A challenge for educators is how to teach in a "post-truth" world. Lies, fake news, and a gleeful disregard for facts -- what I collectively term mis/information -- all seem to undermine the very project of education. The pragmatism of Richard Rorty holds promise to address such issues. I first argue that Rorty's philosophy of education…

Understanding subject-specific texts requires interpreting representations--words, symbols, and images--in their intended senses. Many such representations are ambiguous, with meanings that shift depending on context and disciplinary conventions. This applies not only to words, for example, 'paper' in everyday versus academic usage, but also to…

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the ongoing discussion about the role of intuition and ambiguity in doing, teaching and learning mathematics. We start by discussing the ways in which limits and continuity are presented in Calculus textbooks, to illustrate some of the ambiguities, and to contrast them with precise and rigorous definitions…

A central concern that TL theory approaches but does not fully address is the process whereby an individual generates a more adequate meaning perspective after shedding an outmoded one. This article complements TL theory's account with a phenomenological description of the dangers and opportunities encountered on that quest. It employs the concept…

Complexity and uncertainty are long-standing challenges for global development projects. Coping with both requires flexibility and adaptation, the ability to identify unexpected circumstances, seize opportunities, and respond to threats. Vigilance is critical; it resides within the domains of monitoring, evaluation, and learning. In practice,…

Terminological and conceptual issues surrounding the definition of scientific terms have bothered teachers and students for many years. Some terms such as "energy" are not even usually defined, although they appear in different contexts of scientific communication, and others such as "weight" have debatable definitions, and for…

Although translation may be considered the "sine qua non" of bilingual legislation, the perceived authenticity and equivalence of different language versions of the same law are contingent on the disavowal of translation. Yet precisely because of such disavowal, translated versions of law are paradoxically valorized as equal in meaning…

Research terminology is an under-examined challenge in the teaching of social science research methods and statistics courses. An important problem in research terminology is that many of the common terms have more than one meaning in English, which students often confuse. For example, the words random, pretest, validity, and regression have more…

Instructional inattention to language poses a barrier for students in entry-level science courses, in part because students may perceive a subject as difficult solely based on the lack of understanding of the vocabulary. In addition, the technical use of terms that have different everyday meanings may cause students to misinterpret statements made…

This article is about note taking, but it is not an exhaustive review of note-taking literature. Instead, it portrays the application of note-taking research to an unusual and important area of practice--the law. I was hired to serve as an expert witness on note taking in a legal case that hinged, in part, on the completeness and accuracy of…

This chapter illustrates how Continuing Professional Development (CPD) can be put into practice in the context of foreign language teacher education. After outlining the overall structure of the CPD framework developed in the proPIC project, five sessions are introduced in detail. They include: (1) Session 1: What is CPD?; (2) Session 2: CPD as…

Definitions of teacher leadership versus teacher professionalism can be fraught with ambiguity, making it difficult to identify when teacher leadership is emerging. A study of teachers' perceptions reveals some key attributes of teacher leaders.

Inclusive education currently appears to be undergoing a crisis and re-examination. This paper presents a new approach to thinking about inclusiveness in the school context. Many positions within inclusive education seem to take political, social and ethical perspectives as a starting point, which has allowed inclusive movements and initiatives…

Solving non-routine problems is a key competence in a world full of changes, uncertainty and surprise where we strive to achieve so many ambitious goals. But the world is also full of solutions because of the extraordinary competences of humans who search for and find them. We must explore the world around us in a thoughtful way, acquire knowledge…

We theorize about ambiguity in mathematical communication and define a certain subset of ambiguous language usage as imprecise. For us, imprecision in classroom mathematics discourse hinders in-the-moment communication because the instance of imprecision is likely to create inconsistent interpretations of the same statement among individuals. We…