed, Plato, in Theaetetus, offers a qualified defence of both Socrates and Protagoras. Socrates and Protagoras each dwell in the middle ground between the extremes presented in the dialogue's digression, which contrasts the life of the philosopher and the life of the courtroom orator. Both Socrates and Protagoras demonstrate a serious engagement with both politics and philosophy. Theodorus presents an educational option in which theory is divorced from politics while an ignoble sophistic education is presented as political but divorced from theory. Protagorean education, in Theaetetus, emerges as superior to a base sophistic education, though it remains inferior to Socratic education.     

知识理念论是师生平等对话的哲学基础

师生在同一个起点上探讨问题的课堂平等对话是有效教学的重要方式,其哲学基础是古希腊哲学家苏格拉底和柏拉图提出的知识理念论。通过平等对话来进行教学的时候,教师更多地是以"思者"的身份出现,而学生的积极发问是教师思考的触发剂。     

DIE SOKRATISCHE LEHRSTRATEGIE UND IHRE RELEVANZ FÜR DIE HEUTIGE DIDAKTIK

Socrates (469–399 B.C.) formulated a unique method of teaching, of which the main characteristic is dialogue. We have no authentic record, but Plato has preserved the "Socratic conversations" in his dialogues. In the first part of this study, the Socratic strategy is examined through a comparative analysis of the early Platonic dialogues with the theories of critical rationalism and the cognitive theories based on motivation for achievement and learning. In the dialogues, Socrates invites his interlocutors to express their opinions, professing himself ignorant of the matter under discussion, but gradually challenges their certainties and moves from the particular and the egocentric to the general concept, using concrete examples. The second part of this study gives a detailed presentation of the elements of the Socratic strategy of teaching and learning: conversation, the exploitation of errors in teaching, aporia (confused doubt), critical reflection and intellectual honesty, and tolerance. These continue to be of relevance today and are timely in the context of shifting values and the need for a critical approach to knowledge.     

Learning From Cases and Questions: The Socratic Case-Based Teaching Architecture

The case-based teaching architecture provides a framework for computer-based learning environments that couple the benefits of active learning with learning from cases. A case-based teaching system consists of two interdependent components: a task environment that provides a learner with an engaging task, and a storyteller that monitors the learner's interactions with the task environment looking for opportunities to present instructive cases that will help the student learn from his or her situation. In Socratic case-based teaching, the task environment engages the learner in a dialogue by posing open-ended, thought-provoking questions. The development of Creanimate, a system designed to teach elementary school age students about animal adaptation, provided an opportunity to explore important research issues for the implementation of Socratic case-based teaching systems: dialogue management, indexing of cases in a computer memory, and reminding strategies for case presentation. Testing of Creanimate revealed patterns of use that illustrate the strengths and limitations of Creanimate as an implementation of the Socratic case-based teaching architecture.     

朱熹与苏格拉底的教学方法比较研究

朱熹和苏格拉底作为东西方的两位大教育家,毕生致力于教育事业,积累了丰富的教学经验。首先对朱熹的教学方式和苏格拉底的"苏格拉底方法"的异同作了多角度的比较,指出朱熹的教学方式比"苏格拉底方法"更丰富、更适用的一面。最后提出几点借鉴,以期能对现代教学实践有所启示。     

Santayana on Democracy

In his clever On Self-Government: First Dialogue, Santayanal has presented the keenest brief inquiry into the virtue of democracy that it is my fortune to know. Imputed to Socrates and Stranger, the dialogue proceeds after the Socratic manner into a detached, academic (and wholly interesting) discussion of the supposed oracular pronouncement: “Right government rests on the will of the governed.”     

