Inoculation against Wonder: Finding an antidote in Camus,pragmatism and the community of inquiry

In this paper, we will explore how Albert Camus has much to offer philosophers of education. Although a number of educationalists have attempted to explicate the educational implications of Camus’ literary works, these analyses have not attempted to extrapolate pedagogical guidelines towards developing an educational framework for children’s philosophical practice in the way Matthew Lipman did from John Dewey’s philosophy of education, which informed his philosophy for children curriculum and pedagogy. We focus on the phenomenology of inquiry; that is, inquiry that begins with genuinely felt doubt, pointing to a problematic to which the inquirer seeks a solution or resolution. We argue that the central purpose of education is to develop lucid individuals. To this end, we concentrate on Dewey and the pragmatist tradition, starting from Peirce, leading to Lipman’s development of Dewey’s educational guidelines into classroom practice. We show where Camus and the pragmatists are congruent in their thinking, insofar as they can inform the educative process of the community of inquiry. What we conclude is that the role of the teacher is to develop lucid individuals facilitated in a classroom that is transformed into a community of inquiry embedded in contemporary historical moments.     

The Ideological Reduction of Education1

The following paper outlines the historical and philosophical development of, ‘community of inquiry’ in educational discourse. The origins of community of inquiry can be found in the philosophical work of C. S. Peirce. From Peirce the notion of community of inquiry is adopted and developed by educational theorists of different orientations. Community of inquiry denotes an approach to teaching that alters the structure of the classroom in fundamental ways. With particular consideration given to the unique philosophical origins of this approach, this paper outlines and discusses how community of inquiry is situated in today's educational landscape.     

Charles Peirce’s Rhetoric and the Pedagogy of Active Learning

Abstract

Although John Dewey has had the most profound effect on education, less is known about the philosophy of education of the original founder of pragmatism, Charles Peirce Using Peirce’s theory of formal rhetoric, I try to show that Peirce’s philosophy of education, when fully understood, is aligned with Dewey’s pedagogy of experiential learning, and can provide a justification for the promotion of active learning in the classroom. Peirce’s rhetoric, as one part of his logical or semiotic theory, argues that reasoning alone is not sufficient to gain knowledge, but that it must be embedded within a community of inquiry, of a certain sort. Applying this to the classroom, I argue that we, as teachers, should endeavor to create the features of a proper community of inquiry in the classroom, one that emphasizes engagement of the students in doing research rather than passively receiving information about its results.     

The Parallels Between Philosophical Inquiry and Scientific Inquiry: Implications for science education

The ‘community of inquiry’ as formulated by C. S. Peirce is grounded in the notion of communities of discipline‐based inquiry engaged in the construction of knowledge. The phrase ‘transforming the classroom into a community of inquiry’ is commonly understood as a pedagogical activity with a philosophical focus to guide classroom discussion. But it has a broader application. Integral to the method of the community of inquiry is the ability of the classroom teacher to actively engage in the theories and practices of discipline‐based communities of inquiry so as to become informed by the norms of the disciplines, not only to aspire to competence within the disciplines, but also to develop habits of self‐correction for reconstructing those same norms when faced with novel problems and solutions, including those in the classroom. This has implications for science education and the role of educational philosophy in developing students' ability to think scientifically. But it also has broader implications for thinking critically within all key learning areas. Here we concentrate on science education. We present the parallels between philosophical inquiry and scientific inquiry that need to be realised to promote and engage with scientific inquiry in the classroom. We also discuss the conflicts between philosophical inquiry and the way inquiry science in the classroom is portrayed in the education literature. Based on philosophical and historical perceptions of science as inquiry, a practical approach to implementation of scientific inquiry in the science classroom is presented.     

Remarques critques à propos de l'enquête internationale sur la litteratie

There is no doubt of the necessity and importance of an international comparative inquiry concerning literacy. The difficulties involved in such an inquiry are also incontestable. In France the seemingly improbable results of the survey led to the French authorities – who had no doubt been insufficiently vigilant during the earlier stages of the survey – refusing to make the results public. These results highlight a number of methodological flaws that beset this vast undertaking, drawing attention to the need for better procedural precautions and a more adequate notion of literacy. This article presents a synthesis of the counter-investigations demanded by the French authorities, which justify their doubts on the IALS methods, and opens up a debate on the conception of literacy that was applied in the tests.     

