Category Archives: Curriculum Development

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Ethical Models

Ethics is a truly controversial field of discussion. Everywhere people are looking for ethical people. It is difficult for people to agree on what ethical behavior is in many situations. Since there is little consensus on what is ethical, it leads to people making poor choices or doing things they think are right yet are classified as unethical by others.

In this post, we will avoid the minefield of what is ethical and look at various models of ethical behavior. Instead of defining what is ethical, we will look at frameworks for how others define what is ethical.

Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism takes a quantitative approach to defining what is right and wrong. According to this school of thought, whatever brings the most good to the most people is ethical. An example of utilitarianism would be found in the story of people in a lifeboat. For the group to survive, somebody has to be thrown in the water. A utilitarian approach would state that throwing someone in the water is practical to save the group.

Naturally, utilitarianism loses track of the individual. The group or the collective is the main actor in the decision-making process, which can lead to the tyranny of the majority over the minority.

Universalism

As it relates to ethics, Universalism is focused on a holistic approach to making decisions. Everyone’s needs are taken into account in this model. The focus is on being humane and making decisions based on duty. Returning to the lifeboat example, if Universalism is the ethical model, then somebody would willingly throw themselves into the water so that the majority of the group could survive. Being bound by duty, someone would sacrifice themself for others.

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A related school of thought is virtue ethics, which states how people ought to be rather than the reality of how people actually are. People should be moral, happy, trustworthy, etc. Even though it is rare to find people with such traits consistently, all this is stated.

Of course, these schools of thought are highly idealistic and generally not practical. Universalism may be the best approach on paper but is the least likely to be put into practice as individual people generally put what is best for them first.

Rights

A legal model for ethics is found in rights such as those found in the US Constitution and human rights. IN this approach, the rights of people are the basis for ethical decision-making. Therefore, violating someone’s rights is an ethical violation.

Returning once again to the lifeboat example. It would violate someone’s rights to throw them in the water to die. However, it would also violate everyone’s rights if everybody died. As such, if the rights model is used in such a situation, there is no answer for the sinking lifeboat that needs to throw one person overboard.

This leads to one problem with the rights model, which is determining the ethical thing to do in a situation in which people both have equal rights to something. People can exaggerate their rights and downplay other people’s rights, leading to an impasse that seems to have no hope of being overcome.

The Common Good

The common good is a combination of the ideas behind Universalism and utilitarianism. IN this approach, decision-makers must take into account. This means that people must think about how their decisions impact the people around them. Decisions can be made at the individual level as long as they consider the larger collective.

Returning to the lifeboat, a person would decide about jumping in the water based on how it would affect others. When deciding who to throw in the water, the group may decide based on the level of responsibility a person has. A single man would be a better person to throw in the water than a single mother because the man is perceived to have fewer obligations.

The problem with the common good is broken down to who decides what the common good is. Whoever or whatever makes this decision has dictatorial power over the others.

Conclusion

The point was not to attempt to determine what is ethical. The reality is that everybody has fallen short in one place or another when practicing ethical behavior. It is possible that people sometimes deliberately make poor choices, but the other side of the story is that sometimes the best decision is hard to determine. The real goal should be to examine the thought process and be aware of the failings that led to poor choices in the past.

Science and Thales

Ionia was a Greek colony in western Turkey founded around 3000 years ago by people looking for land and trading opportunities. This colony of several Greek cities has played a pivotal role in history in several ways. Not only is Ionia famous for rebelling against the Persians, but foundational ideas of science were formed in this place as well. In particular, a man named Thales played a critical part in the development of science.

Role of Greek gods

To understand the influence of Ionia and Thales, it is important to look at the worldview of these people. During this time, religion played a major role in the life of Greeks. The problem with this was not that it wasn’t scientific. The other problem was the erratic and licentious behavior of the Greek gods. Below are just a few examples from Greek mythology demonstrating the vengeful and wild behavior of Greek gods.

  • Zeus could not control his behavior around women and was notorious for his unfaithfulness to his wife, Hera.
  • Hera would often attack the women with whom Zeus was unfaithful by causing the death of the woman involved or persecuting the children of these adulterous relationships such as Heracles.
  • Poseidon, the god of the sea, raped a woman in Athena’s temple. The victim was then turned into the hideous Medusa by Athena for desecrating her temple.
  • Behind the scenes of the Trojan war, the gods were at work, not to mention in the many poems of Homer.

This list could go on for pages. The gods were crazy, to say the least. People tried to appease the gods through sacrifices and works. This was not always successful, and people were always looking for ways to obtain security from this.

Looking Towards Nature

Due to the perceived inconsistent behavior of the Greek gods, people began to look to other ways to understand the world, leading them to seek answers in nature. Nature, in comparison to the Greek gods, was somewhat regular in its behavior.

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A major proponent of examining nature over mythology was Thales, a sixth-century Ionian who was one of the first philosopher-scientist. Thales looked at facts and observations to understand the world. He believed in trusting his senses rather than the supernatural explanations of his time. This could almost be viewed as a form of atheism. Thales was a well-traveled individual who was also one of the first to take credit for his ideas by writing his name on them. Thereby demonstrates an example of individualism, which was unusual at that time.

However, Thales was not just talk. He backed his position with several major innovations. For example, Thales accomplished several mathematical/scientific feats. Such as the following.

  • He predicted a solar eclipse in 585 BC. This was important because ancient Greeks viewed solar eclipses as a sign of supernatural abandonment by their unpredictable gods. For Thales to predict such a sign was utterly unbelievable and showed a regularity to nature that the gods never showed.
  • Using what would later become Geometry, Thales determined the height of buildings such as pyramids by measuring their shadows on the ground. This, of course, was revolutionary at the time.
  • Thales also used Geometry to calculate how far a ship was from shore. This was a groundbreaking discovery as such knowledge was important for ships always concerned with running aground.
  • Thales was also one of the first observed static electricity. He didn’t discover it, but he was one of the first to examine it scientifically.

The volume of work by this pre-Socratic philosopher was hard for people to ignore. His work encourages others to look beyond the supernatural to understand the world around them.

Conclusion

The Greek colony of Ionia was a place that contributed to modern scientific thought. In this colony, Thales began to look beyond the gods for answers and instead looked to nature. By doing so, not only did he make several major discoveries, but he also set an influential example of how people should learn about the world.

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Classroom Management and Theories on Deviance

Deviance is something teachers and administrators deal with every day when managing students. Deviance is simply a fancy word for the breaking of social norms and rules. In other words, in the context of classroom management, deviance is the everyday misbehavior of students.

There are two types of deviance. Primary deviance is misbehavior that does not have a long-term effect in terms of the perception or reputation of the person. For example, a student talking out of turn may be primary deviance if it is not too common. Secondary deviance is misbehavior that can give a student a label that strongly harms how others perceive him. For example, getting into fights, drug use, and academic dishonesty often give a student a poor reputation that is hard to overcome. When this happens, the student’s status is linked to deviant behavior.

Fighting Deviance

Schools work to maintain social control of their campus by enforcing rules and norms. Doing this helps to maintain the social order and stability of the organization. Common tools used to achieve this include the use of sanctions, both positive and negative.

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Positive sanctions are rewards; those familiar with behaviorism may be more familiar with positive/negative reinforcement. Negative sanction is the giving of consequences in behaviorism. Another term for this is positive/negative punishment. Another type of sanction is a formal sanction which is an official way of giving rewards or punishments. For example, citizenship awards might be a formal positive sanction, while suspension would be a formal negative sanction.

Theories of Deviance

Theories are several theories that attempt to explain deviance. Strain theory states that having a way to achieve a goal influences deviance. For example, no money for college may turn a student towards a life of crime as they see no other options. However, this is not the only potential response. Students may confirm and set aside their goal until an opportunity arises, if ever. Students may innovate, such as our example of turning to a life of crime. Students may lower their goal to achieve whatever they can, such as finishing high school and learning a trade. Students may also simply give up. Lastly, students may rebel with a desire to tear down the system. This last action partially explains the protesting in many places.

Strain theory does not have to deal with weighty issues such as going to college. Students can simply deviate because they are not allowed to go outside and play. As such, a teacher can anticipate certain behaviors from students through being familiar with strain theory.

Cultural deviance theory states that students may deviate if they conform to lower-class society norms. This implies a difference in class being a primary means of deviance. For example, students who grow up in gang culture will probably learn behaviors that are considered deviant by middle-class teachers. This will lead to problems in the classroom.

Cultural deviance theory is supported by at least two other theories. Differential association theory states that students learn deviant behaviors from others, and labeling theory states that those with power (teachers) determine acceptable behavior. Gang culture is considered deviant by most teachers, but whether this is considered deviant by gang members?

Lastly, control theory states that the strength of social bonds influences a student’s desire to perform deviant behaviors. In other words, students do not like to submit to strangers but will respond to people they know and respect.

Control theory proposes several ways to curtail deviant behavior. Attachment, if students are close to you, they will not want to deviate. Commitment, if you as the teacher are invested in the students, they will not want to deviate. Involvement, if you participate in activities with the students, they will not want to deviate. Belief, if students agree with what you want or think, they will not want to deviate.

Conclusion

Deviance is to be expected. Students want to push the limits, and it is the teacher’s job to deal with this. However, students need to learn from their mistakes so that their deviance does not become a major problem for them or the learning experience of others.

Intro to Critical Race Theory

Critical race theory is a framework used by many to see the world in terms of race and power. Based on postmodernism, this concept is a significant influence on how many people see the world today. Primarily this relates to the difference in power and privilege between people who are white and black.

Tenets

Some proponents of critical race theory believe that race is a social construct developed to maintain the supremacy of white people. In addition, color was also at one time used to justify slavery. However, many also say that race is central when dealing with any issues of power and oppression. A significant problem is that it is difficult to define precisely what critical race theory is, and as with all definitions, there is no consensus.

Other significant tenets of critical race theory are the idea of white supremacy and white privilege, which means that people who are white have certain advantages due to their skin color. Another tenet is the need to give people of color a voice. By voice, it may mean being a part of decision-making and sharing grievances from oppression.

A final central tenet of critical race theory is the idea of intersectionality. Intersectionality is the idea that a person can be a member of more than one oppressed group. A classic example of this is a black woman. Such a person may experience oppression due to their race (black) or sex (female). As such, you can add more and more groups if a person continues to fight them based on the traits that are a part of their being.

Types

There are at least two types of critical theorists, and these are the materialists and the postmodern. The materialist look at how economic, legal, and politics affect race and may be considered to align more with communism. The postmodern focuses more on linguistics, deconstructing discourse to find power imbalances, and searching for implicit bias. Examples of what the postmodern critical race theorists do is look for things as microaggression, hate speech, cultural appropriation. These terms are used every day to attack people on social media. For example, being surprised that someone who is black is married because of the high out of wedlock birth rate would be considered microaggression by some and maybe even hate speech by others. The postmodern camp is generally more common today.

Both of these schools of thought have in common that they both dislike or even hate liberalism with its focus on incremental change. For example, many view Martin Luther King Jr as a liberal because he wanted to downplay color and focus on character. In critical race theory, it is all about color first and then some consideration of character.

Another trait of agreement is the view of knowledge as a social construct. This means that the marginalized groups determine what is true and not some external standard such as science or religion. To determine who is right, look for which group is more oppressed in a particular situation. This can be insanely confusing if it is taken seriously.

Even when there are attempts to end racism, this is viewed with suspicion by critical theorists. There have been accusations that white people give rights and opportunities to blacks only when it benefits them. In addition, legislation that is anti-racist supports racism. If these two beliefs are commonly believed, it makes it difficult for there ever to be any solution to justice and oppression.

Conclusion

Critical race theory is one of many schools of thought that has seized the minds of many. People who adhere to this worldview see race and oppression in most aspects of life. When a person sees problems of oppression everywhere, it is natural to wonder how they can have any sense of happiness or peace.

Theories of Motivation and the Classroom

Motivation is a crucial driver for success in education. This post will look at two theories of motivation and briefly connect them when appropriate to the classroom. These two theories are Manifest Needs Theory and ERG Theory.

Manifest Needs Theory

Henry Murray developed a theory of motivation called Manifest Needs theory. For Murray, needs are divided into two broad categories called primary and secondary needs. Primary needs are physiological needs, such as food, water, shelter, etc. Secondary needs are needs that people acquire or learn about through life. Examples of secondary needs are achievement, affiliation, etc.

This theory assumes that people are driven to satisfy these needs. If a student is talkative, they probably need affiliation. If a student is hard-working, they probably need achievement. People’s behavior is often an indication of what they need. There is an exception to this, and this is what Murray calls a latent need.

A latent need is a need that cannot be inferred by a person’s behavior. This is probably because the person is not able to satisfy this need. For example, a student may be disruptive because they are bored in class. The behavior indicates a need for affiliation, but the real need is achievement.

The point is that the behavior of a student can often be a clue to what motivates them. However, this comes with exceptions, as was already discussed.

ERG Theory

Clayton Alderfer took a different view of motivation. Alderfer proposes three categories of needs, which are existence, relatedness, growth. These three categories are where the acronym ERG comes from. Existence needs are physiological and material in nature, such as food, water, safety, etc. Relatedness needs are social and include esteem and interpersonal opportunities. Growth needs are related to personal development and include self-esteem and self-actualization.

These categories are ranked. In other words, existence needs must be met first, followed by existence, and lastly by growth. There are four different ways to move or stay in a particular category. Satisfaction progression involves satisfying the needs in one category and then focusing on the next category. For example, if food, water, and safety are taken care of, many students will focus more on relationships.

Frustration happens when people want to satisfy a need but cannot satisfying the needs that belong to a category. This can lead to over-focusing on the need. For example, a student needs attention and interaction but is told to be quiet in class. Being forced to be silent makes the need for socializing even stronger.

