Collected and edited by Noah Levin -/- Table of Contents: -/- UNIT ONE: INTRODUCTION TO CONTEMPORARY ETHICS: TECHNOLOGY, AFFIRMATIVE ACTION, AND IMMIGRATION 1 The “Trolley Problem” and Self-Driving Cars: Your Car’s Moral Settings (Noah Levin) 2 What is Ethics and What Makes Something a Problem for Morality? (David Svolba) 3 Letter from the Birmingham City Jail (Martin Luther King, Jr) 4 A Defense of Affirmative Action (Noah Levin) 5 The Moral Issues of Immigration (B.M. Wooldridge) 6 The Ethics of our (...) Digital Selves (Noah Levin) -/- UNIT TWO: TORTURE, DEATH, AND THE “GREATER GOOD” 7 The Ethics of Torture (Martine Berenpas) 8 What Moral Obligations do we have (or not have) to Impoverished Peoples? (B.M. Wooldridge) 9 Euthanasia, or Mercy Killing (Nathan Nobis) 10 An Argument Against Capital Punishment (Noah Levin) 11 Common Arguments about Abortion (Nathan Nobis & Kristina Grob) 12 Better (Philosophical) Arguments about Abortion (Nathan Nobis & Kristina Grob) -/- UNIT THREE: PERSONS, AUTONOMY, THE ENVIRONMENT, AND RIGHTS 13 Animal Rights (Eduardo Salazar) 14 John Rawls and the “Veil of Ignorance” (Ben Davies) 15 Environmental Ethics: Climate Change (Jonathan Spelman) 16 Rape, Date Rape, and the “Affirmative Consent” Law in California (Noah Levin) 17 The Ethics of Pornography: Deliberating on a Modern Harm (Eduardo Salazar) 18 The Social Contract (Thomas Hobbes) -/- UNIT FOUR: HAPPINESS 19 Is Pleasure all that Matters? Thoughts on the “Experience Machine” (Prabhpal Singh) 20 Utilitarianism (J.S. Mill) 21 Utilitarianism: Pros and Cons (B.M. Wooldridge) 22 Existentialism, Genetic Engineering, and the Meaning of Life: The Fifths (Noah Levin) 23 The Solitude of the Self (Elizabeth Cady Stanton) 24 Game Theory, the Nash Equilibrium, and the Prisoner’s Dilemma (Douglas E. Hill) -/- UNIT FIVE: RELIGION, LAW, AND ABSOLUTE MORALITY 25 The Myth of Gyges and The Crito (Plato) 26 God, Morality, and Religion (Kristin Seemuth Whaley) 27 The Categorical Imperative (Immanuel Kant) 28 The Virtues (Aristotle) 29 Beyond Good and Evil (Friedrich Nietzsche) 30 Other Moral Theories: Subjectivism, Relativism, Emotivism, Intuitionism, etc. (Jan F. Jacko). (shrink)

PurposeBased on social exchange theory, this study aimed to investigate, from the cost-benefits perspective, the intention to co-create open educational resources.Design/Methodology/ApproachParticipants in the study included 311 undergraduate students selected from those enrolled in a course on the China University MOOC platform. Regression analysis was conducted to examine cost and benefits factors that influenced participants’ intentions to co-create OER.Findings From the perspective of benefits, expected reciprocity, increase in knowledge self-efficacy, and creative self-efficacy were found to significantly and positively impact (...) the intention to co-create OER, while increase in internet self-efficacy was not. From the perspective of cost, perceived effort and perceived privacy were found to significantly and negatively impact the intention to co-create OER, while perceived intellectual property risks were not significant.Originality/ValueThree strategies are recommended to promote the intention to co-create OER based on the findings of this study: focusing on OER communities and developing reciprocity norms; popularizing and promoting knowledge and use of Creative Commons copyright licenses; providing easy-to-use online resource editing tools for use with OER repositories.Research Limitations/ImplicationsFuture research should explore other ages, cultural backgrounds, and types of online learning experience to help broaden the universality of the results. (shrink)

Chapter 7 returns to the opening themes of the book, probing the meaning of the “theological exploration of vocation” for humanistic educational practice. Gordon College’s efforts to educate students in both “Jerusalem” and “Athens” form an illustrative example. The chapter asks how we might understand the PTEV campuses’ ability to use the intellectual resources of Christian theology to self-reflexively draw upon religious symbols in ways that enabled students to probe more deeply and authentically their own questions of meaning and (...) purpose. In answer, the chapter develops an account of how the PTEV’s emphasis upon religion as a mode of practical, yet critical engagement with the world renewed themes of humanistic understanding to support an integrated undergraduate experience that fostered liberal learning that included religious, interreligious, and secular points of view. (shrink)

Open Education opens up learning opportunities to, potentially, every person in the world. Additionally, it allows teachers, researchers, and practitioners to find, share, reuse, and improve existing resources under a dependable legal framework. Aiming to spread and foster the introduction of open policies in Higher Education institutions, the gamified interactive learning experience Catch the Open! was developed. Catch the Open! targets HE educators who wish to learn, or who wish to deepen their existing knowledge, about OE (...) and Open Educational Practices. Within the gamified learning experience, the user becomes an educator, Alex, the game character, who receives a task from the Rector: to investigate how to best include OE and OEP in teaching and learning practice within the institution. Alex proceeds to explore and gather information in a web-based 2D virtual HE institution where students, colleagues, and guest researchers will help her to develop a comprehensive understanding of OE and the practical application of OEP. The educational content within Catch the Open! is underpinned by an OE competences framework for HE educators, developed in a previous phase of the Erasmus+ OpenGame project. In this paper, the design process to link pedagogical and technological approaches, which results in the Catch the Open! gamified web-based interactive application, is presented as well as the application itself. Moreover, two phases of piloting with 153 HE educators from six different HE institutions are presented. The obtained findings showed that the gamified environment helped in learning about OE. On the other hand, learners also suggested several improvement aspects of the gamified environment, such as the length of finishing a learning mission while playing. (shrink)

Advances in fashion pattern construction technologies continually introduce novel approaches that address the limitations of existing practices. To keep pace, these emerging technologies must be widely disseminated to update practitioners’ skills and advance current practices. The literature identifies two primary dissemination methods: the traditional instructor-led method and the learning management systems-based open educational resources (LMS-based OER) method. The former, heavily reliant on apprenticeships for technical skill development, is inefficient, ineffective, and unsustainable. In contrast, the OER-based approach offers a (...) more efficient, effective, and sustainable alternative, positioning it as the superior method for disseminating emerging technologies in this field. However, the effective establishment and implementation of effective OERs require an OER-oriented instructional design model (IDM) tailored to the specific learning needs and large-scale adoption theories pertinent to pattern construction. Currently, such a model is absent, hindering the field’s transition to a theory-based dissemination approach customised to its unique practices and impeding the efficient, widespread adoption of novel pattern construction technologies. Using a developmental approach, this study addresses this gap by introducing a novel OER-oriented IDM termed OER-PattEdu. This study contributes to both theoretical and methodological literature and holds practical implications for transforming lifelong learning and professional development in the field into a more efficient and sustainable paradigm. (shrink)

This paper aims to present possible approaches, resources and programmes to introduce the topic of biosecurity to life scientists and engineers at the higher education level. Firstly, we summarise key findings from a number of international surveys on biosecurity education that have been carried out in the United States, Europe, Israel and the Asia–Pacific region. Secondly, we describe the development of our openly-accessible education resource, illustrating the scope and content of these materials. Thirdly, we report on actual cases of (...) biosecurity education that have been implemented. These include achievements in and lessons derived from the implementation of biosecurity education at the National Defense Medical College in Japan. These experiences are followed by presentation of the expert-level “Train-the-Trainer” programmes subsequently launched by the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom. These examples will help readers to understand how educators can enhance their own understanding about biosecurity issues and how they can then disseminate their knowledge through development of their own customised, relevantly-targeted and stage-tailored education programmes within their own life science communities. By providing these examples, we argue that education for life scientists, policy-makers and other stakeholders about social responsibility on dual-use issues is easily achievable and need not be expensive, time-consuming or over-burdening. We suggest that recurring classes or courses be held at appropriate times during educational programmes to accommodate the developing expertise and advancing learning stages of students. (shrink)

It is clear now that open education is much more than a binary consideration of open versus closed but also includes "opening." This book maps a range of different theoretical and practice-oriented approaches and proposals to (re)considering open education.

