Cultivating moral consciousness: The quintessential relation of practical reason and mind (Gemüt) as a bulwark against the propensity for radical evil

Abstract

To perfect human beings with an innate propensity for radical evil is a formidable task. Kant explicitly says that the propensity for evil is not eradicable; it is rooted in human nature, specifically in the human power of choice-making. The task is to reorient the natural order of choice-making (which derives its maxim from an object of the inclinations), to the moral order that takes the moral law as its supreme principle. I explicate the role of a specific capacity of the human subjective side of judging in this process; namely, of ‘mind’ in its sense as Gemüt. While human willing and choice-making are subject to the influence of sensuousness (the inclinations and passions), Gemüt is a capacity of sensibility (Sinnlichkeit) that allows the human subject to enjoy the feeling of being pleased in the fulfillment of duty. Its four specific aesthetic preliminary concepts of responsiveness to concepts of duty – moral feeling (as respect for the law), conscience, love of humanity, and respect for oneself (self-esteem) – must be cultivated in order to make objective practical reason also subjectively practical. Thereby one secures a bulwark against the ineliminable propensity for evil whose first effect is to destroy inner moral integrity.     

Evaluating research-oriented teaching: a new instrument to assess university students’ research competences

Several concepts have been developed to implement research-oriented teaching in higher education in the last 15 years. The definition of research competences, however, has received minor attention so far. Some approaches to modeling research competences describe these competences along the research process but either focus on a specific academic discipline and/or specific facets or offer no empirical verification for cross-disciplinary approaches. We have developed a new approach to model research competences across various academic disciplines in form of a competence model—the RMRC-K-model. This model comprises five dimensions: skills in reviewing the state of research, methodological skills, skills in reflecting on research findings, communication skills, and content knowledge. In this study, we present an instrument (R-Comp) developed on the basis of this cross-disciplinary competence model. The factorial structure of the R-Comp was examined with data from 391 university students in three groups, either enrolled in a Bachelor’s degree, Master’s degree, or a PhD program. The sample represented various academic disciplines. Results from confirmatory factor analyses supported the hypothesized structure of the R-Comp for the five dimensions in accordance with the RMRC-K-model. Additionally, results provided evidence for a more detailed differentiation of all dimensions with sub-dimensions reflecting theorized facets of the model. Both Cronbach’s α and construct reliability H indicated overall good reliability. Despite limitations to this study, there is some first evidence of a valid and reliable assessment of student research competences.     

Does alternative higher education need an alternative?

The present movement in alternative higher education is predominantly an accomodation for the unrest which surfaced during the sixties. Generally, the creators and participants of alternatives, both inside and outside of conventional universities, fell comfortably into a process of cooptation which alleviated the more obvious symptoms of alienation and silenced dissent. This paper discusses alternative higher education in light of 1) improvement of communication within the alternative community and with others in the larger society, 2) attention paid to critical analysis, theory and research, to avoid the pitfalls of subjectivism, 3) development of the organization and power to survive, rather than becoming trapped by excessive preoccupations with criticizing the conventional or with justifying ourselves to those in positions of power, and 4) creation of an integrity in our purposes and methods by fashioning a systematic and socially critical methodology of theory-and-practice, involving in part a serious consideration of Marxist thought.Joanne Kowalski, John Bilorusky, and Victor Acosta are three of the founders of the Western Regional Learning Center, an independent experimental university and center for people involved in community change and educational innovation.     

Make it relevant! How prior instructions foster the integration of teacher knowledge

Instructional Science - Preservice teachers face the challenge of integrating multiple types of knowledge, such as pedagogical–psychological knowledge and subject-specific pedagogical...     

Steuerung von überg?ngen im Unterricht

Classroom management is one of the most important factors regarding the quality of teaching, because effective classroom management contributes to maximizing time on task. In an expert-novice study, strategies and interventions of effective classroom management were explored. Videotaped lessons of eleven experts and six novice teachers were analyzed comparatively, sequence by sequence. The study focused on transitions between seatwork or groupwork and two-way-presentations. The results strengthen the hypothesis that experts?? performance differs significantly from the performance of novices. Experts not only notice students?? difficulties in following the program of action at an early stage, but they also use many different strategies and interventions to direct the activity flow continuously and to activate the whole class. In comparison, novices often disrupt the timeflow themselves, they focus their attention selectively on parts of the class, and they are more prone to becoming absorbed when interacting with single students. An important aspect of experts?? competence is that they are able to intertwine single interventions. To put it another way: experts orchestrate their interventions virtuously.     

Cross‐ and mono‐linguistic text processing in bilingual children

Bilingual German fourth‐graders are expected to develop greater linguistic awareness than monolingual children and therefore should habitually apply different text‐processing strategies compared with German monolingual fourth‐graders when comprehending and recalling a text. Bilingual children are expected to process texts from the bottom up, from the text base to the gist, whereas monolingual children should engage in top‐down processing, which is indicated, for example, by more text intrusions and inferences. This research attempts to clarify whether bilinguals show this shift in direction of processing when they process cross‐linguistic versus mono‐linguistic texts. The results of Experiment 1 supported our main hypothesis. Monolingual German fourth‐graders had more intrusions than same‐aged German–English (L1–L2) bilingual children. In Experiment 2, nearly balanced German–English and German‐dominant children were tested separately in within‐language free recall in both languages and in across‐language text recall. For nearly balanced bilingual children, within‐ and cross‐language recall was equally efficient in both languages but not for German‐dominant bilingual children – in their recall, more intrusions appeared in their L2 recall. Top‐down processing seems to increase when it is in the weaker language. Engaging in bottom‐up processing apparently is associated with cognitive functioning in L1.     

Vergleichsarbeiten und schulische Personalentwicklung – Ausmaß und Voraussetzungen der Datennutzung

The introduction of comparative tests in a low-stakes system was carried out in the expectation that the data feedback to schools would act as a stimulus for the development of the schools and the standard of classroom teaching. By contrast with the use of data to develop teaching, the use of data for personnel development has not yet been studied in Germany. On the basis of an on-line survey of head teachers and a paper-and-pencil survey of teaching staff, the study examines for the first time the extent to which comparative test data is used by head teachers for personnel development and as a means to plan in-service training in subject conferences, and what factors influence whether the data is used in this way. Of the head teacher characteristics which were studied (attitude in relation to the perceived usefulness of the data, qualifications, organisation and age of the head teacher), usefulness is the only characteristic which has a positive effect on the use of the data. The use of comparative test data to plan in-service training in subject conferences is positively influenced by data-wise leadership by the head teacher and by collaborative evaluation.