This thesis uses analytic philosophical inquiry and autobiographical narrative inquiry to identify a conception of critical thinking (CT) that is “most adaptable” for teaching History 12, and then discusses the strengths and limitations. The CT literature includes several conflicting conceptions of CT, and I use two specific types of analytic philosophical inquiry, (conceptual analysis and conceptual structure assessment), to identify which conception is “most adaptable” for teaching History 12. After considering the degree to which each conception meets the criteria developed for the “most adaptable” conception of CT, I conclude that the Critical Thinking Consortium’s (TC²) conception is the most adaptable. Of all the conceptions developed thus far, the TC² approach is unique because it is designed solely as a pedagogical model for embedding CT throughout the curriculum of each subject and grade level. In the second section of the thesis, I use autobiographical narrative inquiry to reflect on the strengths and limitations of the TC² model after using the model to teach History 12 for a year. One of the foundational principles of the TC² conception is the notion that embedding CT throughout the curriculum is a powerful way of improving understanding. I determine that this contention is accurate because students improved their knowledge of the curriculum, the epistemology of history, and the adoption of CT in their everyday lives. Furthermore, use of the TC² conception helped improve my planning and assessment practices, and initiated a positive change of my role in the classroom. / Education, Faculty of (Okanagan) / Graduate

Abstract This study brings together the politics of belonging, relational narrative inquiry and values and values education in the context of Finnish early childhood education. The study draws on the politics of belonging within which belonging and exclusion are understood as relational rather than individual phenomena. The significant relations for belonging and exclusion do not just emerge between humans, but they are also material, cultural and political. The study asks how the politics of belonging are shaped in young children’s diverse relations in a Finnish preschool context. The onto-epistemological premise of the study relies on the relational narrative inquiry. The study was implemented in six Finnish preschools, where the children’s ages ranged from 1 to 5 years. The research material consisted of written small stories, videos, participatory observations, field notes and discussions with the educators. The analysis was based on holistic reading and re-reading and supported by the idea of small stories and theory of gaps. The findings highlight three interrelated entrances to understanding the politics of belonging in the preschool context. First, the study emphasises the politics of belonging as constantly shaped and lived in daily encounters. The findings illustrated the co-existence of belonging and exclusion. Usually it was one child who was excluded by other children in the fleeting moments of daily life, and often when the educators were not present. Second, the study reveals the meaning of the pedagogical practices in the politics of belonging. Pedagogical practices were tightly surrounded with the materiality, institutional routines and cultural aspects, such as spaces, artefacts, routines, rules, curriculum and legislation. The third entrance provides insights into the value-bound nature of the politics of belonging. Belonging emerged as closely related to democratic, caring and disciplinary values. The findings raised a tension between individually and collectively oriented values. The study argues for understanding the politics of belonging shaped in a landscape of diverse relations and value fields, where the children were active agents in their belonging and exclusion. / Tiivistelmä Väitöskirja yhdistää yhteenkuuluvuuden politiikan, suhteisen kerronnallisen tutkimuksen sekä arvot ja arvokasvatuksen suomalaisen varhaiskasvatuksen kontekstissa. Yhteenkuuluvuuden politiikka käsitteenä haastaa tutkimaan yhteenkuuluvuutta ja poissuljetuksi tulemista suhteissa muotoutuvana ilmiönä ennemmin kuin yksilön näkökulmasta. Suhteisuus nostaa esille ihmisten välisten suhteiden lisäksi myös materiaaliset, kulttuuriset