Aretaic pedagogy: how we can transform the aesthetics of good teaching

Abstract

The article aims to introduce the epistemology of aretaic pedagogy as a refreshing paradigm of good teaching, situating at its centrality, instead of a knowledge-based perspective, a virtue-based approach to education. Its origins are in Aristotelian virtue ethics, which premise the acquisition of intellectual and ethical virtues as the highest good of the good life. Aretaic pedagogy is therefore constructed on the basis of the theory of virtue development and deliberates teaching as an ethical, virtue-driven practice. Its epistemological framework depends largely on three components: the notion of teaching as a practice, the embodiment of internal goods in teaching/learning and the harnessing of students’ private knowledge. Dialogue, beauty and play are proposed as the main internal goods within the students’ learning, which can act as key sources of their practice of virtues. As concerns a teacher’s pedagogical presence, it is argued from a dual professional prospect: the technological and the ethical. Therefore, a teacher is called to exercise a nexus of epistemic, technical, poetic and ethical virtues.     

The effect of locus of control on communication motivation,anxiety, and satisfaction

Uses and gratifications is a psychological communication perspective focusing on how individual differences mediate attitudes and behavior. Incorporated in the perspective is an implicit emphasis of the interface of personal and mediated communication. As a salient psychological trait, locus of control should affect communication motivation and tendencies. Based on internal vs. external locus of control, we expected differences in communication motivation in interpersonal and mass‐media contexts, and differences in one's communication anxiety and satisfaction. Multivariate analysis of variance supported our expectations. Externals found communication to be less rewarding and less satisfying, tended to avoid communication, and were motivated to communicate more ritualistically than internals. We discussed these findings.     

Supporting the development of positive dispositions and learner identities: an action research study into the impact and potential of developing photographic learning stories in the Early Years

This discussion presents the author/classroom teacher's findings during an action research study evaluating the impact of photographic learning stories with young children. This is placed in the context of recent policy documentation that asserts the learner as a unique individual and literature promoting the need to support the development of positive learning dispositions and learner identity. The ethnographic study examines how learning stories can be developed as a tool to promote positive learning dispositions and support the mediation of home and school culture, suggesting that their potential lies in how they create an accessible and mutually constructed document that is accessed by children, parents and the teacher. The discussion supports reservations about the production of a definitive ‘list’ of dispositions and describes tensions between the aim of supporting positive dispositions and the unique learner in an education culture where effectiveness is measured by the statutory assessment of hierarchical goals.     

李渔《闲情偶寄》中文化休闲思想探析

休闲在我国传统文化中有着相当广泛和深入的关注、理解与阐释,从休闲学理论的视角出发,寻求休闲在中国传统文化中的历史渊源。本文从《闲情偶寄》为切入点,系统分析李渔在该书中对戏剧、小说等文化活动的理解与把握,认为在400年前的中国文化休闲呈现出三大特征：践行“成为人”生活过程,强调生命本体的存在与价值;以介乎“超世”与“入世”的“自适”心境,淡化文化活动的教化功能;追求观众本位的接受观,客观上促进文化休闲活动朝大众化方向演进。     

论互文见义在阅读教学中的运用

本文由中国传统的"互文"修辞手法谈到现代语言学和西方文学理论中的"互文性"解读理论,指出它们的异同,再用详实的例证阐明,将他它们结合起来研究,可以使我们对作品的解读高屋建瓴,更好地把握作品的内蕴与形式。将"互文参照"的方法用来指导中小学语文阅读教学,将可帮助学生提高阅读水平和语感能力。     

Climate change by the numbers: Leveraging mathematical skills for science learning online

The purpose of this preregistered study was to test an online intervention that presents participants with novel numbers about climate change after they estimate those numbers. An experimental study design was used to investigate the impact of the intervention on undergraduate students’ climate change understanding and perceptions that human caused climate change is plausible. Findings revealed that posttest climate change knowledge and plausibility perceptions were higher among those randomly assigned to use the intervention compared with those assigned to a control condition, and that supplementing this experience with numeracy instruction was linked with the use of more explicit estimation strategies and greater learning gains for people with adaptive epistemic dispositions. Findings from this study replicate and extend prior research, support the idea that novel data can support knowledge revision, identify estimation strategies used in this context, and offer an open-source online intervention for sharing surprising data with students and teachers.     

Movement expressiveness, solidarity and the (re)shaping of African American students’ scientific identities

Science educators have yet to identify ways to enable inner city African American high school students to experience success in science. In this paper, we argue that understanding the ways in which cultural practices from fields outside of school mediate what happens inside classrooms and contribute to the learning of students is crucial to addressing current disparities in science performance. Specifically, we explore the significance of movement expressiveness dispositions to the lives and the learning of economically disadvantaged African American youth. These particular dispositions have been repeatedly observed in our research, and they can be important resources for the creation of individual emotional energy, collective solidarity, and heightened engagement in learning activities since they provide resources for the (re)shaping of identity. Thus movement expressiveness dispositions hold potential for transforming the teaching and learning of these students.

Blue-collar affluence in a remote mining town: challenging the modernist myth of education

Based on research in Karratha, a remote resource town in Western Australia, this paper explores the ways in which blue-collar affluence disturbs the meritocratic mythology of formal education. In the opening decade of the twenty-first century Karratha was one of Australia's most affluent towns, yet its adult population was characterised by a level of formal qualifications that was well below the national average. These demographic realities test fundamental beliefs about the functions of education in industrial modernity in ways that help illuminate the importance of Corbett's challenge for educational sociologists to strengthen their commitment to posthumanist studies focused on building sustainable human spaces, particularly in rural areas. Further to this we need to stretch the possibilities of humanist education beyond the successes linked to financial security. Comprehending alternatives to the structurating influence of the myth of an education-based meritocracy offers an important strategy for doing so.     

电子商务与快递物流共赢发展策略探讨

电子商务和快递物流是新经济时代下关系密切的两个行业。基于对电子商务和快递物流的联系与现状分析,提出制约快递物流发展的瓶颈问题,探讨改善快递物流管理的策略,以促进电子商务与快递物流的共赢发展。     

快递运输过程中物品安全隐患研究

快递过程中需要包装、搬运、签收等,存在很多安全隐患。文章研究快递全过程隐患的存在,提出解决方法。