50 research outputs found

    Creativity Skills Applied to Earth Science Education: Examples from K-12 Teachers in a Graduate Creativity Class

    Get PDF
    NOTE: This is a large file, 10.7 mb in size! This article briefly explores different aspects of creativity, and then examines K-12 teachers' reactions to exercises applied to earth science concepts in a graduate creativity class. Different types of puzzle activities centering on geoscience content include a quiz game based on Odyssey of the Mind spontaneous problems, and other exercises related to embedded words, transformed cliches, remotely associated word sets, and wordsmithing. Teachers used visualization for an imaginary interview with a geoscientist, along with personal analogy of an earth science feature. As a culminating activity, teachers fashioned a geoscience curriculum material with a given set of items. Ideas for applying the activities to geoscience classes at various grade levels are included. Educational levels: Graduate or professional, Graduate or professional

    Development of a series of experiences to help students evaluate their aptitudes for the study and practice of industrial design

    Get PDF
    In this thesis, author tries to discover and define the aptitudes that are desirable for industrial designers, and explore ways to allow the students to experience and realize what these aptitudes are in order to help the students self-evaluate their fit for the study of industrial design

    Higher-order thinking in foreign language learning

    Get PDF
    A project is being conducted in English as a foreign language (EFL), involving eleventh graders in formal and non-formal learning contexts, in a Portuguese high school. The goal of this study is to examine the impact of cognitive tools and higher-order thinking processes on the learning of EFL and achievement of larger processes oriented to action, involving problem solving, decision-making and creation of new products. YouTube videos emerge as cognitive tools in the process. Final results show major differences concerning learners’ achievements. Learners have developed higher-order processes oriented to action, in particular their ability to learn, to transfer the skills developed to different contexts and apply them effectively in EFL communicative situations. This paper discusses: a) major theories that support the integration of cognitive tools and thinking processes within the curriculum, focussing on the English language learning; b) some of the activities and materials; c) the final findings.This work is supported by CIED (Center for Research in Education) by FCT funds (for Science and Technology), under the PEST - OE project / CED / UI 1661/2014info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

    A Survey of Teaching Strategies Used in California Community College Nursing Programs to Foster Critical Thinking

    Get PDF
    This study explicated critical thinking teaching strategies being utilized by California Associate Degree Nursing (ADN) faculty, and their perceived effectiveness, to serve as a model for faculties in nursing and other disciplines. Questions addressed by the study included not only teaching strategies in use and their perceived effectiveness, but also exploration of common threads among nursing educators in their definitions of critical thinking, and common themes of especially effective techniques. The study involved a pilot of the survey instrument, utilizing one sample school\u27s nursing faculty, with subsequent distribution to all 69 other ADN program senior nursing course lead faculty. The instrument included demographic school and personal faculty data; closed-form, Likert-scale questions on critical thinking teaching strategies and their perceived effectiveness; and an open-form question requesting a narrative description of an especially effective teaching strategy that had been implemented. Respondents were also asked to articulate a definition of critical thinking. A 70% return rate was obtained, utilizing follow-up letters and phone calls. The typical respondent was female, 41 to 50 years of age, with 11 to 20 years of experience in teaching nursing. Study results showed that a common definition of critical thinking did not exist among sample respondents, although five major threads could be identified. Respondents defined the concept of critical thinking through one or more of the following lenses: (1) problem-solving (nursing process); (2) Bloom\u27s taxonomy of higher-order thinking skills; (3) reasoning (or informal logic); (4) reflection, imagining alternatives, challenging beliefs, and creativity; and (5) thinking about thinking, interpreting meaning, and metacognition. Critical thinking teaching strategies used most often, and perceived as very effective by faculty, included brainstorming, use of case studies, class or small group discussion, inductive reasoning techniques, scenarios or role play, written reports, self-study exercises, and teacher role modeling. Narrative descriptions from respondents\u27 teaching experience fell generally into the categories of case studies, class or small group discussion, scenarios or role play, written reports, inductive reasoning techniques, brainstorming, and panel discussions. The dominant theme that emerged from the data was the use of case studies. Study results display 22 exemplars of actual teaching strategies that have been implemented by nurse educator respondents, including their commentaries. Discussion and implications of research findings and recommendations for further study are provided