ja poliittiset suhteet merkityksellisinä yhteenkuuluvuudelle. Tutkimus kysyy: Kuinka yhteenkuuluvuuden politiikka muotoutuu pienten lasten moninaisissa suhteissa suomalaisessa päiväkotikontekstissa? Tutkimuksen onto-epistemologinen lähtökohta on suhteisessa kerronnallisessa tutkimusotteessa. Tutkimus toteutettiin kuudessa päiväkodissa, joissa lapset olivat 1–5-vuotiaita. Tutkimusaineisto koostui kirjoitetuista pienistä kertomuksista, videoista, osallistuvista havainnoinneista, muistiinpanoista ja keskusteluista varhaiskasvattajien kanssa. Tutkimusaineiston analyysi pohjautui kokonaisvaltaiseen luentaan ja uudelleen luentaan, soveltaen kerronnallisia käsitteitä ”pienet kertomukset” ja ”välien teoria”. Tulokset tuovat esille kolme toisiinsa kietoutunutta näkökulmaa. Ensiksi tutkimus korostaa yhteenkuuluvuuden politiikkaa jatkuvasti muuttuvana ja arjen kohtaamisissa muotoutuvana ilmiönä. Tulokset havainnollistavat yhteenkuuluvuuden ja poissuljetuksi tulemisen samanaikaista olemassaoloa. Yleensä yksi lapsi poissuljettiin leikin ulkopuolelle arjen ohikiitävissä hetkissä, joissa työntekijöitä ei ollut läsnä. Toiseksi tutkimus nostaa esille pedagogisten käytänteiden merkityksen. Pedagogiset käytänteet suhteissa materiaan, institutionaalisiin rutiineihin ja kulttuurisiin näkökulmiin tuottivat yhteenkuulumista ja poissuljetuksi tulemista. Tulokset avaavat tilojen, tavaroiden, rutiinien, sääntöjen, varhaiskasvatussuunnitelman perusteiden sekä lainsäädännön merkityksiä. Kolmas näkökulma avaa arvojen ja arvokasvatuksen kietoutuneisuuden. Yhteenkuuluvuuden politiikka liittyy läheisesti demokraattisiin, hoivan ja välittämisen sekä kurin ja järjestyksen arvoalueisiin. Tutkimus paljastaa jännitteitä suhteessa yksilöllisiin ja yhteisöllisiin arvoihin. Tutkimus haastaa tarkastelemaan yhteenkuuluvuuden politiikkaa moninaisten suhteiden ja arvojen maisemassa, jossa lapset ovat aktiivisia toimijoita yhteenkuulumisessaan ja poissuljetuksi tulemisessaan.

Abstract Teaching of music, especially instrumental music, has rarely been the interest of researchers. This thesis explores the music teaching of a well known Finnish piano teacher and artist Matti Raekallio, describing his practical knowledge and theoretical tenets and their formation during the different phases in his life. The practical knowledge of a music teacher is experiential knowledge that takes shape in practical situations. It shows especially in the teaching-related interactions of music lessons. The teacher's practical knowledge manifests in his practical theory, which guides his teaching and includes his notions of the human being, learning and knowledge. The research tasks developed in the course of the research process and can be defined as follows: 1. What kind of shape do the elements of Raekallio's practical theory take in his life story? 2. What kind of teaching strategies and styles does he use in his piano lessons? 3. What kind of teaching stories are told in piano lessons? 4. How do the teacher and his students tell about their mutual relationships and their relations to music? The teaching of instrumental music is also approached from the viewpoint of the master–apprentice tradition it is usually connected with. And in addition to the actual research questions, the way in which this tradition is told in this research is also considered. The study is based on a narrative approach. Most of the data was collected by observing Raekallio's piano lessons and by interviewing both him and his students. This data was then analysed using content analysis and narrative methods of analysis. The results of this study broaden our conception of a music teacher's work. The teacher uses versatile teaching strategies, both verbal and nonverbal. Raekallio's teaching style includes his way of speaking, of being present and of giving feedback during his piano lessons. The exploration of teaching styles proved to be a fruitful starting point in the research of the moral dimension of music teaching. Examining teaching stories opened up the socialising significance that teaching has; through these stories future pianists and piano teachers are narrated into their cultural environment. These teaching stories show the teacher's pedagogical content knowledge as narrative knowing. With the help of