Persistent Autonomy and Romanticism

Autonomy in the arts is generally considered an outdated concept, an atavism that is only relevant to outsiders and to people who have a mere traditional, if not completely obsolete understanding of the artistic and aesthetic field. Autonomy in this view has little to do with contemporary discussions about art and artistic practices. The very first sentence of a recent study about autonomy in literature, Andrew Goldstone’s Fictions of Autonomy (2013) for example reads: ‘In literary studies, we regard aesthetic autonomy as an idea whose time has passed.’Instead of repeating the historicity and irrelevance of the autonomy concept it may be interesting to ask why it has been criticised so often while continuing to reappear again and again. If we keep in mind Peter Bürger’s analysis in his classic Theory of the Avant-Garde (1984), that the Avant-Garde failed to abolish autonomy in the arts and that this appeared to be impossible in what he calls ‘late capitalist society’, it may still be worthwhile to ask ourselves, how to understand the tenacious belief in autonomy, a belief that has so often been abolished yet and is still present everywhere. In doing so we’d better go back to the emergence of the belief in autonomy in the art history of the last few centuries rather than adding still another explanation about the irrelevancy of the concept

Art in Progress

In this challenging and erudite philosophical essay, the author argues that in art, belief in progress is still relevant, if not essential. The radical freedoms of postmodernism have had a crippling effect on art - more than ever before, art is in danger of becoming meaningless. Art can only acquire meaning through context, and the concept of progress is ideal as the primary criterion for establishing that context. History of art can be seen as a process of constant accumulation. Works of art comment on each other, enriching each other's meanings. These complex interrelationships lead to progress in both the sensibility of the observer and the significance of the works of art.Alles in de kunst is in beweging. Tegelijkertijd lijkt met het eind van de avantgarde de grote stilstand te zijn ingetreden. Het veelbesproken einde van de kunst en het postmodernisme roepen veel twijfels op. In dit helder geschreven betoog onderzoekt de auteur een begrip dat door de tot cliche geworden afschaffing van de Grote Verhalen onzichtbaar is geworden: het vooruitgangsidee. Hij laat zien hoe dat idee in de achttiende eeuw opkomt, allesbepalend is tijdens de avantgarde en met het eind van de avantgarde ten onder gaat. Maarten Doorman pleit voor een kritische herwaardering van vooruitgangsbegrippen om de als zorgeloosheid vermomde vrijblijvendheid van het postmodernisme het hoofd te bieden. Arthur Danto: The end of art does not entail that there has not been genuine progress in the philosophy of art. Maarten Doorman's challenging and valuable study contributes to that progress, whether or not progress in art itself remains, as he argues, a tenable idea

Використання джерелознавчих документів і матеріалів у процесі викладання «Релігієзнавства» у вищій школі

We interpret problem posing not as an end in itself, but as a means to add quality to students' process of learning content. Our basic tenet is that all along students know the purpose(s) of what they are doing. This condition is not easily and not often satisfied in education, as we illustrate with some attempts of other researchers to incorporate mathematical problem-posing activities in instruction. The emphasis of our approach lies on providing students with content-specific motives and on soliciting seeds in their existing ideas, in such a way that they are willing and able to extend their knowledge and skills in the direction intended by the course designer. This requires a detailed outlining of teaching–learning activities that support and build on each other. We illustrate and support our theoretical argument with results from two design-based studies concerning the topics of radioactivity and calculus

EXAMINING HIGHER ORDER THINKING IN INDONESIAN LOWER SECONDARY MATHEMATICS CLASSROOMS

Indonesian students’ poor performance in the mathematics test of PISA 2015 prompted the decision by the Ministry of Education of Indonesia to pay more attention to the integration of higher-order thinking (HOT) in the curricula starting in 2018. This new regulation emphasizes the need to have a shared understanding of HOT in mathematics on many levels, such as curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment, and among students, teachers and policy makers. This study aims to examine HOT in Indonesian lower secondary mathematics classrooms by assessing students’ ability to demonstrate HOT skills through an open-ended mathematics problem, and by exploring teachers’ views of HOT skills through semi-structured interviews. It involved 372 ninth-grade students and six mathematics teachers from six lower secondary schools in Jakarta and Palembang. The findings show that most students could construct the mathematical model but experienced difficulty in transferring knowledge into new contexts, in applying creative thinking, and with information literacy skills. Besides, some of the teachers were familiar with the concept of HOT, but some viewed HOT as skills for talented students, or HOT problems having a high level of difficulty and long storylines. The knowledge of existing teaching strategies, familiarity with HOT problems, and colleague-support are needed to improve the development of HOT skills in the mathematics classroom

A LEARNING TRAJECTORY FOR PROBABILITY: A CASE OF GAME-BASED LEARNING

This research is aimed to describe a learning trajectory for probability through game-based learning. The research employed design research consisting of three stages: preparing for the experiment, design experiment, and retrospective analysis. A hypothetical learning trajectory (HLT) using Sudoku and Snake-and-ladder games was developed by collecting data through documentation, interviews, and classroom observations. The HLT was implemented in the classroom to investigate students’ actual learning trajectory. The results of this research indicate that the games helped students understand the concept of probability. The learning trajectory for probability based on game-based learning is seen from the perspective of four levels of emergent modeling. In the first level – ‘situational level’ – Sudoku and Ladder-and-Snake games were played by students. The second level is the ‘referential level’ where the rules of the games were used as a starting point to learn the concept of probability. Communication during game playing stimulated students' knowledge about random events, sample spaces, sample points, and events. At the third level – ‘general level’ – students used tree and table diagrams to generalize possible outcomes of an experiment and develop an understanding of sample spaces and sample points. Lastly, at the ‘formal level’ students developed their informal knowledge into formal concepts of probabilities

Chinese and Dutch mathematics teachers’ beliefs about inquiry-based learning

International audienceTeachers’ beliefs are expected to have impact on the implementation of inquiry-based learning (IBL) in mathematics education. Moreover, Chinese and Dutch teaching cultures in mathematics seem to be very different. This paper presents results from semi-structured interviews with 30 Chinese and 19 Dutch mathematics teachers’ beliefs about IBL. Statements were connected to main codes and ranked for each country. Dutch teachers focused on students’ taking responsibility in IBL while Chinese teachers put extra emphasis on teacher guidance, they also talked about student discussion and collaboration. Chinese teachers paid attention to the benefits of IBL on mathematical thinking while Dutch teachers to the benefits on mastery and appliance of knowledge. In addition to the lack of time and suitable tasks as difficulties, Chinese teachers also mentioned students’ lack of motivation and performance, while Dutch teachers mentioned the demands and openness of IBL