The article addresses the production of reproducibility as a topic that has become acutely relevant in the recent discussions on the replication crisis in science. It brings the ethnomethodological stance on reproducibility into the discussions, claiming that reproducibility is necessarily produced locally, on the shop floor, with methodological guidelines serving as references to already established practices rather than their origins. The article refers to this argument empirically, analyzing how a group of novice neuroscientists performs a series of measurements in a (...) transcranial magnetic stimulation experiment. Based on ethnography and video analysis, the article traces a history of the local measurement procedure invented by the researchers in order to overcome the experimental uncertainty. The article aims to demonstrate how reproducibility of the local procedure is achieved in the shop floor work of the practitioners and how the procedure becomes normalized and questioned as incorrect in the course of experimental practice. It concludes that the difference between guidelines and practical actions is not problematic per se; what may be problematic is that researchers can be engaged in different working projects described by the same instruction. (shrink)

Putting the principles of multisensory teaching into practice, this study investigated the effect of audio-visual vocabulary repetition on L2 sentence comprehension. Forty participants were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. A sensory-based model of instruction was used to teach a list of unfamiliar vocabularies to the two groups. Following the instruction, the experimental group repeated the instructed words twice, while the control group received no vocabulary repetition. Afterward, their electrophysiological neural activities were recorded through electroencephalography while (...) doing a sentence acceptability judgment task with 216 sentences under acceptable and unacceptable conditions. A one-way analysis of variance, a multivariate analysis of variance, and a Bayesian repeated-measures ANOVA were used to compare the behavioral and neurocognitive responses [N400 as the main language-related event-related brain potential effect] of the two groups. The results showed no significant N400 amplitude difference in favor of any of the groups. The findings corroborated the ineffectiveness of two repetitions preceded by multisensory instruction on L2 sentence comprehension. (shrink)

Harnad accepts the picture of computation as formalism, so that any implementation of a program - thats any implementation - is as good as any other; in fact, in considering claims about the properties of computations, the nature of the implementing system - the interpreter - is invisible. Let me refer to this idea as 'Computationalism'. Almost all the criticism, claimed refutation by Searle's argument, and sharp contrasting of this idea with others, rests on the absoluteness of this separation between (...) a computational system and its implementation. (shrink)

Harnad accepts the picture of computation as formalism, so that any implementation of a program - thats any implementation - is as good as any other; in fact, in considering claims about the properties of computations, the nature of the implementing system - the interpreter - is invisible. Let me refer to this idea as 'Computationalism'. Almost all the criticism, claimed refutation by Searle's argument, and sharp contrasting of this idea with others, rests on the absoluteness of this separation between (...) a computational system and its implementation. (shrink)

This article deals with surgical practice as it is locally organized within the course of the operation; it focuses on the way in which surgical action shaping the body for the local purposes of the operation is organized in a timely, situated, interactive manner. In order to do that, I offer a systematic analysis of the instructions addressed by a chief surgeon to his assistant in the form of directives during a surgical operation, as well as of instructed actions of (...) the assistant following the directives of the surgeon. In this way, I aim to show how surgery is a methodic collaborative achievement, relying on finely tuned coordination between staff members. More generally, the article sketches a systematic and detailed analysis of instructions as situated accomplishments in time, and of instructed action as resulting from an embodied and indexical understanding of directives and requests as they are produced in time and in context. (shrink)

A recurrent theme in ethnomethodological research is that of instructed actions. Contrary to the classic traditions in the social and cognitive sciences, which attribute logical priority or causal primacy to instructions, rules, and structures of action, ethnomethodologists investigate the situated production of actions which enable such formulations to stand as adequate accounts. Consequently, a recitation of formal structures can not count as an adequate sociological description, when no account is given of the local production ofwhat those structures describe. The natural (...) sciences can be described as a domain of practical action in whichthe use of methods enables the intersubjective reproduction of naturalistic observations and experiments. As numerous sociological studies of laboratory practices have shown, the achievement of intersubjective order cannot be reduced to formal methods; instead, it arises from the work of custom-fitting relevant methods to the local circumstances of the research. In this paper we discuss a possible extension of this idea to cover two intertwined aspects of molecular biology: (1) the work of following instructions on how to perform routine laboratory procedures, and (2) the relationship between cellular orders and the encoded instructions contained in the DNA molecule. We suggest that a classic conception of scientific action is implied by the way formal instructions are treated as a primary basis, both for molecular biologists' actions and the cellular functions they study, and we envision an ethnomethodological alternative to those conceptions of social and biological order. (shrink)