narrative knowing, the teacher ties together knowledge that makes possible the production of a music performance, starting from notes and ending in a musical performance. The findings reinforce our conceptions of the teacher's significance in the teaching of instrumental music. In the stories of both students and the teacher, the significance of the teacher was clear during the different stages of development as a musician and especially during the stage of professional studies as a guide into the culture and practices of the field. The concepts and theory of educational sciences proved necessary and handy tools even in the research of music teaching. To popularise or model the contextual thinking of teaching related to the teaching of music, more descriptive research in the field is needed as well as descriptions of various everyday teaching events, the teaching of students of different ages, etc. The future challenges that this research points out include research of the narrative character of teachers' knowledge in general. How do teachers use storytelling in teaching, into what kind of stories are the things to be taught woven? / Tiivistelmä Soitonopetus on ollut harvoin tutkijoiden mielenkiinnon kohteena. Tässä työssä tarkastellaan tunnetun suomalaisen pianopedagogin ja -taiteilijan Matti Raekallion soitonopetusta, kuvaten hänen praktista tietoaan ja teoriaansa sekä sen muotoutumista elämän eri vaiheiden aikana. Soitonopettajan praktinen tieto on opettajan kokemuksellista tietoa, joka syntyy käytännön tilanteissa ja joka näkyy oppitunneilla etenkin opetuksen vuorovaikutustilanteissa. Opettajan praktinen tieto manifestoituu opettajan praktisessa teoriassa, joka ohjaa hänen opetustaan ja johon kuuluvat hänen käsityksensä ihmisestä, oppimisesta ja tiedosta. Tutkimustehtävät muotoutuivat prosessin aikana seuraaviksi: 1. Millaiseksi Raekallion praktisen teorian ainekset muotoutuvat hänen elämäntarinassaan? 2. Millaisia opetusstrategioita ja -tyylejä soittotunneilla käytetään? 3. Millaisia opetustarinoita soittotunneilla kerrotaan? 4. Millaiseksi opettaja ja opiskelijat kertovat suhteensa toisiinsa ja musiikkiin? Tarkastelen soitonopetusta myös siihen liitetyn mestari–kisälli-perinteen näkökulmasta ja varsinaisten tutkimustehtävien lisäksi pohdin, millaiseksi mestari–kisälli-perinne voidaan kertoa tämän tutkimuksen perusteella. Tutkimus on lähestymistavaltaan narratiivinen. Päätutkimusaineiston keräsin havainnoimalla Raekallion pitämiä soittotunteja sekä haastattelemalla häntä ja hänen oppilaitaan. Aineiston analysoin sisällönanalyysia ja narratiivisen tutkimuksen analyysitapoja käyttäen. Tutkimustulokset laajentavat käsitystämme soitonopettajan työstä. Opettaja käyttää monipuolisia opetusstrategioita, niin verbaalisia kuin nonverbaalisia. Raekallion opetustyylissä tulivat esille hänen puhetapansa sekä hänen tapansa olla läsnä soittotunneilla ja antaa palautetta. Opetustyylin tutkiminen näyttää olevan hedelmällinen lähtökohta opettajan työn moraalisen ulottuvuuden tutkimiseksi myös soitonopettajan työssä. Opetustarinoiden tutkiminen avaa opetuksen sosiaalistavaa merkitystä, sillä niiden kautta tulevat pianistit ja soitonopettajat kerrotaan kulttuuriseen yhteisöönsä. Niissä näkyy opettajan niin sanottu pedagoginen sisältötieto narratiivisena tietämisenä, jonka avulla opettaja sitoo yhteen tiedon, joka mahdollistaa kappaleen työstämisen nuottikuvasta alkaen aina kappaleen esitykseen saakka. Tutkimus vahvistaa käsityksiämme opettajan merkityksestä soitonopetuksessa. Opettajan ja oppilaiden kertomuksissa näkyi selvästi opettajan merkitys soittajataipaleen eri vaiheissa ja erityisesti ammattivaiheen opinnoissa johdattamassa alan kulttuuriin ja käytänteisiin. Tutkimuksessa käytetty kasvatustieteen käsitteistö ja teoria on osoittautunut tarpeelliseksi ja toimivaksi työkaluksi myös soitonopetuksen tutkimuksessa. Soitonopetukseen liittyvän opetustilanneajattelun yleistämiseksi tai mallintamiseksi tarvitaan lisää alan kuvailevaa tutkimusta ja kuvauksia erilaisista arkipäivän opetustapahtumista ja esimerkiksi eri-ikäisten opettamisesta. Tutkimuksen jatkohaasteena nähdään yleisestikin opettajan tiedon narratiivisen luonteen tutkiminen. Miten opettajat käyttävät kertomista opetuksessaan, esimerkiksi millaisiin tarinoihin opetettavat asiat kerrotaan?

