Esta tese teve por objetivos analisar a possibilidade de a disciplina Filosofia da Educação contribuir para que os educandos construam sua autonomia e propor diretrizes para seu projeto. Teoricamente, a investigação apoia-se no processo de autocriação da sociedade e da fabricação de seus indivíduos, nas dimensões imaginárias e conjuntistaidentitária. Para melhor compreensão da disciplina, buscaram-se a sua instituição na formação dos educadores, com análise do monopólio legislativo do Estado na educação; a institucionalização da formação dos professores e a tentativa de cientismo da educação. Elegeram-se como material empírico da proposta, as disciplinas de Filosofia da Educação do curso de Pedagogia da Universidade Federal de Viçosa, que guardavam, em geral, identificação/semelhança com seus congêneres em outras instituições, bem como entrevistas com dirigentes acadêmicos e professores que as ministravam. Em virtude de a organização, estrutura e conteúdo dessas disciplinas não potencializarem a interrogação e nem a possibilidade de construção de sua autonomia pelos educandos, consistindo tão-somente em discurso de autonomia e fabricação da heteronomia, este trabalho fundamentou-se no pensamento de que a única Filosofia da Educação que pode contribuir para a construção do sujeito reflexivo e deliberante, e do espaço democrático, é a que se interroga incessantemente. Propuseram-se, então, para tal disciplina, entre outras, as diretrizes referentes à instalação de uma crise das verdades e das certezas dos educadores, dos educandos e a aspiração de autonomia/cidadania/democracia. / This thesis aims to analyze if the Philosophy of Education course can help students build their autonomy proposing guidelines for their projects. Theoretically, the investigation is based on the societys process of self-creation and fabrication of its individuals, in imaginary and conjunctionist-identitary dimensions. For further comprehension of the course, its institution was sought in the education of the teachers, analyzing the State Law monopoly in education. The empiric material chosen for this proposal were the Philosophy of Education courses for the Major in Education at the Federal University of Viçosa (Minas Gerais, Brazil), keeping, in general, identity/similarity with its similar courses in other institutions, as well as interviews with the academic directors and professors who teach it. Since the organization, structure and syllabus of these courses do not leverage questioning nor enable students to build their autonomy, consisting merely of the discourse of autonomy and fabrication of heteronomy, this research was based on the reckoning that the only Philosophy of Education that can contribute to the construction of the reflexive and deliberant subject and of the democratic space is that which questions itself incessantly. Then, among other ones, the guideless proposed for this course referred to the placing of a crisis of truths and certainties of both the teachers and the students, as well as the desire for autonomy/citizenship/democracy.

José Saramago, em sua obra, procura construir uma compreensão do mundo (em seus aspectos políticos, sociais e humanos) a partir do envolvimento do Homem com a Palavra. Nas crônicas, produzidas ao longo de oito anos (1968-1975), essa relação é explorada por vários enfoques, uma vez que esse gênero permite uma oscilação do trivial ao filosófico, do riso à melancolia, do irônico ao panfletário, tornando-se uma espécie de \"laboratório de estilos\" para o futuro Nobel. Com isso, as crônicas constituem-se como elemento central na formação do escritor, sendo responsáveis por construir aspectos da persona saramaguiana. No presente trabalho, três eixos principais se estabelecem: a Linguagem, a Paisagem e a Viagem; e é a partir deles que todo o jogo literário saramaguiano se estabeleceria. / José Saramago, in his work, intends to build an understanding of the world (in its political, social and human aspects) from the interaction between Man and Word. His articles, published from 1968 to 1975, explored that relationship through many approaches, reflecting a genre that allows a fluctuation from trivial to philosophical subjects, from laughter to sorrow, from irony to pamphleteering. This genre became a form of styles laboratory for the future Nobel prize winner. Thus, the articles contains in them the main elements of the writers formation, being responsible for building aspects of Saramagos persona. In this work, three main axes are established: the Language, the Landscape/Prospect and the Journey; and is on them that all of Saramago\'s literary puzzle is produced.

José Saramago, em sua obra, procura construir uma compreensão do mundo (em seus aspectos políticos, sociais e humanos) a partir do envolvimento do Homem com a Palavra. Nas crônicas, produzidas ao longo de oito anos (1968-1975), essa relação é explorada por vários enfoques, uma vez que esse gênero permite uma oscilação do trivial ao filosófico, do riso à melancolia, do irônico ao panfletário, tornando-se uma espécie de \"laboratório de estilos\" para o futuro Nobel. Com isso, as crônicas constituem-se como elemento central na formação do escritor, sendo responsáveis por construir aspectos da persona saramaguiana. No presente trabalho, três eixos principais se estabelecem: a Linguagem, a Paisagem e a Viagem; e é a partir deles que todo o jogo literário saramaguiano se estabeleceria. / José Saramago, in his work, intends to build an understanding of the world (in its political, social and human aspects) from the interaction between Man and Word. His articles, published from 1968 to 1975, explored that relationship through many approaches, reflecting a genre that allows a fluctuation from trivial to philosophical subjects, from laughter to sorrow, from irony to pamphleteering. This genre became a form of styles laboratory for the future Nobel prize winner. Thus, the articles contains in them the main elements of the writers formation, being responsible for building aspects of Saramagos persona. In this work, three main axes are established: the Language, the Landscape/Prospect and the Journey; and is on them that all of Saramago\'s literary puzzle is produced.