This study takes an interest in instructions and instructed actions in the context of manual skills. The analysis focuses on a video recorded episode where a teacher demonstrates how to crochet chain stitches, requests a group of students to reproduce her actions, and then repeatedly corrects the attempts of one of the students. The initial request, and the students’ responses to it, could be seen as preliminary to the series of corrective sequences that come next: the request and the (...) class='Hi'>following attempts make it possible for the teacher to launch instructional sequences specifically designed and addressed to the students who need further guidance. In the interaction between the teacher and the novice student, the reasoned character of the instructed actions is not explained so much as installed and tuned. The materiality of the project makes it possible for the two parties to methodically and meticulously adjust their actions in accordance with each other, and towards the gradual realization of the aimed-for results. In connection to this, a number of issues pertaining to the reproducibility and recognizability of manual skills are raised: how instructions-in-interaction orient towards the progression of the skill rather than the interaction itself; how attempts by and mistakes of the instructed party provide grounds for further instruction; and, consequently, how instructions in the form of corrections build on the instructor’s continuous assessments of the instructed actions. (shrink)

Managing a company or organization in today’s market is a challenge that each leader has to face. Companies have to adapt and embrace challenges, or they will be left behind by the competitors in the market. The leadership of a company has to be creative in order to fulfill the needs of the customers, the market, and its employees. The same rules apply for language teaching organizations, which have to follow the rapid changes in the field of education, technology and (...) marketing all the same. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to acquire knowledge of key aspects of instructional leadership in private and public schools, to find the parameters that make an organization successful, and to compare key management decisions taken by organizations over the years. In focus of this paper is a case study with two primary schools in Kosovo, one public and one private, how they operate, how are they managed and the possible ways of further development. Interviews with the leaders of the schools have been conducted, and the findings have been compared and supported with contemporary literature review. The paper starts provides an introduction, the literature review, the framework used, an interpretation and critical discussion of the data collected, and it ends with the conclusion on instructional leadership. (shrink)

A videographic study of origami is presented in which subjects were observed making four different origami objects under five modes of instruction: photos + captions, illustrations-only, illustrations with small captions, illustrations with large captions, and text-only as control. The objective of the study was to explore the gestures and other actions that subjects produce as they try to follow instructions rather than to determine the most effective style of instruction per se. We found that the task of situating (...) instructions to the context at hand is error prone and that to facilitate it subjects gesture, point, re-orient illustrations, and generally do things that have no function other than to change the epistemic and interactive landscape of activity so they can more easily understand what is to be done. These studies bear on the new questions designers are asking about the placement, timing, and pace of instructions that digital aids now provide and on the fundamental question of how humans embed themselves in an activity by framing their task in a situation specific manner. (shrink)

Traditional models of mathematical proof describe proofs as sequences of assertion where each assertion is a claim about mathematical objects. However, Tanswell observed that in practice, many proofs do not follow these models. Proofs often contain imperatives, and other instructions for the reader to perform mathematical actions. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of instructions in proofs by systematically analyzing how instructions are used in Kunen’s Set theory: An introduction to independence proofs, a widely used graduate (...) text in set theory. I use Kunen’s text to describe how instructions and constructions in proof work in mathematical practice and explore epistemic consequences of how proofs are read and understood. (shrink)

