An intrapreneurial approach to integrating information production services into an academic medical center library

The many challenges faced by health sciences libraries of all types and sizes often require innovative solutions. When an innovative solution involves calculated risk taking, the approach is called intrapreneurial. At the University of Miami School of Medicine, an intrapreneurial approach solved the fiscal problems of the biomedical communications unit. The Louis Calder Memorial Library inherited these problems when the Department of the Library and Biomedical Communications was created in the early 1980s. In this paper, two intrapreneurial programs are described, and the benefit and suitability of this management style to information services are demonstrated.     

Embodied learning and school-based physical culture: implications for professionalism and practice in physical education

We write as critical theorists, who consider that in terms of scoping out robust conceptual elaborations which are suitable for contemporary schooling, that physical education has ground to make up connecting theory with practice and practice with theory. We advocate that aspects of existentialism and phenomenology can provide a theoretically sound basis on which to argue that embodied learning should be the foundational cornerstone of physical education programmes. To avoid embodied learning becoming overly learner centric and insular, we advance Merleau-Pontian informed ideas on how learning could flourish when an individual and embodied focus merges with a school-wide physical culture agenda which is underpinned by social and moral theorizing. In developing our focus on merging embodied learning and physical culture, we draw upon MacIntyrean views on the goods which are internal to practice and extend thinking on how these goods could merge with the diverse aims and intentions informing the culture and ethos in schools. In pursuing these ambitions, we outline the constructive activist-based benefits of teachers working within subsidiarity-based school communities where pedagogical decisions are made at a level consistent with realizing whole schools aims. This is in spite of our acknowledgement that the lack of career-long professional learning adds to the difficulty of achieving these aims. In conclusion we argue that if physical education is to become a pivotal component of realizing a diverse range of whole school aims there is a need for greater professional engagement with pedagogical approaches that attempt to derive greater meaning from learners movement experiences and which help learners to understand better both their own identity and the ethos of the school context and environment they share with others.     

A genealogical analysis of Peter Arnold's conceptual account of meaning in movement,sport and physical education

We write as critical theorists who share an interest in how conceptions of physical education are taken forward in policy and practice. In this respect, we are particularly intrigued by Peter Arnold's conceptual account of meaning in movement, sport and physical education, and the subsequent ways in which his ideas have informed national curriculum ambitions. Despite the prominence of Arnold's influence, we are concerned that there has been an insufficiently rigorous and robust review of his theorising to date, particularly in relation to where his ideas originated from. Accordingly, we critically discuss the merits of adopting a genealogical approach in order to support a detailed analysis of Arnold's conceptual account of meaning in movement, sport and physical education; one which especially focuses on learning ‘about’, ‘through’ and ‘in’ movement. We conclude by questioning a number of the complex strands of Arnold's work in the expectation that greater lucidity and purpose can emerge. This it is argued will be beneficial in terms of providing clarity on aim or aims statements in physical education, which in turn can secure greater policy coherence and practice gains.     

Understanding experience better in educational contexts: the phenomenology of embodied subjectivity

ABSTRACT

The authors consider in this critical paper that claims that human agents experience things-in-the-world as the same are deeply flawed as these accounts misconstrue and fail to appreciate the phenomenology of embodied subjectivity. To overcome these complex problems they outline how phenomenology can reach beyond positivist and standardised approaches to classroom learning and assessment and offer a broader and more encouraging perspective. They consider that the naturalistic account of subjectivity advanced by Merleau-Ponty provides a theoretically sound basis for understanding experiences better and for embodiment to become more central to educational aims. In developing their position they detail how recognising changes in Merleau-Ponty’s thinking over time are crucial for appreciating the nature of embodied subjectivity. Thereafter, they highlight and exemplify how practical approaches based on a phenomenological reduction of seeking, sensing and seeing could enhance the centrality of embodied subjectivity in contemporary education.     

Can Educationally Significant Learning be Assessed?

Abstract

This article argues that assessment is a central feature of teaching, particularly as a means to determine whether what has been taught has been learnt. However, I take issue with the current trend in education which places a significant amount of emphasis upon large-scale public testing, which in turn has exacerbated the ‘teaching-to-the-test’ syndrome, not to mention distorting teaching decisions that are detrimental to the overall development of student knowledge and understanding. Part of the problem with assessment in education seems to revolve around the nature of knowledge and how best to assess human knowledge and understanding. Although much philosophical uncertainty and disagreement exists surrounding the nature of knowledge, I argue that coming to know something is a sine qua non of any education. In saying this, I highlight the limits of assessment by demonstrating how certain activities are resistant to large-scale public testing because they are not easily reducible to facts which can be tested for, or at least in the same way as propositional forms of knowledge. Consequently, my argument is a philosophical one to the effect that assessment, particularly large-scale public testing is incapable of assessing all forms of learning, or even the quality of student understanding because the instruments available are both too blunt and tend to capture a certain kind of knowledge that privileges theory over practice, and mental skills over physical skills.     

Phenomenology and Physical Education

Abstract

Physical education is often justified within the curriculum as academic study, as a worthwhile activity on a par with other academic subjects on offer and easy to assess. Part of the problem has been that movement studies in physical education are looked upon as disembodied and disconnected from its central concerns which are associated with employing physical means to develop the whole person. But this, Merleau-Ponty would say, is to ignore the nature of experience and to consider the cognitive aspects of our perceptual experience in isolation from the personal meaning gained when looked at from the ‘inside’ or participatory perspective of the moving agent. In this sense, physical education has lost meaning for some students because our embodied relationship with the world is not an external or contemplative one. Phenomenology, according to Merleau-Ponty, is significant for physical education because it highlights what it is like to be embodied and recognises the role corporeal movement and embodiment plays in learning, in, by and through physical education. What makes this account educationally significant for physical education is that the whole person should benefit by the experience, as it includes an emphasis on all three educational domains (the psychomotor, the cognitive and the affective), rather than as separate physical and mental qualities that bear no relation to each other.     

Phenomenology and phenomenography in educational research: A critique

Abstract

The use of phenomenology and phenomenography as a method in the educational research literature has risen in popularity, particularly by researchers who are interested in understanding and generating knowledge about first-person events, or the lived experiences of students in certain educational contexts. With the rise of phenomenology and phenomenography as a method, some conceptual mistakes and associated confusion have also arisen; however, accounts examining both are limited. As a result, this paper will be concerned with the discussion of two issues: (1) for the sake of conceptual clarity, I provide a brief outline of phenomenology and phenomenography; and, (2) I then turn my attention to a critical discussion of phenomenography. In the latter case, I argue that when phenomenography departs from phenomenology it actually weakens its legitimacy as an approach to research. In order to overcome this problem, I argue that it makes sense to consolidate phenomenography within the broader research agenda of phenomenology which extends on the work of Husserl. Of course, the caveat to this idea is contingent upon a significant shift within phenomenography so it closely aligns itself with phenomenological principles and methods. As a way forward, I offer research direction to those who may be interested in the study of human experience by opening-up interdisciplinary dialogue about phenomenology, and at the same time I explore core methods used in phenomenology that extend on the continental tradition of phenomenology.