El proyecto OpenLIVES (Learning Insights from the Voices of Émigrés) se encargará de digitalizar y publicar materiales de todo tipo que documenten las experiencias de los emigrantes españoles, sobre todo por tierras francesas, alemanas e inglesas durante un período de tiempo que abarca las décadas de los 50, 60 y 70, y su posterior retorno a España; toda la información recogida será reutilizada en forma de recursos educativos en abierto. Estas fuentes primarias sobre el tema de la migración, obtenidas a (...) través de investigaciones etnográficas son potencialmente relevantes para un amplio rango de disciplinas académicas como pueden ser: la Historia, la Ciencias Políticas, la Economía, la Sociología, etcétera, además de ser un tema recurrente y actual, de interés mundial. El proyecto demostrará que una serie de datos recopilados en una investigación con una finalidad específica pueden ser usados de muy distintas maneras en el mundo de las Humanidades y las Ciencias Sociales. Los materiales y los recursos de educación en abierto se darán a conocer en primera instancia utilizando Humbox, un repositorio digital y gratuito para la comunidad educativa formada por las Humanidades, financiado por JISC y desarrollado por la University of Southampton. ---- The OpenLIVES project (Learning Insights from the Voices of Émigrés) will digitise and publish materials documenting the experiences of Spanish migrants especially to France, Germany and the UK during the decade of 50s, 60s and 70s and returning migrants to Spain, repurposing this data as open educational resources. Such primary research data on migration has potential relevance to a wide range of academic disciplines including history, politics, economics, sociology, etc. and is of ongoing interest and debate in the wider world. The project will demonstrate that a set of research data collected using an ethnographic methodology for a specific purpose can be used in a range of ways within humanities and social science disciplines. The data and open education resources will be released, in the first instance using the community repository for the humanities, Humbox, developed with funding from JISC by the University of Southampton. (shrink)

Farm animal welfare is a knowledge domain that can be regarded as a model for new ways of organizing learning and making higher education more responsive to the needs of society. Global concern for animal welfare has resulted in a great demand for knowledge. As a complement to traditional education in farm animal welfare, higher education can be more demand driven and look at a broad range of methods to make knowledge available. The result of an inventory on farm animal (...) welfare, e-learning, learning resources, and open educational resources in three different search engines is presented. A huge amount of information on animal welfare is available on the Internet but many of the providers lock in the knowledge in a traditional course context. Only a few universities develop and disseminate open learning resources within the subject. Higher education institutions are encouraged to develop open educational resources in animal welfare for the benefit of teachers, students, society, and, indirectly, animal welfare. (shrink)

The proliferation of open technologies and content in higher education is motivated by broad embrace of a principle of sharing that is consonant with various contemporary economic, pedagogic and policy drivers.At the same time, open technologies and content present the possibility of a departure in the culture of humanities research and teaching.The open frameworks celebrate and facilitate collaborative and cooperative modes of working which are, to a degree, alien to a traditional ‘individualist’ conception of work in the (...) Humanities. But such collectivity and collaboration yield new benefits to individual humanist scholars and so are not a source for concern. (shrink)

Educators and policy makers confront challenging questions of ethics, justice, and equity on a regular basis. Should teachers retain a struggling student if it means she will most certainly drop out? Should an assignment plan favor middle-class families if it means strengthening the school system for all? These everyday dilemmas are both utterly ordinary and immensely challenging, yet there are few opportunities and resources to help educators think through the ethical issues at stake. Drawing on research and methods developed in (...) the Justice in Schools project at the Harvard Graduate School of Education,_ Dilemmas of Educational Ethics_ introduces a new interdisciplinary approach to achieving practical wisdom in education, one that honors the complexities inherent in educational decision making and encourages open discussion of the values and principles we should collectively be trying to realize in educational policy and practice. At the heart of the book are six richly described, realistic accounts of ethical dilemmas that have arisen in education in recent years, paired with responses written by noted philosophers, empirical researchers, policy makers, and practitioners, including Pedro Noguera, Howard Gardner, Mary Pattillo, Andres A. Alonso, Jamie Ahlberg, Toby N. Romer, and Michael J. Petrilli. The editors illustrate how readers can use and adapt these cases and commentaries in schools and other settings in order to reach a difficult decision, deepen their own understanding, or to build teams around shared values. (shrink)

This study examines the educational policy related to the inclusion of ethnic minority population in the contemporary China. It has undergone three stages of the educational policy transformation, including the beginning, development and perfection stages. It is characterized by the steadiness, caution, rapidity, quality improvement, standardization and quality. Through implementing the educational policy of the inclusion of ethnic minority population, it has made retrogress and achievements, which has played a positive role in national integration, maintaining national unity (...) and regional stability, improving the academic level and cross-cultural ability of minority students, and sharing educational resources. However, in current China’s education context, the implementation of education policy is faced with some prominent problems, such as the marginalized educational identity, non-communicative education, relative separation of systems and serious cultural barriers, relative emphasis on explicit education. Therefore, it suggested to construct a new integrative and open ethnic education system, strengthen the consciousness of the united integrated education, and enhancing the bi-directionality of ethnic integration. (shrink)

Educational opportunity has rarely been truly equal in any society, although modern societies have made enormous efforts to assure greater equality. Inequality in education is most often a consequence of existing social differences which structure opportunity. Those individuals with greater financial resources tend to have a wider range of educational choices and access to a higher standard of educational opportunities than those people with lesser financial means. This situation has become increasingly apparent in the course of the (...) COVID-19 pandemic. This paper discusses those inevitable differences which have exacerbated inequality during this pandemic. Such inequities are examined internationally. (shrink)

The article is dedicated to one of the fundamental social problems – the problem of inequality in the field of education and the mechanisms of its reproduction. The author's view of the problem is related to understanding the evolution of the institute of education in the light of the accompanying scientific discourse, which usually starts with the issue of equal access to educational resources, and then emphasizes on discussing the possibilities for equality of educational outcomes. The author traces (...) several main stages that reveal the progressive movement of the institutional nature of education, especially in the direction of expanding its accessibility, openness and efficiency, which at the same time remains firmly embedded in the existing system of stratification. Attention is paid mainly to the analysis of the way in which the institutional instruments in the form of selection and differentiation are materialized in the complex mechanisms and realities of the pedagogical process and contribute to the exacerbation of educational inequalities. (shrink)

This book is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license. This book examines the current state of elective placements of medical undergraduate students in developing countries and their impact on health care education at home. Drawing from a recent case study of volunteer deployment in Uganda, the authors provide an in-depth evaluation of the impacts on the students themselves and the learning outcomes associated with placements in low resource settings, as well as the impacts that these forms (...) of student mobility have on the host settings. In addition to reviewing the existing literature on elective placements, the authors outline a potential model for the future development of ethical elective placements. As the book concurs with an increasing international demand for elective placements, it will be of immediate interest to universities, intermediary organizations, students as consumers, and hosting organisations in low-resource settings. (shrink)