Remarques critques à propos de l'enquête internationale sur la litteratie

There is no doubt of the necessity and importance of an international comparative inquiry concerning literacy. The difficulties involved in such an inquiry are also incontestable. In France the seemingly improbable results of the survey led to the French authorities – who had no doubt been insufficiently vigilant during the earlier stages of the survey – refusing to make the results public. These results highlight a number of methodological flaws that beset this vast undertaking, drawing attention to the need for better procedural precautions and a more adequate notion of literacy. This article presents a synthesis of the counter-investigations demanded by the French authorities, which justify their doubts on the IALS methods, and opens up a debate on the conception of literacy that was applied in the tests.     

Educational semiotic: Threat or menace?

In Donald Cunningham's article for this issue ofEducational Psychology Review, he assumes that there is a need for an educational semiotic. In this paper, I examine that implicit assumption. Upon investigation, I conclude that an educational semiotic is necessary to help develop an inquiry of understanding to complement the current inquiry of knowledge. This inquiry of understanding builds upon the fundamental ideas of both Saussure and Peirce. I conclude by considering an inquiry of understanding as a threat (or menace) to the status quo in educational research and by calling for a broad-based model of research that allows for the new and preserves the best of the old.     

Ethical Confidence in Education

Teachers need grounded ethical confidence: an intellectual virtue analogous to courage. I distinguish this from SCAA's notion of teacher confidence, based on the 'authority of consensus'. Such a notion is challenged by Wittgenstein's later philosophy. I argue that confidence in authority is deferential rather than intellectual, which is not what we want for teachers. As courage (according to Aristotle) is a mean between vices, grounded ethical confidence is a mean between tendencies to excessive and insufficient doubt (forms of 'not knowing one's way about' philosophically.) It is the virtue of thinking well ethically, and knowing that one thinks well.     

Revisiting Peirce’s account of scientific creativity to inform classroom practice

Abstract

Peirce made repeated attempts to clarify what he understood as abduction or creative reasoning in scientific discoveries. In this article, we draw on past and recent scholarship on Peirce’s later accounts of abduction to put a case for how teachers can apply his ideas productively to elicit and guide student creative reasoning in the science classroom. We focus on (a) his rationale for abduction, (b) conditions he recognised as necessary to support this speculative reasoning, (c) pragmatic strategies to guide inquiry and test conjectural hypotheses, and (d) his growing recognition of creative dimensions to reasoning beyond abductive inference-making. We illustrate this case through examples of a guided inquiry approach to student claim-making in the science classroom.     

Conceptually enhanced simulations: A computer tool for science teaching

In this paper, we consider a way computer simulations can be used to address the problem of teaching for conceptual change and understanding. After identifying three levels of understanding of a natural phenomenon (concrete, conceptual, and metaconceptual) that need to be addressed in school science, and classifying computer model systems and simulations more generally in terms of the design choices facing the programmer, we argue that there are ways to design computer simulations that can make them more powerful than laboratory models. In particular, computer simulations that provide an explicit representation for a set of interrelated concepts allow students to perceive what cannot be directly observed in laboratory experiments: representations for the concepts and ideas used for interpreting the experiment. Further, by embedding the relevant physical laws directly into the program code, these simulations allow for genuine discoveries. We describe how we applied these ideas in developing a computer simulation for a particular set of purposes: to help students grasp the distinction between mass and density and to understand the phenomenon of flotation in terms of these concepts. Finally, we reflect on the kinds of activities such conceptually enhanced simulations allow that may be important in bringing about the desired conceptual change.     

Philosophy for Children,Values Education and the Inquiring Society

Abstract

How can school education best bring about moral improvement? Socrates believed that the unexamined life was not worth living and that the philosophical examination of life required a collaborative inquiry. Today, our society relegates responsibility for values to the personal sphere rather than the social one. I will argue that, overall, we need to give more emphasis to collaboration and inquiry rather than pitting students against each other and focusing too much attention on ‘teaching that’ instead of ‘teaching how’. I will argue that we need to include philosophy in the curriculum throughout the school years, and teach it through a collaborative inquiry which enables children to participate in an open society subject to reason. Such collaborative inquiry integrates personal responsibility with social values more effectively than sectarian and didactic religious education.     

