Teaching the Pursuit of Assumptions

Within the school of thought known as Critical Thinking, identifying or finding missing assumptions is viewed as one of the principal thinking skills. Within the new subject in schools and colleges, usually called Critical Thinking, the skill of finding missing assumptions is similarly prominent, as it is in that subject's public examinations. In this article we examine how school‐ and college‐focused texts explain and teach ‘this very important skill’. The same texts also deal with the nature of assumptions, validity and the role of stated reasons in arguments, and the way these matters are tackled will also be examined in our inquiry. In addition we explore what respected contributors to the critical thinking movement have had to say about some of these issues.     

Arts education partnerships: sources of harmony and dissonance with cultural institutions’ collaborative efforts

ABSTRACT

Due to budget constraints, schools in the United States have increasingly turned to community arts organizations for support. School-community arts partnership stakeholders collaborate because of shared missions to provide students with valuable arts learning experiences. Investigations of these initiatives indicate that these partnerships improve arts learning opportunities and increase public support and resources for arts education. However, not much is known about the experiences and perspectives of the arts organizations that participate in these partnerships. Coordinating collective efforts with a multitude of institutions and interests poses challenges. In this study, we examine survey data collected from arts organization administrators who participated in a large-scale school-community arts partnership initiative. We find that these organizations are generally positive about their impacts on students’ educational outcomes, but there is substantial variation in these views. We also find that organizations differ in their levels of support for these collective efforts. Sources of this variation appear to be attributable to organizations’ preexisting resources and extent to which they are established. While this difference in levels of support is potentially inevitable, we find evidence that the operations handled by the “backbone” organization, i.e. the initiative’s facilitators and overseers, can significantly influence organizations’ levels of support for these efforts. Organizations are more likely to support these collaborative efforts when they believe the backbone organization ensures transparency with initiative operations, provides regular, effective communication, and effectively resolves competing priorities.     

Innovation in Education ‐‐ the Case for the Interactive Videodisc in Schools

Abstract

This article explores the case of the videodisc in the context of the progress of technological innovation in the field of education. It looks at what the medium has to offer and the ways in which it is currently being used, before going on to consider the factors that may impede its acceptance and what can be done towards ensuring its implementation.