Our study aimed to investigate what Muslim families in England have the opportunity to have religious education for their children and to examine the institutions or structures that provide Islamic education opportunities. Document analysis as a qualitative method was adopted in our study. Academic books and articles related to the subject, statistical records, various re-ports provided by the state and private institutions, school curricula, school inspection reports, and law articles, and some court decisions constitute the main data sources. Maximum diversi-ty (...) sampling from the purposeful sampling types was used in determining the schools that were examined their Islamic curriculum, and it was tried to include as many different curriculum examples as possible. The fact that religious lessons are compulsory in schools in England and that this lesson is taught with a multicultural approach can be seen as an opportunity. On the other hand, there is a flexible education system in England. Muslim faith schools, supplementary schools (madrasa, maktab, and mosque school), and the home-schooling system are places and structures where Islamic education is carried out within the scope of formal and informal education. It is seen that Muslim faith schools are allowed to be opened as 'voluntary aided schools' by defining their distinctive religious characters as Muslim. The number of ‘state-funded Muslim schools’ is very limited, but their existence carries symbolic weight as a recognition of the Muslim com-munity’s right to establish such schools. It is understood that Muslim faith schools were opened mostly in the category of ‘independent schools’. Although there are various discussions about it, it is also important for Muslims to have informal religious education, in addition to formal education; it is allowed to open schools that offer Islamic education under the name of madrasa, maktab or mosque school. Families who send their children to the community schools because of the insufficient number of Muslim faith schools send their children to madāris (singular: madrasa), makātib (singular: maktab), or mosque schools which are called as ‘supplementary schools’. Social and moral values are taught here, including the teaching of the Qur'an, as well as sīrah (the biography of the Prophet), fiqh (jurisprudence), and Islamic history. It was understood that families who want to protect their children from the unhealthy envi-ronment of the school have the right to prefer home education, since the school is not compul-sory. In this sense, home-schooling can be considered as another opportunity for Muslim fami-lies to have their children Islamic Education. In addition to all these opportunities, the lack of a standard in these educational structures, the unqualified teachers, the inadequacy of curriculum development studies, and as a result, lack of qualified teaching materials are important problems. Economic limitations emerge as the first obstacle to increase the number of Muslim faith schools and to improve educational quali-ty. This situation threatens the quality of education by giving rise to poor buildings, insufficient resources, insufficient health and safety standards, and inexperienced management. Another threat to the quality of education is that teachers for independent schools do not have to have Qualified Teacher Status (QTS). While negative perceptions about Muslim schools have been identified as another challenge, it is expressed in various sources that Muslim students are frequently exposed to Islamophobia in various ways in public schools. Linking mosques and Islamic education institutions to radicalization and making them a subject of discussion is another noteworthy issue. Although there is no evidence of the relationship between Muslim schools and terrorist acts in England, Muslim schools are subjected to suspicions of being po-tential breeding grounds for future extremists. It seems necessary to take some actions for madrasahs who do not want to be under the con-trol of the state to reach certain standards and increase the quality of education. For example, Muslim supplementary schools should be united under the same roof of an association like The Association of Muslim Schools. This will help to attain certain standards, to increase the quality of education, and to create opportunities for various cooperation and sharing of experiences. Also, it should not be seen enough that the teachers in the madāris only have religious educa-tion, and their pedagogical competencies should be improved by subjecting them to various educational programs. (shrink)

In a time of globally changing environments and economic challenges, many institutions of higher education are attempting to reform by promoting standardization approaches. Meaning-Centered Education explores the counter-tide for an alternative vision of education, where students and instructors engage in open meaning-making processes and self-organizing educational practices. In one contributed volume, Meaning-Centered Education provides a comprehensive introduction to current scholarship and pedagogical practice on meaning-centered education. International contributors explore how modern educational scholars and practitioners all around the (...) world are implementing a comprehensive framework that supports meaning making in a classroom. This edited collection is a valuable resource for higher education faculty and scholars interested in renewing the deep purposes of higher education. (shrink)

The issue of methodology is a fundamental concern for all who engage in educational research. Presenting a series of methodological dialogues between eminent education researchers including Michael Apple, Gert Biesta, Penny Enslin, John Hattie, Nel Noddings, Michael Peters, Richard Pring and Paul Smeyers, this book explores the ways in which they have chosen and developed research methods to style their investigations and frame their arguments. These dialogues address the specialized and technical aspects of conducting educational research, conceptualize the (...) relationship between methodology and theory, and provide in-depth discussion of concerns including falsifiability, openness, interpretation and researcher judgement. Foregrounding the researchers' first-hand experience and knowledge, this book will provide future and current researchers with a deeper comprehension of the place of theory in education research. An illuminating resource for undergraduate and postgraduate researchers alike, Theory and Philosophy in Education Researchconfronts the intricate complexities of conducting education research in a highly engaging and accessible way. (shrink)

Medical ethics education is crucial for medical students and trainees, helping to shape attitudes, beliefs, values, and professional identities. Exploration of ethical dilemmas and approaches to resolving them provides a broader understanding of the social and cultural contexts in which medicine is practiced, as well as the ethical implications of medical decisions, fostering critical thinking and self-reflection skills imperative to providing patient-centered care. However, exposure to medical ethics topics and their clinical applications can be limited by curricular constraints and the (...) availability of institutional resources and expertise. Podcasts, among other Free Open Access Medical Education (FOAMed) resources, are a novel educational tool that offers particular advantages for self-directed learning, a process by which learners engage in asynchronous educational opportunities outside of traditional academic or clinical settings. Podcasts can be readily distributed to wide audiences and played at any time, reducing barriers to access and offering a level of flexibility that is not possible with traditional forms of education and is well-suited to busy schedules. Podcasts can also use real voices and storytelling to make the content memorable and eminently human. This paper describes the development, production process, and impact of Core IM’s “At the Bedside,” a podcast focusing on issues in medical ethics and the medical humanities, intending to supplement standard bioethics curricula in an accessible, relevant, and engaging way. The authors advocate for broad incorporation of podcasts into medical ethics education. (shrink)

After decades of marginalization in the secularized twentieth-century academy, moral education has enjoyed a recent resurgence in American higher education, with the establishment of more than 100 ethics centers and programs on campuses across the country. Yet the idea that the university has a civic responsibility to teach its undergraduate students ethics and morality has been met with skepticism, suspicion, and even outright rejection from both inside and outside the academy. In this collection, renowned scholars of philosophy, politics, and religion (...) debate the role of ethics in the university, investigating whether universities should proactively cultivate morality and ethics, what teaching ethics entails, and what moral education should accomplish. The essays quickly open up to broader questions regarding the very purpose of a university education in modern society. Editors Elizabeth Kiss and J. Peter Euben survey the history of ethics in higher education, then engage with provocative recent writings by Stanley Fish in which he argues that universities should not be involved in moral education. Stanley Hauerwas responds, offering a theological perspective on the university’s purpose. Contributors look at the place of politics in moral education; suggest that increasingly diverse, multicultural student bodies are resources for the teaching of ethics; and show how the debate over civic education in public grade-schools provides valuable lessons for higher education. Others reflect on the virtues and character traits that a moral education should foster in students—such as honesty, tolerance, and integrity—and the ways that ethical training formally and informally happens on campuses today, from the classroom to the basketball court. _Debating Moral Education_ is a critical contribution to the ongoing discussion of the role and evolution of ethics education in the modern liberal arts university. _Contributors_. Lawrence Blum, Romand Coles, J. Peter Euben, Stanley Fish, Michael Allen Gillespie, Ruth W. Grant, Stanley Hauerwas, David A. Hoekema, Elizabeth Kiss, Patchen Markell, Susan Jane McWilliams, Wilson Carey McWilliams, J. Donald Moon, James Bernard Murphy, Noah Pickus, Julie A. Reuben, George Shulman, Elizabeth V. Spelman. (shrink)

