Interpreting the modern heritage of ‘Bildung’ in connection to education theory, this open access volume explores non-affirmative theory of education and ‘Bildung’ as a language of education for the ...21st century. In this ‘Bildung’-centered view of education, discerning thought on knowledge and values are critical objectives of education. To promote these aims, education practice must recognize but not affirm existing conditions or future ideals but instead pedagogically summon the student to self-directed critical treatment of the contents. Drawing on contemporary developments of modern education theory, especially as developed by Dietrich Benner in Berlin, the volume highlight how ‘educative teaching’ aims at supporting the growth of the individual as a person and citizen. The volume shows how it is possible to identify a position beyond education either as a mere transformative or a reproductive power. Instead of such an instrumentalism, education is seen as a critical societal practice, necessary for reflexive action and democracy. In different ways, the chapters demonstrate how non-affirmative theory offer an alternative to contemporary neo-liberal and conservative policies. The non-affirmative approach offers a strong education theory, relationally connecting the interactive level of teaching, studying and learning with the societal level and educational governance. Non-affirmative theory on education and ‘Bildung’ provides an elaborate point of departure for empirical research on teaching and educational leadership, teacher education and policy making. In five sections, the volume highlights how non-affirmative education theory relate to Didaktik, educative teaching, school didactics, democratic education and social justice. The approach is also analysed in relation to phenomenology, sociology, hermeneutics, cultural-historical activity theory, discursive institutionalism, empirical research, educational leadership and governance and 21st century competencies. Chapter “On Affirmativity and Non-affirmativity in the Context of Theories of Education and Bildung” is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.
What is distinctive about the ways specific disciplines are traditionally taught, and what kinds of learning do they promote? Do they inspire the habits of the discipline itself, or do they ...inadvertently contradict or ignore those disciplines? By analyzing assumptions about often unexamined teaching practices, their history, and relevance in contemporary learning contexts, this book offers teachers a fresh way to both think about their impact on students and explore more effective ways to engage students in authentic habits and practices. This companion volume to Exploring Signature Pedagogies covers disciplines not addressed in the earlier volume and further expands the scope of inquiry by interrogating the teaching methods in interdisciplinary fields and a number of professions, critically returning to Lee S. Shulman's origins of the concept of signature pedagogies. This volume also differs from the first by including authors from across the United States, as well as Ireland and Australia. The first section examines the signature pedagogies in the humanities and fine arts fields of philosophy, foreign language instruction, communication, art and design, and arts entrepreneurship. The second section describes signature pedagogies in the social and natural sciences: political science, economics, and chemistry. Section three highlights the interdisciplinary fields of Ignatian pedagogy, women's studies, and disability studies; and the book concludes with four chapters on professional pedagogies - nursing, occupational therapy, social work, and teacher education - that illustrate how these pedagogies change as the social context changes, as their knowledge base expands, or as online delivery of instruction increases.
Adding computer science as a separate school subject to the core K-6 curriculum is a complex issue with educational challenges. The authors herein address two of these challenges: (1) the design of ...the curriculum based on a generic computational thinking framework, and (2) the knowledge teachers need to teach the curriculum. The first issue is discussed within a perspective of designing an authentic computational thinking curriculum with a focus on real-world problems. The second issue is addressed within the framework of technological pedagogical content knowledge explicating in detail the body of knowledge that teachers need to have to be able to teach computational thinking in a K-6 environment. An example of how these ideas can be applied in practice is also given. While it is recognized there is a lack of adequate empirical evidence in terms of the effectiveness of the frameworks proposed herein, it is expected that our knowledge and research base will dramatically increase over the next several years, as more countries around the world add computer science as a separate school subject to their K-6 curriculum.
This open access book features a selection of articles written by Erich Ch. Wittmann between 1984 to 2019, which shows how the "design science conception" has been continuously developed over a ...number of decades. The articles not only describe this conception in general terms, but also demonstrate various substantial learning environments that serve as typical examples. In terms of teacher education, the book provides clear information on how to combine (well-understood) mathematics and methods courses to benefit of teachers.The role of mathematics in mathematics education is often explicitly and implicitly reduced to the delivery of subject matter that then has to be selected and made palpable for students using methods imported from psychology, sociology, educational research and related disciplines. While these fields have made significant contributions to mathematics education in recent decades, it cannot be ignored that mathematics itself, if well understood, provides essential knowledge for teaching mathematics beyond the pure delivery of subject matter. For this purpose, mathematics has to be conceived of as an organism that is deeply rooted in elementary operations of the human mind, which can be seamlessly developed to higher and higher levels so that the full richness of problems of various degrees of difficulty, and different means of representation, problem-solving strategies, and forms of proof can be used in ways that are appropriate for the respective level.This view of mathematics is essential for designing learning environments and curricula, for conducting empirical studies on truly mathematical processes and also for implementing the findings of mathematics education in teacher education, where it is crucial to take systemic constraints into account.
