Professor Whitty has endorsed the consensus that research into education is empirical social science, distinguishing "educational research" which seeks directly to influence practice, and "education research" that has substantive value but no necessary practical application. The status of the science here is problematic. The positivist approach is…

State and national standards have shifted what science learning should be from "plug and chug" formulas, to deep understanding of natural phenomena, competence developing ideas through the inquiry process, and even communicating scientific ideas among their communities (NRC 2007). By inquiring into his own teaching endeavors, the author continues…

Disciplinary models of learning such as ethnography (cultural anthropology) and market competition (economics) have received little attention in the burgeoning literature on "how teacher thinking shapes education". To mobilize the pedagogical potential of these disciplinary idioms, the authors draw from the path-breaking works of Palmer and…

Pre-service teacher education is a spatialised enterprise. It operates across a number of spaces that may or may not be linked ideologically and/or physically. These spaces can include daily practices, locations, infrastructure, relationships and representations of power and ideology. The interrelationships between and within these (sometimes…

Reflective practice is used in different fields such as education and mental health. The educational form of reflective practice has been around since the 1930s (Dewey, as cited in Pedro, 2006); it is a problem-solving process that facilitates examination of behavior and responses to behavior. It takes into consideration multiple factors,…

In fields such as sociolinguistics and composition and rhetoric, communication is increasingly understood as translingual, that is, as negotiated socially across languages. Those of us engaged in community literacy can and should recognize the deeply multilingual nature of the communities in which we work, and we should understand, embrace, and…

The purpose of this study was to explore teaching methods for whole ballet in Korean ballet education. This study built upon a first phase of research that identified the educational content of "whole" ballet. Four dimensions were identified as the educational content: "physical," "cognitive," "emotional"…

This article presents the author's critique of Jennifer A. Rich's essay titled "How Do We See What We See? Pedagogical Lacunae and Their Pitfalls in the Classroom." Rather than adopting the classic "how I solved a problem" narrative, Rich relentlessly focuses on her questions and problems--their contexts, their complexity, other questions to which…

This volume has offered both the theory and practice for a model of contemplative teaching and learning in community colleges--a way of teaching, of learning, of thinking that has often been missing in higher education. Contemplative teaching and learning, with its focus on community, reflection, and mindfulness--in short, on what it means to be…

Education experts argue that using rich mathematical tasks in student-centered classrooms is especially conducive to student learning (NCTM 2000). That said, they also acknowledge that using complex tasks and developing student-centered classrooms can be intimidating and challenging for teachers (Chazan and Ball 1999). One difficulty associated…

This paper explores the cumulative reflections of lecturers examining their tacit assumptions of teaching practice. Despite extensive literature on the educational value of reflection, there is less visible research on teachers assessing their own reflective thinking. This longitudinal interpretive study uses Larrivee's assessment framework with a…

Highlighting the application of ethnomusicology beyond the traditional boundaries of the academy, this article investigates the use of music in adult literacy education. In 2005, as part of the Literacy and Equality in Irish Society (LEIS) project, adult literacy tutors working in Northern Ireland, United Kingdom (UK), were invited to enrol in…

Michael is 15 and repeating the ninth grade. He habitually tilts his chair back and drums annoyingly on his desk with a pencil. This morning, he was doing it--again--while you were trying to teach. What will you do? Responsive teachers shift their reactions in important ways. They adopt a social emotional lens: What does Michael's tapping say…

Despite the common use of the term reflection in higher education assessment tasks, learners are not often taught "how" to communicate their disciplinary knowledge through reflection. This paper argues that students can and should be taught how to reflect in deep and transformative ways. It highlights the reflexive pedagogical balancing…

The purpose of this study was to determine if peer observation (PO) in an ELT practicum for graduate students led to reflective teaching. The 15 students in the practicum taught EFL at two universities in rural Thailand in eight-week intensive courses. Five questions were investigated: (1) Did PO help the students engage in reflective teaching?…