Claiming Barth for ethics: The last two decades

is is the author's PDF version of an article published in Ecclesiology© 2010. The definitive version is available at www.ingentaconnect.com.This article discusses various studies of Karl Barth's ethics written since 1990

What is so Important about Asking Questions?

Effective teaching promotes a highly interactive environment. Creating and maintaining that kind of atmosphere is very complex. While interesting and developmentally appropriate content, tasks, activities and materials spark students\u27 curiosity and set a stage for learning, the actions of teachers orchestrate the necessary interaction that results in desired conceptual understanding. My editorial in the last issue of ISTJ stressed the teacher\u27s crucial role in helping students learn through inquiry. Here I will focus on one aspect of that role – questioning

Teaching as a Sacred Activity

Many years ago I received an e-mail from one of my students that directed me to a writing of Louis Schmier titled “Holiness in Teaching.” Most of my former students have recognized my deep conviction that teaching is a very important undertaking. During the first fifteen or so years of my career they must have perceived this from the way I interacted with them and spoke about the responsibilities of teachers and schools, because I rarely stated explicitly that teaching is a sacred activity

Hot Conceptual Change - You’ve Got to Have Faith

In the last editorial (Kruse and Clough, 2010), we addressed some common concerns educators raise when considering inquiry-based instruction. Addressing such concerns is of utmost importance to address the plausibility, intelligibility and fruitfulness of inquiry-based teaching. Unfortunately, such issues are not all that affect willingness to enact inquiry-based teaching. More personal and contextual factors also play a part in all learning, including learning how to teach more effectively

Confronting Doubts About the Intelligibility, Plausibility, and Fruitfulness of Inquiry-based Instruction

Our two prior ISTJ editorials in the Iowa Science Teacher Journal (Clough & Kruse, 2010a & 2010b) have applied a conceptual change framework (Posner, Strike, Hewson & Gertzog, 1983; Pintrich et al., 1993; Abd-El-Khalick & Akerson, 2004; Clough, 2006a) to understand the difficulties students have in abandoning their intuitive ideas about the natural world and, for the same reasons, the difficulties teachers have in jettisoning their intuitive and learning. Our last editorial noted that in both cases, dissatisfaction with prior ways of thinking must be achieved before alternative ways of thinking will be seriously sought and considered. To initiate a sense of dissatisfaction with intuitive common teaching practices (i.e. lectures, textbook readings and questions, worksheets, and highly directive activities), we noted the overwhelming evidence that such practices have not promoted conceptual understanding of science concepts or other equally important goals for science education. We also emphasized how easily these kinds of teaching practices can be emulated by machines, a point we hope raises not only questions, but also indignity, regarding the pervasive nature of those teaching practices

Responses of terrestrial herb assemblages to weeding and fertilization in cacao agroforests in Indonesia

Terrestrial herbs are important ecological components in tropical agroforests, but little is known about how they are affected by agricultural management. In cacao agroforests of Central Sulawesi, Indonesia, we studied the change in herb species richness, cover, and biomass over 3years in 86 subplots subjected to high and low weeding frequency as well as fertilized and non-fertilized treatments. We recorded 111 species with rapid changes in species composition between the 3years. Species richness increased sharply in the 2nd year, presumably as a result of changes in the management with the experimental regimes, and decreased in the 3rd, probably due to competitive exclusion. Species richness, cover, and biomass were all significantly higher in the infrequently weeded plots than in the frequently weeded ones, but there were only slight responses to the fertilization treatment. An indicator species analysis recovered 45 species that were typical for a given year and a further eight that were typical for certain treatments, but these species showed no clear patterns relative to their ecology or biogeography. We conclude that the herb assemblages in cacao agroforests are quite resilient against weeding, but that the cover of species shifts rapidly in response to managemen

Professional Development: The Need to Assess Yourself

Effective science teaching is highly complex and demands sophisticated decision-making. Few administrators are in a position to understand the complexities and nuances of effective science teaching, and rarely are they able to provide the detailed feedback and ongoing support needed to help science teachers meet the vision set forth in science education reform documents. Thus, meaningful improvement in science teaching requires science teachers to accurately and continuously consider their own practice, thoroughly reflect on that practice, and implement strategies to move their practice forward. This article provides approaches useful for monitoring classroom teaching practices, self-assessing those practices, and strategies to improve practice. This article promotes Iowa Teaching Standards 1 and 7

We All Teach the Nature of Science - Whether Accurately or Not

The phrase “nature of science” (NOS) is often used in referring to issues such as what science is, how it works, the assumptions underlying the doing of science, how scientists operate as a social group and how society itself both influences and reacts to scientific endeavors. These and many other thoughts regarding the NOS are informed by contributions from several disciplines including, but not limited to, the history, philosophy, sociology, and psychology of science

A Science Education that Promotes the Characteristics of Science and Scientists: Features of teaching

Effectively teaching about science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) is far more complex than policymakers, the public, and even many teachers realize. Leinhardt and Greeno (1986, p. 75) write that “teaching occurs in a relatively ill-structured, dynamic environment”, and this is even more so the case when attempting to teach STEM through inquiry (activities that require significant student decision-making and sense-making, and the necessary pedagogical practices that support student learning in those experiences) and as inquiry (helping students understand how knowledge in STEM disciplines is developed and comes to be accepted)

Learning Science As and Through Inquiry

Inquiry science teaching has been at the heart of science education reform efforts for as long as most of us can remember. Clearly, the longstanding efforts to move science education in this direction are not a passing education fad. However, confusion often exists regarding what inquiry science teaching means and what it looks like in the complex world of classroom teaching. Inquiry science teaching may refer to teaching science as inquiry (helping students understand how scientific knowledge is developed) or teaching science through inquiry (having students take part in inquiry activities to help them come to more deeply understand science concepts). When done well, inquiry science teaching accomplishes both