Enriching the Theoretical Horizons of Phenomenography,Variation Theory and Learning Studies

The aim of this article is to introduce some theoretical frameworks which may develop the research going on within phenomenography and variation theory. Central concepts from the epistemological and cognitive theories of Charles S. Peirce, Niklas Luhmann and Margaret Boden are presented and their implications for phenomenography and variation theory are discussed. Peirce's concept of the semiotic triad clarifies the interrelations of conceptions, their linguistic expressions and their meanings or referents. Luhmann's concepts of primary and secondary distinctions point out an implicit hierarchy of dimensions of variation. Boden's notion of conceptual spaces as grounds for explorative and transformative creativity points to the relevance and value of becoming familiar with the conceptional spaces of the outcomes of phenomenographic studies. Finally, I point to the possibility of including the notion of a “hidden curriculum” of the discipline as an implicit dimension of variation in classroom studies based on variation theory.     

Reflexive Teaching,Reflexive Learning

Abstract

This paper examines the way mismatches occur between what lecturers believe students understand when technical concepts are used and what the students actually make of those concepts. A hard look is given at certain ‘academic myths’ which block educational exchange, among them the notion shared by many that learning entails mainly the verbal regurgitation of what has been taught. How can lecturers achieve the empathy requisite for genuine teaching and how can students adopt attitudes that make genuine learning more possible? The paper answers these questions by sketching a notion of higher education as a willingness to modify what one thinks by an openness before the challenges of other values and beliefs; and by suggesting that an approach more self‐critically aware of the pedagogic process, utilizing methods such as the keeping of reflexive notebooks, can facilitate a more effective mode of learning.     

Peirce’s Rhetorical Turn: Conceptualizing education as semiosis

Abstract

The later works of Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1913) offer an extended metaphor of mind and a rich conception of the dynamics of knowledge and learning. After a ‘rhetorical turn’ Peirce develops his early ‘semiotics’ into a more general theory of sign and sign use,while integrating his pragmatism, phenomenology, and semiotics. Therefore, in this article I bring Peirce’s notion of semiosis—the sign’s action—to the forefront. In doing so, I hope to disclose how Peirce’s rhetorical turn not only opens up towards a richer conception of the dynamics of knowledge and learning, but also invites a shift of perspective from the psychological processes of learning to the semeiotic processes that characterizes the very dynamics of knowledge production.     

Evidentiary Competence: Sixth Graders'' Understanding for Gathering and Interpreting Evidence in Scientific Investigations

With the growing emphasis on the development of scientific inquiry skills, there is a strong need for more research on students' ability to collect and interpret evidence. This paper calls attention to the notion of evidentiary competence that refers to the concepts and reasoning skills involved in the collection, organization, and interpretation of data. We proposed a set of concepts and skills involved in evidentiary competence and examined sixth of them—the priority, relevancy, objectivity, replicability of evidence, and the interpretation of examples and tables—using a written instrument contextualized in atmospheric science. Analyses of 40 sixth grade students' answers and explanations revealed that their understanding of scientific evidence and the data collection process was quite weak in several respects. For example, many students neither appreciated the role of empirical evidence in scientific inquiry, nor distinguished relevant evidence from irrelevant evidence, nor understood the importance of reliable and objective observations, nor interpreted examples and tables appropriately. Results suggest that more explicit instructions are needed in order to strengthen students' ability to collect and interpret data, especially in the current data rich information age.     

Promise and challenge of identifying threshold concepts: a cautionary account of using transactional curriculum inquiry

The original work on threshold concepts arose from a project designed to improve students’ learning experiences by taking seriously the features of disciplinary knowledge as its starting point. The conceptual and empirical work on threshold concepts has since developed and matured. While many disciplines have engaged enthusiastically with the identification of threshold concepts, healthcare has not been well represented. Drawing on Cousin’s (2007, 2009) notion of transactional curriculum inquiry, the study explores the identification of threshold concepts in a physiotherapy subject, with a sample of physiotherapy clinical educators, using nominal group technique (NGT). While the article presents a set of concepts from the pilot study, this is not its key contribution. Instead, three novel insights are offered for future threshold concepts research. First, there is a need to extend the stakeholders involved in curriculum reform and renewal beyond the university (particularly, for professions). Second, there must be ongoing opportunities for these external stakeholders to engage with and reflect on the distinct features of threshold concepts if the context and authenticity of practice is to be taken seriously for enhancing student learning. Third, the problem of identification is beset with conceptual challenges that remain unresolved for researchers.     

