Cultivating Civic Habits: A Deweyan Analysis of the National Council for the Social Studies Position Statement on Guidelines for Social Studies Teaching and Learning

The National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) position statement on Curriculum Guidelines for Social Studies Teaching and Learning provides a conceptual outline for contemporary social studies curriculum, calling for social studies learning that is meaningful, integrated, value-based, challenging, and active. This is largely consistent with a Deweyan approach to social studies, though the statement’s lack of theoretical grounding makes it vulnerable to misappropriation. By filtering the statement’s framework through Dewey’s pragmatism, such vulnerabilities can be articulated, while offering a deeper exploration of both the possibilities and challenges for implementation

The Significance of Dewey’s Democracy and Education for 21st-Century Education

This paper explores the significance of Dewey’s Democracy and Education for “21st-century education,” a term used by proponents of curricular standardization and digital ubiquity in classrooms. Though these domains have distinct advocacy groups, they often share similar assumptions about the primary purposes of schooling as career preparation. In Democracy and Education, Dewey argues for a broader purpose of education—that of cultivating a social spirit in students. Because of contemporary dispositional challenges in the broader society, Dewey’s perspective offers a timely and relevant way to reconceptualize the purposes of schooling in ways that can effectively address current social challenges

The Dialectical-Level Reflective Habits of Middle-Grade Teachers: A Phenomenological Study

The literature leads us to believe that an educator must be reflective in order to improve one\u27s practice, and in terms of reflection, Van Manen\u27s (1977) highest level of reflection, the dialectical-level, is presented as a worthy aim for all educators. But should this type of reflection truly be a goal for all educators? This study sought to uncover the phenomenon of dialectical-level reflection. Dialectical, or critical-level, reflection is the process of analyzing, reconsidering and questioning experiences in order to continually adjust one\u27s practice with an eye towards improvement. This phenomenological study explores the lived experiences of five middle school educators who exhibit dialectical-level reflective traits. In-depth interviews as well as a videotaped classroom lesson and reflection were utilized in order to determine the dialectical-level reflective habits and tacit knowledge of experienced educators. The findings of this study revealed both positive and negative characteristics of dialectical-level reflection

The digital ecologies of Korean college students: An exploration of digital self-directed learning

The wealth of readily available online digital English language learning resources presents vast opportunities for students to engage in self-directed language learning. The extent to which such resources are known to students, however, let alone how they are being utilized, typically remains largely unknown to teachers. In order to design a curriculum that maximizes student learning opportunities by guiding them towards online digital resources that afford self-directed learning, it is essential for teachers to first develop an intimate understanding of the students’ relationships with such resources. This may include awareness, patterns of use, and the variables that constrain them from using the resources more extensively. To accomplish this objective, the Self-Directed Digital Study Instrument (SDDSI) was developed and implemented to survey 197 Korean college students. While the results of this study are indicative of a reality in which digital resources are being underused, they also point towards an area of great potential for pedagogical change in Korean post-secondary English learning education. In contrast to the traditional pedagogical model, the results suggest that self-directed learning or even self-determined learning models, facilitated via various digital resources, can present students with opportunities for more deeply engaging, individualized, and self-directed approaches to language learning

On the Changing Nature of Learning Context: Anticipating the Virtual Extensions of the World

Contextual learning starts from the premise that learning cannot take place in a vacuum, but should somehow be connected with real world attributes to make sense to learners. This notion is of great importance for workplace learning, professional development, lifelong learning and meaningful learning at schools. Today, digital media tend to bring about new dimensions of context: internet connections and mobile devices enable learners to overcome restrictions of time and location, and neglect the physical boundaries and limitations of the learning environment. This calls for reconsidering contextual learning. This paper conceptualises the notion of learning context in the light of its virtualised extensions. It explains the historical and pedagogical backgrounds of contextual learning and reviews existing models that deal with context parameters. The paper identifies and discusses the constituting components of context for learning and it demonstrates how attributes of virtual representations affect the nature of context. The overall purpose of the paper is re-establishing the notion of contextual learning in the light of emerging digital media and making explicit the various dimensions involved

Digital technologies in support of students learning in Higher Education: literature review

Digital technologies are an integral part of Higher Education teaching, revealing a set of technologies chosen to integrate formal learning contexts, and therefore being used by students in support of learning. This paper presents a literature review mapping the digital technologies set for higher education students to use in formal education contexts, over the last five years between 2012 and 2017. Results show a pattern of technologies reflecting teacher’s choice for methods combining face-to-face and at distance learning, frequently in relation to the adoption of flipped classroom methods. Mapping the digital technologies used by students, showed a pattern of three most used in a total of nine types identified. Institutional Learning Management Systems mainly support a wider access to information and learning materials, followed by technologies that promote publishing and sharing content related to class activities, and a broad range of technologies categorized under ICTs. The overall impact of use of technologies in students learning process and outcomes revealed to be positive, used with the intention to promote students’ active engagement and participation in the learning process inside and outside the classroom walls. The data also revealed digital technologies to support more transmissive ways of teaching, facilitating students individually to Access, share and publish information, and significantly lesser used to promote collaborative and cooperative learning

