A current trend in social justice oriented education research is the promotion of certain intellectual virtues that support epistemic responsibility, or differently put, the dispositions necessary to be a good knower. On the surface, the proposition of epistemically responsible teaching, or teaching students to be responsible knowers is innocuous, even banal. In the mathematics classroom, however, it is patently at odds with current practice and with the stated goals of mathematics education. This dissertation begins by detailing the extant paradigm in mathematics education, which characterizes mathematics as a body of skills to be mastered, and which rewards ways of thinking that are highly procedural and mechanistic. It then argues, relying on a wide range of educational thinkers including John Dewey, Maxine Greene, Miranda Fricker, and a collection of scholars of white privilege, that an important element in social justice education is the eradication of such process-oriented thinking, and the promotion of such intellectual virtues as courage and humility. Because the dominant paradigm is supported by an ideology and mythology of mathematics, however, changing that paradigm necessitates engaging with the underlying conceptions of mathematics that support it. The dissertation turns to naturalist philosophers of education make clear that the nature of mathematics practice and the growth of mathematical knowledge are not characterized by mechanistic and procedural thinking at all. In these accounts, we can see that good mathematical thinking relies on many of the same habits and dispositions that the social justice educators recommend. In articulating an isomorphism between good mathematical thinking and socially responsive thinking, the dissertation aims to offer a framework for thinking about mathematics education in and for a democratic society. It aims to cast the goals of mathematically rigorous education and socially responsible teaching not only as not in conflict, but also overlapping in meaningful ways.

acase@tulane.edu

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My dissertation investigates teachers' thinking within that "oscillating place of difference" that is the classroom. I propose that teachers think and see differently in the classroom because they have practiced, like travelers, the dynamic thinking which makes them open to novelty, attentive to difference, reflective wayfarers on the paths of the world. I offer a threefold articulation of teaching into thinking, traveling and philosophizing. My guiding figure is that of teacher as traveler. / I focus on the teacher's way of seeing the familiar and the unfamiliar in the classroom. Reliance on teaching routines is considered as a sign of the need for the teacher to feel at home in the classroom, and as a response to the inherent uncertainty of the educational experience. Dewey's conception of reflective thinking is put at work to explain teachers thinking in the classroom: reflection is a twofold movement of the mind that at first focuses on the given particular of the experience, and that also expands and opens up the given to new possible interpretations. / The third chapter proposes to historicize the metaphor of teacher as traveler by considering Graeco-Roman thinking about travel and movement in relation to knowledge and wisdom. I consider the thesis that traveling is conducive to learning and wisdom. Herodotus explicitly connects travel to knowledge. The presence of itinerant teachers in Ancient Greece seems to reinforce this connection, as does the mythological representation of the ideal teacher as the centaur Chiron. I then posit an antithetical idea: that traveling be counterproductive because in travel the person is exposed to distraction, loss of focus, fragmentation. This antithesis is endorsed by Seneca's Epistles to Lucilius. / The dissertation moves to a re-examination of the figure of teacher as traveler in relation to the idea of home. The traveler reaches out and explores novelty and alterity in a meaning-making relation to where she is from. Similarly, the teacher thinks in the classroom by being attentive to newness and difference while keeping in mind the home or familiar: her routines, her curriculum, her tradition. / Montaigne's humanistic philosophizing is considered in its constitutive dynamism. The way to the knowledge of home-- and the wisdom deriving from it-- passes through the encounter with the Other, be it the indigenous inhabitant of the new world, or the neighboring country, or a different language. Like a traveler, a teacher retains her freedom to move and to chose the direction to her steps, and carries the necessary provisions and supplies: enough to get around, but not too many to weigh her down. The teacher as traveler can read the world of experience, can read her discipline, and can read her students by paying attention and knowing their pace. / The encounters that are at the heart of the educational experience, between teachers, students, works and things of the world, all concur to exercise the mind of a traveler: a mind that finds itself "at home" in the world.

