Beyond educational semiotics: A response to Cunningham

The case is made that the theoretical propositions and instructional recommendations that Cunningham attributes to semiotics are shared with other perspectives. However, the theoretical and instructional positions Cunningham favors must be evaluated more completely if they are to be acceptable to the educational psychology community, which is generally more positivist in its orientation than the semiotics community. Nonetheless, we emphasize that the methodological approaches favored by Cunningham have the potential for permitting rapid progress in understanding and evaluating the instructional beliefs and practices consistent with semiotic analyses.     

Buckyballs,hairyballs, educational semiotics,and other interesting topics

This paper develops the thesis that the educational semiotic described by Cunningham offers an interesting perspective from which to view educational issues, but it offers little in the way of practical approaches to educational problems. After agreeing with Cunningham's argument that knowledge is constructed rather than received, the paper goes on to state three concerns about an educational semiotic: (a) The theory has the wrong architecture, (b) the theory is too powerful, and (c) the theory has no practical use. The paper closes with the observation that an educational semiotic must become more specific and it must provide empirical demonstrations of practical utility if it is to pose a challenge to currently prevailing theories.     

What can we learn from Plato about intellectual character education?

Abstract

In the Republic, Plato developed an educational program through which he trained young Athenians in desiring truth, without offering them any knowledge-education. This is not because he refused to pass on knowledge but because he considered knowledge of the Good as an ongoing research program. I show this by tracing the steps of the education of the Philosopher-Kings in Plato’s ideal state, to establish that the decades-long educational regime aims at training them in three types of virtue: (i) Moral Virtue; (ii) the Cognitive Virtue of Abstraction; (iii) the Cognitive Virtue of Debate.

Plato’s theory of education has much to teach us about intellectual character education today. The Platonic educational program does not advocate the direct transmission of knowledge from teacher to learner but rather focuses on building the learners’ epistemic dispositions. Building upon the Socratic Method, Plato’s educational program does not ‘spoon-feed’ knowledge to the learners but rather fosters the growth of intellectual virtues through problem-solving.

I explain ways in which fostering intellectual virtues through problem-solving could be applied in classrooms today. I conclude that Plato’s rigorous educational program is of definite merit for contemporary virtue education, especially since Aristotle offers us surprisingly little on how to educate for intellectual virtues.     

建构主义学习理论与汉语教学

作为“当代教育心理学中的一场革命”的建构主义,是学习理论中行为主义到认知主义以后的进一步发展。它强调学生的主动学习,要求学生由外部刺激的被动接受和知识的灌输对象转变为信息加工的主体和知识意义的主动建构,同时也重视教师在学生建构知识的过程中提供一定的帮助和支持。这无疑为我们建立一种面向建构主义的第二语言教学论提供了一个观照的视角,同时促使我们完善汉语教学,贯彻以“逐步扩展,从句子向话语发展”为基本内容的汉语知识教学。     

Multimedia learning environments: Issues of learner control and navigation

Using schema theory as a framework, we view learning as an active, constructive process. It is affected not only by learners' internal knowledge structures, but by the external constraints of the learning environment as well (Kozma, 1991). This article examines how different internal learner characteristics (e.g., prior knowledge, self efficacy and interest) and different external constraints (e.g., learner control, instructional design and level of control) influence the learning process. Specifically, we address learning from a variety of multimedia environments such as video, hypertexts, kiosks and other hypermedia within a schema theoretic approach that incorporates a constructivist view.     

Examining the Reggio Emilia Approach to Early Childhood Education

Reggio Emilia, a prosperous region in Northern Italy, is the site of one of the most innovative, high-quality city-run infant-toddler and pre-primary systems in the world. The Reggio Emilia Approach to early childhood education draws from the ideas of many great thinkers, yet it is much more than an eclectic mix of theories. With that in mind, the following points concerning the learner, the instructor, and knowledge serve to guide the Reggio Emilia Approach to educating young children: the learner possesses rights, is an active constructor of knowledge, and is a social being; the instructor is a collaborator and co-learner along with the child, a guide and facilitator, and a researcher; and knowledge is viewed as being socially constructed, encompassing multiple forms of knowing, and comprised of meaningful wholes.     

Beyond educational psychology: Steps toward an educational semiotic

In this paper, I argue that educational psychology is deeply embedded in an objectivist epistemology, the consequences of which seriously undermine our ability to inform educational practice. In the remainder of the paper, I provide an introduction to semiotics, the doctrine of signs, and offer four global concepts (the sign, semiosis, inference, and reflexivity) that I believe set semiotics apart from other, more or less related, approaches within psychology and educational psychology (e.g., constructivism). I conclude the paper by responding to some of the more frequently asked questions I have encountered in attempting to define an educational semiotic.     