The third form is frustration regression. Frustration regression happens when a person cannot satisfy higher needs, so they double down on satisfying lower needs. If a student is not allowed to talk, they may focus on eating or drinking or asking to go to the bathroom. Since socializing is blocked, there is a greater focus on existence needs such as food and hygiene.

The final form is aspiration. This form explains the inherent satisfaction in growth. As people are allowed to grow, they become more and more satisfied with growing.

Conclusion

People are motivated by similar things, but there may be a difference in their behavior and how they satisfy their needs. As teachers, we need to be able to look at our students and determine ways to motivate them to succeed.

Brief Intro to Critical Theory

Critical Theory is a difficult concept to explain and understand. Some will say that it is an amalgamation of other theories, while others will reject this. It would not be possible to explain all the nuances of Critical Theory in a single blog post of several hundred words, but an an attempt will be made to provide basic ideas concerning it.


Critical Theory is an extension or perhaps a reaction to the ideas of Karl Marx and communism. Marx was pushing for a proletarian revolution of the working class rising up against the bourgeois. However, except in a few places, this never happened. This left supporters of Marxism frustrated, and they began to explore why this happened. Furthermore, many began to despise Marxism because of its failures.


One conclusion that they made was that Marxism was generally a disaster. The average person does not want to live in a communist state. On paper, it looked good, but in practice, it was often worst than capitalism. This led the early shapers of critical Theory to conclude that people fear freedom, which led to the rise and success of fascists governments over communists ones.

What needed to take place was that people needed to be awakened to their oppressed position in life. Marx had more of a deterministic view of the world in that revolution was inevitable because of the suffering. Critical theorists proposed that people needed to be woke to the oppression they were living under, which happened through people becoming critical.


By critical, it is generally meant to criticize the existing domineering culture. Examples of the West’s dominant culture would be male leadership over women, white leadership over minorities, heterosexual leadership of homosexual, etc. By questioning these imbalances in power and accepted norms, people would call not for an economic revolution but rather for a cultural one. All oppressed classes need to rise up and push for change.


The people who formed the foundations of critical Theory were naturally scholars. Therefore, their views began to permeate universities slowly. This long march through the institutions has been compared to Mao’s long march through China. One of the surest ways to have a long career in academics is to find a problem (the significance of the problem is irrelevant) and announced to the world through papers, media, and conferences how your problem is a big problem and how people need to pay attention to this and the solutions that are being proposed. Generally, people are good at finding problems; however, we tend to get into trouble with the answers we implement.


Critical Theory began to question such ideas as perceived privilege differences between groups (privilege has been defined as normalizing one group’s behavior at the expense of another). Other concepts are attacked, such as objectivity, hard work, and even the reasoning process that people use. These ideas were claimed to be cultural constructs of those with power who then impose their worldview on the oppressed. There are even suggestions of implicit bias, which is a form of bias a person has without even knowing it. For example, there have been accusations that some people are racist strictly because their skin color is the majority group’s color. In other words, guilt by DNA rather than by actual evidence.


The conspiratorial bent of Critical Theory is a powerful way of explaining all suffering within a given context. Another way to look at this is that one can say that Critical Theory can function as a narrative that explains where most suffering comes from for minority groups. Can’t get a job; it’s oppression. Can’t buy a car; it’s oppression. You can’t pass your classes; it’s oppression. This may not have been the intention of the original developers of critical Theory. However, students always extend the ideas of their teachers in the wrong direction. The idea that people are not responsible for the situations they are in but instead, it is the dominant group’s fault is an example of a poor application of the worldview of Critical Theory.

Postmodernism and Meta-narratives

There are questions about life that are hard to answer. Some of these questions include why are we here?, where are we going?, why is the world like this? This post will explore the ideas behind meta-narratives, which often play a role in attempting to answer these philosophical questions. We will also look at meta-narratives in connection with postmodernism.

Meta-narrative

The term meta-narrative is a rather young term with its existence being dated from the early 20th century. A meta-narrative is a narrative or story about the stories/narratives in a society’s culture that attempts to give meaning to life and experiences. In many ways, meta-narratives try to provide answers to the big philosophical questions about life examples of these questions, along with the branch of philosophy they may be derived from are as follows.

  1. What is real (metaphysical)
  2. Where did I come from (axiology)
  3. What is true (epistemology)
  4. What is right and wrong (ethics)
  5. What is beautiful (aesthetics)

The answer to these questions help to provide legitimacy for a society and or religion. Many meta-narratives attempt to answer these questions along with others. For example, Christianity provides answers about reality, the creation of man, truth, strong position on morals and more. Within Christianity, there is a belief in God along with a teaching that the world will eventually end with some living for ever. The ideas of this meta-narrative has led to billions choosing to claim this meta-narrative as the anchor of their beliefs as well as a church structure that has been around for over 2,000 years.

Another example of a meta-narrative, at least for some, would be the theory of evolution developed by Charles Darwin. This meta-narrative has its own explanation of the creation of man, perhaps an implied meaning of what is moral, what is true, and a denial of a higher power that shaped the world. The denial of God in evolution is due to a lack of evidence that meets the criteria set by empiricism. Since the existence of God does not play by the rules of science in terms of how to know what is true, this it implies that there is evidence that perhaps God does not exists. What both religion and science have in common is a desire to try to answer some of these big questions will approaching them from different angles.

Postmodernism & Meta-narratives

Postmodernism is an enemy of meta-narratives. This is partially due to the fact that postmodernism is suspicious of who provided the answers to the questions in meta-narratives. Whoever provided the answer is asserting authority over other people who either choose to believe or were coerced the accept. In addition, by what authority do the people who provide meta-narratives have the right to provide these answers? Religious meta-narrative are grounded in the belief of a higher power and or spiritual experiences, in other words, the source is authoritative. Evolution is grounded in empirical data collected in a scientific manner. However, for the postmodern thinker both of these are tainted ways of knowing because the people who have the power are the ones who provide the answers within the meta-narrative.

The idea of rejecting all meta-narratives, whether spiritual or scientific is a meta-narrative it’s self. Postmodernism’s answer to the big philosophical questions about life is that there are no universal answers to these questions, which is a universal answer against universal answers. It is impossible to say that there are no universal truths without the statement “there are no universal truths” being universal. In addition, it is hard to provide such a statement true without any external authority whether it’s spiritual or empirical.

Within postmodernism, the idea of truth is a cultural construct. What this means is that all the questions that meta-narratives address are answered at a local level only. This is because there are barriers to knowing what is true. However, if we takes these thoughts to one conclusion we would need to ask ourselves why the postmodern response is anymore superior to the religious our scientific one. By what authority or evidence is postmodernism able to make this claim?

Some may claim that lived experiences are the source of knowing in postmodernism but this is not unique. Religions are founded based on the lived experiences of apostles, prophets, disciples. In addition, scientific experiments are highly controlled lived experiences in which an observer watches carefully what happens in a certain controlled situation and then this experience is repeated by others. Rejecting the claims of modernism which involved science and reasoning by using reasoning to reject reasoning seems strange. Claiming that there are no answers or purpose to life with no other authority than confidence should not be enough to move people from the meta-narratives they already have that are also based on confidence.

Conclusion

People want answers to questions and one of the biggest problems with postmodernism is the answer that there are no answers. Instead, postmodernism offers the ideas that there is a power struggle over what people belief that perpetuates a system of darkness without most people even being aware of it. The tenets of postmodernism are just another way of viewing the world without much indication that it is superior to priors models.

The Perceptual Process and Students

It is common for a teacher to see students staring off into space when they should be paying attention to the teacher. In this post, we will look at perception and its role in a student’s ability to focus in the classroom.

Perception 

Perception is the process by which a person gives meaning to what they choose to pay attention to. This can be the words in a book that a person sees or the conversation a person hears while speaking with a friend. A student’s perception can take in information from peers, the teacher, or other sources such as a cellphone in the classroom.

Perceptual selectivity is the process of picking a specific stimulus to focus on among several competitors. As teachers, we want our students to focus on learning and or instruction when they try to determine what to focus on perceptually.

To further complicate things, different students will focus on other things, even when they are focused and paying attention. For example, if the teacher is demonstrating how to use lab equipment, some students will focus on the equipment while others will be focused on the teacher’s words. Those who focus on the equipment do not focus on the teacher, while those who focus on the teacher’s words do not see how to use the equipment.

Once a student has focused on the stimulus that a teacher desires, the student enters the next stage, perceptual organization. At this stage, students attempt to make sense of what they are focusing on. This can be instructions from the teacher or an assignment as examples.

Several factors influence what a student will focus on, and these can be grouped into two broad categories: physical properties and dynamic properties.

Physical & Dynamic Properties

Physical properties include size because the larger something is, the easier it is to focus on it. This is why visuals need to be large so that the students can focus on them. A second physical property is the use of contrast or opposing characteristics such as light and dark or small and big. Contrast also relates to visuals. A third physical property is novelty. Nothing will get a student’s attention, like doing something unexpected.

Dynamic properties involve things that change or have an order to them. Two examples are motion and repetition. Motion is self-explanatory, but one example of this for a teacher is to move about the classroom while teaching. This may help some students to focus as the act of motion prevents the zoning out of focusing on a static object. Repetition is another prominent dynamic property. If instructions are repeated several times, it helps with retention.

The properties mentioned above are external factors. However, there are also several internal factors, such as response salience and response disposition.

Response Salience and Response Disposition

Response salience is the habit of focus on objects that relate to immediate needs and or wants. This means that a student needs to be persuaded that focusing on an assignment and or the teacher is meeting an immediate need or want. Often, a student will not pay attention because they do not see the need to. Therefore, teachers need to make sure that they can connect whatever they need to do in the classroom with some immediate relevancy.

Response disposition is a person’s habit of noticing familiar objects faster when compared to unfamiliar objects. Naturally, familiar objects will be things that a student has already learned and or be exposed to. In the classroom, sometimes students will hear what they think they hear when the reality is that they are replacing what the teacher said with something they are more familiar with. For example, it is common for students to mix up directions and or complete assignments incorrectly. Math assignments are often done incompletely because students use the wrong tools to complete a problem. The tool they select is often from ones they are already familiar with rather than the new one they just learned.

Conclusion

It is easy for a teacher to jump to conclusions when a student is not paying attention and focused. However, a teacher needs to familiar with the processes that people, including students, use when deciding what to focus on in the classroom.

Common Goals for Schools

All schools have different goals and purposes for their being, In this post, we will look at some of the different goals and views schools have for themselves.

Intellectual

People who see the goal of school as intellectual development believe that the growth of the mind and reason is one of the chief aims of schools. Students who are well-rounded mentally are able to function in various challenges in the real world as people who support an intellectual purpose may say.

The development of the mind often happens through the study of the humanities and the “Great Books” of the past. Since the great books provide examples of the sound reasoning that students need, reading these books will help students to develop their own reason and thinking skills. These beliefs are drawn heavily from perennialism and its focus on the past to prepare students for the present and future.

Economic

The economic view sees school as a place to prepare students for the workforce. This means attaining relevant skills and knowledge for employment in the world. As such, students are trained to competency in various areas that they show at least some interests in such as accounting, plumbing, computer science, etc.

With the focus on job skills and the development of the economy, it is clear that the economic view has less tolerance for the study of “Great Books” compared to the intellectual view of the school. Reading irrelevant classics does not benefit industry and is not necessary. However, developing reason and critical thinking is beneficial to industry and should be encouraged in the context of problem-solving of real-life challenges and not intellectual debates. These views are similar to essentialism and its focus on developing practical skills for the application in the real world.

The economic development view of school seems to be the primary mover in education today. Almost everything is focused on the economy and the need for properly trained workers to help the economy grow. Rarely, does industry mourn the ignorance of its workforce in matters relating to the humanities and arts. For people who are not motivated by money and building the national economy, it can be intolerable to study in such a context.

Social/Character

Others view that the purpose of schools is in helping students to conform to the norms of society. This social view believes that a teacher’s job is to help students to find their place in the social structure. What society wants is what the child should become. This echoes the views at least partially of John Dewey.

This belief can lead to a large amount of social stability but a growing undercurrent of resentment from the pressure to conform. For example, the high conformity of the United States in the 1950s was followed by the rebellious 1960s and ’70s.  In addition, this view is seen by many as being oppressive today. Society now is pushing heavily the idea of inclusion of everyone. This means that all people are accepted as they are and the norm taught today is conformity to tolerance which is now the standard.

A social purpose is also related to political activism in a democratic context. Schools should be seen as places to develop skills in democracy in order to participate in civic life after graduation. This is important because democratic participation is critical to the success of the nation in the minds of many.

A related idea to social development is character development. Character development is focused on having certain traits as an individual. Whereas in secular education these ideas are often called social traits in religious education this concept is frequently known as character. The difference being that social traits and skills can vary whereas character in the religious context is thoroughly defined by some religious text.

Multi-Purpose

It would be naive to say that any school only has one purpose. Rather, schools serve multiple views. The views listed above are present at most schools in one combination or another. For example, some schools may emphasize intellectual views while also considering economic views. Since schools have a diverse student population it makes it necessary to have diverse views for schools.

One of the dangers a school may face is having a view that is out of harmony with the local community. If people want their kids to get jobs and want the school to focus on economic purposes it would be detrimental for the school to focus on other aspects of education as if they know better. Schools are there to serve the needs of the community and need to keep this in mind when supporting students.

Conclusion

Schools are a part of a society to provide a service to the families that make up the society. Therefore, it is not surprising that different schools have different goals for themselves. The primary responsibility of a person should be to identify the local vies on education in order to understand how to function in that particular context.