This study examines how researchers can better understand the instructional and practical realities of teachers through collective sensemaking. Traditional approaches to curriculum design engage ...learning models without accounting for the needed flexibility of teachers. This approach has resulted in tension and gatekeeping—inhibiting the implementation of curriculum. Teachers are often considered relatively autonomous; however, this study sheds light on the constrained autonomy teachers experience resulting from internal and external pressures. This study examines the collective sensemaking process of researchers while developing a high school genetics curriculum. By examining the collective sensemaking of the areas of tension that arose during the curriculum design process, the problem space of researchers expanded and became more aligned with the problem space of teachers. Collective sensemaking encouraged the humanizing of teachers by centering their content, contextual, and social needs. In addition, this study suggests that gatekeeping can result from many factors; but through collective sensemaking, researchers can intentionally design to resolve said factors.
This research is a comparative study of Finnish and Australian science curricula in early childhood education (EC). The study aims to figure out the constructivist components of the science ...curriculum in two countries as well as
locate the similarities and differences in the rationale and aims, contents, learning outcomes, learning activities, teacher's role and assessment. The curriculum analysis framework developed by Van den Akker (2003) was used as a
methodological framework for the curricula analysis. Based on the theory-driven content analyses, findings show that both countries have several components of constructivist curriculum, but not always clearly focused on science
education. The Australian Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) integrates children's science learning within their five specific learning outcomes, whereas the Finnish national core curriculum for early childhood education and care has
no defined learning outcomes in general. The Finnish curriculum more clearly than EYLF encompasses science and environmental education as a learning domain, within which children participate in targeted scientific activities to gain
procedural knowledge in specific environmental-related concepts. More focus should be turned to the teachers' role and assessment, which are not determined in science context in both countries. This international comparative study calls
for the need of a considered EC curriculum framework that more explicitly has science domains with specifically defined rationale, aims, content areas, learning outcomes and assessment criteria. The implications lie in providing early
childhood educators with tangible and theoretically solid curriculum framework and resources in order to foster scientific thinking in young children. Author abstract
A curriculum is dynamic entity and hence, metaphorically, can be considered 'alive'. Curricular diseases may impair its quality and hence its viability. The quality of a curriculum is typically ...assessed against certain quality standards only. This approach does not identify the inhibitors impeding the achievement of quality standards. The purpose of this study is to identify not only standards but also inhibitors of curriculum quality, allowing for a more comprehensive assessment of what we coin 'curriculum viability'.
We performed a scoping review of 'curriculum viability', after which 13 articles were found eligible through a meticulous search and selection process. We first identified 1233 studies based on matching keywords, title and abstract; 36 of which met our inclusion criteria. After application of the Qualsyst criteria, two independent reviewers performed a thematic analysis of the 13 articles that remained.
While all studies reported on standards of quality, only two studies described both standards and inhibitors of quality. These standards and inhibitors were related to educational content and strategy, students, faculty, assessment, educational/work environment, communication, technology and leadership.
The framework of curriculum viability thus developed will help identify inhibitors adversely affecting the curriculum viability and remaining hidden or un-noticed when curriculum evaluation is done.
Through the lens of contrasting curriculum cultures, the author considers the evolution of Irish curriculum policy and reform. Whereas our curriculum thinking and practice are grounded in an ...Anglo-Saxon/American culture, Didaktik curriculum culture and Stenhouse's Process model provide valuable alternative perspectives. Our prevailing understandings of curriculum are reified, in an environment where curriculum reform/change are used interchangeably. Historically, our curriculum reform efforts have been characterised by centralised control and a paucity of research, debate, and school-based curriculum development. Meaningful curriculum change, however, challenges the cultural beliefs of employers, parents, and students and requires critical engagement with the professional beliefs and values of educational administrators, school leaders and teachers. Since the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment became statutory, our curriculum culture, and our understandings of curriculum change, have been evolving. This growing appreciation of the complexity of change is reflected in the discourse of the Framework for Junior Cycle. The influence of Anglo-Saxon/American curriculum culture remains palpable, however, while the impact of globalisation and market forces is evidenced in a growing emphasis on skills, competences and pre-determined learning outcomes. The author concludes that we have arrived at a hybrid curriculum culture whose future development is rather difficult to predict.
Understanding and Shaping Curriculum: What We Teach and Why introduces readers to curriculum as knowledge, curriculum as work, and curriculum as professional practice. Author Thomas W. Hewitt ...discusses curriculum from theoretical and practical perspectives to not only acquaint readers with the study of curriculum, but also help them to become effective curriculum practitioners.
The challenge of climate change means that school education is more important than ever in preparing young people for an uncertain future. The focus of this research is climate change education and ...its status in the compulsory middle school years (approximately years 7-10) across six countries (Australia, Israel, Finland, Indonesia, Canada and England). The authors investigated formal published national curriculum documents, specifically science and geography, to determine the presence of climate change topics, and the way they are addressed in these subjects. The key findings are that: (1) the term 'climate change' appears in the formal curriculum of all six countries in science or geography; (2) approaches to climate change in the curriculum differ substantially across different countries; (3) climate change is often presented as a context, example or elaboration for other science concepts rather than a discrete topic; (4) the presence of climate change in most curriculum documents is scattered and spread over multiple years and (5) knowledge about causes of climate change predominates over action and behavioural changes. These findings raise questions as to whether current school curricula provide sufficient guidance for teachers to develop students' understandings, skills and values regarding climate change.
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