This article seeks to examine the special quality of Eros operative in educational practice, through the frame narrative of Plato's "The Allegory of the Cave." The subject is examined from two aspects illuminating the paradoxical nature of educational practice. The first, epistemological, considers the practicability of learning,…

There has been a marked increase in interest, research, and publications exploring ways in which educational practices might be influenced by neuroscience. The idea that a greater understanding of how the brain works can improve teaching and learning is very seductive, but what can teachers and other professionals working in education learn from…

Research into the relationship between research and teaching in higher education has flourished over several decades, and the most recent research phase has focused particularly on how the research-teaching nexus can enhance the quality and outcomes of the learning experience for both students and academics. On the basis of bibliographic review,…

This paper analyzes the entanglement of the modern concepts of freedom, autonomy, and the modern notion of the subject and how a passion for and insistence on freedom has undermined the reconstruction of human subjectivity in Heidegger and Foucault, and how such passion has also limited the educational effort at addressing the problems brought to…

In general, designing is conceived as a complex, personal, creative and open-ended skill. Performing a well-developed skill is mainly an implicit activity. In teaching, however, it is essential to make explicit. Learning a complex skill like designing is a matter of doing and becoming aware how to do it. For teachers and students therefore, it…

Inquiry experiences in secondary science classrooms are heavily weighted toward experimentation. We know, however, that many fields of science (e.g., evolutionary biology, cosmology, and paleontology), while they may utilize experiments, are not justified by experimental methodologies. With the focus on experimentation in schools, these fields of…

The practice of teaching can be characterized as a calling, a duty, and a gift. It can also be an opportunity for oppression--or for liberation from habits of oppression. In his role as dissertation chair and dissertation committee member, Dr Bruce encourages doctoral candidates to read about, practice, and reflect on new approaches to the…

Two educators provide an overview of what they have learned about the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning related to the education of future physical therapists and describe how they and their colleagues on faculty are integrating it into their academic lives.

Building on classical and recent studies of the learning paradigm of higher education, the author distinguishes between receiving ideas and using them and how universities might educate students to be more open to the world, open to discovery and creativity.

The National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) launched the "standards-based" education movement in North America in 1989 with the release of "Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics," an unprecedented action to promote systemic improvement in mathematics education. Now, twenty-five years later, the…

Hall and Campano echo Jones and Rainville's call for compassion and humility in literacy coaching and argue that this is an urgent endeavor in an increasingly top-down educational climate. They offer collective analysis, through teacher inquiry communities and teacher activism, as a potential site of hope for making sense of the larger…

One of the questions that intrigue philosophers of science is how to approach the phenomenon "education system." Does one, as an education system expert, approach the phenomenon from a preconceived rationalistic idea of what such a system should entail and consist of, or should one's orientation rather be that education systems develop…

In this article, Ladson-Billings reflects on the history of her theory of culturally relevant pedagogy and the ways it has been used and misused since its inception. She argues for the importance of dynamic scholarship and suggests that it is time for a "remix" of her original theory: culturally sustaining pedagogy, as proposed by Paris…

Care is one of the five core elements of invitational theory, and plays a central role in invitational education. In this conceptual paper, the author explores the link between care theory and invitational theory, highlights key elements of the care-theory dialogue, and reviews key research findings about the characteristics of caring teachers.…

In Finland, young people who are neither employed nor in any education or training programme are expected to participate in short-term education, the aim being to improve their work life and employment skills, and thus make them more accountable for their labour market outcomes. An extensive assortment of so-called transition activities is created…