Schools & Reconstructionism

Reconstructionism is a belief among many in education that schools should serve as institutions that train and developed students to enact social change. This is in stark contrast to the view that schools should serve as cultural transmitters. Reconstructionists believe that reverence for the past is neglect of current and future problems. Furthermore, reconstructionists believe in making autonomous individuals who question existing norms, such as the dominant culture, and strive to make the world a just and equitable place.

One of the main influencer’s for the philosophy of reconstructionism was George Counts and his highly influential essay/speech “Dare the School Build a New Social Order?” Counts’ work was written in the context of the Great Depression and proposes that schools should be the source of change in America. His views laid the foundation for the philosophy of reconstructionism. In this post, we will focus on two main branches of reconstructionism. These branches are economic reconstructionism and democratic reconstructionism.

Economic Reconstructionism

Economic reconstructionism tends to have a strongly suspicious view of those in power. In this view, schools are used by the elite i.e. dominant culture to conform students to the existing world view. This allows the elite to maintain power culturally and financially. Schools are either willing or ignorant participants in this system of intellectually and social oppression.

To be fair, there are examples of this taking place in history. Both  Hitler and Ferdinand Marcos use various forms of “youth camps” to educate people to support the existing power structure’s worldview. Hitler had the “Hitler Youth” while Marcos had “Village Youth” which was controlled by one of his relatives. The purpose of these groups was to teach loyalty to the status quo through the transmission of state-approved values and beliefs. Or you can say oppressive cultural transmission.

Economic reconstructionists and reconstructionism, in general, are heavily inspired by Karl Marx and his communist views. This includes a deep suspicion of capitalism, which is viewed as oppressive, and catering to the whims of the rich. Marx’s focused on how the bourgeoisie uses capitalism to oppress everyone else. The economic reconstructionist tends to focus more on how those with money use education to oppress students.

The classic text of economic reconstructionists is Pablo Friere’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.” In this text, Friere explains how he believes the elite actually use education to hold people down. This is based on his experience of teaching adults to read in Brazil. As he taught reading, Friere noticed that the problems were not only reading but the worldview and beliefs of the people. The students were passive, subservient, and indifferent to thinking critically or questioning. For Friere, this was due to how they had been trained in the past by an educational system controlled by those with power who wanted these characteristics in their workers.

There are naturally several concerns with this approach, Economic reconstructionism does not inspire cooperation between the oppressors and the oppressed. Both view each other as enemies which tends to lead to a zero-sum game in which one side wins while the other losses.

A second problem is that there is no end to who is oppressed. If one class topples another it becomes the new dominant group then has to fight off the new group of oppressed people. In other words, it is similar to a game of king of the hill. One group gains power and then uses the same oppressive measures it once despised to stay in power. This is one reason why communist states of today, who were once freedom fighters, are often oppressors now. To put it simply, the only thing that changed was who was doing the oppressing. This constant cycle of changing who is doing the oppressing can make a country unstable. In the end, the problems never end just the person who is blamed for causing them.

Democratic Reconstructionism

Democratic reconstructionist believes in training a politically active citizenry. In contrast to economic reconstructionists who often want to tear down the system, democratic reconstructionists want to work within the system to promote change.

To do this, schools should focus on teaching students about the democratic process, developing critical thinking skills, and solving local community problems. The focus is on problems rather than on conspiratorial views of oppression as with economic reconstructionist.

Democratic reconstructionists are highly influenced by John Dewey and progressivism. The ideas of changing society through the use of the existing system are things that he frequently encouraged through his views on democracy in the classroom.   This approach is less antagonistic in comparison to economic reconstructionism. Yet, the peaceful implementation of it does not happen as much anymore. For example, many protests in the name of change have become violent in ways that did not happen decades ago such as the protesting in Hong Kong and India or the violent protesting that takes place in America now.

As such, it is common to acknowledge this approach however, many schools support the more extreme view of economic reconstructionism even though they may believe that they are supporters of democratic reconstructionism. Just examine how people speak only of removing “privilege” and bringing equality even by force if necessary in the name of democracy

Conclusion

Change is a part of life. There will be times when life is good and when it is bad. Reconstructionism struggles with this cycle of good and bad. The primary tenet is that there should be no bad or suffering. However, whenever the oppressed takes over they simply become the new oppressors.

School as a Socializing Agent: Cultural Preservation

Many would agree that education, as found in schools, as an obligation to socialize students to help them fit into society. With this goal in mind, it is logical to conclude that there will be different views on how to socialize students. The two main extreme positions on this continuum of socialization would be

  • Socializing through the preservation of cultural form on generation to the next
  • Socializing through the questioning of prior norms and pushing for social change

As I have already mentioned, these may be the two extremes on a continuum going from complete and total cultural preservation to complete and total anarchy. In this post, we will focus the discussion on schools as agents of cultural preservation.

School as  Cultural Preserver

In the view of the school as a cultural preserver, the responsibility of the school to society is to support the dominant ideas and views of the culture. This is done through teaching and explaining things from a dominant group’s perspective and excluding or censoring other viewpoints to some degree. In other words, American schools should produce Americans who support and live American values, Chinese schools should produce Chinese who support and live Chinese values, etc.

This approach to schooling has been used throughout history to compel people from minority groups to conform to the views of the dominant group. In the US, there were boarding schools for Native Americans to try to “civilize” them. This was also seen in many parts of Asia in which ethnic tribes were sent to government schools, forbidden to use their mother tongue in place of the national language, and pledge devotion and loyalty to the dominant culture. Through the process of weakening local identities, it is believed by many that it will help to strengthen the state or at least maintain the status quo. If you are in a position of dominance either of these would benefit you.

What this view lacks in diversity, due to minority views being absent, it makes up for it through stability. Schools that support cultural preservation show students their place in society and how to interact with those around them. Through the limits of a specific predefined worldview, it lowers but does not reduce internal social strife.

Problems and Pushback

A natural consequence of schools as cultural preservers is a strong sense of pride in those who belong to the culture that is being preserved. This can lead, at times, to a sense of superiority and pride. Of course, if you are not from the dominant culture, it can be suffocating to constantly have other people’s values and beliefs push upon you.

This sense of exclusion can lead to serious challenges from minority groups. There are countless examples of this in the United States where it seems everyone is pushing back against the establish dominant culture. There are those who are pushing for Black, Latino, Asian, feminist, and other worldviews to be a part of the education of the school. This is not inherently a problem, however, if everyone has an equal voice and everyone is talking at the same time this means that nobody is listening. In other words, a voice needs an ear as much as an ear needs a voice.

Conclusion

It is convenient to take an extreme position and say that using school to preserve culture is wrong. The problem with this is that the people who say this want to preserve the belief that using school to preserve culture is wrong. In other words, it is not the preservation of culture that is the problem. The real battle is over what culture is going to be preserved. Whether it is the current dominant view or the view of a challenger.

Essentialist Teacher

Essentialism was an educational philosophy that was reacting to the superficiality of instruction that was associated with progressivism and the aristocratic air that was linked with perennialism. Essentialism was a call to teach the basics. This position of providing a no frill basic education for employment is the primary position of most educational positions in the world.

1Background

Starting in the 1930’s, essentialism is based on the philosophies of idealism and realism. Essentialism supporters have stressed the need to return to a more subject centered approach vs child centered position. Transmission of knowledge is more important than transforming society.

There were two major moments in American history that propelled essentialism to the forefront of education. The first, happened in 1957 when the Russians launch the Sputnik satellite. Critics of progressivism stated that all this child-centered teaching had crippled an entire generation who lacked basic skills in math and science to compete with the Russians. This was a major blow to progressivism as schools refocused on teaching math and science and having a subject centered curriculum.

In essentialism was not already triumphant it certainly was by the 1980’s when the article “A Nation at Risk” was published. This article stated that American education was mediocre and lead to schools needing to focus on the five basics. By the 1990’s such ideas as “core knowledge” or “common core” was being pushed. Such ideas demonstrate how there are basic truths and ideas that supposedly all students need to have.

Philosophy

School is a place where students master basic skills in preparation for working in society. This includes the three R’s (reading, writing, arithmetic) and some of the humanities. The subject matter cannot always be interesting or even immediately relevant for students.

The mind needs to be trained and some memorization is required. However, there is  less of a focus on raw intellectualism such as is found in perennialism. The center of learning is the teacher and the students are there to follow the teacher.

Essentialism has similarities to perennialism. However, there are differences such as the idea that Essentialism does not have a problem with adapting ideas from progressivism for their on own purposes.   There is also a general indifference to time honor classics  in the humanities for the training of the mind.

In Education

An essentialist teacher is going to focus on developing skills and competency rather the learning knowledge for the sake of knowledge. There will be a focus on the basics of education and the classroom will be subject centered. There will not be much tolerance for meeting needs or understanding differences among students.

Focus on job skills and training towards employment would also be stressed. The focus of the education is in training people to be equipped for the workplace and not for personal fulfillment. If students enjoy what they learn this is an added bonus but not necessarily critical for the learning experience.

Conclusion

Essentialism was in many ways a working-class version of perennialism. Stripped of the humanities and focused on developing job skills, essentialism is the engine of education in many parts of American education. As long as the economy and employment are most important to people we will continue to see a continued support for essentialism.

Perennialist Teacher

Perennialism was a strong educational movement in the early part of the 20th century. It pushed a call to return to older ways of learning and instruction in order to strengthen the man in preparation for life. In this post, we will look briefly at the history, philosophy, and how a teacher with a perennialist perspective may approach their classroom.
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Background

Perennialism came about as a strong reaction against progressivism. The emotional focus of the child-centered approach of progressivism was seen as anti-intellectual by perennialists. In place of child- center focus was a call for return to long establish truth and time honored classics.

Supporters of perennialism wanted a liberal education, which implies an education rich with the classical works of man. The purpose of education was the development of the mind rather than the learning of a specific job skill. This position has often been seen as elitist and has clashed with what the working class need for the education of  their children to be in a more practical manner.

A major influencer of perennialism is neo-scholasticism, which is also a supporter of classical studies and was based  on idealism. Perennialism was originally focused higher education and high school but by the 1980’s its influence had spread to elementary education. Prominent supporters of this style include Motimer Adler and Maynard Hutchins.

Philosophical Position

Perennialism believes that people are rational rather than primarily emotional beings. This is the opposite of progressivism which is always worried about feelings. Furthermore, human nature is steady and predictable which allows for everyone to have the same education. Thus, the individual is lost in a strong perennial classroom.

The focus of the classroom is not on the student but rather on the subject matter. The classroom is preparation for life and not design for real-life situations as in progressivism. The mind needs to be developed properly before taking action. Through the study of the greats it is assumed this will help the student become great.

Perennialism and Education

A perennialist teacher would have a classroom in which all the students are treated the same way. Material is taught and delivered to the students whether they like it or not. This is because material is taught that is good for them rather than what they like.

This material would include ancient time tested ideas because that is where truth is and exposure to this great minds would make  great mind. The learning experiences would be mostly theoretical in nature because training in this manner allows for intellectual development.

The classroom might actually be a little cold by the progressivist’standard that focuses on group work and interaction. This is because of the rational focus of perennialism. When the assumption is everyone  is rational and only needed exposure to the content with or without an emotional experience.

Conclusion

Reacting is not always the best way to push for change. Yet this is exactly what brought perennialism into existence. Seeing the lost of absolute truth and long held traditions, perennialism strove to protect these pillars of education. There are some problems. For example, their emphasis on the rational nature of man seems strange as the average person is lacking in the ability to reason and control their emotions. In  addition, the one-size fits all when it comes to education is obviously not true as we need people who have a classic education but also people who can build a house or fix a car. In other words, we need vocational training as well in order to have a balanced society.

Another problem is the fallacy of the appeal to tradition. Just because something is a classic does not make it truth or worthy of study. This simply allow the traditions of the past to rule the present. If all people do is look at the past how will they develop relevant ideas for the present or future?

The main benefit of these different schools of thought is that through these conflicts of opinion a balanced approach to learning can take place for students.

Progressive Teacher

Progressivsim is an educational philosophy that in many ways is the foundation of educational theory in the United States. In this post, we will look at the background of progressivism as well as the beliefs and how it may be practiced by a teacher.
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Background

Progressivsim is yet another reaction to traditional teacher. The era in which this philosophy was developed was the late 19th to early 20th century. This was a time of rapid change and the development of the philosophy called pragmatism, which had a strong influence on progressivism.

Pragmatism had such beliefs as that there was no fixed truth and that whatever works is true. Progressivism adapted and expended on this idea in the context of education. Another major source of influence on progressivism was the work of Freud who encourage self-expression in his writings.

The primary movers in propagating progressivism includes William Kilpatrick, George Counts, John Dewey, and others. This movement dominated educational theory in America from the 1920’s to the 1950’s until the launching of the Sputnik satellite by Russian moved Americans away from child centered self expressive education to an education focused on the essentials in order to compete in a global competition.

Philosophical Position

In the classroom progressivism does not support a teacher-centered approach, nor a heavy focus on textbooks or memorization. there is even concerns with the classroom environment in that the use of fear or physical punishment is discouraged.

The child is the centered of learning rather than the subject. This means that the interest of the child should be taken into consideration when developing learning experiences. Of course, there is a limit to the child’s input as the teacher has a certain responsibility for the learning. However, to even consider the child’s opinion on learning was somewhat revolutionary at the time.

Students need to be active rather than passive. This  means that lectures are unusually because the student not active when listening. Learning by doing is a primary assumption of progressivism. The teacher and the student interact and learn from action rather than from listening.

In order to establish active learning, problem solving is one of the primary tools for teaching. Problem-solving leads to a whole lot of thinking in a systematic manner in ways that are tied to reality rather than to theory.

Lastly, progressivism supports the idea of a democratic classroom. This means that everyone is a learner, including the teacher, and the learning environment encourages discussion and debate. The motive behind this is preparing students to participate in a democratic world.