<p>This research study investigated five elementary teachers' conceptions of listening positioned across a complex and diverse state of dialogue. Social studies educational researchers have promoted democratic discourse in various studies aimed at preparing teachers to cultivate active student citizenship. The absence of careful attention to the multifaceted dimensions of listening is a notable gap in current extant research related to classroom discussion. Educational philosophers, alternatively, have argued for the moral and intellectual virtues of listening on equal grounds to its dialogic counterpart: speaking. I synthesized writing from various fields and categorized listening into two broad domains: thin and thick listening. Thin listening, widely conceptualized in education, is further characterized as obedient and attentive listening. Deeper notions of thick listening fall into the subcategories of democratic, relational, and pedagogical listening. Hermeneutic phenomenology is the research methodology guiding the methods and interpretative analyses undertaken in this study. Applying principles from phenomenologist Max van Manen, I framed interview questions for teachers to reflect on the nature of listening in their classroom and everyday experiences. I read and listened to the interview transcripts and recordings numerous times with openness and wonder, yet with an understanding that interpretation is never free from judgment or situated perspective. Findings revealed elementary teachers conceptualized listening under thicker terms when engaging in reflective analysis, although thin listening ideas remained present at times in their thinking about students, the classroom, and dialogue. This study arranged thick listening findings into four broad themes: a) listening to specific students activating new ideas about listening, b) the dynamic relationship between listening and being listened to, c) the connection between speaking, thinking, and listening (interlistening), and d) disturbed notions listening. The conceptions teachers disclosed are significant to elementary educators and researchers in social studies teacher education because thin notions prevail unchallenged, thus rendering an unbalanced and incomplete view of classroom dialogue. Inquiry into the nature and process of listening can inform future studies related to common classroom discussion frameworks, such as Structured Academic Controversies (SACs), that social studies researchers value in civic education.

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

There is a growing interest in the study of the moral qualities of teachers. Many studies emphasize empirical techniques without attention to the philosophical features of moral conduct or focus on the philosophical features without connections to the actual conduct of teachers. This dissertation combines philosophical and empirical inquiry to study the moral conduct of teachers. Using Fenstermacher's distinction among teaching method, style, and manner, the technical and personality characteristics of teachers are distinguished from teacher conduct that expresses moral virtue. This conduct is known as the manner of the teacher. This dissertation investigates how manner may be made explicit, as a philosophical concept and an object of empirical inquiry. The philosophical part examines the conceptual nature of moral action in the classroom, using an Aristotelian ethics as the framework for analysis. The empirical part is a case study of three classroom teachers, whose moral conduct is examined using the Aristotelian framework. This dual philosophical/empirical approach permits inquirers to observe and analyze selected moral dimensions of teaching, then draw conclusions about how the teachers express moral virtue. The empirical part is a qualitative study of three teachers, each interviewed and observed over a one year period. Case studies illustrating the teachers' expressions of moral virtue were developed, followed by a cross-case analysis that revealed common and distinct elements in the teachers' manner. The cross-case analysis suggests that the teachers express virtues in similar ways according to the Aristotelian framework and in particular ways according to their individual style. Further, teachers express more than one virtue simultaneously. The main conclusion one may draw from this study is that it is possible to systematically observe and describe manner in teaching. Suggestions for further research include (1) situations in which the expression of one virtue appears to conflict with another, (2) the difficulties of analyzing the intellectual virtues, and (3) clarifying the relationship between manner and teachers' context, content, and students. A significant implication of this study is that it is possible to attend to manner in ways that permit the development of moral virtue in teaching.

This is a theoretical dissertation which draws upon insights gained from the theory and data of miscue analysis. It is directed toward resolving the disparity in research interpretations of the influence of context on reading. An integrated view of context is presented through a continuum of inter-related contexts that orients various research foci along a spectrum of narrower and greater contexts. From a continuum vantage, two major relationships are discussed. First, the influence of any defined context focus is qualified by the influence of any greater context. This relationship reveals a problem for factor-based research efforts that seek to identify, on causal grounds, a direct influence for specific factors related to reading, and, the concurrent complications faced by the reader who must deal with the results of factor-based research in the classroom. The second relationship, a connection between different levels of context, is shown as valid only in intra-personal venue. This relationship is analyzed to reveal that knowledge is constructed through the differentiation of experience. The development of knowledge is discussed respective to the work of Kenneth Goodman, Yetta Goodman, Jean Piaget, John Dewey, and Lev Vygotsky. The general recommendation of this dissertation is that the individual reader be treated as an epistemic participant with respect to the development of knowledge.

This is a study of six elementary school teachers' personal constructs about learning. I used ethnographic methods to interview each teacher twice. The questions guiding this study are: How do these teachers believe learning happens? How clearly do they express these beliefs? And who are these teachers as learners themselves? My premise is that teachers must also be learners, and must be aware of their own learning if they are to help others learn. Besides being interested in whether or not these teachers were familiar with their beliefs, I was interested in their view of knowledge, whether constructivist (knowledge created by the learner) or objectivist (knowledge transmitted to the learner). I found that some teachers were more familiar with their beliefs about learning than others. This seemed to be related to the kinds of opportunities they had had for discussion and reflection: workshops and inservice sessions, or long-term training programs.