    La Salle University Undergraduate Catalog 2007-2008

    Get PDF
    https://digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/course_catalogs/1181/thumbnail.jp

    Descartes, Husserl and radical conversion

    Get PDF
    Phenomenology has been one of the most influential and far-reaching developments in 20th Century Philosophy and has had a great impact on the disciplines of philosophy of logic and math, theory of knowledge, and theory of meaning. The most profound influence on Edmund Husserl (1859 - 1938), the founder of phenomenology, was Rene Descartes (1596 - 1650), whose radical rethinking of philosophy’s overall project provided Husserl with both the historical and conceptual point of departure for his foundation of prima philosophia. Despite this explicit and well-known influence, there is no book- length study of their thematic parallels; numerous Journal articles focus almost entirely on the phenomenological reduction and, aside from this, are fairly unsatisfactory. The purpose of the present work is to elucidate systematic convergences (and divergences) between Descartes and Husserl throughout their respective philosophical developments. This comprises explication of several central topics: 1. The parallel between 17th C. skepticism, which Descartes attempted to overthrow, and 19th C. psychologism and relativism, which Husserl reacted against. 2. The striking similarity at the level of formal ontology between Descartes' simple and complex natures and Husserl's part-whole theory. 3. A clarification of the Cartesian sense of methodical doubt and how Husserl's mistaking of this shaped the initial formulation of the reduction. 4. Convergence in the maturation of the primitive notion of intuition as "clear and distinct seeing" and "seeing of essences" for both thinkers. 5. An analysis of the modes of methodical doubt, in terms of steps in the cognitive act of doubting, and not merely in the content of that which is doubted. 6. Far-reaching divergences in that Descartes was motivated to establish with scientific certainly an entirely new world of being, whereas Husserl was concerned to disclose an entirely new sense of the world. As such, thematic convergences between Descartes and Husserl are not due to accidental intersections of interest, nor are they curiosities of the comparative method in historical research. These parallels are intrinsic and systematic due to an overarching congruence in their visions of the starting point, methodological procedures, and reaction to pseudo-scientific matters-of-fact in the founding of a genuine philosophical project

    Critical thinking: A voyage of the imagination

    Get PDF
    In this dissertation I contend that there is a strong connection between critical thinking and the imagination, a connection which increases the dynamism and vitality of critical thinking. By acknowledging a role for the imagination, we are able to form a more coherent and complete critical thinking conception, which leads to the positing of a new theory of critical thinking. This new conception has pedagogical implications demanding that we alter or augment current approaches to critical thinking instruction. Employing a conceptual analysis, I first focus on critical thinking conceptions found on a continuum from traditional conceptions, which focus on logic and argument analysis, to expanded conceptions, which are more eclectic and admit a role for the affective as well as the cognitive. In order to focus on the nature of the imagination, which I argue plays an important role especially in expanded conceptions of critical thinking, I examine first the philosophical and then the literary conceptions of the imagination, specifically considering the arguments by the philosophers Edward Casey and Mary Warnock and the writers William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Wallace Stevens. These philosophers and writers reveal an imagination characterized by a connection to creativity, the capacity to construct meaning, the generation of potentially unending possibilities, the capacity to enable the emotions to emerge and coexist with rationality. Other writers and literary theorists like Samuel Johnson, Toni Morrison, and Deanne Bogdan alert us to the epistemological and moral dangers of the imagination, dangers which need to be acknowledged and addressed in order to allow for the imagination to fully enrich and enhance critical thinking. The new conception of critical thinking, which I call integrative critical thinking, fully employs the imagination to generate a variety of possible avenues for our thinking and our conclusions, evokes emotions held in creative tension with reason, envisages a conclusion (or conclusions) to one\u27s thought process and the means to reach those conclusions, and allows for creativity during the critical thinking process. Integrative critical thinking incorporates criticism and judgment, but also recognizes that critical thinking occurs in and is affected by a social context. This conception integrates the three enduring approaches (knowledge, skills, and dispositions) to critical thinking and opens up the critical thinker not only to envision a liberated state of mind and being but also to act on that vision
    corecore