个体发展的阶段性与哲学教育的审慎

在苏格拉底那里,哲学教育的中心问题乃是人的自我认识问题,也即一个人究竟应该如何达成德性与幸福的问题。“认识你自己”是苏格拉底哲学教育的基本出发点,“认识自己无知”,由此保持自我不断地求知智慧,也即“爱智慧”,乃是苏格拉底哲学教育的基本目标,反诘式对话是苏格拉底哲学教育的基本方法。个体成长乃是从天性舒展出发,逐步过渡到理性的生成。苏格拉底哲学教育主要面对成年人而非儿童展开。儿童教育乃是从儿童身体自然出发,激活天赋本能与生命活力,走向积极而非节制的儿童生活。伴随个体成长,个体开始以反思走向个体精神自觉,教育也从诗性教育转向哲学教育,由此而显明个体成长的内在秩序与哲学教育的审慎。     

Socrates,Augustine, and Paul Gauguin on the Reciprocity between Speech and Silence in Education

While most educational practices today place an excessive amount of attention on discourse, this article attaches great importance to the reciprocity between speech and silence by drawing from the writings of Plato's Socrates, Augustine, and Paul Gauguin for whom this reciprocity is of the essence in learning. These three figures teach that we learn to speak, listen, and act in relation with the silence of our thoughts. This article claims that Socrates' dialectic is nothing but inward or silent dialogue, which reappears in or is advanced by Augustine, and which is also shared by Paul Gauguin. Yet its manifestation differs one from the other: in Socrates, it manifests itself as silence of thought; in Augustine, as inner vision or contemplation; and in Gauguin, as creative thought or activity. By neglecting or separating speech from silence, today's educational methods do not prepare students to respond to life's questions; neither do they enable students to infuse their conversation with an appreciation of life's beauty.     

用苏格拉底教学法激活思政课课堂教学

苏格拉底将哲学家的思维与教育家的责任恰当地融合在一起,创立了自己独特的教学方法,即“苏格拉底法”。苏格拉底教学法是一种问答式、对话式的教学方法,他用启发式的教学理念,引导学生批判性思考,激发学生寻找真理的热情与欲望。用苏格拉底教学法激活思想政治理论课课堂教学,倡导做一名苏格拉底式的教师,将讨论、辩论引入课堂教学,尊重学生的主体地位,调动课堂的学习气氛,使其摆脱面临的困境,进而增强思政课课堂教学的实效性。     

Pedagogical content knowledge of experts and novices—what knowledge do they activate when analyzing science lessons?

In the current debate on pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), the term is used to refer to the context‐specific knowledge that teachers activate when reflecting on practice. Against the background of this debate, we conducted an empirical study and sought to answer the question of which knowledge experts and novices activated in assessing a videotaped lesson in relation to its effectiveness for learning. Our assumption was that the participants activate their PCK as a blending of content knowledge (CK) and pedagogical knowledge (PK) as suggested by Shulman's amalgam thesis. The participants (9 experts and 9 novices) were shown a lesson on optics, in which the law of refraction (Snell's law) was being studied. In a subsequent interview, the participants were asked to analyze the observed lesson. A qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the interviews showed that experts activated both CK and PK intensively and in this respect they differed significantly from novices. Further analysis of the expert statements also proved that they do not activate their CK and PK in isolation, but instead combine both kinds of knowledge together, in line with Shulman's amalgam thesis. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 55: 44–67, 2018     

“Make the Education of the Youths Our Own Education”: Plato's Laches,a Dialogue for Educators

Through an exegesis of the dramatic elements of Plato's Laches, Brandon Buck and Rachel Longa argue that it is an especially valuable text to read with practicing and preservice teachers. Buck and Longa show how the dialogue illustrates three essential aspects of what education means and involves. First, they show how the dialogue foregrounds the often-obscured role of philosophical inquiry in addressing educational questions. Second, they show how the depiction of aporia in the Laches underscores the importance of uncertainty for the persistence of humanistic conversation, and thus for substantial engagement with core educational questions. Finally, they interpret Socrates to suggest that participation in humanistic conversation is not merely an incidental aspect of education as a profession, but rather precisely what it means to be an educator. In sum, Buck and Longa argue that the Laches illustrates the core idea that in order to educate at all, we must be deeply involved in the very questions that characterize humanistic conversation.     

Home Visits: How Do They Affect Teachers’ Beliefs about Teaching and Diversity?