This work aims to reform legal teaching in Colleges and Universities and improve law students’ comprehensive quality. In the context of Educational Psychology research, Deep Learning theory is integrated into legal instructional design. Following a theoretical review of EPSY and DL, the current situation and problems of college legal teaching are understood based on the Law School in a University in Shanghai through auditing, communication, and investigation methods. The theoretical research results are integrated into the ID. The teaching content (...) is divided into language information module, wisdom skills module, cognitive module, action skills module, and attitude module. Each module is divided into three teaching methods, and all teaching methods are combined into the proposed legal ID. Finally, the proposed legal ID is applied in the legal classroom of the Law School in a University in Shanghai. Overall, seventy students are recruited and grouped into Class A and Class B. Class A uses the proposed legal ID, and Class B does not. The scores of Classes A and B are compared. After a semester, the average score of Class A has increased from 68 to 71.11 points. The covariance has decreased from 61.66 to 51.42. When the confidence level is set to 0.95, the confidence interval of class A has increased from 65.26–70.74 to 68.62–73.61. By comparison, the average score of Class B dropped from 68.14 to 68.11 points. The covariance has decreased from 60.24 to 41.76. When the confidence level is set to 0.95, the confidence interval of class B has changed from 65.44–70.85 to 65.86–70.37, without significant improvement. Therefore, the proposed legal ID based on DL theory is scientific and effective. This work has certain reference significance for optimizing the ID of CAUs and improving the comprehensive quality of college-student talents. (shrink)

In this study, I describe a potential challenge to semiotics, which exists in the fact that no interpretation of an instruction can get us closer to doing what the instructional text describes. I provide a praxeological description of a situation in a software development firm where the instructions for a particular type of meeting are inscribed on the whiteboard in front of which the meetings were held. I discuss the gap between instructions and the behavior they describe and the (...) moral order of praxis that is not inscribed in instructions. (shrink)

This paper illustrates cognitive modeling constructs designed to make learning by instruction more robust, including (1) flexible grounding of language to execution, (2) inference of implicit instruction knowledge, and (3) interactive clarification of instructions during both learning and execution.

Throughout history, philosophers have reflected on educational questions. Some of their ideas emerged in defense of, or opposition to, skepticism about the possibility of formal teaching and learning. These philosophers include Plato, Augustine, St Thomas Aquinas, Søren Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Together, they comprise a tradition that establishes the impossibility of instruction and the imperative to undertake it. The value of this tradition for contemporary education is that it redirects attention away from performance assessments and learning outcomes (...) to the ethical, aesthetic, and metaphysical dimensions of schooling. I argue that philosophers of education are uniquely responsible for teaching this tradition so that instruction might be undertaken in the right spirit. To this end, my essay is divided into three parts. In the first part, I explain why instructional skepticism has not been prominent in philosophy of education. I follow up, in the second part, by clarifying my choice of the term ‘instruction.’ In the third part, I sketch the instructional philosophies that ‘book-end’ this tradition: those of Plato and Wittgenstein. (shrink)

Jesus’ instruction to the crowds in Matthew 23:3 to obey and do everything the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees tell them comes as a surprise. It is the only case in Matthew where the words of the Jewish leaders are seemingly portrayed in a positive light. If this portrayal indeed is positive, it seems to stand in tension with how Matthew construes these leaders and their teachings in the rest of the gospel. Jesus’ positive remark furthermore seemingly (...) stands in contrast with Matthew 28:20, where Jesus claims all authority to himself and instructs his disciples to teach all the nations to obey everything he has commanded them. The question therefore arises as to how this seemingly positive reference of Jesus, which apparently stands in contrast with Jesus’ criticism in the rest of the gospel, should be interpreted. In answering this question, an intra-textual approach is followed. (shrink)

BackgroundSex and gender influence individuals’ psychology, but are often overlooked in psychological science. The sex and gender equity in research guidelines provide instruction for addressing sex and gender within five sections of a manuscript.MethodsWe examined whether the 89 journals published by the American Psychological Association provide explicit instruction for authors to address sex and gender within these five sections. Both authors reviewed the journal instructions to authors for the words “sex,” and “gender,” and noted explicit instruction pertaining (...) to these five sections.ResultsOnly 8 journals instructed authors to address sex/gender within the abstract, introduction, and/or methods sections. No journals instructed authors to address sex and gender in the results or discussion sections.ConclusionThese journals could increase sex/gender equity and improve the reproducibility of psychological science by instructing authors to follow the SAGER guidelines. (shrink)

