Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The purpose of this research is to explore if policy makers and implementers shift and/or change their understandings of the portfolio management model (PMM) when engaged in equity-oriented transformative professional learning. The portfolio approach to urban education, at present, is being implemented or considered by over one third of the US. There are 20 states, 40 cities, and the District of Columbia that are pursuing and/or implementing the portfolio management model (PMM). This research study examines how systemic, socio-political, socio-historical, and interconnected policy networks have resulted in inequity. Furthermore, this study focuses on how policy makers and implementers engage with one another and their context(s) while learning about educational equity. This occurred via facilitating transformative professional learning opportunities aimed to illicit critical self-awareness, reflection, and examination of perhaps the more pernicious underpinnings of authentic decision and choice making in US education reform. The study also explores the ways in which institutional context and the research design itself may have impacted and/or impeded shifts in learning. The study’s theoretical frameworks guided the decision to use critical qualitative inquiry and narrative inquiry to investigate the raced, gendered, sexed, and classed experiences of policy makers and implementers, and further, implications for policy implementation regarding other forms of othering such as ableism, linguicism, ageism, etc. Thematic analysis of the data, analyzed using critical frameworks, were articulated as interspliced data vignettes. Findings suggest that learning is social and that designed experiences around educational equity can provide ways in which policy makers and implementers can formally intervene in their own practices of developing and/or cultivating critical consciousness, as well as decision-making toward PMM adoption and implementation in their respective contexts. Participant’s narratives both challenge and perpetuate dominant, historical approaches of urban education reform adoption and implementation, and exposes how US urban education policy arenas have not systemically centered critical consciousness, resulting in equity-oriented policies being interpreted and implemented in inequitable ways. Findings from this study guide future research and practice that focuses on urban education policy creation, adoption, and implementation.

The curriculum for ICT in UK schools was discontinued in September 2012 and replaced by a 'rebranded' subject of Computing, divided into three sub domains: Computer Science; Information Technology; and digital literacy. The latter was positioned as basic technical skills. There were concerns in the education community that the new curriculum promoted programming and computer science topics to the detriment of digital literacy and applied uses of technology. Much of the Computing education literature perpetuates the hegemony of the logical and abstract, and implies computational thinking and rationality are synonymous with criticality. During the same period, a maker culture was growing rapidly in the UK, and discourses around these activities promoted an entirely different notion of digital literacy, aligned with the wide body of literacy literature that focuses on notions of empowerment and criticality rather than basic functional skills. A digital maker tool called the Raspberry Pi was released with the intention of supporting the development of computer science and digital making competence, and thus sat at the boundary of the academic and maker communities. This thesis argues that developing 'criticality' is a vital component of Computing education and explores how learning activities with the Raspberry Pi might support development of 'criticality'. In setting the scene for the investigation, I will first explore the notions underpinning discourse around both computational and critical thinking and digital literacy, suggesting that the frictions would be best overcome by abandoning abstract constructs of knowledge and assumptions that it is possible to separate theory and practice. I show how the term 'critical' is itself problematic in the literature and I look to Wenger's social theory of learning to avoid the individualistic limits of Papert's constructionism, a popular learning theory in Computing education. Wenger's constructs of knowledgeability and competence help tell a different story of what it means to be a learner of the practice of Computing, both in learning for academic purposes and with intentions towards becoming a practitioner. In concert with learning citizenship, these constructs offer a more ethical framing of 'criticality'. Informed by this theoretical position, I suggest an original, exploratory implementation of Q methodology to explore learning with technology in school settings. I qualitatively compare 'before' and 'after' Q studies that represent perspectives at the individual and collective level, with reference to observations of classroom learning. The methodology facilitates a nuanced and complex investigation and the findings of the project suggest that where pupils are already predisposed to the subject, working with the Raspberry Pi develops a broader knowledgeability, but where there is no such predisposition, a pedagogy of expressibility influences how participation in Raspberry Pi learning activities may impact knowledgeability.

This diploma thesis deals with the didactic means of teaching health education and research of selected online resources usable for teaching health education at the second stage of primary and secondary schools. The aim of the work is to verify the quality of materials available online suitable for use in teaching health education and to show their practical use. The materials are verified in terms of the quality of materials, their practical use in teaching and focus in terms of the level of education. The available materials are verified by an analysis, which is focused on the examination of materials in terms of science, adequacy, practicality and suitability for use in a particular level of education. The practical use of materials is verified by practical use in teaching and the method of structured interviews with colleagues. The theoretical part of the work is focused on the types of teaching aids and the research part on the analysis of specific teaching aids. The practical part deals with the use of available teaching aids in teaching. The thesis contains an overview of selected, available didactic tools usable in the teaching of health education with regard to their content, quality and adequacy. The work also offers a demonstration of the use of available teaching aids in the teaching of...

