Bodies and Contexts: An Investigation into a Postmodern Feminist Reading of Averroës

In this article, I contribute to the wider discourse of theorizing feminism in predominantly Muslim societies by analyzing the role of women’s political agency within the writings of the twelfth-century Islamic philosopher Averroës (Ibn Rushd, 1126–1198). I critically analyze Catarina Belo’s (2009) liberal feminist approach to political agency in Averroës by adopting a postmodern reading of Averroës’s commentary on Plato’s Republic. A postmodern feminist reading of Averroes’s political thought emphasizes contingencies and contextualization rather than employing a literal reading of the historical works

How does student self-efficacy affect achievement?

This presentation highlights the systematic integration of teacher inquiry within the undergraduate special education program at the University of North Florida. Inquiry is embedded across courses each semester and put into practice in a variety of ways in our PDS network. In all, inquiry serves as a tool for capturing student learning as candidates collaborate with mentor teachers to intervene and meet the needs of diverse learners. During the Fall 2019 semester, I implemented high leverage practices, collected and analyzed data of my students’ learning, and presented outcomes to my peers. By focusing on data-based decision making and designing instruction to meet the needs of struggling learners, prospective and practicing teachers’ knowledge of research supported practices improves. Through this inquiry project, I focused on the correlation between student’s self-efficacy, confidence, and perspective in an inclusion math class. Through analyzing student behaviors, I began to see a connection between the way the student’s feel about themselves and their achievement levels. Through literature review and strategy-based lesson plans, I found methods to implement to help improve student’s self-efficacy. Throughout the semester, the student’s self-efficacy fluctuated per the different lesson plans, due to difficulty levels, but at the conclusion of the post-assessment, the trend lines showed an increase confidence level. Through research and the implementation of inquiry, it was found that student self-efficacy correlates directly to student achievement