When physicist Alan Sokal recently submitted an article to the postmodernist journal Social Text, the periodical's editors were happy to publish it--for here was a respected scientist offering support for the journal's view that science is a subjective, socially constructed discipline. But as Sokal himself soon revealed in Lingua Franca magazine, the essay was a spectacular hoax--filled with scientific gibberish anyone with a basic knowledge of physics should have caught--and the academic world suddenly awoke to the vast gap that has (...) opened between the scientific community and their mould-be critics. But the truth is that not only postmodern critics but Americans in general have a weak grasp on scientific principles and facts. In Connected Knowledge, physicist Alan Cromer offers a way to bridge the chasm, with a lively, lucid account of scientific thinking and a provocative new agenda for American education. Science, Cromer argues, is anything but common sense: It requires a particular habit of mind that does not come naturally. For example, something as simple as buoyancy can only be explained through Archimedes' principle--that a body in a fluid is subject to an upward force equal to the weight of fluid it displaces--yet few scientists could arrive at this ancient concept by trial and error. School children, however, are often given a ball and a tank of water, and asked to explain buoyancy any way they can. Today's de emphasis on teaching pupils necessary facts and principles, he argues, "far from empowering them, makes them slaves of their own subjective opinions." This movement in education, known as Constructivism, has close ties to postmodern critics (such as the editors of Social Text) who question the objectivity of science, and with it the existence of an objective reality. Cromer offers a ringing defense of the knowability of the world, both as an objective reality and as a finite landscape of discovery. The advance of scientific knowledge, he argues, is not unlike the mapping of the continents; at this point, we have found them all. He shows how the advent of quantum mechanics, rather than making knowledge less certain, actually offers a more precise understanding of the behavior of atoms and electrons. Turning from philosophy to education, he argues that instead of allowing students to flounder, however creatively, schools should follow a progressive curriculum that returns theoretical knowledge to the classroom. Connected Knowledge, however, goes much farther. As a discipline that insists upon connecting theory with measurable reality, physical science offers a new direction for reforming the social sciences. Cromer also shows how some of the hottest issues in public policy--including the debates over special education and group variations in I.Q., can be resolved through clear, hard headed thinking. For example, he argues for use of the G.E.D. as a national educational standard, with a new "politics of intelligence" to guide the distribution of school resources. Always forthright and articulate, Alan Cromer offers a startling new vision for integrating science, philosophy, and education. (shrink)

Public universities in Poland receive fairly limited financial support for creating e-textbooks (interactive online textbooks) and lack the appropriate ICT competences among teaching staff, especially in the case of non-technical universities. The authors propose a pedagogical and technological paradigm for e-textbooks in medical education using open source software with minimal IT skills required. Technologies used to develop e-textbooks are connected with: publication and distribution of e-textbooks, e-book readers, and editing tools. The paper also discusses a survey that targeted students (...) of medical sciences, which focused on their understanding of their educational needs that can be met through new online resources as well as their expectations of how such e-textbooks should be like. (shrink)

School can be an epicenter for expressing what troubles or energizes the wider community. Taking a step back from the messiness of today's issues and clarifying what we mean by school may provide a new or refreshed lens for viewing these institutions. Schools are sacred, not in a religious sense but in terms of their potential value. At all levels of schooling, teaching and learning are its sacred tasks. And teaching and learning are sacred because the knowledge and skills they (...) impart can potentially open the learner's mind to meaning-making, wisdom, and self-understanding, where values are clarified and life commitments are made. Seeing the school as sacred implies that its environs are sacred space, its schedules are sacred time, and its actions are sacred rites. They are to be respected, protected, and nurtured. This has profound implications for our demeanor and actions, teaching approaches, curriculum planning, administrative priorities, policy-making, and resourcing. (shrink)

Bank Street College of Education professor Salvatore Vascellaro is a leading advocate of taking children and teachers into a wider world as the key to improving our struggling schools. Combining practical and theoretical guidance, Out of the Classroom and into the World visits a rich variety of classrooms transformed by innovative field trip curricula--showing how students’ hearts and minds are opened as they discover how a suspension bridge works, what connects them to the people and places of their neighborhood, and (...) as they come to understand the ecosystem of a river by following it to its source. Vascellaro shows, equally, that what teachers can offer children is fueled by their own engagement with the world, and he offers stunning examples of teachers awakened by their direct experiences with the social issues plaguing American society--from the flood-torn areas of New Orleans to the mining areas of West Virginia. Based on the core principles of progressive pedagogy, and the wisdom gained from Vascellaro’s experience as a teacher, school administrator, and teacher educator, Out of the Classroom and into the World is a direct retort to test scores and standards as adequate measures of teaching and learning--an inspiring call and major new resource for anyone interested in reinvigorating America’s classrooms. (shrink)