Abstract The study analyzes the theoretical basis of the Philosophy for Children (P4C) program elaborated by Matthew Lipman. The aim is, firstly, to identify the main philosophical and pedagogical principles of P4C based on American pragmatism, and to locate their pedagogization and possible problems in Lipman's thinking. Here the discussion is especially targeted to the thinking of John Dewey and George H. Mead as well as Lev Vygotsky, whom Lipman himself names as the most pivotal sources for his own thinking. On the other hand, the study aims at opening up new perspectives and thematizations on P4C from the viewpoint of the continental tradition of thought. The essential principles of P4C connected with reasonableness and judgment are ultimately interpreted as a neo-Aristotelian effort to contextualize philosophy by tracing it back to moderation, the man's ability to consider and solve problems that he meets in practical life kata ton orthon logon – by doing right things in the right place at the right time in the right way. This phronetic idea of 'humanizing modernity' combined with the evolution of the adult-child concept is argued to be one of the conditions for the possibility of P4C, yet leaving unsolved the basic problems involving pedagogical action as such. John Dewey's ideas arising from the critique of the modern philosophy of consciousness, focusing on the significance of philosophy in practical human life and linked to the basic nature of human knowing and intellectual growth and, further, to the ideal of a democratic community, are shown to form the main intellectual sources of P4C. Dewey's philosophy as a general theory of education means a solid linking of the concepts of experience and inquiry to the practice of education. This is based on the naturalistic conception of man according to which man is built in dynamic transaction with his environment, experiencing the true meanings of his ideas in the consequences of his actions as he tries to solve problematic situations. So, inquiry as a method of reflective thinking forms the basis for education based on intellectual growth. A condition for it is a context meaningful for the child in which the paradigm of inquiry can be realized authentically. It is therefore important in education to provide circumstances that stimulate the child's curiosity, initiating a process of inquiry that further enables, through the formation of reflective habits, the development of a democratic community. The purpose of the pedagogical interaction taking place in the process of inquiry is to produce educative experiences for the child, making the pedagogical relationship vanish at the same time. The idea is that in pedagogical action the child's subjectivity, his desire and impulses are adapted to the tradition, yet generating at the same time a prospective, reflective habit, thus freeing the educatee to think intelligently for himself. The study shows the articulation of these principles in Lipman's practical effort to convert the classroom into a community of inquiry, but it also argues that the above-mentioned Bildung theoretical core problem of pedagogical action, related to its paradoxical special characteristics to produce autonomous subjectivity, is not thematized. In connection with this issue, the educational thinking of Kant and Hegel is discussed especially from the viewpoint of philosophy teaching. To provide a new perspective for the discussion, the study outlines the community of inquiry as an 'educative space' from the viewpoints of the pedagogical relationship typical of hermeneutic pedagogy and of non-reflective functional structures and phenomena based on pedagogical intuition that are linked to it. / Tiivistelmä Tutkimuksessa eritellään Matthew Lipmanin kehittelemän Filosofiaa lapsille (P4C) ohjelman teoreettisia perusteita. Tarkoituksena on ensinnäkin identifioida P4C:n amerikkalaiseen pragmatismiin palautuvat filosofiset ja pedagogiset pääperiaatteet sekä paikallistaa niiden pedagogisoituminen sekä mahdolliset ongelmat Lipmanin ajattelussa. Tällöin tarkastelun kohteena on erityisesti John Deweyn ja Georg H. Meadin ajattelu sekä lisäksi Lev Vygotsky, jotka kolme Lipman itse nimeää oman ajattelunsa merkittävimmiksi lähteiksi. Toisaalta tutkimuksessa pyritään avaamaan P4C:lle uusia näkökulmia ja tematisointeja mannermaisen