In an item-method directed forgetting paradigm, participants were required to attend to one of two colored words presented on opposite sides of a central fixation stimulus; they were instructed to Remember or Forget the attended item. On a subsequent recognition test, the Attended words showed a typical directed forgetting effect with better recognition of Remember words than Forget words. Our interest was in the fate of the Unattended words. When the study display disappeared before the memory instruction, there was (...) no effect of that instruction on unattended words; when the study display remained visible during presentation of the memory instruction, there was a reverse directed forgetting effect with better recognition of unattended words from Forget trials than from Remember trials. Incidental encoding of task-irrelevant stimuli occurs following presentation of a Forget instruction – but only when those task-irrelevant stimuli are still visible in the external environment. (shrink)

The majority of the studies on attentional focus have shown that participants who were instructed to focus externally performed better than those who were taught to focus internally. However, in most of these studies the participants performed complex motor tasks. Due to the scarcity of data on the effects of attentional focus specifically on simple motor tasks, our purpose in the current study was to examine these effects on two simple reaction time tasks. The study was conducted on a cloud-based (...) experimental software. Participants were allocated to three experimental groups: an external focus group, an internal focus group, and a control group. The participants performed two tasks: a choice-RT task and a Simon task. Participants in all three groups practiced eight blocks of 20 trials from each task in a counterbalanced order – a total of 180 trials for each task. The sole difference between the three groups was the administered attentional focus instructions. The findings suggest that attentional focus instructions do not affect the performance of a choice-RT task or a Simon-task in a computerized online study. It is possible that the simple RT-based tasks in the current study were not sensitive to the attentional focus manipulation, since in such simple tasks there are not many actions that internal focus can disrupt. Although we asked the participants to what extent they followed the instructions, we cannot say whether their responses represent their actual attentional focus when performing the tasks. (shrink)

SummaryThe development of universities and technical schools in nineteenth century Switzerland is commonly assumed to be similar to the development of comparable schools in Germany. To a large extent this is correct, but there are subtle differences in the founding and organization of Swiss institutions that are reflective of the Swiss national and local cantonal contexts. In the case of Zürich, the specific local political and financial conditions underlying the formation of the University of Zürich, the Zürich Cantonal School and (...) the Swiss Federal Polytechnic resulted in a complex set of dual appointments and shared facilities that were absent at comparable chemical laboratories at German universities. This essay outlines the origins of these complex relationships under Carl Löwig and Georg Städeler and follows in more detail the complex career path of Johannes Wislicenus in Zürich from his appointment as Privatdozent in 1860 to his appointment as Director of the Polytechnic in 1871. Wislicenus’ career path illustrates the institutional context of chemistry in Zürich and shows how this context, including the roles of cantonal and federal support, and the physical constraints created by shared laboratory facilities, shaped chemical research and instruction in Zürich. (shrink)

There has been much research into teacher beliefs about teaching and learning as seen in the general teacher education literature. In the field of language teacher education, this line of research has been evolving, with the recent trend being streamlined into “teacher cognition” as a generic or umbrella term. Despite increasing amounts of research output so far, research into foreign language teachers’ cognitions about their own teaching and decision-making is still insufficient, particularly with regard to university-level English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) teachers in (...) China. Drawing on Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory, this qualitative research focused on EFL teachers’ cognitions about form-focused instruction in Chinese university settings. It intended to discover how teachers’ cognitions changed when they were expected to teach in actual classrooms and what factors contributed to these changes. Data collected from four teacher-participants through semi-structured interviews, classroom observations and follow-up stimulated recall interviews showed participants’ support forfocus-on-forminstruction, which means they not only paid attention to the grammatical form of the language but also to the meaning it is intended to convey. However, data also showed that the teacher-participants shifted fromfocus-on-formtofocus-on-formSinstruction in actual teaching, which suggests that they might have realized the challenges of carrying out teaching activities surroundingfocus-on-formand would like to take an easier approach by only teaching the grammar of the language byfocusing on formS. Such incongruences are interpreted with reference to a plethora of sociocultural factors including traditional Chinese thinking and institutional expectations. The implications of the findings for stakeholders in universities, including faculty members, students, and curriculum developers in similar contexts, are also discussed. (shrink)