Crossing the Border from Science Student to Science Teacher: Preservice Teachers’ Views and Experiences Learning to Teach Inquiry

Preservice science teachers face numerous challenges in understanding and teaching science as inquiry. Over the course of their teacher education program, they are expected to move from veteran science students with little experience learning their discipline through inquiry instruction to beginning science teachers adept at implementing inquiry in their own classrooms. In this study, we used Aikenhead’s (Sci Educ 81: 217–238, 1997, Science Educ 85:180–188, 2001) notion of border crossing to describe this transition preservice teachers must make from science student to science teacher. We examined what one cohort of eight preservice secondary science teachers said, did, and wrote as they both conducted a two-part inquiry investigation and designed an inquiry lesson plan. We conducted two types of qualitative analyses. One, we drew from Costa (Sci Educ 79: 313–333, 1995) to group our preservice teacher participants into one of four types of potential science teachers. Two, we identified successes and struggles in preservice teachers’ attempts to negotiate the cultural border between veteran student and beginning teacher. In our implications, we argue that preservice teachers could benefit from explicit opportunities to navigate the border between learning and teaching science; such opportunities could deepen their conceptions of inquiry beyond those exclusively fashioned as either student or teacher.     

论“电工技术”的探究性教学

"电工技术"是非电类工科专业一门十分重要的技术基础课,是一门理论与实践紧密结合的课程。该课程的教学内容丰富,涉及多门电类课程。问题与疑问是探究式学习的起点,也是探究式学习的一个基本特征。电工专业探究式课堂教学,必须努力创设学科问题情境,让学生在学科问题情境中不断地发现问题,提出问题,解决问题。     

Human Freedom and the Philosophical Attitude

Abstract

Attempts to describe the essential features of the Western philosophical tradition can often be characterized as ‘boundary work’, that is, the attempt to create, promote, attack, or reinforce specific notions of the ‘philosophical’ in order to demarcate it as a field of intellectual inquiry. During the last century, the dominant tendency has been to delineate the discipline in terms of formal methods, techniques, and concepts and a given set of standard problems and alternative available solutions (although this element has been both present and at times highly influential at least since Plato). One vital feature of the philosophical tradition that has played a certain rather subterranean but nonetheless indispensable role, which I will discuss in this article, is that of repeatedly and stringently calling into question the conditions of its own possibility. The Cartesian tradition (including Kant, Husserl, Popper and Weber) shares with the anti-philosophers (say, Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, but even the later Wittgenstein) the insight that this questioning itself is and has always been a problem, perhaps the deepest problem, for philosophy. The idea that one has the right, even the responsibility, to pose questions that are non-standard, not comme il faut, perhaps even taboo, lay at the very heart of notions such as ‘the pursuit of truth’, ‘vita contemplativa’, and ‘philosophy as work on oneself’. On what grounds can one possibly assert such a right? In the Western tradition, it has most often been associated with a form of genuine doubt founded in deep engagement with some subject matter, i.e. the notion that one has a ‘problem’ demanding that one take responsibility for one’s beliefs and thoughts, both morally and logically. It seems to me that the meaning of this most basic attitude is something that each generation must rediscover for itself; indeed, recreate for itself in a new environment and under new conditions. Thus, the blindness of the past, in this self-understanding of philosophy, need not bind or blind us in the future. To the contrary, the European intellectual tradition can be seen as providing a series of perspicuous representations of intermittently faltering and flourishing attempts at asserting the viability of the idea of human freedom as essentially bound up with the pursuit of truth. As such, it is of necessity open to perpetual revision (even when it resists it).     

Social Control and Free Inquiry: Consequences of Foucault for the Pursuit of Knowledge in Higher Education

Key ideas in the work of Michel Foucault are explored and applied to the organized pursuit of knowledge in higher education. His association of power and knowledge accounts for deeply rooted practices in higher education that would need to be mediated or overcome for there to be a revolution in inquiry to occur, such as the one advanced by Nicholas Maxwell. Foucault’s concepts of disciplinary power and bio-power, and how they act to manage the behavior of free citizens, are described. These concepts are then applied to free inquiry, to show how the activity of individual inquirers is managed and how critical inquiry is controlled. The management of inquiry involving four norms, two of them intrinsic to inquiry and the other two extrinsic, is explained. The potential of Foucault’s concept of discursive formations is introduced as a means of reconceiving inquiry to overcome these impediments to a revolution in inquiry.