Progressivism in the Classroom

There is little here to add that was not already mentioned. A progressive teacher is going to support a warm and engaging classroom. The teacher will see themselves as a facilitator of knowledge rather than as a dictator of it. Students will work in groups or alone depending on interest and the content learned  will have input from them. There will be few lectures and more hands on learning activities with a focus on the thought process rather than the product of the  learning.

Conclusion

Progressivism is yet another philosophical system that claimed to have the answer for learning only to eventually lead t people’s disappointment. It was hard to assess learning during the progressives era due to the open nature of problem solving. In addition, when the Russians beat the Americans into space. Focusing on the child simply became impractical due to the perceived threat of Russia. In many ways, progressivism was successful because when it was no longer practical it was abandon and this is something that progressivism teaches.

Postmodern Teacher

During the last half of the 20th century the philosophical school of post-modernism arose. Just as with existentialism, post-modernism is a school of thought that is anti-definition and anti-organized. As such, it is hard to pinned down exactly what post-modernist believe and stand for in a way that this could be done for older philosophies. In many, ways, as we get closer to the present era the ideas and tenets of the current philosophies become almost invisible  perhaps because we are living directly under their effect rather than looking at their influence in the past.
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Background

Post-modernism, like almost all philosophies it seems, is a reaction  to modernism.  Modernism primary tenet was to understand the world through the use of reason. Modernist believed that the world had fixed laws that could be observed and understood. Science was the way to understand reality and attain truth. There was also this sense of continuous progress, which is something that is still repeated in the media today.

However, modernism did not solve all problems and lead to a Utopian existence. Instead, throughout the late 19th and 20th century there were consequences of scientific and social progress from pollution, to atomic destruction, wars, famine, disease, etc. It seemed as if every time science solved one problem it eventually led to more problems that were not anticipated.

The foundation for post-modernism was laid by Friedrich Nietzsche who claimed that truth and God are dead. This shifted knowledge from something that was absolute to something that was human generated.

Pragmatism and existentialism further laid the groundwork for post-modernism with pragmatism’s position that knowledge was provisional and constantly changing. Existentialism simply reinforces Nietzsche’s position that knowledge is constructed rather than discovered.

Perhaps one of the strongest influences on post-modernism is Marxism. Karl Marx was focused on class struggles from an economic perspective. Within Postmodernism this was extended to other aspects of society including feminism, racism, sexism, LGBT,  weightism, or generally any minority group who is crying out against the perceived “privilege” of the majority.

Philosophical Implications

Postmodernists essential question everything and it almost seems as if they tear down everything with no real replace for what they are tearing down. It is permissible to have opinions about anything but there is no truth except for the truth that there is no truth because they say so.

An example of questioning reality itself  is in the work of Jacques Derrida and his work on deconstructionism. According to Derrida, language has blocked us from understanding reality because we are using words to describe this reality. This means that whenever we read or examine text we have to unpack or deconstruct the assumptions that the author of the text had in terms of their word choices and context. This is critical because the dominant group writes in a way that excludes the minorities and those without power. Of course, you would need to support Derrida’s words even though they may not be representative of reality either

Other postmodern philosophers suggest that reality is socially constructed by those who have power. Those in power shape reality to benefit themselves. There are examples of this in history, as people in power normally portray the powerless negatively. This has even happened in the world of science where views on bloodletting and even the consumption of cocaine.

After identifying these injustices, the postmodernist is not content to identify problems but to push change. The marginal groups need to rise up from the shackles of their oppressors. Pragmatism push change slightly but postmodernism can almost be revolutionary in its language for transformation. Everything is viewed with an eye towards suspicions that begets change except for the idea of viewing everything with skepticism that leads to change.

When everything is viewed as oppression eventually everything is overturned. Whoever gains power will then be viewed as oppressive until they too are overthrown. Eventually, there is nothing left. The problem with postmodernism is not that it identifies problems but that they have no solution beyond tearing everything down over and over again.

In Education

A postmodern teacher is going to be skeptical of absolute truth. They will stress the idea of doubting the text and trying to identify the inconsistencies in an author’s argument. There will be a focus on minority groups and how they are oppressed by those who are privileged.

With deconstructionism, students are trained to be sensitive to language and its use. This is perhaps one reason why such terms as politically correct are used today. People have been trained to be sensitive to language that does not fit the narrative and to identify hurtful language as almost dangerous.

All opinions are expected to be embraced and appreciated no matter how much they lack in validity and credibility unless they are defined as insensitive. Students will never be called upon to store and share the knowledge of the past. Rather, students are change agents who are called to overthrow the social injustice of the planet. This is not revolution as Marx saw it but rather reconstruction of what was deconstructed.

The curriculum is a process and not based on content. The teacher is also a social justice warrior. What is needed is people who challenge the status quo rather than work within it. Therefore, postmodernist thought is much more people in the softer sciences rather than in STEM fields. STEM requires stability in order to expand technology and make discoveries and money. Unfortunately, social stability is not required as much for a sociology or liberal arts major.  The idealistic nature of postmodernism denies the reality that life has never been fair ever in the entire history of humanity.

Pragmatic Teacher

In this post, we will take a look at pragmatism. This philosophy has played a critical role in shaping ideas about education for a long time. In particular, we will look at the characteristics of pragmatism, its philosophical implications, and how it may manifest it’s self in the classroom.

Background

Pragmatism is a uniquely American 19th century contribution to philosophy with some of the primary influences in this school being such people Charles Perce, William James, and John Dewey. The era in which pragmatism was developed was the industrial revolution and an era of great change. Science was gravitating towards the idea of evolution, which at the time was astounding and even the religious world was in turmoil with people speaking of the end of the world. This environment of rapid change was deeply influencing the thoughts of many people.

With all the chaos swirling throughout the world pragmatism came to the point that there were no ideals or principles to look for. Rather, the focus was on what works and benefits the most than on conforming to an external standard.  This position has had a profound impact on education through the work of the progressives as we shall see.

Philosophical Implications

There are no absolutes with a pragmatist. If there is some form of ultimate reality there is no way to know it here. In other words, while Plato bemoaned the cave and Socrates stated that the cave is all there is, a pragmatist may say that the world of forms is possible but since all we know for sure is the cave we should try to make it as nice as comfortable as possible.

One of the sources of argument that pragmatist make about the constant state of change implying a total lack of absolute truth is changes in science. Examples include, moving from a geocentric worldview to a heliocentric one, or moving from a creationist account of life to an evolutionary one. Since these ideas have changed there must not be any absolute truths to hold on to even though the realm of science is notorious for constant changed.

With all the chaos of the world, pragmatist has decided that truth is what works. Knowledge is based on experience. Through trial and error people learn how to deal with various problems. It is this active process of constructing knowledge through experience that knowledge is constructed. Knowledge is not external or outside the person, instead it is created through interaction with the world. This is a major shift in thinking from pass viewpoint and requires that the individual be an active rather than passive learner because they must interact with the world.

There is a separation in the mind of the pragmatist between knowledge and belief. Beliefs are private while knowledge is publicly available., which means it can be observed and verified by others. True knowledge or truth is relative because of the unstable and changing world that we live in.

Since truth is relative morals and values are relative as well. Local societies decide for themselves what is right and wrong and not an external standard. However, this does not mean anything goes. Stealing is disdained in most societies because it does not work as it tends to encourage crime and chaos. The same for murder. This does not mean to the pragmatist that there are universal moral laws, instead it is simply an indication that different groups of people have had similar experiences with stealing and murder and have made the same conclusion that this does not work.

Pragmatism and Education

A unique belief of pragmatism about students is that they need to be active learners. Students need to experience the world around them through learning activities. School is not preparation but is rather part of life it’s self. Therefore, life long learning is to be expected and not just a temporary period of life in which it is needed for studying.

The  teacher is an expert guide who helps the students. They  are a guide because the world changes too quickly to just dictate material to students. This means that the teacher is learning as well with the advantage of more experience living in a world of flux. Since truth is changing, there is no fix curriculum from yesteryear. Instead, the student’s interests are the center of how  the curriculum is built.

With the focus on the environment, the pragmatic teacher is focused heavily on having students impact the world. This means that an emphasis on social action is a part of the pragmatist classroom. In some classroom social change and attaining social goals (ie social justice warrior) is the entire purpose of education. Other philosophies were trying to maintain the status quo but pragmatism is trying to overturn it if it works.

Conclusion

Pragmatism, like most new movements of their time, is simply a reaction to what came before in response to the challenges of the current context. Pragmatist reject absolute truth except for the absolute truth that there is no absolute truth. The world was truly changing quickly when this school of thought was born. However, unlike Plato, who was also experiencing rapid change and decide to search for absolutes in order to find comfort, the pragmatist reject absolute truth for the comfort of constant change. Instead of trying to preserve knowledge it was better to go with the flow as long as it worked.

Existentialist Teacher

This post will examine the mysterious position of existentialism,  which is basic a school of thought that denies that it is a school of thought.  We will look at the origins of existentialism, the characteristics, and its role in education.

Background

Existentialism is all about the individual. In an interesting paradox, existentialism is so individualistic that they do not see themselves as a group with set of beliefs as other philosophies do. There is a rejection of any unified body of beliefs, thoughts, or system.

Early proponents of existentialism include Soren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche. These two 19th century philosophers were reacting to the nature of Christianity during their time. Kierkegaard focused on emphasizing the responsibility of the individual believer and their choices within religion. Nietzsche went in a different direction and became convince that there was no God and that man was responsible for his actions alone. This conclusion  eventually drove Nietzsche crazy in a literal manner.

Between the extremes of Kierkegaard and  Nietzsche is where most beliefs of existentialism are. Primarily, existentialism is trying to regain the lost of the individual. This sense of lost may have come from more and more people living in cities to work for others along with the growth of the  government in providing services. The existentialist longed for the day when people were independent and could do what they wanted in returned for the responsibility for their actions.

Philosophical Implications

According to existentialism,  a person must define who they are. Defining who you are is not left to an Absolute Self or Natural Law but to the person who existence. Reality is found within the individual person. This is a major shift from idealism view that reality is beyond this world and realism’s belief that reality is in the physical world.

Truth is based on a person’s choice. People believe what they want because  they want to. This seems confusing but it is laying the foundation for post-modernism min the near future with its view of relative truth. Now, the individual is the source of authority and not any other code.

With a lack of external authority existentialism has to determine right and wrong with no source of authority. This source of freedom has been called a slavery to freedom by some. Slavery is bad but paradoxically too much freedom can be burdensome as well since there is no guidance in terms of how to act. Most people want some freedom but perhaps nobody wants complete freedom as this would be injurious to themselves and others if they could truly do whatever they wanted.

Existentialism and Education

A teacher with an existentialist perspective would be surprised at how students are taught. They would see it as oppressive and even with tendency towards being a form of propaganda. Students would need much more choice and responsibility for their own actions since the current form of teaching destroys individualism.

The existentialist teacher is not the center of the instruction but rather a facilitator. The goal is to help students better understand who they are as individuals. This also means that the student should have a choice in what they learn and that the curriculum needs to be somewhat flexible. The goal is the development of the individual and not the society as the society does not care for the ultimate development of the individual.

Conclusion

Existentialism is a system of thought that claims not to be a system because everyone within the system wants total freedom.  This is contradictory yet considered consistent among existentialist. The reaction they have towards the growing power of large society gives this philosophy a romantic longing for almost a wild pre-industrialization world. However, though many people may not agree with some of the tenets of this group many do wish that they could have at least a little more personal freedom and individuality.

Neo-scholastic Teacher

Scholasticism and Neo-Scholasticism is a philosophy that has had a stronger influence in Christian education rather than in secular circles. This post will explore the characteristics of these philosophies as well as their role in education.

Background

Neo-Scholasticism began as simply scholasticism and was simultaneously a movement and a philosophy that sprang up during the medieval time period in Europe somewhere between 1050 and 1350 originating in the early universities. This was primarily a movement within the Catholic church as they controlled higher education at this time in Europe. The scholars of this movement were not as concern about discovery new truth as it was with proving and establishing the validity of existing truth. In other words, Neo-Scholasticism was primarily reactionary in nature.

The reason for the reactionary nature of Neo-Scholasticism was the rediscovery of the writings of Aristotle. These writings had been lost for centuries but had been preserved in the Islamic nations. Through interactions with the Muslim world through trade and war Aristotle’s writings were translated from Arabic into Latin. Aristotle’s realistic views were a challenge to the Platonic/idealistic views of the Christian church.

Scholars, for whatever reason, were convinced that church teachings had to be harmonized with the writings of Aristotle. Why religious teachings and beliefs had to bow to the influence of one Greek philosopher is subject of debate but perhaps the status of Aristotle compelled the church to merge his ideas with their own in order to maintain intellectual leadership of Europe.

The leader of this merger of faith and reason was Thomas Aquinas. He proposed that people should learn as much as they can through human reason and have faith in matters that cannot be reasoned about. Therefore, at the heart of scholasticism was human reason which in many ways had displaced faith.

Neo-Scholasticism is the modern equivalent of Scholasticism.  The primary difference is that Neo-Scholasticism has religious and secular branch whereas Scholasticism had only one main branch or school of thought.

Philosophical Implications

Scholasticism focus was on accommodating the philosophy of Aristotle with christian thought. Therefore, many of Aristotle’s beliefs are reinterpreted as much as possible to be consistent with Christianity. For example, Aristotle spoke of the Unmoved Mover, which he stated was the first cause of all other causes in the universe. Aquinas equated the Unmoved Mover with God.

Reality had a dualistic nature to it for the scholastic. The natural world was understood through reasoning while the supernatural world was available through revelation and intuition. Truth could be self-evident such as “2+2 = 4” or it can depend on observed experience such as “The average life expectancy is 72 years.” The greatest truth are the unchanging self-evident such as those found in mathematics rather than observed experiential truth.