The teaching of ethics in teacher education programs is crucial for fostering the moral and ethical development of prospective teachers and shaping them into ethical role models for future students. This study, employing qualitative case study research, gathered data from undergraduates in teacher education programs to explore the best approaches for ethics education. It found that combining digital and case-based pedagogical methods, fostering an open-minded attitude among lecturers, and implementing a blend of Socratic and active learning techniques leads to (...) the most favorable outcomes. Additionally, continuous formative assessment throughout the academic year is essential. To cultivate a teaching workforce with strong ethical and moral values, undergraduate courses in ethics and morality should be thought-provoking, integrating real-life cases with a mix of digital and tangible resources. The ethics course lecturer should not only serve as a role model and exhibit a caring disposition but also use effective teaching methodologies. The paper details key themes and categories for successful ethics instruction and offers specific recommendations. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Drama in Aesthetic Education:An Invitation to Imagine the World as if It Could Be OtherwiseFlorence Samson (bio)Maxine Greene, philosopher-in-residence for the Lincoln Center Institute (LCI), suggests that through aesthetic education "new connections are made in experience: new patterns are formed, new vistas are opened. Persons see differently, resonate differently." As Rilke wrote in one of his poems, and as quoted by Greene, "they are enabled to pay heed when (...) a work of art tells them, 'You must change your life.'"1 Greene interprets Rilke's words to mean that "a work [of art], when fully perceived and carefully attended to, makes a demand upon beholders—a demand that they change, look with new eyes, hear with new ears, become something they have not been before."2 Greene believes that "the perceiving, the noticing [about which Rilke spoke] are enhanced," for in the process of "[o]pening ourselves as perceivers to the work, entering into it kinaesthetically, we free ourselves to grasp it in its vital fullness and complexity."3This life change, to which Rilke refers, occurs as we take into our own being the experiences of others and realize that not everyone sees the world as we do. As we look critically at ourselves and our complicity in situations that position people as "other," we are moved to imagine that the world could be otherwise.Curriculum, Change, and Aesthetic EducationAesthetic education, an inquiry-driven engagement with a work of art, can be a catalyst to bringing about change. The aesthetic education experience consists of a number of components. LCI agrees upon a repertoire of "works of art" deemed likely to fulfill the requirements of engagement and inquiry. These may include, but are not limited to, music, drama, and opera performances, and mask, photo, and art exhibits. For each work of art, the LCI [End Page 70] researchers and other staff prepare a resource binder, entitled Windows on the Work. The teacher educator has several meetings with the teaching artist assigned to that work to develop the questions that will power the inquiry process, determine the structure and activities of the pre- and sometimes post-performance classes, and guide the students in their engagement with the work of art.I have included an aesthetic education experience program each term in my graduate and undergraduate elementary and early childhood education courses. My course outlines describe this component and the related student assignments. For the fall 2004 course, I chose Ping Chong's Secret History: Journeys Abroad, Journeys Within.4 This drama documentary, written and directed by Ping Chong and Leyla Mordirzadeh in collaboration with Sara Zatz, was directly related to one of my course goals—teaching for equity and social justice. This involves providing teachers with opportunities to "engage in productive dialogues about both inequities and possibilities for social reconstruction in the communities within which they and their students are developing."5Ping Chong & Company was founded thirty years ago "to create innovative works of theatre and art that explore the intersection of race, history, culture, and technology in the modern world."6Ping Chong, Insider/Outsider, and His Approach to TheatreCanadian-born and New York-reared Chong—theatre director, choreographer, and video and installation artist—is "fascinated and disturbed by the position of the outsider, the person made to feel 'other' in a society" and "probe[s] the drama of those pushed from one culture to another."7 He has done extensive research on both immigrants and refugees and recognizes that there is a psychological difference in the trauma experienced by members of both groups in the transition from one culture to the other.Chong's unique "talk, reveal, and seek to understand" approach to theatre "moves us toward unification, toward diminishing the barriers between peoples, and thus toward embracing all that is good in civilization."8 His work is grounded in his experience of sharing a common ethnicity and language with his community in Chinatown and occupying the position of "other" as the only Chinese student in his high school. Because of his experience of being "other," Chong has "a real kind of empathy and connection" with his projects.9 He considers... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Democracy and Music Education: Liberalism, Ethics, and the Politics of PracticeHeidi WesterlundPaul G. Woodford, Democracy and Music Education: Liberalism, Ethics, and the Politics of Practice ( Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2005)Paul G. Woodford's Democracy and Music Education needs to be warmly welcomed in the field of philosophy of music education. It contributes to the discussion centering on ethics and music education—a discussion that after multiculturalism, pluralism, praxialism, and (...) other recent "isms" still awaits its appearance in a stronger sense. Woodford writes that the aim of the book is to enhance democratic ends by inviting music educators to contribute "to wider intellectual and political conversations about the nature and significance of music in our lives and those of our children."1Woodford borrows ideas from many thinkers creating an interesting synthesis and lines of thought throughout the book. His main resource in developing a liberalist music education is, however, along the ideas of the American pragmatist and educational philosopher, John Dewey. Woodford's choice is well thought out. Dewey deserves to be redeemed and recognized in music education, not the least because of various distorted interpretations of his views that have commonly been accepted in the profession in the past. Woodford argues that the music appreciation movement, which aimed at developing good musical taste equally in all children, has not in any particular way been a Deweyan democratic movement. Music educators have not acknowledged their role as agents in the [End Page 235] transformation of school and society. Instead, he states, they have continued to subscribe to the older aesthetic and utilitarian rationales and yet neither approach prepares students "to question and challenge authority and thereby to transform musical society."2It is noteworthy that Woodford does not elaborate on Dewey's central concept, experience, but unexpectedly draws upon concepts such as abstract reason or the autonomous individual to reconstruct music education. Critical conversation becomes celebrated against performance-oriented music education. The book leaves open the discussion between utilitarian and aesthetic rationales and carefully avoids Dewey's notion of the aesthetic and experimentation, which could have brought new angles in understanding his notion of democracy and its relation to the social and musical.3 Woodford tries to maintain a middle ground in the North American philosophical battlefield of music education stating that music educators "should listen more closely to one another while avoiding extremes."4 His critique targets critical theorists, radical feminist writers, and modernist as well as postmodernist ideas, while Woodford himself seeks a middle way between laissez-faire and elitist or autocratic concepts of music education.As a whole, Woodford's conceptual toolkit for promoting ethical aspects in music education are less akin to Dewey's thoughts and more to the Greek philosophers and their notions of virtues. Woodford writes, "democracy depends on the existence of good faith and generosity of spirit, of character and love for one's fellow men and women."5 These virtues are "the glue that can bind us together as society."6 How is this achieved in music education? Teaching love becomes a practical problem: explaining love requires it to be modelled and experienced, Woodford writes. However, he leaves this cornerstone of his conceptual scheme to rest on the notion of intellectual conversation.Allow me to explain briefly in what way Dewey's philosophical project differs from the Greek philosophical ethos and why abstract reason and intellectual conversation are not central concepts in Dewey's pragmatism (this does not mean that they cannot be celebrated as Woodford has done). For Dewey, the virtue of love signifies devotion, interest, and courage since genuine interest challenges us to overcome the obstacles that stand in the way.7 Interest and devotion are not just attitudes or intellectual modes in the sense of mental states, but linked to doings and active transactions with and in the environment. Interest is co-extensive with action and devotion with dedication to shared projects. This devotion to shared doings and their significance is the socially inclusive ethical side that Dewey brought to the individualistic humanistic theory of self-realization and to the theory of experience. The vision of humanistic self-realization, as has been presented in... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Symposium Art and Aesthetic Education in Times of Terror: Negotiating an Ethics and Aesthetics of Answerability Deanne Bogdan University of Toronto Claudia Eppert Louisiana State University Candace Yang Louisiana State University Charlene Morton University of Prince Edward Island The terrorist attacks of 1 1 September 2001 have created a climate of loss and fear among many in the western world. Some educators have maintained that any discussion ofthese events (...) so soon after they have happened threatens to dishonor the memory ofthe victims and is too difficult because ofour emotional unsettlement. These concerns are warranted; any discussion would indeed need to be mindful ofthem. The predominant position ofthis symposium, however, is that these events have created such chaos and uncertainty that we are faced with the immediate challenge not of disavowing or deferring discussion but rather of determining the initial terms of an ethical answerability. Thesymposiumparticipants seek to initiate such a difficult conversation in the hope that aspects of it might offer a productive resource forclassroompracticeanddailylivingas we find our way through grief and moral confusion. Thediscussion centers ontheroleaesthetics and aesthetic education haveplayed and continue to play in responding to these events and their aftermath. In particular, it considers the terms on which the arts might variably serve as a vehicle for consolation and healing, for honoring the victims of this event, and for educating present and future generations about what happened and about the requirements ofpeace. Furthermore, the challengefacedbythearts andaestheticeducation in addressingNorthAmerica's psychic and social needs is increased in recognition that these challenges are occurring in a context heavily infused with senseless violence and nationalist rhetoric. This context makes evident the need for artists and educators to help map an ethical and spiritual terrain for re-evaluating the "American way of life," national identities, and democracy itself. It is amappingthat shouldnot takeplace outsidethe arena ofthe political, but should respond to and intervene in it. It is a mapping, therefore, directed toward helping find"a wayofdevelopingapraxis ofeducational consequence that opens the spaces necessary for the remaking ofa democratic community " (Maxine Greene, The Dialectic ofFreedom [New York: Teachers College Press, 1988], 126). The papers in this symposium were originally presented as a panel discussion at a special session of the Philosophy of Education Society (PES) annualmeeting,Vancouver,BritishColumbia, in April 2002.©Philosophy ofMusic Education Review 10, no. 2 (Fall 2002): 124-139.... (shrink)

The European Biomedical Ethics Practitioner Education Project (EBEPE), funded by the BIOMED programme of the European Commission, is a five-nation partnership to produce open learning materials for healthcare ethics education. Papers and case studies from a series of twelve conferences throughout the European Union, reflecting the ‘burning issues’ in the participants' healthcare systems, have been collected by a team based at Imperial College, London, where they are now being edited into a series of seven activity-based workbooks for individual or (...) group study. These draft workbooks are now being read by a network of critical readers across Europe, whose comments will be incorporated into the final versions of the workbooks. The result will be the first European-wide and Europe-centred resource for teaching students, practitioners, and members of ethics committees. Topics covered include: • Resource allocation and rationing • The rights of children and young people • Long-term care of the elderly • Mental health and mental illness • Autonomy and patient choice • Decisions at the end of life • A study guide to using the workbooks The collaborative nature of the project has highlighted differentiated national approaches in medical ethics. Against the British and Dutch rights-orientated approach have emerged two other alternative models: the Nordic preference for administrative resolution of entitlement disputes, and the southern European emphasis on deontological codes. A genuinely European reconstruction of autonomy and rights, using hermeneutic, feminist and narrative approaches to counterbalance individualistic models, is emerging across the workbooks. The programme has also uncovered national differences in how ethics should be taught, with the workbooks' style being an experiential approach. Thus the EBEPE project is developing new models in both substantive and pedagogic senses, about both what should be taught and how it should be presented. (shrink)