Based on Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory, this qualitative study examined the impact of home visits on a group of six Head Start educators. Each participant conducted two home visits. For the first home visit, participants were not provided any guidance. On the second visit, participants were provided a handout with questions intended to guide their visit. The participants were asked to document, in a reflective journal, their feelings and attitudes toward the children’s families on two visits. Additionally, participants commented on their teaching beliefs and practice as impacted by their home visit. Results of the study indicated that home visits enabled participants to see the families and children that they work with from a different and more positive perspective. The guided home visit questions allowed participants to better understand children and their families from historical and cultural perspectives. Also, participants were better able to create a more multicultural learning environment and lesson plans for their children.     

Can teachers predict their students' wait time preferences?

The study examined students' preferences for wait times of 3 seconds versus .9 second, teachers' ability to accurately predict their students' preferences, and the reasons both groups of participants gave for their choices. Thirty-five middle school science classes watched two versions of a videotaped science review lesson. The versions differed only in length of time the teacher paused after questions before she called on students to respond. When asked which version would produce more learning and when asked which version they preferred (after being told how the two versions differed), significantly more students chose the one with the longer wait time. Significantly more teachers predicted these choices accurately than inaccurately. Students identified think time, time use, teacher helpfulness, and topic ease as reasons for their choices.     

Voices from Arizona's Classrooms: Teaching Dilemmas in Visual Arts Education

This paper reports on a round-table dialogue that took place in 1993 in Tucson, Arizona. The participants - eight educators involved in teaching the visual arts and acting as representatives of voices from Arizona's classrooms - were asked to identify and discuss problematic and practical teaching issues and dilemmas which surfaced in their diverse and multicultural classrooms during the past school year. The specific aims of the paper are two-fold: first, to present the reader with a series of themes, voiced in the form of questions, generated by the teachers themselves as they described their dilemmas and reasons for concern; secondly, to analyse the teachers' comments further, in relation to research with reference to research in the field. This work was supported by a research grant from The Arizona Arts Education Research Institute for 1992–93.     

What's the point? Children's understanding of didactic stories

When do children reliably understand that a simple narrative text such as a fable is conveying a point or moral lesson? What role does culture play in influencing understanding? These questions were explored in a cross-sectional sample of 192 children, aged 7, 9 and 11 years drawn from the two largest groups in Singapore, Chinese and Malays. During interviews the child participants were read traditional Aesop's, Chinese and Malay fables and manipulated fables and fable-like stories, and asked to identify and generate the points or morals. The sample and design of the study allowed for comparisons with similar American research. The evidence suggests that, as predicted, cultural background exerts a positive influence on this ability. A number of ethnic differences in response between the Chinese and Malays emerged and possible reasons for these are discussed.     

对话与申辩、探索与创新——简析对话体形式下柏拉图哲学对后世的影响

柏拉图的对话体形式给后世哲学带来深刻影响。首先,关于对话体包含的辩证法给亚里士多德形式逻辑提供了一个最初的模式,并奠定了形式逻辑的基础。其次,对话体这种柏拉图特有的写作方式,也是苏格拉底特有的追求哲学的方式,只有存在于古代雅典时期的生活方式之下才有可能,而对这种特有的苏格拉底喜爱聊天的方式展开哲学辩论,让古希腊哲学成为了后期哲学发展的基础。     

Sixth grade mathematics teachers’ intentions and use of probing, guiding, and factual questions

This case study of a first-year and an experienced teacher presents an analysis of the place and frequency of three types of questions: probing, guiding, and factual. We examined the use of these questions in the course of five lessons, in order to study the relationship between the part of the lesson and types of questions asked. In addition, we interviewed the teachers to gain insights into their reasons for asking different types of questions. Both teachers asked many more factual questions than other types of questions regardless of their teaching strategies. Both asked more probing questions during the summary part of the lessons than in other parts. The first year teacher asked more probing questions overall than the experienced teacher, except in a lesson in which the experienced teacher engaged student with manipulatives. Guiding questions were rarely used by either teacher. In the interviews, both teachers said asking higher order questions was important for better students’ learning, even though they asked relatively few probing or guiding questions. Using the indicators we developed for question types, we found that the two teachers were aware of the functions of questions they used. Even after a considerable amount of time had elapsed, they were able to recall the lesson from a video clip and explain why they used questions with particular students or in a specific situation