Morality is governed by reason. There is an assumption that people are rational at their core. The more rational the higher moral quality a person should have.

Neo-Scholasticism and Education

The teacher’s role from a Neo-Scholastic perspective is to help rational students develop their reasoning, will power, and memory. The teacher is the center of the education process and works with students to transfer information. The subject matter takes precedent over the students’ interest.

With  its religious roots, Neo-Scholasticism see the teacher as a spiritual leader. This involves discipleship and even discipline at times. Only through this process can the student acquiring understanding of the unalterable truths of the world.

The curriculum of Neo-Scholasticism would include the humanities, math, and foreign languages (primarily Greek and Latin). The humanities allow students to understand the logic and thinking of great minds, math demonstrates unchanging truths, and foreign languages provides rigors training for the mind. The mind is a muscle that must be strengthened through examining the works of other men.

Conclusion

Neo-Scholasticism has not had the impact on education that idealism or realism has. The emphasis on teacher-centered instruction and memorizing is a major departure from modern forms of teaching. A good memory is not the same as a critical thinker. As with all schools of thought, Neo-Scholasticism suffers from a lack of balance. What is really needed is a flexible position that varies depending on the context.

Metaphysics & Education

Metaphysics is the study of reality and the nature or character of it. This branch  of philosophy deals primarily with what is real. This may seem like an obvious question with an obvious answer. However, different people answer this question in different ways based on what they believe about the nature of reality and how we come to know it.

There are at least four sub-branches of metaphysics  that attempt to address the question of the nature of reality. These four branches are…

  • Cosmology
  • Ontology
  • Anthropology
  • Theology

We will look at each of these and then try to examine how metaphysics manifest itself in education.

Cosmology

Cosmology deals with the origins of the universe. The main views of the origins of the universe can be seen as a continuum from the universe was created or design by God or the other extreme that everything about the universe has happened by accident as is commonly viewed by evolution.  A middle ground along this continuum would be theistic evolution, which states that a divine being used evolution to create the world.

The beliefs an  individual has about cosmology affects other aspects of their life, education, and how they interpret what they experience. For example, an atheist scientist see nature and is awed by the random movement of natural selection to create such beauty. However, a theist would see the same evidence in nature and be led to the conclusion that God has created a beautiful climate. When these two sides meet they cannot agree because they have different assumptions or beliefs about origins and interpret what they see based on these beliefs.

Ontology

Ontology is the study of existence. This is probably one of the harder positions to understand. However, ontology deals with such ideas as whether reality is physical or spiritual, or a combination of the two. In addition, Ontology addresses whether reality is orderly and stable.

People’s beliefs about being can impact how the approach life. If there is nothing there is no reason to care or do anything. However, if there is something beyond this life and life was created with purpose this will alter a person’s behavior as they consider how they may be held accountable for their actions.

Anthropology

Anthropology is the study of man. Some questions that anthropology focuses on in particular is the relationship between the mind and the body. Is it the mind or the body the primary agent of behavior. Other questions include examining whether people or good or evil or morally neutral. Lastly, anthropology addresses the question of the freedom people have. Do people have choice or is their behavior determined by their environment?

The nature vs nurture argument is an old argument about the condition of man. The ultimate question is who is responsible for the actions that people take. The answer to this question evolves around views of the will.

Theology

Theology is the study of the nature of God and plays a profound role at least indirectly in all philosophy. Atheist strongly believe there is no God. As such, the support primarily science as a way of understanding reality. Theists believe there is a God or gods and this natural affects how they view realty.

Even among theists there is disagreement over how many gods there are. Polytheists believe in many gods while monotheists believe in one God. Pantheists believe god(s) is in everything and that they are gods. The position a person has on God can change how they view the world. Monotheists often believe in having a relationship with  one God in order to prepare for the reality of death in this life and the promise of living forever. Polytheists tend to have a contractual quid pro quo relationship with many different gods in order to do better in this world now and smooth the transition to living another life via some form of reincarnation.

Metaphysics and Education

Metaphysics manifest itself in many ways in education. In terms of cosmology and theology, most schools support the idea that the world came about by chance and that life evolved from almost nothing billions of years ago. This is related to theology in that most schools doubt the existence of God being openly atheistic in nature or may at most be agnostic in nature.   In a non-Western context, gods or polytheism is acknowledged and accepted in everyday life but traditional science and atheistic origins of the universe are generally taught in school. This can lead to a dual world view at times.

In terms of ontology and anthropology, the views on ontology vary by culture in education. In the West, the spiritual aspect of man is not acknowledged in education due in part to the focus on science. However, this is beginning to change with the emphasis on mindfulness and meditation in public education. In the East, there is a more open view towards the spiritual nature of man.

In terms of education, students are generally taught that man is inherently good but  may be corrupted by his environment and culture. In the East, education teaches that man is good by nature but may make mistakes. Culture is rarely criticized in eastern education.

Conclusion

Metaphysics is a difficult concept to try to address and understand. The important thing to remember is that metaphysics deals with the question of what is reality and that different people answer this question i different ways. How people answer these questions depends in part on their beliefs about cosmology, ontology, anthropology, and theology.

Realistic Teacher

Realism is another philosophy that has had a tremendous impact on education and the world in general. The modern world seems to be almost exclusively realist in terms of its worldview thanks in part to the scientific position that most individuals take on matters.

In this post, we will look briefly at the characteristics of realism. In addition, we will also examine how a teacher who believes in realism may approach teaching and realism’s impact on the broader educational process.

Background

Just as Plato was reacting to the change that was surrounding him when he developed his views on idealism, his pupil Aristotle react to idealism by proposing realism. Realism states that objects we perceive with our senses are independent of our mind. In other words, what see exist independently of us and our mind.

However, realism is not a rejection of idealism but in many ways an extension of it. Aristotle thought that everything was made of a combination of form and matter. Form was similar to the ideals of Plato’s idealism and matter was the new contribution that Aristotle was making which is a focus on the material aspect of an object. Form or ideas can exist without matter, such as the ideal or form democracy. Yet matter cannot exist with a form, such as a physical chair with the idea or form of a chair.

Aristotle further proposed that studying the world or matter would lead to a better understanding of universal ideas. This concept has had a strong impact on research in the development of inductive methodology also known as the scientific method.

Philosophical Implications

Reality as seen through idealism is the physical world. The world is similar to a giant machine in which humans are both passively acted upon and actively influencing as well. There are also natural laws that govern the physical world that can be discovered through observation.

Knowledge is gained only through the senses. Something is true because  it was observed. The natural law is within the reality of the natural world and the realist is looking for this through specific examples. This inductive process helps the realist to understand the world around him. In many ways, the Natural Law of the realist is the Absolute Self of the idealist. The difference is in how each is discovered. The idealist thinks about the Absolute Self and knows through intuition that there is an external standard. The realist observes the Natural Law with is senses which confirms the Natural Law’s reality.

Natural Law also extends into the realm of ethics. It is through observing nature and the world that what is right and wrong, beautiful and ugly can be determined according realism. In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson  alludes to realism when he speaks of “inalienable rights.” In other words, Jefferson was proposing that some of the rights of man are obvious if one examines the world in which they live.

Realism and Education

A realistic teacher stresses that students learn through their senses. This involves teaching methodologies that have students doing and experiencing things rather than just listening. This can include such activities as field trips, group work, projects etc.

On a darker side, a realist teacher may believe that students are a product of their environment. This has been interpreted as meaning that students do not truly have choice as they are simple responding to the stimuli in their environment. This has lead to a push in education for a focus on behaviorism and even classical conditioning. Furthermore, most learning objectives are behaviorist in nature because a teacher can “see” a behavior which is evidence that the student can do something.  Off course, this has clash with cognitivism (idealism in the 20th century) which focuses on the mind rather than the behavior.

The teacher’s role is to provide sound information about the reality of the physical world and the Natural Law. This is further supported by a focus on math and science, which today is viewed as a focus on STEM majors. One thing all STEM majors have in common is a focus on what can be seen and a disinterest in the realm of ideas and the highly theoretical. Critical thinking is focus almost exclusively on  problem solving and never for the development of an opinion. What really matters are facts and not so much what people think about them.

With the focus on the senses, one thing the teacher and the students will notice is that the world is in a constant state of change. This has led to a rejection of a permanent Natural Law due to the ephemeral quality of reality.

Conclusion

Realism is the primary worldview of education  today. Seeing is believing as the saying goes. Almost nothing is taken seriously unless there is clear observable evidence to support it. Of course, many people believe that feelings and personal experience counts as evidence. This is because feelings and personal experience have actual occurred in the individual person’s life.

Idealistic Teacher

Idealism is an ancient philosophy that had a strong influence on education through the 20th century. Recently, this position has been overshadowed by realism, however, the influence of idealism can still be felt in education to this day. In this post, we will describe idealism, explain its implications, and examine how an idealistic teacher views education.

Description

Idealism is focused on reality as consisting of ideas, the mind, and the self. In other words, the mind makes the material world rather than the other way around as found in realism. Plato is the primary author of this philosophy.

The context of Plato’s life was one of change. This was during the time of the Persian Wars in which Greece, Athens in particular, did remarkably well. War naturally brought new ideas to both countries which was leading to changes. In addition, there was a push for individualism from a group of philosophers known as the sophists which were straining the communal culture of Athens.

Some have stated that Plato’s idealism was a reaction against this threat of change. Truth for Plato was permanent and unchanging. Since the world was changing, there could be no truth in this world. Truth must be found somewhere else. The real truth was found in the world of ideas a place that was beyond the senses used in this world.

Plato has rather negative views towards the senses. In his “Allegory of the Cave”, Plato essentially asserts that people who go by their senses are chained and trapped inside a cave of ignorance where they are bound to watch shadows of reality. Those who break free from these chains are those who have gone beyond their senses and used their intellect to reach the world of ideas. Naturally, only an elite handful of chosen ones or philosopher kings are able to do this.

Philosophical Implications

For idealists, the source of knowledge comes from intuition (knowing without conscious thought), revelation (knowing through supernatural encounters), and rationalism (knowing through conscious thought). What is important here is what is missing, which is empiricism (knowledge through the senses). Idealists do not require empirical verification of what is true. In the world today, this is almost laughable but was a core component of education for centuries.

Ethically, idealism emphasizes a belief in an external ethical standard for man. Man cannot be the one to decide what is right or wrong. Instead, morals are determined by the world of ideas through the intellect. There is something called the Absolute self that the individual self is trying to imitate. This Absolute Self is considered by many to be God as seen from a Christian perspective. Again this is something that would not be considered seriously by many educators.

There is an eternal consistency to truth for an idealist.  Something is true when it fits with the harmony of the universe. Even art must make sense and must be used in a way that is consistent with the perfect form of the world of ideas. This explains the sonority of early forms of music that have been lost gradually over time.

Idealism and Education

An idealistic teacher is going to focus on the development of the student’s mind. There is a constant striving for perfection in the study of various subjects. Speaking of subjects, the curriculum consists primarily of the humanities and math. History and literature help students to see what is ideal for humans and the study of math is powerful because of its universal nature along with it being self-evidently true. Generally, any subject that brings students into contact with ideas rather than things should be considered for the curriculum

The teacher’s responsibility is to pass their knowledge of the ultimate reality to the student as the teacher has more experience in this and the Absolute Self. Therefore, the teacher is an example for the student. Knowledge is seen as something that is transferred from the teacher to the student either verbally or in writing. This implies that lecturing and direct instruction are key methodologies.

One of the more shocking positions of the idealistic teacher is that the school is not an agent of change. The idealistic teacher and the idealistic school do not train and educate “change agents”. Rather, since absolute truth is unchanging the school should naturally reflect an unchanging nature and support the status quo. Anyone familiar with education in universities today would find this difficult to accept.

Conclusion

With a focus on an otherworldly perfect standard,  idealism is strongly out of place in a world that is governed or perhaps controlled by what they see and experience. Whenever people try to appeal to some sort of unqualified standard it is looked upon almost with ridicule. The exception seems to be when people share an emotional objection to something. Feelings have replaced some form of ethereal standard because emotions are experienced rather than thought about.

The overemphasis on ideals is perhaps the weakness of idealism. Plato thought that people who only rely on their senses were trapped in a cave and unaware of true reality. However, the same can be said of a person who is trapped in the world of ideas. The person who is truly free is the one who can move between the senses and the mind or who can move between the reality of t ideas and the physical world. Moving between these positions provides a flexibility that neither has by itself.

Motivating Students

It can be frustrating for a teacher to spend hours in preparation and planning activities only to have to students who have no desire to learn or enjoy the learning experience. There are ways to help students to be more motivated and engaged in their learning. This post will provide some basic ideas.

Types of Motivation

In simple terms, there are two types of motivation. These two types of motivation are intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is an inner drive to do something or in other words to be self-motivated.

Extrinsic motivation is when the push to do something comes from outside of the person. Due to uncontrollable circumstances, the person is pushed to do something.

Each teacher needs to decide which form of motivation to focus on or whether to try and address both in their classroom. A teacher with more of a cognitivist view of teaching will probably lean towards developing intrinsic motivation. On the other hand, a teacher who has more of a behavioral view of teaching may focus more on influencing extrinsic motivation.

Ways to Motivate

Involvement

Nothing motivates like having to help those around you. Getting students involved in their learning and in the management of the class often affects motivation. When students are called to help they realize that they have a role and that others are depending on them. This brings a naturally social pressure to fulfill their role.

Make it Relevant

Teachers often fall into the trap of knowing what’s best for students and sticking to teaching this. However, the student does not always agrees with what is best for them and thus are not motivated to learn.

To alleviate this problem, a teacher must provide immediate applications of knowledge. If the student can see how they can use the information now rather than several years from now they will probably be more motivated to learn it.

