Humanizing education: Subjective and objective aspects

I propose that there are four standards to be met if a given educational enterprise is to be considered humane: (1) the practice to be mastered must be socially justified; (2) the disciplines pursued to master the practice must be appropriate to the practice; (3) the practice must be owned by the learner; and (4) this ownership must itself meet certain ethical requirements. The paper emphasizes the problem of ownership. It argues for a view of ownership that is communitarian. This view sees ownership as a function of identification or membership. People become committed to certain educational ends in virtue of the fact that they see themselves as members of a group and the ends as the ends of the group. It is central to this view that ownership of ends does not require full understanding or rational appraisal of such ends. I argue that a rational appraisal of ends is difficult when a novice seeks to appraise the ends of some practice both because the ends of the practice are internal to it in a way that makes grasping such ends difficult prior to mastery of the practice and because initiation into the practice will change the individual's standards of appraisal.     

What is educational theory and how to make it?

An analysis is provided detailing the conditions for the appropriate theoretical study of the object of educational science: pedagogy.     

Pierre de La Ramée et le déclin de la rhétorique

This article provides a basic general introduction to Ramus, and evaluates his role in the history of logic and rhetoric, especially with relation to the study of argumentation. The author agrees with Ong and other historians of logic that Ramus is not to be taken seriously as a logician, and that his undoubted importance in the history of ideas is to be found elsewhere.Ramus advocates a belief in nature, experience and reason, and rejects the reliance on the authority of ancient philosophers, above all Aristotle, though experience does not mean scientific experiment and, paradoxically, includes the example of great philosophers and writers. In the end Ramus is seen as responsible for substituting for ancient classical rhetoric an entirely ornamental rhetoric of figures which was to take over education (with the exception of the Jesuit schools) almost until our own day. This curtailing and diminishing of rhetoric is seen as a degeneration. Ancient five-part rhetoric had been concerned with convincing and persuading: Aristotle distinguished the analytic, scientific reasoning of logic, from dialectic which was based on opinion and probability and had close links with rhetoric; by the time of Cicero and Quintilian, who addressed themselves to jurists and politicians, logic has given way to dialectic. In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance the two become assimilated; the evolution of this is traced here through the thirteenth-century Summulae logicales of Peter of Spain to the fifteenth-century German humanist logician Rudolph Agricola, who influenced Ramus partly through the intermediary of Johann Sturm. Ramus took over their topical theories but restricted them to logic/dialectic, and left rhetoric with little more than tropes and figures. He believed that there was only one method for teaching all the arts, and one dialectic common to them all. The distinction between analytical and dialectical has disappeared, with far-reaching consequences for the study of argumentation. Over the centuries logic has lost its connection with controversy and persuasion. With the development of the post-Cartesian, post-Baconian emphasis on the clarity of scientific discourse, and the mid-nineteenth-century interest in mathematical and formal logic, the process was complete. Argumentation, or the new rhetoric, aims to fill the gap thus created.

     

The problem: American education the solution: Use behavior analytic technology

In spite of numerous demonstrations that America's youth can be effectively educated with behavior analytic teaching techniques, few of the country's children are benefiting from the technology. In addition scholarly reviews of effective teaching strategies have often omitted reference to behavior analysis. One way to look at this problem is as a two-step operation. First, it is necessary to determine procedures that work; second it is necessary to devise strategies for effective dissemination. The present issue of JOBE (Vol. 1, No. 3, Sept. 1991) contains the recommendations of six outstanding behavioral educators as to how to deal with the dissemination problem. The initial article by Pumroy and McIntire describes the activities of an organization which trains school psychologists and teachers to use behavioral procedures and advocates for the techniques with a number of audiences. Next, Engelmann suggests that the public have more control over school activities and that legal action be taken against irresponsible administrative decisions. Hall advocates for less labor-intensive procedures and the sale of curricular materials based on behavioral principles. Binder proposes that dissemination of the technology become a private endeavor that responds to consumer needs. Rosenfield describes a collaborative model of consultation that increases treatment adherence. Finally, Albers and Greer describe research that isolates a key teacher behavior that results in greater academic proficiency.     