_Material Feminisms: New Directions for Education_ provides a range of powerful theoretical and innovative methodological examples to illuminate how new material feminism can be put to work in education to open up new avenues of research design and practice. It poses challenging questions about the nature of knowledge production, the role of the researcher, and the critical endeavour arising from inter- and post-disciplinarity. Working with diffractive methodologies and new materialist ecological epistemologies, the book offers resources for hope which widen (...) the scope for how educational problems are interrogated, and provides a political counter-movement to neo-positivist, outcomes-based approaches within education. Inspired by writers such as Barad, Bennett, and Deleuze and Guattari, the book makes a radical break with cognitive, dualist, and universal conceptions of human subjectivity and intelligence in education. By taking its starting point as the co-consitutiveness of discourse, materiality, corporeality, and place, the book foregrounds educational practices as material enactments of multiple, non-linear, entangled, affective, and relational forces. It offers new insights into how gender, class, and ethnicity are constituted in, and by, material assemblages that are often submerged or ‘unseen’. This book is an essential starting place for those intrigued by what new theoretical accounts of materiality, posthumanism, and affect can offer educational research. Diffractive methodologies challenge readers to take a fuller range of actors into account than in ‘objective’ humanist methodologies, and in so doing to pay closer attention to what data is. It invites researchers to engage with long-standing feminist concerns about power and knowledge production in research processes. This book was originally published as a special issue of _Gender and Education. _. (shrink)

Synergetic governance is a practical approach to ensure quality in the teaching-learning process at multi-dimensional perspectives. This study intends to explore the potential of a synergetic governance approach in the vocational education system. A systematic literature review has been done by applying the PRISMA approach. The last 21 years' literature has been analyzed, and a synergetic governance model has been developed. This study reveals that the synergetic governance of education deals with integrating all available resources to enhance development by meeting (...) the demands of market, society, and nation as a new paradigm. An effective vocational education system requires the participation of all related stakeholders in the governance system. This study has developed an “intervention-approach-synergy-integration” mechanism to show how the education elements are connected to each other. The study reveals that the major synergetic elements are openness, equilibrium, dynamism and cooperation. To ensure synergetic governance, these elements should be integrated with an educational institution, market, public, society, state and private organization. It argues that the synergetic governance of these related components can reduce the demand and supply gap of quality vocational graduates in the industry – academy sectors. This study recommends incorporating multi-subjects' synergetic governance to expedite the marketable quality of vocational education. (shrink)

_The Applied Ethics Primer_ offers a concise introduction to both basic argumentation and normative ethical theory. The concepts discussed reflect the ethical theories that currently ground most professional ethics codes and debates in applied ethics. More inclusive than many similar resources, this primer gives students a sense of the truly global history of ethics, while remaining squarely focused on providing practical tools for ethical decision-making. -/- Also available as an open educational resource (see link below). -/- (Don't (...) buy it from Amazon, they're charging twice the publisher's price.). (shrink)

Selfishness is often considered a vice and selfish actions are often judged to be wrong. But sometimes we ought to do what’s best for ourselves: in a sense, we sometimes should be selfish. -/- The ethical theory known as ethical egoism states that we are always morally required to do what’s in our own self-interest. The view isn’t that we are selfish—this is psychological egoism—but that we ought to be. -/- This essay explores ethical egoism and the main arguments for (...) and against it. -/- [Note: there are links for two versions below; a 1000 Word Philosophy version and a longer version in "Introduction to Ethics: An Open Educational Resource"]. (shrink)

Two chapters -- "Common Arguments about Abortion" and "Better (Philosophical) Arguments About Abortion" -- in one file, from the open access textbook "Introduction to Ethics: An Open Educational Resource" edited by Noah Levin. -/- Adults, children and babies are arguably wrong to kill, fundamentally, because we are conscious, aware and have feelings. Since early fetuses entirely lack these characteristics, we argue that they are not inherently wrong to kill and so most abortions are not morally wrong, (...) since most abortions are done early in pregnancy before consciousness and feeling develop in the fetus. Furthermore, since the right to life is not the right to someone else’s body, fetuses might not have the right to the pregnant woman’s body, and so she has the right to not allow the fetus use of her body; this further justifies abortion, at least, until technology allows for the removal of fetuses to other wombs. Since morally permissible actions should be legal, abortions should be legal. -/- In the course of arguing for these claims, we: -/- discuss how to best define abortion; dismiss many common “question-begging” arguments that merely assume their conclusion, instead of giving genuine reasons for them; refute some often-heard “everyday arguments” about abortion; explain why some influential philosophical arguments against abortion are unsuccessful; provide some positive arguments that at least early abortions are not wrong; briefly discuss the ethics and legality of later abortions, and more. -/- Little of this discussion should be taken as absolute “proof” of anything, as this is merely a reasoned introduction to the issues: much more needs to be discussed, always. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"It Not the Only One":Womanist Resources for Reflection in Buddhist StudiesCharles HalliseyGood writers teach me that there is a world in our eye, but it not the only one.—Emily Townes1In this paper, I wish to consider some of the resources Womanism offers to those of us in Buddhist Studies that we can profitably take up for reflection as we look to the futures that our academic community can have.2 (...) At the outset of this essay, however, I am aware that some scholars of Buddhisms—whether their work is grounded in philology or historiography, or they also consider themselves engaged in Buddhist critical and constructive reflection—may, upon hearing my intent to explore this topic, react with their own versions of Tertullian's expletive, "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?"3 It is with the possibility, indeed likelihood, of that expletive in mind that I want to make the case that Womanist analysis invites Buddhist Studies on a productive journey and suggests new interpretive possibilities. Womanism opens up a critically self-conscious space that helps us to reflect upon what we want to know and how we do know. What I have in mind is the lesson offered by Emily Townes, a Womanist ethicist, when she says, "Good writers teach me that there is a world in our eye, but it not the only one."4Over the years, I have had numerous occasions when speaking to students about their plans to pursue graduate work in the study of Buddhism to remember a question put to me by my own teacher, John Ross Carter. It happened when I was still an undergraduate and I was considering going to graduate school to continue studying Buddhism. He listened carefully to what I had to say, and when I was finished he said, "It all sounds good, quite good, but I only have one question. What good is it for anyone else?" Now, perhaps more than then, I see just how important that question is, both personally and institutionally; it is one that we should ask ourselves over and over. The institutional force of the question—what good is Buddhist Studies for anyone else besides those who engage in it?—is perhaps felt especially acutely today, [End Page 73] as the finances of higher education shift around us, and especially as the finances of international education shift around us, as with recent cuts in funding for the Title VI Language and Area Studies Programs and other federal programs that for decades have sustained American higher education in fields like Buddhist Studies.5Those of us in Buddhist Studies have many talents, both ones that we are born with and others that we learn and cultivate, but how are we servants, faithful servants, to others, in the sense that we nurture our professional talents for the benefit of others? In a personally significant way, my participation in the gatherings of Womanists to read Buddhist texts together was a small, ad hoc answer to my teacher John Ross Carter's question. Maybe what I had learned in getting my "union card" in Buddhist Studies and after, and in developing my abilities to be what Carolyn Medine calls a professional reader, could be good for these Womanists.From reading Buddhist texts with Womanists, I had come to a renewed sense of what the humanities are good for in our contemporary universities. I also had come to know that there is no single reason individual Womanists come to be interested in Buddhism, although their varied motives can be gathered together in Womanist self-reflection upon a present and particular moment in Womanism's evolving trajectories, a present moment that Melanie Harris and others have called "a third wave" in Womanism.6 But even in my limited experience, I could see that some Womanists had become involved in Buddhist practice personally, seeing in Buddhism a religion that is, as Alice Walker once put it, "mature enough for us"; other Womanists had begun to explore Buddhism because they saw possibilities in Buddhist meditation for the sort of "self-care" they felt was one of the talents Womanists need to cultivate among themselves... (shrink)