This study examined low and high level teachers' questioning patterns and classroom implementations within an argument-based inquiry approach known as the Science Writing Heuristic (SWH) approach, which addresses issues on negotiation, argumentation, learning, and teaching. The level of the teachers was determined by the students' writing scores. This study was conducted in Turkey with seven teacher for preliminary study. Because scoring writing samples examines the students' negotiation level with the different sources and students learn scientific process, as negotiation, which they may transfer into their writing, in classroom, two teachers were selected to represent low and high level teachers. Data collection involved classroom observation through video recordings. The comparative qualitative method was employed throughout the data analysis process with including quantitative results. The research questions that guided the present study were: (1) How are low and high level teachers, determined according to their students' writing scores, questioning patterns different from each other during classroom discourse? (2) Is there a relationship between students' writings and teachers' questioning styles in the classroom? Analysis of Qualitative data showed that teachers' classroom implementations reveal big differences based on argumentation patterns. The high level teacher, whose students had high scores in writing samples, asked more questions and the cognitive levels of questions were higher than the low level teacher. Questions promote an argumentative environment and improve critical thinking skills by discussing different ideas and claims. Asking more questions of teacher influences students to initiate (ask questions) more and to learn the scientific process with science concepts. Implicitly, this learning may improve students' comparison in their writing. Moreover, high level teacher had a more structured and organized classroom than low level teacher.

The technique of asking questions in the classroom has prevailed in first language classes for many years. This teaching technique has also been widely used in ESL reading classes. Though there has been extensive research about teachers' questions and students' responses in first language classrooms, there is a paucity of studies in second language classrooms. This is a descriptive study of six experienced college level English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers and their discussions of the same reading selection with ninety-eight non-native speakers in each of their classes. Teacher-led discussions were audiotaped and twenty minutes of each class were transcribed and analyzed. Teachers' questions were coded according to Long and Sato's (1983) seven-category taxonomy of functions of teachers' questions. Students' responses were analyzed according to their mean length, syntactic complexity, and the use of connectives.

This exploratory study examines the hypothesis that Socratic pedagogy is a useful tool for imparting critical thinking and moral reasoning skills to inmates. The study explores the effectiveness of a new curriculum, Introducing Socrates, which relies on Socratic pedagogy to achieve its objectives. The curriculum draws from the effective criminal justice research on cognitive education to determine its objectives, and then looks to the Platonic dialogues to find broad philosophical questions that tie into those objectives. The program also evaluates salient criticisms of Socratic pedagogy that are found in the educational and philosophical literature, and then isolates and evaluates constructs from these criticisms in the study.

The purpose of this study was to examine secondary mathematics teachers' questioning, responses, and perceived influences upon their instructional decisions regarding questioning and response to students' ideas. This study also compared the questioning practices, responses, and influences of beginning teachers to more experienced teachers. Previous studies on teacher quality in mathematics education have focused on general characteristics of mathematics teachers' instructional practice including a broad range of instructional strategies. Little is known about mathematics teachers' questioning practices and responses to students' ideas that research has repeatedly reported are critical to student mathematics learning in secondary classrooms. Furthermore, it is not clear how different novice teachers are in questioning and responding to students from experienced teachers. This understanding can provide significant insights into teacher education programs for mathematics teachers. With those issues in mind, this study was designed to answer the following questions: (1) What similarities and differences exist in questioning patterns between novice and experienced teachers when guiding a classroom mathematical discussion? (2) What similarities and differences exist in responses to students during pivotal teaching moments between novice and experienced teachers when guiding a classroom mathematical discussion? (3) What perceived factors impact the responses teachers give to students' ideas, and how are these factors of influence different among novice and experienced teachers? This study employed a multiple case study research design to compare the questioning practices and responses of three beginning teachers and three experienced teachers. Multiple sources of data were collected, including two interviews (i.e., initial interview and follow-up interview) for each teacher, five days of classroom video footage for each teacher, and field notes by the researcher for each interview and observation. The researcher conducted initial interviews with each teacher to gain a general sense of the teacher's philosophy and use of questions in guiding classroom discussion. Five instructional days of observation followed the initial interview, and then the researcher conducted a follow-up interview by use of video-stimulated response. All interviews were transcribed verbatim for analysis. The data was analyzed mainly using the constant comparative method to identify regularities and patterns emerging from the data. Results showed differences between beginning and experienced teachers in the frequency and variety of questions asked. Although all teachers showed the largest number of questions in the Socratic questioning category, differences were prominent in the semantic tapestry and framing categories. Results regarding teacher responses to pivotal teaching moments showed that four teachers favored a procedural emphasis in their responses to students, and two teachers used responses to direct students to make clear connections within or outside of mathematics. Perceived influences identified include: (1) reflection on experience and mathematical knowledge for teaching, (2) time, and (3) relationship with students, teachers, and parents, and knowledge of student background. Practicing teachers can expand the types of questions they use in the classroom, making particular efforts to include those areas that this study showed to be most lacking: semantic tapestry questions that help students build a coherent mental framework related to a mathematical concept, and framing questions that help frame a problem and structure the discussion that follows. The comparison between beginning and experienced teachers also shed light on important practices for teacher education. The beginning teacher participants from this study had no trouble noticing pivotal teaching moments in their lessons but were less developed in their responses to them. Recommendations for mathematics teacher education programs are to provide opportunities to develop content, pedagogical knowledge including specific instruction on questioning strategies, and also to provide parallel field experiences where pre-service teachers can apply the knowledge and skill they are learning.