Reforming mathematics instruction: The role of curriculum materials

The crisis in mathematics education is likely to grow. One of the targets for reform is the math textbook, which largely defines the math curriculum. Several aspects of math textbooks that strongly influence student learning are explained: the organization of lessons, the use of time, the rate of introducing new concepts, the quality of instructional activities, the nature of the examples, and the provision of guided and independent practice. Excerpts from math texts illustrate these factors. Research findings on an alternative to basais, represented by the Direct Instruction math curriculum, illustrate how conceptual understanding and proficiency can be developed for a full spectrum of students.     

Community applications of instructional technology: teaching writers of instructional packages

A community education program, to develop a variety of performance competencies in large numbers of neighborhood residents, requires a technology for preparing learning units administerable by community members themselves. The effects of a writing manual, designed to teach nonprofessionals to prepare such instructional packages, were analyzed in two experiments. Experiment I employed a multiple-baseline design across three university student trainees. The results showed that appropriate program writing increased by 75% after completion of the manual. The results of Experiment II, with two low-income neighborhood residents serving as trainees, showed that packages produced by trained writers resulted in a greater increase in skill activities than sets of training stimuli produced by untrained writers.     

The effects of instructions, incentive, and feedback on a community problem: dormitory noise

A reinforcement system utilizing instructions, modelling, feedback, and group reinforcement was employed in an attempt to reduce disruptive noise on three university residence halls. A fourth hall received the same treatment program without the reinforcement component. Noise scores were determined by recording the number of discrete noise occurrences over a criterion decibel level. On all four residential floors, noise scores during treatment conditions were lower than initial and final baseline levels. Additionally, periods of noise reduction corresponded to the changing criterion multiple-baseline and reversal designs utilized. Pre- and posttreatment questionnaire responses from the three reinforcement floors paralleled changes in objective noise data. At posttreatment, residents reported less noise disturbance of study and sleep and more control over the noise situation and floor problems in general. These results indicated that a comprehensive behavior-modification treatment package was effective in reducing disruptive noise in university residence halls. Difficulties in data collection and anomalies in the data are discussed. Future directions for field-based behavior-modification research are outlined.     

A New Culture of Learning: Digital Storytelling and Faith Formation

How has the “new culture of learning” begun to transform us, and in what ways might the faith formation practices of religious communities be impacted by the shift? Recent research funded by the MacArthur Foundation lays an empirical basis for recognizing shifts in learning brought about by widespread access to digital technologies. The implications of that research, in turn, pose widespread challenges to the work of faith formation in contemporary communities of faith. Communicative theologies may be best poised to engage these challenges through the practices of digital storytelling.     

Students’ individual interest in physical education: Development and validation of a questionnaire

Identifying the specificity of students’ individual interest in physical education is necessary to capture the different facets of this construct. In contrast to existing questionnaires in education which assess the multidimensionality of individual interest, the current scale used in physical education consists of a single‐item measurement which rates students’ individual interest for multiple physical activities taught during lessons. Even if this single‐item rating provides a basis for classifying interest relative to others, it does not provide information about the nature and internal components of individual interest. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to develop a valid and reliable questionnaire measuring the multidimensionality of students’ individual interest in physical education. Four stages were followed: (1) the development of a preliminary version based on the findings of a literature review on individual interest and a committee process validation; (2) a first study conducted on 481 secondary school students to establish the factor structure, and internal reliability of this questionnaire; (3) a second study based on 243 secondary school students to confirm its factor structure and to test its temporal stability; and finally, (4) a third study with 253 students to test its concurrent validity. The final form of the questionnaire consists of a three‐factor structure based on 14 items that measure students’ individual interest in physical education: positive affect and willingness to reengage (five items), stored utility value (four items), and stored attainment value and knowledge‐seeking intentions (five items).