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Adopting a Student-Inquiry Stance for Teaching Genetics: A 10-year Autoethnographic Analysis
Get PDFWhile teaching genetics over a 10-year time span, I committed to change my pedagogy to include more student-inquiry. The main agent for this change was an epiphany caused by a difficult, yet enlightening experience with action research. My experience demonstrates that it is difficult to conduct authentic student inquiry in the high school science context and requires a shift of focus from traditional teacher-centered pedagogy to student-centered learning. This paper uses analytical autoethnography methodology (Anderson, 2006) to examine my support of student inquiry and the development of my pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) over a ten-year period. The level of student-inquiry will be characterized using the Chinn and Malhotra (2001) framework for evaluating inquiry tasks. The hexagonal model of pedagogical content knowledge from Park and Oliver (2008) is used as the theoretical framework for my pedagogical content knowledge change over the period of analysis. The ethnographic data examined in this study included documents such as project reports, curriculum documents, lesson plans, and written narratives. Data was examined using the hexagonal model pedagogical content knowledge components and written narratives to provide a temporal description of pedagogical content knowledge change. The findings indicate the transition towards increasing amounts of student-inquiry and changes in my personal pedagogical content knowledge. However, the change was slow and contained some pragmatic compromises and internal tensions
Newcomers, Creative Spaces, and Connection Through Art
Get PDFHistorically, the island of Newfoundland has had a culturally homogeneous population. For this reason, newcomers report a distressing insider/outsider dynamic of disconnect and challenges accessing local social support systems (Anderson, 2012; Baker, Price, & Walsh, 2015; El-Bialy & Mulay, 2016; Li, Doyle, Lymburner, & Ghadi, 2016). This is disconcerting, as a scoping review conducted by Guruge and Butt (2015) found that post-migration experiences of discrimination and othering are as important as traumatic pre-migration experiences in determining mental health variance in newcomers. Indeed, moving to a new country is challenging in itself, beyond experiencing loss of the familiar, culture shock, and discrimination. Cultural bereavement, defined as experiencing the “loss of identity, culture, home, familiar surroundings, and loss of family and friends” (Ishafani, 2008, p. 79), may negatively impact an individual’s wellbeing. However, it is important to emphasize the resiliency of newcomers when relocating to a new country and not stereotype refugees as “helpless victims that need to be studied, uplifted, and cured” (Guruge, Hynie, Shakya, Akbari, Htoo, & Abiyo, 2015, para. 1
The Education of Immigrant and Refugee Students in NL: What Philosophy of Education Might Say
Get PDFPhilosophy of education is variously understood; to some, it is the discipline in education that gets at ‘big questions’ or ‘first things,’ i.e. metaphysical and moral grounds, principles, and rules that purport to provide a foundation for teaching and learning, the curriculum, and schools. To others, it is a system that helps us to interpret scientific and social-scientific findings and put these in the context of persons, community, society, and (especially) politics. These two positions (and there are others) are not mutually exclusive. In this discussion, I will draw on both of these (disciplines and systems) as I discuss the role philosophy of education might play in discussions of the education of immigrant and refugee students in Newfoundland and Labrador (hereafter NL)
Freedom as Ariadne’s Thread through the Interpretation of Life: Schelling and Jonas on Philosophy of Nature as the Art of Interpretation
No full textAccording to Schelling’s 1806 Aphorisms as an Introduction to Naturphilosophie, the aim of philosophy should be nothing less than a sort of excitation of further developments of an eternal poem (Gedicht) (SW VII: 145f). This type of poem should not just be understood as fictional in the modern sense, i.e., as an opposition to what is actual (wirklich). First and foremost, we should interpret the verbs contrive or dichten (poeticize) in the sense of creation. We should even read the Schellingian term “construction” in the German verb dichten. Thereby, the developments of such an eternal poem as the goal of philosophy point towards the act of forming a system. The result of this effort is a collection of internally connected concepts in a condensation (Verdichtung). According to this view of development, a true school does not merely repeat the master’s philosophy. What takes place in the hands of the student is rather an addition that on the one hand condenses the old, thereby bringing it clearer forth. On the other hand, this condensing shows itself to be something new. Thus, philosophy is thought to be radical, i.e., rooted (radix) in and growing out of the old. This, I will show, follows from Schelling’s conception of philosophy, as it can be seen in System of Transcendental Idealism. Exemplary, here we find Schelling’s development of his predecessor’s thoughts in the above mentioned sense. In this system, the rootedness in the old amounts to a grounding and systematization of the preceding systems (Kant’s and Fichte’s)
Role of Multilevel Governance In Urban Public Transit
Get PDFIn an increasingly urbanized society, Canadian governments face considerable challenges in guiding economic development and facilitating services within their jurisdictions. For densely populated and growing cities and regions, constant changes are difficult to plan for. This work considers two case studies, Toronto and Vancouver, to demonstrate the use of network management practices by provincial and federal governments. It is argued that unequal power relations necessitate network management in order to influence policy direction within a multilevel governance context
Colombia's Fork in the Road? President Santos' Treaty with The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)
Get PDFColombia is considered Latin America’s most stable democracy; meanwhile, it is war-torn by the internal conflict with the guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The armed conflict with the FARC has lasted for fifty-two years and has claimed the lives of 220,000 innocent civilians. The year 2016 marked the historic and controversial moment that President Santos of Colombia signed a peace treaty with the FARC, ignoring the results of a referendum that was intended to ratify the treaty. This paper will argue that President Santos’ refusal to recognize the FARC’s role in drug trafficking allows for future repercussions in Colombian politics and does not ensure that the democracy of which his beautiful country has boasted can be maintained. Furthermore, this paper contends that in bypassing the results of the referendum he has opened the door for the next government to oppose the peace treaty, possibly creating severe consequences for Colombia. In sum, President Santos has forcefully led Colombia on a journey it did not choose, leaving the future uncertain
“Why Didn’t Our Boys Just Shoot Him and Leave a Little Note?”: The Trial of Adolf Eichmann in Israel
Get PDFHistorically speaking, the trial of former Nazi Adolf Eichmann was an unavoidable spectacle of the 1960s. For some, it could have been seen as a farce due to its inherent impartiality as the accused was illegally kidnapped out of Argentina and the proceedings were held in the fledgling state of Israel. For others, it reopened unpleasant wounds and brought back the horrors of Nazi Germany. For the world, it was an educational opportunity that allowed a new generation to learn about the atrocities of the Holocaust. My paper examines Eichmann’s role in the Holocaust, his trial and subsequent sentence, the question of the legitimacy of the proceedings, and the trial’s significant impact on how society viewed the Holocaust. From public opinion on Israel to new philosophical ideas, the Eichmann trial challenged people to reevaluate everything that they had known about Nazi barbarities, specifically those committed against the Jews. The reason why the Israelis did not simply “shoot him and leave a little note” was because his trial would, in fact, serve a political purpose. Was Eichmann really that important? Was he as central to the Holocaust as Israel would like the world to believe? There is a substantial amount of evidence that indicates Eichmann was not quite so important and that, instead, his highly- publicized trial was used to further the belief that the Holocaust was a uniquely Jewish experience thus validating the existence of the newly-created state of Israel in the Middle East.