One way to develop relevancy is discovery learning. Instead of teaching everything in advance let the students work until they can go no further. When they realize they need to learn something they will be ready to listen.

Acknowledge Excellence

When students are doing good work, it is important to let them know. This will help them to understand what is acceptable learning behavior. People like positive reinforcement and this needs to come from a person of authority like a teacher.

A slightly different way to acknowledge excellence is simply to expect it. When the standard is set high often students naturally want to reach for it because they often want the approval of the teacher.

Conclusion

We have all faced situation when we were not interested or motivated to learn and study. It is important to remember this when dealing with students. They have the same challenge with motivation as we all do.

Critical Thinking Strategies

Developing critical thinking is a primary goal in many classrooms. However, it is difficult to actually achieve this goal as critical thinking is an elusive concept to understand. This post will provide practical ways to help students develop critical thinking skills.

Critical Thinking Defined

Critical thinking is the ability to develop support for one’s position on a subject as well as the ability to question the reasons and opinions of another person on a given subject. The ability to support one’s one position is exceedingly difficult as many people are convinced that their feelings can be substituted as evidence for their position.

It is also difficult to question the reasons and opinions of others as it requires the ability to identify weaknesses in the person’s positions while having to think on one’s feet. Again this is why many people stick to their emotions as it requires no thinking and emotions can be felt much faster than thoughts can be processed. Thinking critically involves assessing the strength of another’s thought process through pushing them with challenging questions or counter-arguments.

Developing Critical Thinking Skills

Debates-Debates provide an opportunity for people to both prepare arguments as well as defend in an extemporaneous manner. The experience of preparation as well as on the feet thinking help to develop critical thinking in many ways. In addition, the time limits of debates really force the participants to be highly engaged.

Reciprocal Teaching-Reciprocal teaching involves students taking turns to teach each other. As such, the must take a much closer look at the content when they are aware that they will have to teach it. In addition, Reciprocal teaching encourages discussion and the answering of questions which further supports critical thinking skills development.

Discussion-Discussion through the use of open-ended question is another classic way to develop critical thinking skills. The key is in the open-ended nature of the question. This means that there is no single answer to the question. Instead, the quality of answers are judged on the support the students provide and their reasoning skills.

Open-ended assignments-Often as teachers, we want to give specific detailed instructions on how to complete an assignment. This reduces confusion and gives each student a similar context in which learning takes place.

However, open-ended assignments provide a general end goal but allow the students to determine how they will complete it. This open-ended nature really forces the students to think about what they will do. In addition, this is similar to work in the real world where often the boss wants something done and doesn’t really care how the workers get it done. The lack of direction can cause less critical workers problems as they do not know what to do but those who are trained to deal with ambiguity will be prepared for this.

Conclusion

Critical thinking requires a context in which free thought is allowed but is supported. It is difficult to develop the skills of thinking with activities that stimulate this skill. The activities mentioned here are just some of the choices available to a teacher.

Teaching Reflective Thinking

Reflective thinking is the ability to look at the past and develop understanding and insights about what happened and using this information to develop a deeper understanding or to choose a course of action.  Many may believe that reflective thinking is a natural part of learning.

However, I have always been surprised at how little reflective thinking my students do. They seem to just do things without ever trying to understand how well they did outside of passing the assignment. Without reflective thinking, it is difficult to learn from past mistakes as no thought was made to avoid them.

This post will examine opportunities and aways of reflective thinking.

Opportunities for Reflective Thinking

Generally, reflective thinking can happen when

  1. When you learn something
  2. When you do something

These are similar but different concepts. Learning can happen without doing anything such as listening to a lecture or discussion. You hear a lot of great stuff but you never implement it.

Doing something means the application of knowledge in a particular setting. An example would be teaching or working at a company. With the application of knowledge comes consequences the indicate how well you did. For example, teaching kids and then seeing either look of understanding or confusion on their face

Strategies for Reflective THinking

For situations in which the student learns something without a lot of action a common model for encouraging reflective thinking is the  Connect, Extend, Challenge model. The model is explained below

  • Connect: Link what you have learned to something you already know
  • Extend: Determine how this new knowledge extends your learning
  • Challenge: Decide what you still do not understanding

Connecting is what makes learning relevant for many students and is also derived from constructivism. Extending is a way for a student to see the benefits of the new knowledge. It goes beyond learning because you were told to learn. Lastly, challenging helps the student to determine what they do not know which is another metacognitive strategy.

When a student does something the reflection process is slightly different below is an extremely common model.

  • what went well
  • what went wrong
  • how to fix what went wrong

In this model, the student identifies what they did right, which requires reflective thinking. The student also identifies the things they did wrong during the experience. Lastly, the student must problem solve and develop strategies to overcome the mistakes they made. Often the solutions in this final part are implemented during the next action sequence to see how well they worked out.

Conclusion

Thinking about the past is one of the strongest ways to prepare for the future. Therefore, teachers must provide their students with opportunities to think reflectively. The strategies included here provide a framework for guiding students in this critical process.

Wire Framing with Moodle

Before teaching a Moodle course it is critical that a teacher design what they want to do. For many teachers, they believe that they begin the design process by going to Moodle and adding activity and other resources to their class. For someone who is thoroughly familiar with Moodle and has developed courses before this might work. However, for the majority online teachers, they need to wireframe what they want their Moodle course to look like online.

Why Wireframe a Moodle Course

In the world of web developers, a wireframe is a prototype of what a potential website will look like. The actual wireframe can be made in many different platforms from Word, Powerpoint, and even just paper and pencil. Since Moodle is online a Moodle course in many ways is a website so wireframing applies to this context.

It doesn’t matter how you wireframes their Moodle course. What matters is that you actually do this. Designing what you want to see in your course helps you to make decisions much faster when you are actually adding activities and resources to your Moodle course. It also helps your Moodle support to help you if they have a picture of what you want rather than wild hand gestures and frustration.

Wire farming a course also reduces the cognitive load on the teacher. Instead of designing and building the course a the same time. Wireframing splits this task into two steps, which are designing, and then building. This prevents extreme frustration as it is common for a teacher just to stare at the computer screen when trying to design and develop a Moodle course simultaneously.

You never see an architect making his plans while building the building. This would seem careless and even dangerous because the architect doesn’t even know what he wants while he is throwing around concrete and steel. The same analogy applies with designing Moodle courses. A teacher must know what they want, write it down, and then implement it by creating the course.

Another benefit of planning in Word is that it is easier to change things in Word when compared to Moodle. Moodle is amazing but it is not easy to use for those who are not tech-savvy. However, it’s easiest for most of us to copy, paste, and edit in Word.

One Way to Wire Frame a Moodle Course

When supporting teachers to wireframe a Moodle course, I always encourage them to start by developing the course in Microsoft Word. The reason is that the teacher is already familiar with Word and they do not have to struggle to make decisions when using it. This helps them to focus on content and not on how to use Microsoft Word.

One of the easiest ways to wireframe a Moodle course is to take the default topics of a course such as General Information, Week 1, Week 2, etc. and copy these headings into Word, as shown below.

Screenshot from 2017-01-20 09-15-19.png

Now, all that is needed is to type in using bullets exactly what activities and resources you want in each section. It is also possible to add pictures and other content to the Word document that can be added to Moodle later.  Below is a preview of a generic Moodle sample course with the general info and week 1 of the course completed.

Screenshot from 2017-01-20 09-26-00.png

You can see for yourself how this class is developed. The General Info section has an image to serve as a welcome and includes the name of the course. Under this the course outline and rubrics for the course. The information in the parentheses indicates what type of module it is.

For Week 1, there are several activities. There is a forum for introducing yourself. A page that shares the objectives of that week. Following this are the readings for the week, then a discussion forum, and lastly an assignment. This process completes for however many weeks are topics you have in the course.

Depending on your need to plan, you can even plan other pages on the site beside the main page. For example, I can wireframe what I want my “Objectives” page to look like or even the discussion topics for my “Discussion” forum.

Of course, the ideas for all these activities comes from the course outline or syllabus that was developed first. In other words, before we even wireframe we have some sort of curriculum document with what the course needs to cover.

Conclusion

The example above is an extremely simple way of utilizing the power of wireframing. With this template, you can confidently go to Moodle and find the different modules to make your class come to life. Trying to conceptualize this in your head is possible but much more difficult. As such, thorough planning is a hallmark of learning.

Learning Styles and Strategies

All students have distinct traits in terms of how they learn and what they do to ensure that they learn. These two vague categories of how a student learns and what they do to learn are known as learning styles and learning strategies.

This post will explain what learning styles and learning strategies are.

Learning Styles

Learning styles are consistent traits that are long-lasting over time. For example, the various learning styles identified by Howard Gardner such as auditory, kinesthetic, or musical learner. An auditory learner prefers to learn through hearing things.

Learning styles are also associated with personality. For example, introverts prefer quiet time and fewer social interaction when compared to extroverts. This personality trait of introversion my affect an introverts ability to learn while working in small groups but not necessarily.

Learning Strategies

Strategies are specific methods a student uses to master and apply information. Examples include asking friends for help,  repeating information to one’s self, rephrasing, and or using context clues to determine the meaning of unknown words.

Strategies are much more unpredictable and flexible than styles are. Students can acquire styles through practice and exposure. In addition, it is common to use several strategies simultaneously to learn and use information.

Successful Students

Successful students understand what their style and strategies are. Furthermore, they can use these tendencies in learning and acquiring knowledge to achieve goals. For example, an introvert who knows they prefer to be alone and not work in groups will know when there are times when this natural tendency must be resisted.

The key to understanding one’s styles and strategies is self-awareness. A teacher can support a student in understanding what their style and strategies are through the use of the various informal checklist and psychological test.

A teacher can also support students in developing a balanced set of strategies through compensatory activities. These are activities that force students to use strategies they are weak. For example, having auditory learners learn through kinesthetic means. This helps students to acquire skills that may be highly beneficial in their learning in the future.

To help students to develop compensatory skills requires that the teacher know and understand the strengths and weaknesses of their students. This naturally takes time and implies that compensatory activities should not take place at the beginning of a semester or should they be pre-planned into a unit plan before meeting students.

Conclusion

Strategies can play a powerful role in information processing. As such, students need to be aware of how they learn and what they do to learn. The teacher can provide support in this by helping students to figure out who they are as a learner.

Academic Dishonesty and Cultural Difference

Academic dishonesty, which includes plagiarism and cheating, are problems that most teachers have dealt with in their career. Students sometimes succumb to the temptation of finding ways to excel or just survive a course by doing things that are highly questionable. This post will attempt to deal with some of the issues related to academic dishonesty. In particular, we will look at how perceptions of academic dishonesty vary across contexts.

Cultural Variation

This may be frustrating to many but there is little agreement in terms of what academic dishonesty is once one leaves their own cultural context. In the West, people often believe that a person can create and “own” an idea, that people should “know” their stuff, and that “credit” should be giving one using other people’s ideas. These foundational assumptions shape how teachers and students view using others ideas and using the answers of friends to complete assignments

However, in other cultures there is more of an “ends justifies the means” approach. This manifests itself in using ideas without giving credit because ideas belong to nobody and having friends “help” you to complete an assignment or quiz because they know the answer and you do not if the situation was different you would give them the answer. Therefore, in many contexts doesn’t matter how the assignment or quiz is completed as long as it is done.

This has a parallel in many situations. If you are working on a project for your boss and got stuck. Would it be deceptive to ask for help from a colleague to get the project done? Most of us have done this at one time or another. The problem is that this is almost always frowned upon during an assignment or assessment in the world of academics.

The purpose here is not to judge one side or the other but rather to allow people to identify the assumptions they have about academic dishonesty so that they avoid jumping to conclusions when confronted with this by people who are not from the same part of the world like them.

Our views on academic dishonesty are shaped in the context we grow up in

Clear Communication

One way to deal with the misunderstandings of academic dishonesty across cultures is for the teacher to clearly define what academic dishonesty is to them. This means providing examples explaining how this violates the norms of academia. In the context of academia, academic dishonesty in the forms of cheating and plagiarism is completely unacceptable.

One strategy that I have used to explain academic dishonesty is to compare academic dishonesty to something that is totally culturally repulsive locally. For example, I have compared plagiarism to wearing your shoes in someone’s house in Asia (a major no-no in most parts). Students never understand what plagiarism is when defined in isolation abstractly (or so they say). However, when plagiarism is compared to wearing your shoes in someone’s house, they begin to see how much academics hate this behavior. They also realize how they need to adjust their behavior for the context they are in.

By presenting a cultural argument against plagiarism and cheating rather than a moral one, students are able to understand how in the context of school this is not acceptable. Outside of school, there are normally different norms of acceptable behavior.

Conclusion

The steps to take with people who share the same background are naturally different from the suggestion provided here. The primary point to remember is that academic dishonesty is not seen the same way by everyone. This requires that the teacher communicate what they mean when referring to this and to provide a relevant example of academic dishonesty so the students can understand.

Understanding Techniques in Language Teaching

Technique is a core term in the jargon of language teaching. This leads to people using a term without really knowing what it means. In simple terms, a technique is any task/activity that is planned in a language course. Such a broad term makes it difficult to make sense of what exactly a technique is.

This post will try to provide various ways to categorize the endless sea of techniques available in language teaching.

Manipulation to Interaction

One way to assess techniques is along a continuum from manipulation to interaction. A manipulative technique is one in which the teacher has complete control and expects a specific response from the students. Examples of this include reading aloud, choral repetition, dictation

Interactive techniques are ones in which the student’s response is totally open. Examples of interactive techniques include role play, free writing, presentations, etc.

Automatic, Purposeful, Communicative Drills

Another continuum that can be used is seeing techniques as an automatic, purposeful, or communicative drill. An automatic drill technique has only one correct response. An example would be a repetition drill in which the students repeat what the teacher said.