符号教育:美国儿童学习的奥秘

教育即教育符号的创制、释义、应用。教育与符号深切关联,符号学乃贯通人文、社会和自然科学的公分母。符号教育即通过充分、全面和深度挖掘符号以培养人的个性化、创造性发展的教育形态。以符号学理论为工具构建符号教育学是信息时代教育发展的必然。研究者结合自己2017在美国威斯康星大学访学经历,深度观察美国威斯康星州基础教育状况。并从符号学视角解析美国儿童学习成功的奥秘——符号教育。美国儿童学习中符号教育主要体现在六个方面:教育符号的泛在性;符号思维的可视性;符号意义的不确定性;符号运作的开放性;符号知识的经验性;符号学习的趣味性。     

Institutional Pedagogy and Semiosis: Investigating the missing link between Peirce's semiotics and effective semiotics

My aim in this paper is to show the relevance of an ‘effective semiotics’; that is, a field study based upon Peirce's semiotics. The general context of this investigation is educational semiotics rather than semiotics of teaching: I am concerned with a general approach of educational processes, not with skills and curricula. My paper is grounded in a field study that I carried out in a school, L'Ecole de la Neuville, implementing Institutional Pedagogy in France. I first investigate the relevance of Peirce's semiotics in such a context. I then propose several definitions for the word ‘institution’, referring to the core concepts of this particular pedagogy, before describing the concept of ‘institution‐sign’, which is considered a useful tool for making effective connections between several aspects of semiotics. I finally assert that an institution constitutes a tool that allows teachers to favour semiosis in educational contexts.     

Philosophical education and cultural relevance: discipline-affirmation in the context of the knowledge economy

The following paper proposes a discipline-affirming response to the challenge facing higher education in the context of the knowledge economy. It resists the drive to reduce the value of a humanities based education to the mere production of skills and instead affirms the substantial body of knowledge of specific disciplines. It uses as its model the degree programme in Philosophical Studies at Newcastle University in order to show how a discipline-affirming approach to learning has the advantage of not only developing and making students aware of educational skills that can contribute to the knowledge economy, but doing so without downgrading the worth of the knowledge and concepts of the students' discipline. The aim of the present paper is to demonstrate that a learner involved in a personalised, object-based project will not view the acquisition of knowledge as merely a means to an end and also be able to communicate the value of the knowledge gained to laypeople.     

Teaching Knowledge Application: Advances in Theoretical Conceptions and their Professional Implications

We describe and examine a view of knowledge application in schooling developed from aspects of contemporary learning theory. To situate our perspective in contemporary practice, we establish the significance of the issue of knowledge application as an educational challenge. We then review some enduring theoretical conceptions of the problem and their educational ramifications following which we introduce some developments in educational learning theory and consider their implications for teaching knowledge application.     

自动化专业系列实验教学中的认知心理引导

在系列实验教学过程中进行认知心理引导,是落实以学习者为中心教学理念的重要环节。针对自动化专业本科生,基于认知心理学,结合系列课程系列实验案例讨论了基于问题解决的知识建构过程的引导、系统的学科视角的引导、科学分析方法论的引导、以及实践创新意识的引导。     

以教育心理学视角看当前网络教育存在的缺陷

基于Internet技术的网络教育已成为一种重要的教育形式。从教育心理学视角来看,我国当前的网络教育存在着三方面的缺陷。为了促进网络教育的健康发展,我们应该正视这些缺陷并对其做深入研究。     

Educational psychology and the adult learner

The middle years of life, from the 20s through the 50s, have been neglected by psychology in general and educational psychology in particular. The current increase in numbers of mature learners calls for more, better, and better-understood psychological data so that learning can be enhanced in this age group. This issue of Contemporary Educational Psychology addresses five relevant questions: (1) What does research tell us about the capacities of adults to learn and retain? (2) What factors other than cognitive functioning affect adult performance? (3) How and in what ways does the adult wish to involve himself as a learner? (4) How might we go about guiding the mature learner, using present knowledge? (5) What theoretical concerns arise from consideration of the foregoing?     

Elaboration theory and cognitive psychology

Increasingly, instructional literature is pointing out the need for theories of instruction which are consistent with emerging cognitive psychology. Theory construction of this sort entails taking into account developing notions of the learner as a processor of information rather than a respondent to stimuli. The purpose of this article is to describe a recent instructional effort, referred to as the Elaboration Theory of Instruction (ETI), and chart its correspondence with several major principles drawn from contemporary cognitive psychology. The ETI incorporates models for both the sequencing and structuring of subject matter. The article will show how these components relate to current models of knowledge representation, schema theory, memory processes such as storage and retrieval, and earlier cognitive based instructional frameworks.     