After the moral framework of sustainable development, the focus on climate change appears to take a lead in the practice and theory of environmental education. Inherent in this perspective is an apocalyptic message: if we do not rapidly change our use of energy resources, we will severely harm the life conditions of our children and grandchildren. In this article we argue that environmental educators should liberate us from this highly instrumental dictate by taking their cue from our daily care for (...) our environment as revealed in child?s play in nature. Inherent in the interaction of the Homo ludens with nature is a spiral time experience. This time condition elicits a particular responsibility: rather than calculating which means are necessary to prevent future disasters, we should respond with care to the concentric circles of an open and indefinite future. Therefore, environmental education should not aim to prevent future disasters, but foster anticipating care for nature. (shrink)

This article explores the influence of Émile Durkheim on the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas in order both to open up the political significance of Levinas’s thought and to develop more expansive meanings of moral and political community within education. Education was a central preoccupation for both thinkers: Durkheim saw secular education as the site for promoting the values of organic solidarity, while Levinas was throughout his professional life engaged in debates on Jewish education and conceptualized ethical subjectivity as a (...) condition of being taught. Durkheim has been accused of dissolving the moral into the social, and his view of education as a means of imparting a sense of civic republican values is sometimes seen as conservative, while Levinas’s argument for an ‘unfounded foundation’ for morality is sometimes seen as paralyzing the impetus for concrete political action. Against these interpretations, I argue that their approaches present provocative challenges for conceptualizing the nature of the social, offering theoretical resources to deepen understanding of education as the site of an everyday ethics and a prophetic politics opening onto more compelling ideals for education than those dominant within standard educational discourses. (shrink)

A new multi-disciplinary degree program in education and information studies was developed to uniquely facilitate educators’ capacity to be responsive to the demands of a digitally connected world. Charles Sturt University’s Master of Education (Knowledge Networks and Digital Innovation) aims to develop agile leaders in new cultures of digital formal and informal learning. The co-construction of knowledge through interpersonal discourse creates a pedagogical tension between a focus on knowledge-based instruction and outcomes, and on praxis-based instruction. This digital context draws attention (...) to academic integrity issues in online learning environments. Through the new subject Game-Based Learning, students engaged in theory, practice, trends in game designs and immersive aspects of game, utilizing the technology and pedagogical affordances of a range of online tools. The subject builds on the keystone subject and incorporates reflective participation and a culture of participatory learning through integration of social media, social scholarship and open sharing of ideas, resources and experiences online within the broader education community. Subject engagement and assessment design incorporated academic integrity strategies, and needed individual and group collaboration to be fully integrated into the learning experience of the students, thus modeling practices relevant to the student’s own processional practices. This paper also considers the contribution of global connectedness to the success of the pedagogic processes used for embedding academic integrity through social scholarship into the curriculum and learning experiences. (shrink)

The article reveals the essential features and conditions of the long-term process of development of competitive innovation economy - knowledge economy on the example of Ukraine, where the dialogue of late postmodernism and early post-industrialism create special regional conditions. The article characterizes education as not just a form of social consciousness and practice, but as a social and cultural engine and simultaneously marker of civilization development level; considers higher education system from the point of view of society request to form (...) specialists of high qualification level and as a result powerful factor of regional economic growth; offers the directions of Ukraine higher education reforming, which still has signs of late postmodernism. The authors of this article have proved that the synergy of the economic and educational-scientific spheres is capable of changing the global laws of society's existence and returning the course of history to a truly humanistic, technological and divinely attentive course. The development of innovative activities, the introduction of new technologies, which in the long term to overcome the negative trends, primarily related to the need for structural reform of the educational sector in Ukraine and other regions, which are attractors of world change. In particular, cardinal changes require higher education as the most important resource potential that determines the direction of sustainable economic development. (shrink)

The traditional approach to the relation between parents and their prenatal child presents the child as a fetus, a mainly passive recipient of the mother’s vital biological resources. Contemporary prenatal psychology and pedagogy recognizes this relationship in a quite different perspective: the prenatal child is a member of the family and may be seen as an active member of the wider family as a community, extended to grandparents and other relatives. Between parents and their child in the womb exists a (...) reciprocal relationship at a physiological, psychological and spiritual level. The prenatal child communicates with the parents in different ways and reacts to their stimulation. This dialogue of the parents and their prenatal child enriches each member of the family community. In this sense, the prenatal child is a gift and a challenge for the parents to develop their personality, social competences and spiritual life. The reflections presented in this paper fit the conception of the paradigm of unity applied into the area of prenatal education and prenatal pedagogy as a new pedagogical subdisciline. The concept of paradigm in the philosophy of science was introduced by T. Kuhn. In his understanding, paradigm means a mental breakthrough in the way of ujmowaniu/describing/approaching the subject of study, and/or in the research methods used, but above all in the theoretical and systemic vision of reality, which is the basis for formulating research questions and hypotheses, operationalising the research procedure, analyzing the obtained research results and a theoretical interpretation of these results. To Kuhn, a paradigm may be understood in such way only in the natural sciences, when new visions of the studied natural reality appear. This is accompanied by a mental change in the cognitive schema itself of understanding reality not only for the creator of this vision, but also in its/his/her broader scientific environment. Kuhn considered the most eminent example of such appearing paradigm in the history of science to be the Copernican revolution, thanks to which the view on the world of nature surrounding the human being has completely changed and there was a mental breakthrough in the 15th and 16th century not only in the area of science, but also in the worldview of people of those times, for whom the world has become more open and broad. Kuhn, however, did not consider a paradigm to be a methodological concept in the humanities or social sciences. He was of the opinion that they must first mature more and make their methodological status more precise if one wishes to talk about a paradigm in these sciences. A scientific event that gave an occasion to reflect on the possibility of introducing the concept of paradigm into social sciences was the occasion of granting the title of doctor honoris causa in the field of social sciences by the Catholic University of Lublin to Chiara Lubich. The Focolare movement, also called The Movement of Unity, founded and led by her, introduced, a new approach to the area of human relations at every level. The arguments for granting the title included the fact that the practical activity of Ch. Lubich in various areas of social integration may be described as a Copernican revolution in the cultural-religious relations, and even in social-economical ones, according to the new paradigm, understood practically, which may be called a paradigm of unity. It was stressed that these activities may play a serious/significant inspiring role in the methodological reflections on the paradigm of unity in the social sciences. Such reflections were actually brought up first generally in the social sciences, and then within the methodology of psychology and education. At present, one may consider introducing this paradigm into prenatal education and pedagogy. (shrink)

The relevance of the chosen direction of research is that e-learning at the present stage of development of society is one of the most popular forms of organization of the educational process. This primarily applies to vocational and postgraduate education. Its main advantage is that it focuses on creating a barrier-free learning environment, ensuring the availability of quality education without separation from work and family and regardless of the place of residence. The article analyzes the features of updating the (...) education system in the postmodern era and the urgent problems of the education system that need to be addressed. Features of e-learning as a means of meeting the demand for educational services, its advantages and disadvantages are characterized. The peculiarities of functioning of open educational resources as prospects of e-learning development are analyzed. Continuation of the initiated research is to study the specific characteristics of mobile learning as one of the possible options for e-learning. (shrink)