A purposeful drill technique has several acceptable answers. For example, if the teacher asks the students “where is the dog”? The students can say “it’s outside” or “the dog is outside” etc.

Restricted to Free

The last continuum that can be used is restricted to free. This continuum looks at techniques from the position of who has the power. Generally, restricted techniques are ones that are teacher-centered, closed-ended, with high manipulation. Free techniques are often student-centered, open-ended, with unplanned responses.

Conclusion

All levels of language teaching should have a mixture of techniques from all over any of the continuums mentioned in this post. It is common for teachers to have manipulative and automatic techniques for beginners and interactive and free techniques for advanced students. This is often detrimental particularly to the beginning students.

The continuums here are simply for attempting to provide structure when a teacher is trying to choose techniques. It is not a black and white matter in classifying techniques. Different teachers while classifying the same techniques in different places in a continuum. As such, the continuums should guide one’s thinking and not control it.

Extrinsic & Intrinsic Motivation

Extrinsic and Intrinsic motivation are two extremes of a continuum of motivation. Extrinsic motivation is the desire to do something coming from outside of the person. Intrinsic motivation is the desire to do something coming from within a person. This post will explain some of the pros and cons of each type of motivation as they relate to education.

Extrinsic Motivation

Extrinsic motivation is an external force that compels someone to do something. For example, it is common for students to study in order to prepare for a test. The test provides an extrinsic motivation to study. If there was no test, the students probably would not study.

This leads to one of the first problems with extrinsic motivation which is its addictive nature. A student will get used to the extrinsic motivation and never become motivated themselves to complete a task.

Extrinsic motivation can also lead to either of the following. In some situations, extrinsic motivation can lead to a competitive classroom environment in which students try to outdo each other due to the pressure. In other situations, the students will band together to push back against the extrinsic motivation by the teacher. Either situation can lead to academically dishonesty practice such as cheating and plagiarism.

Generally, extrinsic motivation is negative. When people are doing something willing and then are told to do it they often lose motivation. This is because something that used to be done by choice is now forced upon them.

The only exception to this is positive feedback. When people are given compliments on how they are doing something it helps them to stick to the task.

Intrinsic Motivation

Intrinsic motivation is the desire to complete something coming from within. For many, intrinsic motivation is one of the ultimate goals of learning. Teachers often want students to develop a desire to learn and grow on their own after they complete their studies.

To achieve this, a teacher must become a facilitator of learning. A facilitator of learning is one who provides students with a context in which the students can set their own learning goals. A primary component of this is allowing choice in the classroom. Choice can be given in types of assignment, how to complete assignments or other ways.

There are also effective measures that can be taken. Examples include developing positive relationships with students, having a relaxing classroom environment, and increasing self-confidence.

Content-based and cooperative learning activities both provide opportunities for students to develop intrinsic motivation. The goal is to develop independent learners who can set their own goals and achieve them.

Conclusion

Motivation is necessary. The question is where will the motivation come from. In education both forms of motivation are present. However, the goal should normally be to strive for intrinsic motivation when this is possible.

Learner-Centered Instruction

Learner-centered instruction is a term that has been used in education for several decades now. One of the challenges of extremely popular terms in a field such as learner-centered instruction is that the term loses its meaning as people throw it into a discussion without knowing exactly what the term means.

The purpose of this post is to try and explain some of the characteristics of learner-centered instruction without being exhaustive.  In addition, we will look at the challenges to this philosophy as well as ways to make it happen in the classroom.

Focus on the Students

Learner-centered instruction is focused on the students. What this means is that the teacher takes into account the learning goals and objectives of the students in establishing what to teach. This requires the teacher to conduct at least an informal needs assessment to figure out what the students want to learn.

Consultation with the students allows for the students to have some control over their learning which is empowering as viewed by those who ascribe to critical theory. Consultation also allows students to be creative and innovative. This sounds like a perfect learning situation but to be  this centered  on the learner can be difficult

Challenge of Learner-Centered Instruction

Since the learning experience is determined by the students, the teacher does not have any presupposed plan in place prior to consulting with the students. As such, not having a plan in place beforehand is extremely challenging for new teachers and difficult even for experienced ones. The teacher doesn’t know what to expect in terms of the needs of the students.

In theory, almost no class follows such a stringent approach to learner-centered instruction. Most schools have to meet government requirements, prepare students for the workplace, and or show improvements in testing. This limits the freedom of the teacher to be learner-centered in many ways. External factors cannot be ignored to adhere to the philosophy of learner-centered instruction.

Finding a Compromise

One way to be learner-centered while still having some sort of a plan prior to teaching is to rethink the level at which the students have a voice in the curriculum. For example, if it is not possible to change the objectives of a course, the teacher can have the students develop the assignments they want to do to achieve an objective.

The teacher could also allow the students to pick from several different assignments that all help to achieve the same objective(s). This gives the students some control over their learning while allowing the teacher to adhere to external requirements. It also allows the teacher to be prepared in some way prior to the teaching.

Conclusion

The average educator does not have the autonomy to give to students to allow for the full implementation of learner-centered instruction. However, there are several ways to adjust one’s approach to teaching that will allow students to have a sense of control over their learning.

Notional-Functional Syllabus of TESOL

The notional-functional syllabus was an innovation developed in the 1970’s and 1980’s in Europe. The pragmatic focus of this innovation has to this day had an influence on language teaching.

This post will define what a notional-functional syllabus is by looking at each word that makes up the phrase “notional-functional syllabus.”

Notional

In TESOL, “notions” is a synonym for the word “context” or “setting.” Notion has to do with what is called pragmatics in language acquisition but the setting can be intellectual rather than a physical setting. As such, a notional-functional syllabus is focused on the various situations in which language is used.

There are two levels at which notions take place. General notions are highly abstract philosophically concepts such as existence, space, and time. Normally, TESOL does not deal with such concepts except when teaching about temporal relational terms such as before, after, during, etc.

The second level of notions is specific notions. Specific notions deal with clearly defined fixed situations. Examples of specific notions include animals, politics, education, and sports.  Although these can still be considered abstract that are not nearly as abstract as general notions. As such it is better to look at general and specific notions as ideas along with a continuum rather as either/or concepts.

Functional

The functional aspect of the notional-functional syllabus relates to how language is used. Prior to this focus on function, language was taught with a focus on grammar and learning was organized around grammar use. In a functional focus, language is used to do any and all of the  following

  • explain
  • describe
  • discuss
  • argue
  • agree
  • apologize
  • compare
  • contrast

As you can see, there is almost an infinity amount of variety when combining the  notion with the function. This leads to our need to understand what a syllabus is.

Syllabus

Syllabus is the European term for what is called curriculum in America. A syllabus/curriculum has been defined on this site before. In short, a syllabus/curriculum is a systematic plan toward achieving educational goals. Often, the syllabus/curriculum has goals/objectives that are in reality a combination of a notion and an or function. Below are some examples. The brackets indicated what the preceding phrase is, whether it’s a function or a notion.

  • Introduce self [function] to other people [notion]
  • Ask for information [function] at a bank [notion]
  • Give directions [function]
  • Read the text [function] and answer [function] the questions [notion]

From the examples, it is clear that you can have function with a notion, a function alone, or several functions with a notion. Without getting too technical there is endless potential in designing a syllabus/curriculum with this framework in mind.

Final Thoughts

There is little difference of notional-functional syllabus from the development of regular objectives in a curriculum. If you are familiar with how objectives are made you know objectives have an action, proficiency, and condition.

The “action” of a regular objective is in many ways the same as the “function” of a functional-notional syllabus. In addition, the “condition” of a regular objective is similar to the “notion” of a notional-functional syllabus. Notional-Functional objectives do not address proficiency in their objectives. As such, it is common for different fields to discover similar concepts while still giving these new concepts different names.

The CCAF Model of Instructional Design

The CCAF Model is another model of instruction used by teachers in both online and traditional classrooms. Acronym stands for

C-ontext
C-hallenge
A-ctivities
F-eedback

This post will discuss each of these characteristics.

Context

Context is about establishing a setting in which the learning is relevant for the learners. This means developing real-world connections in the lesson so that students can see ways of application.

For example, if you are required to teaching a heavily theoretical course such as educational philosophy, establishing a context may mean showing how the various philosophy of education impact how teachers make decisions. You may also want to articulate how your own beliefs affect how you develop classes.

Challenge

Challenging students is the same as engaging them. Assignments need to be stimulating enough that students have to work somewhat to complete them. This step has a great deal to do with motivation and overlaps with the previous step of context.

The main difference here is that at the challenge stage the students should be actively engaged in doing something. With context, the teacher is laying the foundation for the learning.

Activities 

Activities are an extension of challenge. Activities need to be risk-free in order to allow students to learn from mistakes without fear of this lowering their grade. This step of the CCAF Model is similar to the practice step of other models.

The activities can also include interaction with peers through group experiences. This allows for you another form of communication in relation to progress in achieving learning goals.

Feedback

While the students are engaged in challenging activities, this provides you as the teacher with opportunities to provide feedback on performance. Constant feedback helps students to know where they are at and how they are doing.

The feedback can take many shapes. It could be verbal encouragement, non-verbal approval, written, etc. The goal is to keep students in the loop in terms of their performance.

Conclusion

The CCAF model is a model that is focused on execution and is highly student-centered in terms of the activity level. After the context is set, the students are constantly engaged with doing various tasks and receiving feedback. This emphasis on action is what allows the students to be able to retain what they learn and call upon this knowledge in an authentic situation when they enter the workplace.

Central Curriculum Design

There are several ways in which curriculum design can happen. For example, forward design aka the Tyler method involves the selection of content, followed by determining teaching approaches, and finally determining the quality of the teaching and content based on some form of assessment.

Backward design starts with content but then the focus moves to developing assessment that is consistent with the content, the last step for backward design is deciding how to teach the content in a way that allows students to develop the skills need to demonstrate understanding through successfully completing the assessment

Central design is yet another distinct approach. In this post, we will look at the characteristics of central design and how it differs from both forward and backward design.

Definition

Central design begins with deciding on the teaching approach first followed by the content and assessment. In this approach, it is the method of teaching that is most important. There is an assumption among teachers who use this approach that the method of teaching along with the supporting activities will lead to successful learning outcomes or demonstrations of mastery.

Central design is highly fixated on learning processes. For example, there is an emphasis on discussion, decision-making, critical thinking, etc. All of these examples are somewhat fuzzy in being able to assess them. We can tell when they happen but it’s not easy to place a score on them because these are subjective skills.

For many, this design is seen as learner-centered due to its emphasis on active learning. Discussion requires active learning as do critical thinking and the other examples in the previous paragraph. These experiences contribute to the individual development of the students.

Some Concerns

Despite the advantages of central design, there are some concerns. In order to place an emphasis on teaching methods, it implies that the teacher is a mastery of one or more methodologies. This makes central design difficult for beginning teachers to execute.

In addition, for even experienced teachers, lack of objectives can make it very easy to wonder of course when teaching. For example, whenever teachers select activities that look fun or entertaining they are practicing central design because of the emphasis on teaching activities. However, with a lack of clear objectives, students are having a good time with being able to articulate what they are learning.

The issue with objectives can also spill over into affecting the assessment. Without clear goals, it is difficult to determine what the students learned or if they achieved any of the goals and objectives of a lesson. With so much testing taking place these days it is difficult to justify such a design.

Using Central Design

Central design is highly useful in the social sciences and humanities. Such classes as critical thinking, public speaking, art appreciation are some examples of courses that can employ central design due to the subjective nature of completing course requirements. For the hard sciences, it might be better to stick to forward or backward design due to the need to absolute know specific forms of information.

In general, if the primary goal is developing subjective skills central design is an excellent choice. However, if what you are trying to teach can clearly be measured and evaluated forward or backward design is much more appropriate choice

Factors that May Affect Personality

Dealing with people or students involves dealing with personalities. Everyone has a unique personality that has varying degrees of similarities and difference from others. Those post will introduce some commonly proposed factors that shape and influence personality.

Genetics

There is evidence that our personality is affected by our genetics. Thomas Bouchard published a paper on twins separated at birth and found that despite never meeting each other, the twins had very similar personalities. Indicating that there is more to personality than common family experiences.

It is no longer a question of if genetics influences personality but rather how much genetics influences personality. This has led to the controversy called nativism-empiricism, which is a scholarly term for nature vs nurture. Nativists believe that personality is primarily genetically determined whereas empiricists believe that personality is primarily determined by experience. 

Traits

Traits can be defined loosely as consistently displayed or performed behaviors. For example, some people show the trait of a love of sweets while others do not. The person with the trait for loving sweets will consistently enjoy eating sweet foods.

Traits are developed one of two ways. One way is through learning. For example, a person who loves sweet food may have been exposed to sweet food since they were born. Thus, the acquired a taste for it.

The second way is by genetics. For example, some people display are more emotional than others regardless of their background. One explanation of this is that their emotional character traits are a result of their genetic makeup.

Culture

Culture influences personality through prescribing what behaviors are acceptable. For example, different cultures have different rules in regard to marriage, raising children, food, money, etc. These norms restrain and promote various behaviors.

Again the argument here is not whether or not culture plays a role but rather how much of a role. Some personality theories believe culture is significantly important such as Erickson, Alder, and Horney.

Strange Assertion

Some of the more unusual proposed determinants of personality include the existential-humanistic considerations and unconscious mechanisms. Existential-humanistic considerations believe personality is shaped by how people give meaning to the situations they find themselves in. In other words, the individual shapes their own destiny by how they answer the big questions in life such as why am I here?, what happens when I die?

Unconscious mechanisms assert that personality is shaped by unconscious forces in childhood. Uncovering these forces involves the use of such techniques as hypnosis and dream analysis.