Wang Yangming 王陽明 (1472-1529) was one of China's most influential Ruist philosophers. The publication widely regarded as most representative of his Ruism is the three-volume Record of Instructions for Practice. Wang Yangming’s followers kept records of statements he made and conversations he held when discussing his Ruist learning with them. During and after his lifetime, these records were compiled in three volumes. The third volume was gathered together and edited by his ardent follower Qian Dehong 錢德洪, who then published it (...) in 1556. This book is a modern, bilingual Chinese-English edition of the third volume with annotations and commentary. (shrink)

Wang Yangming 王陽明 (1472-1529) was one of China's most influential Ruist philosophers. The publication widely regarded as most representative of his Ruism is the three-volume Record of Instructions for Practice. Wang Yangming’s followers kept records of statements he made and conversations he held when discussing his Ruist learning with them. During and after his lifetime, these records were compiled in three volumes. The third volume was gathered together and edited by his ardent follower Qian Dehong 錢德洪, who then published it (...) in 1556. This book is a modern, bilingual Chinese-English edition of the third volume with annotations and commentary. (shrink)

: Tolstoy critiques the assumption one can live a meaningful life merely by following social conventions. Though they may give a semblance of control, they do not prepare one to face mortality. Compassion for others enables one to transmute a preoccupation with filling one's preferences and desires to an appreciation of others and one's individuality. In telling of Ivan's death, Tolstoy shows the ineffectiveness of the practice of medicine and marriage when they are treated only as conventions.

The quality of the educational experience for students may be at risk if they are not taught in ways that are effective and pertinent. While educational institutions (administrators, faculty senates or a combination) may try to compel faculty members to gain knowledge of and utilize up-to-date learning and instructional design strategies, these faculty members may baulk at this mandate, citing academic freedom as their right to design their courses in any way they see fit. Following is a discussion exploring (...) the issue, suggesting that regardless of how academic freedom is interpreted, faculty members have an ethical obligation to deliver instruction in ways that do not violate students' rights to learn. Consequently, institutions have a right as well as a duty to compel their faculty members to follow through with this obligation. (shrink)

I examine what I take to be an important consideration for the later Wittgenstein: the understanding of a rule does not exceed or transcend an understanding of explanations or instructions in the rule. I contend that this consideration plays a central role in the later Wittgenstein's views on rule-following. I first show that it serves as a key premiss in a sceptical argument concerning our ability to follow rules. I then argue that this consideration is vital to Wittgenstein's case (...) against what I describe as a realist view of rules. This realist view requires that our understanding of a rule extend beyond what can be understood from any set of instructions or explanation. For Wittgenstein, because this is to transcend publicly available means of conveying understanding, this realist's understanding is a private understanding. He calls this private source of understanding an ‘intuition’ and the main line of argument against intuition in our understanding of a rule draws, appropriately, on what is called his ‘private language argument’. In this paper, I defend a non-verificationist reading of this argument and its use against the realist so-construed. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

The thesis argues, in lie main, for both a negative and positive agenda to Wittgenstein's rule-following remarks in both his Philosophical Investigations and Remarks on the foundations of Mathematics. The negative agenda is a sceptical agenda, different than as conceived by Kripke, that is destructive of a realist account of rules and contends that the correct application of a rule is not fully determined in an understanding of the rule. In addition to these consequences, this negative agenda opens Wittgenstein (...) to Dummett's charge of radical conventionalism. These negative consequences are left unresolved by Kripke's sceptical solution and, notably, are wrongly assessed by those that dissent from a sceptical reading. The positive agenda builds on these negative considerations arguing that although there is no determination in the understanding of a rule of what will count as a correct application in so far unconsidered situations, we are still able to follow a rule correctly. This seems to involve an epistemic leap, from an underdetermined understanding to a determinate application, and, in respect of this appearance, involves what Wittgenstein calls following a rule "blindly" in an epistemic sense. Developing this view, of following a rule blindly, involves developing an account of an alternative rational response to rule instruction, one that need not involve a role for interpreting or inferring, but all the same allows for correctness in rule application in virtue of enabling agreement in rule application. (shrink)

