Maieutic Irony: Socratic Method and Pedagogical Communication

Irony is an interesting yet understudied rhetorical scheme. In the current study, several notable uses of irony in the Socratic dialogues are investigated to explore 1. What is said, 2. What is interpreted by the interlocutor internal to dialogue, 3. The effect of employing irony on the interlocutor within the dialogue, and 4. What is interpreted by the reader as a literary piece. The results are presented with the attempt of understanding Socrates’ intentional use of irony as a teaching and argumentative method, and to examine how the techniques and intended effects can be reproducible in a teaching context. From the exploratory dialogue method of Socrates, to the blunder invoking technique of Columbo, criticizing, and provoking confusion, maieutic irony has much to contribute to pedagogical practice

A Meme is Worth a Thousand Words: Universal Communication Through Memes

With the rise of the digital age has come about a new form of communicating concepts—the meme: repeatable, transferable information. The purpose of this project is to understand the inclusive nature of internet communication not restricted by barriers. This format plays with the boundaries to imagination, creating a new form of communication not relying on language, color, or shape, but the interchange of these within an established concept. Memes have created a universal, living form of expression irrelevant of culture, region, age, or language in which individuals cross normal borders of expression and communication. We attempt to define the modern meme through its philosophical etymology and its evolved application. We then examine how memes, based on this definition, can be used as a legitimate form of communication. With this project we propose that the meme has potential to have real world, expressive effects to cross barriers to communication

Improving the School Context of Early Adolescence Through Teacher Attunement to Victimization: Effects on School Belonging

The present study examined the effects of teacher attunement to victimization on student perceptions of the bullying culture of their schools as a means of fostering a sense of belonging among early adolescents. Participants (n = 1,264) in sixth grade reported on the frequency that they had been bullied, and teachers were asked to report students who were “picked on.” Teacher attunement represented the correspondence between self-identified and teacher-identified victims. Attunement at the beginning of the school year was related to positive changes in student reports that their peers would intervene in bullying; in turn, sense of belonging was greater when students perceived that their peers would intervene in bullying. Teacher attunement was indirectly related to greater belonging through its impact on student perceptions of the bullying context

Structured inquiry-based learning: Drosophila GAL4 enhancer trap characterization in an undergraduate laboratory course.

We have developed and tested two linked but separable structured inquiry exercises using a set of Drosophila melanogaster GAL4 enhancer trap strains for an upper-level undergraduate laboratory methods course at Bucknell University. In the first, students learn to perform inverse PCR to identify the genomic location of the GAL4 insertion, using FlyBase to identify flanking sequences and the primary literature to synthesize current knowledge regarding the nearest gene. In the second, we cross each GAL4 strain to a UAS-CD8-GFP reporter strain, and students perform whole mount CNS dissection, immunohistochemistry, confocal imaging, and analysis of developmental expression patterns. We have found these exercises to be very effective in teaching the uses and limitations of PCR and antibody-based techniques as well as critical reading of the primary literature and scientific writing. Students appreciate the opportunity to apply what they learn by generating novel data of use to the wider research community

Ontological Vertigo: A Natural State

Doubt and uncertainty are treated as rather abnormal in society. Disturbing states of being, for example anxiety, impostor syndrome, guilt, and confusion, are common phenomena, yet viewed as something to address with psychology, overcome with virtues, or solve with goals and preoccupations to be a good person in decent mental health. If ontological vertigo is understood as a natural state of the human position between the finite and the infinite, the logical conclusion is that human existence is disorienting and uncomfortable. This study looks at the common modes of seeking groundedness: place, status, identity, vocation, potency, meaning, and essence. Existential positions are explored for endorsements of the state of anxiety. Lastly, the authors make an argument for considering ontological vertigo as a natural state instead of seeking false senses of stability

Imitate Socrates and Jesus: Maieutic Methods of Philosophical Protagonists

From Socrates, Jesus, Nasruddin, to Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, philosophical protagonists invite us to consider the abstract and the absurd, the paradoxical and the provocative. This paper explores what makes philosophical narratives philosophical, and in turn how their protagonists encourage critical thinking. Socrates, Jesus, Nasruddin, and others are considered as their main character role in philosophical parables, with characteristics named to identify commonalities, and those characteristics compared to examine whether their similarities are essential to their role as provocateur. With the use of paradox, irony, absurdity, challenging social norms, opposing values, allegory, presenting paradigms, and proposing meaning, philosophical narratives share an openness to interpretation. The interpretative freedom of the philosophical narrative is explored to understand how it provokes thinking and invites playfulness in meaning making