Semiotics,edusemiotics and the culture of education

Semiotics is the study of signs addressing their action, usage, communication and signification (meaning). Edusemiotics—educational semiotics—is a recently developed direction in educational theory that takes semiotics as its foundational philosophy and explores the philosophical specifics of semiotics in educational contexts. As a novel theoretical field of inquiry, it is complemented by research known under the banner ‘semiotics in education’, which is largely an applied enterprise. In this respect edusemiotics is a new conceptual framework for both theoretical and empirical studies. Edusemiotics has also been given the status of being a new branch of theoretical semiotics and it was launched as such at the 12th World Congress of the International Association for Semiotic Studies in September 2014 at the New Bulgarian University in Sofia. The article presents ‘semiosis’ as the action of signs across culture AND nature and posits ‘learning’ in terms of developing semiotic consciousness and semiotic competence. Semiosis is a process and as such it defies the Cartesian philosophy of substance-dualism that still informs the culture of education. The paper focuses specifically on university education permeated by disciplinary boundaries and the fragmentation of knowledge grounded in objective science inherited from modernity. Where is semiotics as the science of signs (or relations) in the context of academic culture? The authors conclude by affirming the transdisciplinary character of semiotics and edusemiotics and specify the distinctive focal points of transdisciplinary knowledge afforded by edusemiotics.     

Implementing Godly Play in educational settings: a cautionary tale

At the heart of all curriculum decision-making is the learner. Contemporary early childhood education theory and practice emphasises young children’s agency and voice in their learning paying particular attention to valuing each child’s sociocultural contexts. As learners, children are considered capable and active participants rather than as deficit and passive recipients. How does the implementation of godly play in prior-to-school and school early years settings sit within a contemporary view of childhood? To what extent does this programme align with early childhood theory and practice? This paper seeks to evaluate the presence and place of godly play (which is not a curriculum and nor does it claim to be a curriculum) in the religiously affiliated early childhood education context in either prior-to-school or school settings. It is to be emphasised that this paper is not evaluating the presence and place of godly play in the faith community of the local parish where all who participate are believers coming together to share that faith and to have that faith strengthened. However, its presence and place in formal educational settings outside of parish faith communities is questionable and requires closer critique.     

Complicating ‘student behaviour’: exploring the discursive constitution of ‘learner subjectivities’

When educators consider ‘student behaviour’, they usually think about ‘problem behaviour’ such as disruption or defiance. This limited and limiting view of ‘student behaviour’ not only fails to acknowledge children as educational actors in a wider sense, but also narrowly positions educators as either in control or out of control of their classroom. Mainstream educational psychology’s responses to ‘challenging behaviour’ point educators to numerous ways to prevent its occurrence, through, for example, changing their disciplining approaches and techniques. However, much of the advice directed at improving student behaviour fails to interrogate the core notion of ‘student behaviour’ itself, as well as the conceptual baggage that it carries. The focus is squarely on eliminating ‘problem behaviour’ and often resorts to a pathologisation of students. Meanwhile, when considering ‘student behaviour’ through a Foucauldian post-structuralist optic, behaviour emerges as something highly complex – as spatialised, embodied action within/against governing discourses. In this opening up, it becomes both possible and critical to defamiliarise oneself with the categorisation of ‘challenging behaviour’ and to interrogate the discourses and subject positionings at play. In this paper, we pursue this task by asking: what happens with the notion of ‘behaviour’ if we change focus from ‘fixing problems’ to looking at the discursive constitution of ‘learner subjectivities’? What does it become possible to see, think, feel and do? In this exploration, we theorise ‘behaviour’ as learning and illustrate the constitution of ‘learner subjectivities’. Drawing on two case scenarios, we explore how children accomplish themselves as learners and how this accomplishment links the production of subjectivity and embodied action, and illustrate how ‘student/child behaviour’ appears significantly different to what mainstream educational psychology would have us see.     

Adapting the boundaries in primary physical education: an account of my learning,my educational influence and improved practice

In this paper I explore how I have come to theorise my work as a critical emancipatory practice as a lecturer in primary physical education (PE). I give an account of what I understand to be the epistemological foundations and practices of practitioner research and my potential educational influence in my own and other practitioner-researchers’ learning. I explain how I have generated my living educational theory of practice and discuss the changes in my learning from a propositional approach towards a dynamic epistemology of practice that is grounded in inclusional and dialogical ways of knowing. Within my paper I position myself as a professional educator and researcher, and share the exciting and transformational experiences of teaching and learning in evolving action research cycles of practice. I view my learning to date as an active act, working with the novice teachers I support to offer improvement and change in our future practice. I celebrate my reconceptualised view of education as a learner from within my practice and explain my move from knowledge transfer to knowledge co-creation. I make an original contribution to educational knowledge by explaining how I try to inspire others to research their practice and contribute to a new scholarship of educational enquiry.