In the context of the new paradigms of the knowledge-based economy, education and the quality of the educational system is becoming one of the strongest factors of influence. Decisions regarding the financing of education have a particular impact on the level of expenditure in the pre-university system and on the organization of the system of study courses. Furthermore, they are closely linked to the economics and accounting of pre-university education institutions. The existence or lack of material resources can greatly (...) influence the teaching activity process and implicitly the results achieved by the system. This paper aims to examine the consequences of certain decisions regarding funding in education, student achievement in pre-university education using data on government spending in the world relative to a single student, the level of salaries in secondary education and the number of students per teacher and the student's test scores. The authors chose the quantitative research methodology using the multiple linear regression model with dependent and independent variables to test the extent to which certain parameters of the funding process can influence the results achieved by students in standardized tests. The research results show that decisions regarding the financing of education in terms of salaries and the level of funding based on the standard cost per student have a direct impact on the achievements of the students and also, on the scores achieved by students. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response to Anthony J. Palmer, “Music Education for the Twenty-First Century: A Philosophical View of the General Education Core”Ana Lcuía FregaI would like to discuss three themes related to Tony Palmer's paper: (1) my agreement with the content of his paper in general, (2) some remarks on elements of what he deals with, including notions about the concept or a vision of what music education should be in the (...) USA and in the rest of the world and an approach to training music teachers at university level in the USA and in the rest of the world, and (3) my personal conclusions.Music is a particular medium of expression, irreplaceable, not interchangeable with any other. It is also a natural medium of human communication. We do not think or propose that schools should create musicians, but that they should aid in the improvement of all humankind.1This quotation of mine allows me to introduce my general agreement with the main content of the first part of Palmer's paper. Neither of us argues against the importance of teaching music within the general system of education. We both promote this and work to make this a fact in our different parts of the world.We both view the tasks known as "music education" as a part of the teaching of the humanities as a way to maintain a certain level of civilization and of a culture; that is, to keep alive the rich tradition in each culture, to develop skills, to listen to, perform, and create music, and to become acquainted with the wealth of masterpieces.Also, as I have said,"I can only give what I have," and "a teacher does not teach what he/she knows but what he/she is."2 I agree with Palmer on the relevance and importance of the task of music educators. There should be a correlation between the school's mission and the quality of the training for prospective teachers for them. This is consistent with Palmer's thinking about the university task when training future music teachers.George Steiner articulated some of the difficulties, limitations, and new possibilities brought into university classrooms by the technology of the global village when he wrote:[Those artifacts] determine a new way to organize human knowledge and to connect contemporary research with previous books. All taxonomies are essentially [End Page 194] philosophical, any library... represents a formalized vision of how the world is structured, and what are the optimum views about both the human mind and the phenomenological whole.3He also adds, "We will not be able to avoid the illusion-and so it is when talking about Humanities-that knowledge is cumulative, that there is an improvement and an unavoidable teleology needed when expressing sentiments and ideas."4By introducing Steiner's ideas, I am opening a line of critical thinking about a kind of "universalization" of both Palmer's concept of whatmusiceducationmeans as well as whether and then how there should be a world-wide dissemination of the training model that he describes for music teachers. I have doubts about the underlying assumptions of these notions and their feasibility.The examples Palmer gives of listening would require an inordinate amount of time and effort. Although this may be a valuable expenditure of resources in some parts of the world, in other parts the focus would be better directed elsewhere. In some places many people do not complete their basic education, do not have access to good nutrition, and have not acquired basic language and communication skills. The big question is, "What should we really teach them?"My point here is that if Michael Murphy's model is indeed an inspiring framework, it may be useful for people belonging to a part of the so-called First World only. Palmer's work should be understood with that consideration in mind. Africa, Latin America, and the Arab world are certainly not looking for these kinds of skills from the music taught at the general level if there happens to be any music taught at all in schools.Multiculturalism is another significant issue in Palmer's paper. I understand the... (shrink)

Basic Digital Education is already planned to be integrated with the forthcoming curriculum for Austrian primary schools as it was already implemented for lower secondary schools in 2018. BDE includes the most essential and novel developments of Computational Thinking, which are fundamentally responsible for nurturing students' problem-solving skills. Thus, evaluating teaching materials, scaffolding guidelines, and assessments is becoming increasingly important for the successful implementation of CT in Austrian classrooms. This study is a part of a longitudinal multi-cycle educational design (...) research project aiming to explore how to foster CT and to raise the awareness, importance, and confidence of teachers and students in applying CT for everyday uses. Our paper focuses on a sub-study in which teaching units for grade 3 and 4 students were designed by combining an Open Educational Resource textbook and Physical Computing with the micro:bit device. The designed learning environment consists of three units and was implemented in two classes over 3 weeks. The two classes were further split into two groups each, to ensure better support during implementation. The class teachers received upfront teacher training and conducted pre- and post-test assessments with the students. The resulting data was then analyzed to gain insights into the effects on CT skills of the young learners. Results showed that combining block-based programming and physical computing devices could become a promising approach to promote computational thinking skills in lower school grades. Furthermore, the observed direction of the designed units supports low-barrier access to increase the desired uses of CT in classrooms. (shrink)

The constant growth of online learning and of online tools for teaching over the past two decades comes with opportunities and risks, with an oversupply of contents, but also with easily accessible enrichment of learning and teaching. Departing from an own learning by doing pilot project, the paper reviews studies of online tools and web-based learning environments in business ethics, using Bloom’s taxonomy as a primary reference. As an open ending, we formulate suggestions for future work and action research, (...) with a focus on implementation, fruitful topics, and methodological issues. (shrink)

This study aims to explore the educational foreign exchange and cooperation policy conceptual framework in China’s education system from a historical policy retrospective analysis. Since reform and opening-up, China has issued a total of 151 pieces of educational foreign exchange and cooperation policy documents, including the cultural education policy, the technical educational policy, the overseas educational policy, and the foreign student policy. It is suggested that we need to carry out capacity building and improve the quality (...) of education exchanges and cooperation with other countries; expand forms and paths and expand educational exchange and cooperation resources and optimize the project system and support education exchange and cooperation with foreign countries; enhance the strength of education and enhancing the influence of education on foreign exchange and cooperation. In conclusion, we need build a guaranteed system for educational exchange and cooperation with foreign countries. We will gradually lift the authority of foreign exchange and cooperation projects in education by category, promote the reform of qualification identification and management of institutions opening to the outside world in education, and improve the facilitation and speed of the management and service of opening to the outside world in education. (shrink)

In a world filled with information overload and complex problems, the ability to think logically is a superpower. "A Little More Logical" is your guide to mastering this essential skill. This engaging and accessible open educational resource is perfect for students, teachers, and lifelong learners who want to improve their critical thinking abilities and make better decisions in all aspects of life. -/- Through a series of fun and interactive chapters, "A Little More Logical" covers a wide (...) range of topics, from the basics of constructing sound arguments to the application of logic in fields like ethics, science, and computing. You'll learn how to spot and avoid common fallacies, analyze real-world arguments, and use logical reasoning to solve problems and make informed choices. -/- But this book isn't just about abstract concepts – it's about the human story behind logic. You'll discover the fascinating lives and ideas of diverse thinkers, from ancient philosophers to modern-day pioneers, who have shaped the development of logical reasoning throughout history. With thought-provoking examples, engaging exercises, and plenty of humor along the way, "A Little More Logical" makes the study of logic both rigorous and entertaining. -/- Whether you're a student looking to ace your philosophy class, a teacher searching for high-quality educational resources, or a curious reader who wants to sharpen your mind, "A Little More Logical" is the perfect companion on your journey to becoming a more effective thinker. Unlock the power of logical thinking today with this one-of-a-kind open educational resource! (shrink)