This study explores how HIV-positive teachers within a specific social context understand, interpret and act on HIV and Life Skills policy. My aim was to illuminate the experiences of teachers living with AIDS and how their experiences affect the ways in which they understand and act on government policy. As a constructivist, I worked on the premise that people’s experiences can best be understood by interacting with them and listening to them. I chose a narrative research design because it allowed me to explore and understand the perceptions and complexity of my research partners’ experiences, and to faithfully present and represent the stories told by teachers living with AIDS. I used the data collected from the teachers’ stories to write narratives that gave a first person account of the experiences of each teacher. To express my own voice in the text I created a column on the side of each page where I recorded my own experience of the process of the inquiry. I used inductive analysis in order to make sense of the field data. Rather than beginning with a theory, inductive analysis allowed me to expose the dominant and significant themes in the raw data without imposing preconceptions on the data. Three distinct themes emerged from the analysis, and formed my conceptualisation of the experiences of teachers living with AIDS: a) conflict between teacher as role model and ideal citizen, and teacher as an HIV-positive person; b) HIV illness and its impact on the body of the teacher; c) teachers as emotional actors. The main findings from the study suggest that in a context with AIDS there are limits to what education policy can achieve if it remains out of touch with a real world in which school is attended by children and teachers whose bodies are either infected or affected by the HIV virus. This is substantiated by the fact that while the HIV/AIDS policy is about bodies and about emotions, it is blind to the bodies and the emotions of those implementing it. I contend that it is this oversight that creates the wide gap between policy intentions and outcomes. Secondly the study highlights the uniqueness of HIV/AIDS education policy and its implementation which, unlike other education policies, powerfully brings to the fore the emotions of the implementers. I conclude the study by suggesting that the policy-making process be reconstructed to inscribe the real bodies and real emotions of the teachers into the policy, to shift from a purely prevention mode to one that looks at the whole prevention-to-care continuum and acknowledges that a significant majority of school pupils and teachers are infected and affected. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Education Management and Policy Studies / unrestricted

Often studies examining the development of a sense of professional efficacy in pre-service educators are concerned with either the systemic viewpoint of teacher education programmes or the relationship between the perceptions of pre-service educators and what is “really” happening in the classroom. The intent of this study is to investigate the question “What do pre-service educators perceive that they know and that they need to know to develop a sense of professional efficacy? solely from the vantage point of the pre-service educator. The study encompasses two specific objectives: --- to identify through narrative analysis the circumstances of the construction of and the content of the knowledge created by the pre-service educators from their experiences --- to investigate and describe the relationship of the knowledge constructed by the pre-service educators to the development of a sense of professional efficacy. The study attempts to produce an in-depth qualitative description of the explicit and sometimes tacit perceptions of four pre-service educators as they prepared to begin professional careers. Four pre-service educators enrolled in a recently developed innovative Post Graduate Certificate of Education programme at a large urban university in South Africa participated in the study over a two year period. The perceptions of the pre-service educators are presented through an analysis of the narratives taken from interviews and reflective journal entries. The narratives are analyzed using a variety of narrative inquiry methods which were investigated and described as part of this study. The interpretation of the narratives is also informed by theoretical constructs such as professional efficacy and knowledge and private theory. Through the analysis and interpretation of the narratives the unique and individual nature of learning to become an educator as well as similarities of experience were revealed. Ultimately the broad aim of this study through the use of narrative inquiry methodology and methods is to add the “voices” of these pre-service educators to a larger dialogue and to the collective body of evidence of how one learns to become an educator with a sense of professional efficacy. / Thesis (PhD (Curriculum Studies))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Curriculum Studies / unrestricted