Magister Educationis - MEd / Drawing on the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study - PIRLS (Howie, et al., 2008), which highlights the reading literacy crisis in South African schools, this study investigated the literacy crisis in relation to reading literacy in Grade Four of the Intermediate Phase. The purpose of the study is to contribute to the debate about challenges around the reading literacy acquisition of South African school children by investigating the current teaching and assessing of reading comprehension practices of language teachers in multilingual Grade Four classes in disadvantaged contexts, focusing on reading comprehension in English and Afrikaans Home language. This study uses a qualitative research approach. Data was collected in Grade Four Afrikaans and English Home Language classes at two schools in the Western Cape, using observation, interviews and document analysis. To analyze the data, the study aligns itself with a learner-centered model (Wilhelm 2004). This learner-centered model draws on Vygotsky’s socio-cultural and constructivist teaching and learning approaches and will be the foundation to analyze current teaching and assessing of reading comprehension practices of language teachers in the Grade Four Afrikaans and English Home Language classes at two multilingual schools focusing on teachers’ questioning skills. It is hoped that this study will contribute to an understanding of the current reading literacy crisis experienced in South African schools and inform more effective teacher training.

Between fall 2009 and fall 2010 I conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews with 19 young-adult women and men of mixed race in Edmonton, Alberta. A prominent theme that emerged was being asked the question ‘what are you?’. I position the ‘moment’ of being questioned as a manifestation of the external gaze. People of mixed race are subject to questioning because they do not fit within dominant racial binaries: they exceed the limited horizon of possible narratives of racial discourse and are socially identified as ambivalent (Anzaldua 1987). Within the literature on the ‘racial gaze,’ it is often positioned as something that fixes (Fanon 1967). However, the very ambivalence people of mixed race pose to the gaze allows them to negotiate it. The narratives of my respondents demonstrate that the inability of the social gaze to ‘fix’ them opens up the possibility of making identity through negotiating the gaze in multiple ways.

Abstract: This dissertation is a case study of one teacher who participated in a project that investigated the effects of the Texas Instruments NavigatorTM, a wireless communication system on student algebra achievement and related pedagogy. The larger study, Classroom Connectivity in Promoting Mathematics and Science Achievement (CCMS) based at The Ohio State University (OSU), funded by the U. S. Department of Education, involved approximately 120 self-selected participants across the United States. A partial requirement for participation was agreement to attend professional development provided by the CCMS project. The professional development included a week-long summer institute at OSU prior to implementation of the TI-NavigatorTM, attendance at annual International T3 meetings, participation in the cohort listserve, and semi-annual telephone interviews. During data collection of the CCMS project, many of the participants exhibited an enthusiasm for implementation of the tool and the pedagogy supported by the CCMS project. The subject of this case study, Mrs. G, was among those perceived as high implementers. This longitudinal study attempts to verify alignment of her instruction with the pedagogy promoted in the professional development sessions provided by the project. Transcripts from professional development sessions were compared with Mrs. G’s comments about her perception of her implementation of the project. Transcribed classroom observations were then analyzed using NVivo software to quantify evidence of implementation of the pedagogy with respect to the three constructs of classroom discourse, levels of questioning and formative assessment. The results of the analyses indicated that Mrs. G implemented the pedagogy advocated by the professional development sessions of the CCMS project. According to the literature key elements were in place for successful professional development. The teacher was allowed autonomy and choice in her professional development In Mrs. G’s words, “Professional development must be relevant to my profession and support my goals… student understanding.” Implications are that pre-service programs should instill in prospective teachers the importance of life-long learning and equip them with strategies to seek out professional development opportunities that are relevant to them. In-service teachers should in turn be given autonomy and choice in determining which professional development opportunities will complement their programs.