Technology and methodology : the “MADE BY THEM TO THEM” approach in early childhood

Abstract Knowing that the Internet has opened doors to information and to the possibility of ubiquitous communication, there is now a need to review ways of teaching and learning. Learning to learn assumes a significant predominance in the methodological design due to the centrality of the student in the learning process. In this sense, this study aims to understand the approach “Made by them to them: the students in the learning process” in early childhood, assuming that it 1) activates prior knowledge; 2) promotes personal and collaborative efforts in the construction of the didactic resource; 3) creates emotion in the learning process. This is a multiple case study in different educational contexts and levels whose data collection was carried out by analyzing reflective narratives carried out by intern students from higher education institutions in public and private institutions. The results suggest that this approach, in addition to activating prior knowledge that is important for the construction of a robust structure of knowledge and significantly involving children in an emotional process of well-being, stimulates the natural articulation of knowledge in an inclusive environment. We conclude that situated and contextualized learning in a growing process of child involvement facilitates the understanding of reality and promotes inclusion and the construction of complex thoughts. Keywords Pedagogical innovation; skills in the 21st century; education transformatio

Technology and methodology: the “MADE BY THEM TO THEM” approach in early childhood

Knowing that the Internet has opened doors to information and to the possibility of ubiquitous communication, there is now a need to review ways of teaching and learning. Learning to learn assumes a significant predominance in the methodological design due to the centrality of the student in the learning process. In this sense, this study aims to understand the approach “Made by them to them: the students in the learning process” in early childhood, assuming that it 1) activates prior knowledge; 2) promotes personal and collaborative efforts in the construction of the didactic resource; 3) creates emotion in the learning process. This is a multiple case study in different educational contexts and levels whose data collection was carried out by analyzing reflective narratives carried out by intern students from higher education institutions in public and private institutions. The results suggest that this approach, in addition to activating prior knowledge that is important for the construction of a robust structure of knowledge and significantly involving children in an emotional process of well-being, stimulates the natural articulation of knowledge in an inclusive environment. We conclude that situated and contextualized learning in a growing process of child involvement facilitates the understanding of reality and promotes inclusion and the construction of complex thoughts.Knowing that the Internet has opened doors to information and to the possibility of ubiquitous communication, there is now a need to review ways of teaching and learning. Learning to learn assumes a significant predominance in the methodological design due to the centrality of the student in the learning process. In this sense, this study aims to understand the approach “Made by them to them: the students in the learning process” in early childhood, assuming that it 1) activates prior knowledge; 2) promotes personal and collaborative efforts in the construction of the didactic resource; 3) creates emotion in the learning process. This is a multiple case study in different educational contexts and levels whose data collection was carried out by analyzing reflective narratives carried out by intern students from higher education institutions in public and private institutions. The results suggest that this approach, in addition to activating prior knowledge that is important for the construction of a robust structure of knowledge and significantly involving children in an emotional process of well-being, stimulates the natural articulation of knowledge in an inclusive environment. We conclude that situated and contextualized learning in a growing process of child involvement facilitates the understanding of reality and promotes inclusion and the construction of complex thoughts.Knowing that the Internet has opened doors to information and to the possibility of ubiquitous communication, there is now a need to review ways of teaching and learning. Learning to learn assumes a significant predominance in the methodological design due to the centrality of the student in the learning process. In this sense, this study aims to understand the approach “Made by them to them: the students in the learning process” in early childhood, assuming that it 1) activates prior knowledge; 2) promotes personal and collaborative efforts in the construction of the didactic resource; 3) creates emotion in the learning process. This is a multiple case study in different educational contexts and levels whose data collection was carried out by analyzing reflective narratives carried out by intern students from higher education institutions in public and private institutions. The results suggest that this approach, in addition to activating prior knowledge that is important for the construction of a robust structure of knowledge and significantly involving children in an emotional process of well-being, stimulates the natural articulation of knowledge in an inclusive environment. We conclude that situated and contextualized learning in a growing process of child involvement facilitates the understanding of reality and promotes inclusion and the construction of complex thoughts

Nurturing Joy and Belonging: Practices for Rehumanizing Professional Learning

In this article the authors describe a professional learning initiative focused on joyful teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic and the techniques that were used to foster a culture of belonging. The authors utilize an integrative framework for understanding, cultivating, and assessing belongingness to suggest implications for school-university partnerships. Finally, the authors pose questions for school-university partnerships to reflect upon to build an intersectional approach to professional learning in a post-pandemic educational landscape