Bibliography: leaves 127-134 / Integrating psychology and spirituality to open up discussion on spiritual identity and its effects on the whole person was birthed in a counselling context, as individuals sought answers for various problems, having an effect on their psychological and spiritual well-being. The body, soul and spirit approach unfolded, as we explored their identity, more specifically, their spiritual identity, thus integrating psychology and spirituality. The aim was to explore how the discovery of their spiritual identity had an effect on them holistically. I chose a qualitative research design because my research questions required the collection and analysis of rich, in-depth data regarding participants’ psychological and spiritual journeys (Phipps, & Vorster, 2011; Ryan, 2006). My data collection method was twofold, using both in-depth interviews (narrative storytelling), as the initial stage for the individual to tell their story and the effects on their psychological and spiritual well-being, as well as semi-structured interviews (brainstorming), as the second stage in the research. The objective was to see what effects the problem had on them as a whole person. I used two stages of data analysis to reach this objective namely a collaborative deconstruction technique, together with the individual as the first stage and secondly a thematic analysis to interpret the main messages, patterns that repeated, as well as the highlights, having an effect on them as a whole. The results confirmed that individuals “discover” their spiritual identity when their self-identity reaches a limit of coping with problems and have more positive effects on them as whole persons. The significance of the research is that it has contributed to a more integrated counselling approach, within psychology, for counsellors and psychologists, to explore spiritual identity with the individual. Through the integration of seeing individuals as whole beings, including a spiritual dimension, awareness was created within the counselling context of the value of seeing individuals in a more integrative and holistic manner. Such a psycho-spiritual integrative approach is more relevant in the field of counselling in journeying with individuals in wholeness and affecting their dimensions of body, soul and spirit positively in the context of identity. / Psychology / M.A. (Psychology)

No description available.

<p>Early childhood teachers pursuing associate degrees often repeated the college algebra course, demanding, “Why do we have to take this? We don’t teach algebra!” Expectations for their training were not well-aligned with their mathematics preparation or teaching work. I have taught the mathematics courses and young children and have worked for an early childhood practice, policy, and research agency. I wanted to learn about these teachers’ experiences as mathematics learners and teachers, with a goal to share the complex nature of their work with teacher educators and other stakeholders to identify better avenues for their mathematics training. I explored the questions: (1) What role, if any, do mathematical learning experiences play in early childhood teachers’ mathematics teaching practice? (2) In what ways do their voices contribute to the professional dialogue regarding teaching mathematics with young children? </p> <p>Dewey’s (1938/1998) <i>experience</i> construct provided lenses to examine early childhood teachers’ experiences learning and teaching mathematics. <i>Continuity</i>, <i>interaction</i>, <i>social control</i>, <i>freedom</i>, <i>purpose</i>, and <i>subject matter</i> provided insights and situated teachers’ experiences within a disparate patchwork of settings and policies. Two family childcare providers participated in this narrative inquiry (Clandinin & Connelly) through an interview on their experiences learning and teaching mathematics and three classroom observations. After analyzing data for Dewey’s (1938/1998) <i>experience</i> constructs, I used narrative analysis (Polkinghorne, 1995) and teaching images (Clandinin, 1985) to write an emplotted narrative for each teacher, Josie and Patsy.</p> Josie told a turning point story (Drake, 2006) of making mathematics “real,” influencing her mathematics teaching practice as she integrated “real” mathematics into everyday activities. Patsy’s appreciation for mathematics and building was seen in her story of a child explaining he used the wide blocks for his base, elaborating, “He's telling me HOW he's building.” While Josie and Patsy had few opportunities to learn about teaching mathematics with young children, they were eager to learn. I propose a training for early childhood teachers, iteratively working as a group to investigate a personal mathematics teaching puzzle or celebration, building on their mathematical personal practical knowledge. Adding my own story to those of the teachers, like Josie’s and Patsy’s, of our work together, will add to my understanding and development of my practice as a curriculum maker (Clandinin & Connelly, 1992), as early childhood teachers’ voices contribute to the professional dialogue about teaching mathematics with young children.