Conclusion

This post provided some explanations for how personalities are shaped and formed. Naturally, there are many more reasons for why people behave the way they do. However, the information provided here provides an introductory insight into why people act the way they do.

Competency-Based Education

Competency-based education (CBE) involves focusing on the outcomes of learning in the form of standards/objectives rather than the input of learning as they are developed by the teacher. This is actually a radical shift in terms of approaching curriculum development.

This post would provide a brief explanation into CBE and its role in education

The Old vs the New

One of the original models for curriculum development was established by Ralph Tyler. His model, in summary, includes the following steps

  1. Decide what to teach
  2. Decide how to teach it
  3. Decide how to assess it

This model is a classic but it is lacking in including actions that the students should do. When employing the Tyler model, all the teacher has to do is get through content without concern for the progress of the student.

CBE, has a slightly different model for curriculum development

  1. Describe learning outcomes (what the student can do at the end of the course).
  2. Decide how to assess it
  3. Decide how to teach it

There are some significant differences between these two models. For example, the CBE model starts with learning outcomes and progress not to how to teach but how to assess. Developing the assessment first ensures that the teaching is consistent in preparing students for the assessment because the teachers know already what they are assessing.

When developing learning outcomes the need to be specific and practical. This is in contrast to goals which are broad and immeasurable. Learning outcomes should be mastered one at a time to allow the student to focus.

Focus of CBE

CBE also emphasizes the following

  • Authentic assessment-The assessment must be based on real-world scenarios. This allows students to develop skills for functioning in society.
  • Continuous assessment–Another term for this is formative assessment. There is no benefit to assessing students only summatively from the CBE perspective as this negates the incremental use of learning outcomes.
  • Demonstration of mastery-Before moving to the next step, students must show mastery of the current information.

The focus of CBE allows for learners to know where they are in terms of their progress.

Conclusion

From the perspective of some, the entire standards based approach to teaching is based on principles derived from CBE. Businesses also use this approach in developing training materials for their workers. The extent to which CBE has influenced education is deep and far reaching.

With its focus on breaking expected behaviors into small increments, CBE is very useful in assessing people and providing data. This is perhaps the strongest reason for the success of this approach.

Theories on Motivation

Motivation is the desire a person has to do something. There have been many different theories that have attempted to explain motivation. This post will look at some of the lesser know theories that have helped to shape views on motivation. In particular, we will look at the following theories.

  • Drive theory
  • Expectancy-Value theory
  • Self-Worth theory
  • Views on Control

Drive Theory

Drive theory is one of the simplest and earliest theories of motivation. In drive theory, there are three critical component.

  1. A need is noticed
  2. The need leads to a drive to do something
  3. The drive causes a behavior.

An example of this is someone who has a need for food. This leads to a desire to eat which culminates in the person finding food and actually eating.

The simplicity of the model was actually one of the criticisms of it. Many people there was more to motivation than just these three components.

Expectancy-Value Theory

Another influential theory in motivation is the expectancy-value theory. This theory states that the amount of motivation a person has depends on the expectation of what the person will get if the complete the activity. If the person highly values the expected reward the will be highly motivated and vice versa.

For example, if a parent promises a child a new bike if they learn how to ride on two wheels. If the child highly values the new bike they will be highly motivated to learn to ride a bike on two wheels because of the expectation of the reward of a new bicycle.

Self-Worth Theory

Self-worth theory tries to explain motivation through how a person sees their own ability.  If a person believes they have high ability they will put forth high effort. This often leads to excellent results.

This means that the opposite is true as well. If a person believes that have low ability they will not try hard and they will produce poor results. The difference lies in how each person sees their ability level.

Control

This last point involves a collection of related terms on motivation. Control has to do with a person’s perspective that they have authority over what they do and what happens to them. Two common terms related to control are locus of control and learned helplessness.

Locus of control has to do with a person’s perception of the control they have over their decisions and life. People with an internal locus of control believe they have the authority. People with an external locus of control believe that others control their destiny.

Highly motivated people have an internal locus of control and tend to be more assertive than people with an external locus of control.

Learned helplessness is a person becoming convinced that they cannot do something. This is often a result of an external locus of control. Individuals who accept a learned helplessness viewpoint are characterized by a lack of motivation and assertiveness.

Conclusion

Motivation is a critical part of teaching. This post provided insights into some basic concepts found in the realm of motivation.

Philosophical Foundations of Research: Epistemology

Epistemology is the study of the nature of knowledge. It deals with questions as is there truth and or absolute truth, is there one way or many ways to see something. In research, epistemology manifest itself in several views. The two extremes are positivism and interpretivism.

Positivism

Positivism asserts that all truth can be verified and proven scientifically and can be measured and or observed. This position discounts religious revelation as a source of knowledge as this cannot be verified scientifically. The position of positivist is also derived from realism in that there is an external world out there that needs to be studied.

For researchers, positivism is the foundation of quantitative research. Quantitative researchers try to be objective in their research, they try to avoid coming into contact with whatever they are studying as they do not want to disturb the environment. One of the primary goals is to make generalizations that are applicable in all instances.

For quantitative researchers, they normally have a desire to test a theory. In other words, the develop one example of what they believe is a truth about a phenomenon (a theory) and they test the accuracy of this theory with statistical data. The data determines the accuracy of the theory and the changes that need to be made.

By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, people were looking for alternative ways to approach research. One new approach was interpretivism.

Interpretivism

Interpretivism is the complete opposite of positivism in many ways. Interpretivism asserts that there is no absolute truth but relative truth based on context. There is no single reality but multiple realities that need to be explored and understood.

For interpretist, There is a fluidity in their methods of data collection and analysis. These two steps are often iterative in the same design. Furthermore, intrepretist see themselves not as outside the reality but a player within it. Thus, they often will share not only what the data says but their own view and stance about it.

Qualitative researchers are interpretists. They spend time in the field getting close to their participants through interviews and observations. They then interpret the meaning of these communications to explain a local context specific reality.

While quantitative researchers test theories, qualitative researchers build theories. For qualitative researchers, they gather data and interpret the data by developing a theory that explains the local reality of the context. Since the sampling is normally small in qualitative studies, the theories do not often apply to many.

Conclusion

There is little purpose in debating which view is superior. Both positivism and interpretivism have their place in research. What matters more is to understand your position and preference and to be able to articulate in a reasonable manner. It is often not what a person does and believes that is important as why they believe or do what they do.

Philosophical Foundations of Research: Ontology

Philosophy is a term that is commonly used but hard to define. To put it simply, philosophy explains an individuals or a groups worldview in general or in a specific context. Such questions as the nature of knowledge, reality, and existence are questions that philosophy tries to answer. There are different schools of thought on these questions and these are what we commonly call philosophies

In this post, we will try to look at ontology, which is the study of the nature of reality. In particular, we will define it as well as explain its influence on research.

Ontology

Ontology is the study of the nature of being. It tries to understand the reality of existence. In this body of philosophy, there are two major camps, ontological realism, and ontological idealism.

Ontological realism believes that reality is objective. In other words, there is one objective reality that is external to each individual person. We are in a reality and we do not create it.

Ontological idealism is the opposite extreme. This philosophy states that there are multiple realities an each depends on the person. My reality is different from your reality and each of us builds our own reality.

Ontological realism is one of the philosophical foundations for quantitative research. Quantitative research is a search for an objective reality that accurately explains whatever is being studied.

For qualitative researchers, ontological idealism is one of their philosophical foundations. Qualitative researchers often support the idea of multiple realities. For them, since there is no objective reality it is necessary to come contact with people to explain their reality.

Something that has been alluded to but not stated specifically is the role of independence and dependence of individuals. Regardless of whether someone ascribes to ontological realism or idealis, there is the factor of whether people or independent of reality or dependent to reality. The level of independence and dependence contributes to other philosophies such as objectivism constructivism and pragmatism.

Objectivism, Constructivism and Pragmatism

Objectivism is the belief that there is a single reality that is independent of the individuals within it. Again this is the common assumption of quantitative research. At the opposite end we have constructivism which states that there are multiple realities and the are dependent on the individuals who make each respective reality.

Pragmatism supports the idea of a single reality with the caveat that it is true if it is useful and works. The application of the idea depends upon the individuals, which pushes pragmatism into the realm of dependence.

Conclusion

From this complex explanation of ontology and research comes the following implications

  • Quantitative and qualitative researchers differ in how they see reality. Quantitative researchers are searching for and attempting to explain a single reality while qualitative researchers are searching for and trying to explain multiple realities.
  • Quantitative and qualitative researchers also differ on the independence of reality. Quantitative researchers see reality as independent of people while qualitative researchers see reality as dependent on people
  • These factors of reality and its dependence shape the methodologies employed by quantitative and qualitative researchers.

Tips for Lesson Planning: Part II

Before developing a plan of instruction there are many factors to consider. This post will consider the following points…

  • Needs assessment
  • Syllabus
  • Outlining purpose

Needs Assessment

Before committing to any particular plan of instruction, a teacher must determine what the needs of the students are. This is most frequently done through conducting a needs assessment.

There are many ways to find out what the students need to know. One way is through speaking with the students. This provides some idea as to what their interests are. Student interest can be solicited through conversation, interviews, questionnaire, etc. Another way is to consult the subject matter of the course through examining other curricula related to the subject.

As an educator, it is necessary to balance the needs of the students with the requirements of the course. Many things are modifiable in a course but some things are not. Therefore, keeping in mind the demands of students and the curriculum are important.

Developing the Syllabus

Once the instructor as an idea of the students needs it is time to develop the syllabus of the class. There are several different types of syllabus. A skill syllabus focuses on specific skills students need in the discipline. For example, an ESL syllabus may focus on grammar. Skill syllabus focus on passive skills not active

A functional syllabus is focused on several different actions. Going back to ESL. If a syllabus is focused on inviting, apologizing or doing something else it is a functional syllabus. These skills are active.

A situational syllabus is one in which learning takes place in various scenarios. In ESL, a student might learn English that they would use at the market, in the bank, at school, etc. The focus is on experiential/authentic learning.

The type of syllabus developed is based on the needs of the students. This is important to remember as many teachers predetermine this aspect of the learning experience.

Outlining Purpose

Developing aims and goals have been discussed in a previous post. In short, aims lead to goals, which lead to objectives, which is necessary can lead to indicators. The difference between each type is the amount of detail involved. Aims are the broadest and may apply across an entire school or department while indicators are the most detailed and apply maybe only to a specific assignment.

A unique concept for this post is the development of personal aims. Personal aims are opportunities for the teacher to try something new or improve an aspect of their teaching. For example, if a teacher has never used blogs in the classroom he/she might make a personal aim to use blogs in their classroom. Personal aims allow for reflection which is critical to teacher development.

Conclusion

Lesson planning begins with understanding what the students need. From there, it is necessary to decide what type of syllabus you will make. Lastly, the teacher needs to decide on the various information required such as goals and objectives. Keep in mind that many schools have a specific format for their syllabus. In so, a teacher can keep the concepts of this post in mind even if the structure of the syllabus is already determined.

Tips for Lesson Planning: Part I

Developing lesson plans is a core component of teaching. However, there is a multitude of ways to approach this process. This post will provide some basic ideas on approaching the development of lesson plans by sharing thoughts on the following…

  • The paradox of planning lessons
  • The continuum of planning
  • Using plans in class

The Lesson Plan Paradox

A paradox is a statement that contradicts itself. An example would be jumbo shrimp. We think of shrimp as something that is small so for something to be really big or jumbo and small at the same time usually does not make sense.

Within education, the lesson plan paradox is the idea that a teacher can plan all aspects of a lesson in advance without knowing what will happen in the moment while teaching in their classroom.  Many people believe that there is an interaction that happens while teaching that cannot be anticipated when developing lesson plans.

The Continuum of Planning

In general, the amount of planning needed depends on the skill level of the teacher. Experienced teachers need to plan much less as they have already taught the various concepts before and know where they are going. Inexperienced teachers need to plan much more as they are new to the teaching endeavor.

Experience means experience teaching a particular subject and not only the years of teaching. For example, an excellent algebra teacher would not need formal lesson plans for algebra but may need to plan more carefully if they are asked to teach statistics or some other math subject. Even though they know the subject, the lack of experience teaching it makes it necessary to plan more carefully.

Planning can go from no planning at all to planning every step. Jungle path lesson planning is the extreme of no planning. In this approach, an experienced teacher shows up to class with nothing and see where the journey takes them. Doing this occasionally may break the monotony of studying but continuous use will lead students to think that the teacher is unprepared.

At the opposite extreme are the formal lesson plans developed by student teachers. These lesson plans include everything objectives, materials, procedures, openers, closers, etc. Some even required teachers to indicate how much time every step will take.

Somewhere in the middle is where most teachers are. Uncomfortable with no planning yet too indifferent to planning to plan every minutia of the learning experience like a beginner.

Using Plans in Class

This leads to the question of knowing how thoroughly to apply lesson plans in class. There are several reasons to divert from a lesson plan. One, teaching moments are those opportunities where something happens in or out of class that allows for spontaneous learning. For example, a health teacher may divert from their lesson plan to talk about how cancer works because the students know of a teacher who has cancer.

A second reason to divert from a lesson plan is due to an unforeseen problem. For example, the computer crashes barring access to the internet. This would lead a teacher to find a different way to teach a lesson.

Lastly, a lesson plan can be ignored if the teacher notices that the students need reteaching of skill as they are struggling with it. For example, an English teacher is trying to teach students how to write paragraphs when he or she can tell the students still do not understand how to develop sentences.

Conclusion

Everyone has their own style of lesson planning. It is important to develop an approach while being open to incorporating new ways of planning. The ideas suggested here can help to broaden a teacher’s approach to planning lessons.