ajatteluperinteen näkökulmasta. P4C:n keskeiset järkevyyteen ja arvostelukykyyn liittyvät periaatteet tulkitaan viimekädessä uusaristotelisena pyrkimyksenä kontekstualisoida filosofia palauttamalla se kohtuullisuuteen, ihmisen kykyyn harkita ja ratkaista käytännöllisessä elämässä kohtaamiaan ongelmia kata ton orthon logon – tekemällä oikeita asioita oikeassa paikassa oikeaan aikaan oikealla tavalla. Tämä 'modernin inhimillistämisen' froneettinen idea yhdistyneenä aikuinen-lapsi käsitteen evoluutioon argumentoidaan P4C:n yhdeksi mahdollisuusehdoksi, joka jättää kuitenkin pedagogiseen toimintaan sinänsä liittyvät perusongelmat ratkaisematta. John Deweyn modernin tietoisuusfilosofian kritiikistä nousevat, filosofian merkitystä ihmisen käytännöllisessä elämässä korostavat näkemykset, jotka liittyvät inhimillisen tietämisen ja älyllisen kasvun perusluonteeseen sekä edelleen demokraattisen yhteisön ideaaliin osoitetaan P4C:n keskeisiksi intellektuaalisiksi lähteiksi. Dewey'n filosofia yleisenä kasvatuksen teoriana merkitsee kokemuksen ja tutkimuksen käsitteiden kiinteää kytkemistä kasvatuksen käytäntöön. Tämä perustuu naturalistiseen ihmiskäsitykseen, jonka mukaan ihminen rakentuu dynaamisessa transaktiossa ympäristönsä kanssa kokien ideoidensa todet merkitykset toimintansa seurauksissa pyrkiessään ratkaisemaan ongelmallisia tilanteita. Tällöin tutkimus reflektiivisen ajattelun metodina muodostaa perustan älylliseen kasvuun perustuvalle kasvatukselle. Sen ehtona on sellainen lapselle merkityksellinen konteksti, jossa tutkimuksen paradigma voi toteutua autenttisena. Kasvatuksessa on siten tärkeää luoda olosuhteet, jotka stimuloivat lapsen uteliaisuutta käynnistäen tutkimuksen prosessin, joka edelleen mahdollistaa reflektiivisten tapojen muodostumisen kautta demokraattisen yhteisön kehittymisen. Tutkimuksen prosessissa tapahtuvan pedagogisen interaktion tarkoituksena on tuottaa lapselle kasvattavia kokemuksia häivyttäen samalla pedagogista suhdetta. Ajatuksena on, että pedagogisessa toiminnassa lapsen subjektiviteetti, hänen halunsa ja impulssinsa sovittuvat traditioon generoiden samalla kuitenkin tulevaisuuteen suuntautuvaa, reflektiivistä tapaa vapauttaen näin kasvatettavan ajattelemaan älykkäästi itse. Tutkimuksessa osoitetaan näiden periaatteiden artikuloituminen Lipmanin käytännöllisessä pyrkimyksessä muuntaa koululuokka tutkivaksi yhteisöksi, mutta samalla kuitenkin argumentoidaan, että mainittu pedagogisen toiminnan sivistysteoreettinen ydinongelma liittyen sen paradoksaaliseen erityisluonteeseen autonomisen subjektiviteetin tuottamiseksi ei tematisoidu. Tämän kysymyksen yhteydessä tutkimuksessa tarkastellaan Kantin ja Hegelin kasvatusajattelua erityisesti filosofian opetuksen näkökulmasta. Uutena avauksena tutkimuksessa hahmotellaan tutkivaa yhteisöä 'kasvattavana tilana' hermeneuttiselle pedagogiikalle ominaisen pedagogisen suhteen ja siihen kytkeytyvien ei-reflektiivisten, pedagogiseen intuitioon perustuvien toimintarakenteiden ja ilmiöiden näkökulmasta.

This Master's Thesis deals with the Morning Letter from the program Step by Step as a possible tool for developing reading literacy. The theoretical part deals with the definition of reading literacy, the individual components and its anchoring in the Framework Education Program for Elementary Education. Thesis compares the key competences set out in the Framework Education Program for Elementary Education with reading literacy and explains their relationship and the importance of their equal development. It also describes one of the key program in this area, the program Reading and Writing for Critical Thinking, and its methods of developing reading literacy. It also deals with program Step by Step and the development of reading literacy as its component. Thesis focuses mainly on the Morning Letter as a possible reading strategy. The practical part is based on observations and interviews with teachers from the program Step by Step and their experience with Morning Letters and which forms of them are confirmed to be useful and how is perceived its overlap in reading literacy. It also includes a set of Morning Letters applied in mainstream class and their analysis and reflection in terms of reading literacy. Based on this analysis thesis it also contains a few designs of Morning Letters emerging...

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