Community day school graduates enter society with decisions about college, career, and work. Community day schools operate as a non-traditional education system that provides a separate and often unique education to many disenfranchised students, with lessened accountability protocols to assess whether these systems prepare graduates for life after high school. The number of community day schools and enrollment is declining, due in part to excessive changes within the law and stricter guidelines required to be met.

<p>Socioeconomic inequality unduly impacts the pathways of socioeconomically disadvantaged students (SDS) in engineering. Past and present scholarship suggests that inequitable access to physical and interpersonal resources inhibits K-16+ students' ability to engage in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) meaningfully. This lack of access negatively impacts SDS' pursuit of, and success in, engineering. Thus far, quantitative studies seeking to understand SDS' trajectories to and through engineering have used income as a proxy for socioeconomic disadvantage. However, such measures are not theoretically positioned to accurately depict or account for the complex sociological processes that lead to, or result from, socioeconomic inequality. Furthermore, such measures do not account for parallel inequalities such as racism, sexism, and classism that exist, influence, and are influenced by it. Therefore, the purpose of this work was to 1) develop a more sociologically accurate measure of socioeconomic inequality, 2) to use that measure to identify the impacts of such inequality on SDS' pathways to and through engineering, and finally, 3) to explore the narrative experiences of SDS when accounting for a more accurate depiction. Using a Critical Realist Feminist approach to structural equation modeling, restricted data from the National Center for Education Statistics’ Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002 (ELS:2002) as well as other supplemental data were used to construct and test a more complex and representative measure of socioeconomic disadvantage, the Model of Socioeconomic Inequality (Study 1). Study 2 used this model to examine how aspects predicting important engineering student outcomes. Neighborhood location and conditions, level of Parent Educational Involvement, and availability of Household Educational Resources negatively impact SDS' opportunities to engage and succeed in engineering and college more broadly. Furthermore, the model suggested that such interactions are uniquely mediated by the intersectional inequalities experienced by SDS and their families. Finally, a rich narrative of one student, Samantha, is included to better understand the lived experiences of SDS amongst their pathways to and through engineering. Samantha was a Queer Asian American female SDS graduating from Computer Science Engineering who has low scores on Parent Educational Involvement and Household Educational Resources. Samantha's narrative shows the important role that the factors identified in the Model of Socioeconomic Inequality had in her experiences. Specifically, Samantha had little access to Parent Educational Involvement and Household Educational Resources from her parents. Rather, these forms of support came from what she referred to as her ``chosen family,'' a group of professors, co-workers, friends, and others who viewed and supported her identity authentically and provided her physical resources when she needed them. Access to this group and the resources they provided supported Samantha's belonging and her ability to succeed in engineering. However, Samantha's narrative also uncovered findings not included in the Model of Socioeconomic Inequality. Specifically, Samantha's narrative suggested she had experienced significant, long-term traumas that were both related and unrelated to her socioeconomic experiences. These traumas negatively impacted Samantha's feelings of belonging and caused her to question her place in engineering, but they were partially mitigated by the support of her chosen family. This three-study dissertation challenges current engineering education thinking regarding the knowledge and study of socioeconomics, trauma, and Intersectionality more broadly. It also challenges engineering education researchers and practitioners to question the current methods of how they support SDS in a multitude of spaces.</p>