Differentiated instruction is an approach that centers on the fact that every student is different and shapes the teaching process according to this reality. Students in the learning environment differ from each other in terms of characteristics such as prior knowledge, interest, needs, learning style, socio-cultural background, cognitive-affective-psychomotor readiness. In order for students with different characteristics to benefit from education in the best way, it is necessary to diversify education in terms of content, teaching-learning process and measurement-evaluation dimensions, taking (...) these differences into account. In this diversification, students' readiness, interest and learning profiles are taken into account as a whole. Although educational programs are prepared by taking the similarities between individuals into account in practice, teachers are expected to diversify the process by taking the individual differences of the students into account and design different learning paths for students with different characteristics. One of the areas that needs to be planned and implemented with a differentiated teaching approach within formal education is religious education. Differentiated religious teaching is to diversify religious teaching in terms of content, learning-teaching process and measurement and evaluation dimensions, taking the individual differences of students into account such as their prior religious knowledge, interest and attitudes towards religion, cultural affiliations and learning profiles. In this study, the self-efficacy perceptions of Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge (“Din Kültürü ve Ahlâk Bilgisi”, abb. DKAB in Turkish) teachers towards differentiated teaching were examined. Determining the self-efficacy perceptions of DKAB teachers regarding differentiated instruction is important in terms of providing information about their success in planning, implementing and evaluating according to differentiated instruction in the Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge course. The research sought answers to the following questions: 1. What are DKAB teachers' self-efficacy perceptions towards differentiated instruction? 2. Is there a significant relationship between DKAB teachers' self-efficacy perceptions towards differentiated instruction and teachers' gender, age, years of service, graduated higher education program and the type of school they work in? The research is a descriptive study and is of quantitative type and survey model. The population of the research consists of DKAB teachers working in primary and secondary education institutions in the 2nd semester of the 2021-2022 academic year. The sample of the research consists of 425 DKAB teachers selected from the population using the appropriate sampling method. Differentiated Instruction Self-Efficacy Scale developed by Mutlu, Öztürk and Aktekin was used to collect the data used in the research. The data collected in the study was analyzed using the SPSS 25.0 package program. According to the findings obtained in the study, DKAB teachers' self-efficacy perceptions regarding differentiated instruction are at a high level. The characteristics of DKAB teachers' age, years of service, and the type of school they work in do not have a significant effect on teachers' self-efficacy perceptions regarding differentiated instruction. There is a significant relationship between DKAB teachers' gender and the characteristics of the higher education program they graduated from and their self-efficacy perceptions. Male teachers consider themselves more competent in differentiated instruction. The self-efficacy perceptions of the teachers who graduated from the primary education DKAB Teaching program are at a higher level than the teachers who graduated from the theology (Ilahiyat) program, which is described as the faculty of theology. It is thought that the research will contribute to the field of differentiated religious teaching. (shrink)

Requirements for business ethics education and organizational ethics trainings mark an important step in encouraging ethical behavior among business students and professionals. However, the lack of specificity in these guidelines as to how, what, and where business ethics should be taught has led to stark differences in approaches and content. The present effort uses meta-analytic procedures to examine the effectiveness of current approaches across organizational ethics trainings and business school courses. to provide practical suggestions for business ethics interventions and research. (...) Thus, the primary questions driving this research are as follows: what course characteristics moderate the effectiveness of ethics instruction?, and have ethics education and training efforts improved? Findings suggest that professional, focused, and workshop-based training programs are especially effective for improving business ethics. However, results also reveal considerable problems with many of the criteria used to evaluate the effectiveness of business ethics interventions. Practical suggestions for course design and evaluation in business ethics efforts are discussed along with future research needs. (shrink)

This paper reports the experience of reconstructing a surveying instrument—the plane table—using the description found in Arthur Hopton’s Speculum topographicum: or The topographicall glasse : ‘Of the Plaine Table, with a description thereof, and the parts thereunto belonging’. One of the most detailed early printed descriptions of the instrument, it is illustrated with woodcut diagrams of components but no image of the complete plane table. The reconstruction process did not prove entirely straightforward. An examination of its various stages reveals how (...) Hopton’s text set out to persuade and lead the reader, rather than issuing orders to be followed exactly; the reader, left to make some decisions himself, would thus create a plane table with an element of uniqueness in its character. The role of the maker of such an instrument, even when following written instructions, was a creative and collaborative one, rather than purely passive.Keywords: Reconstruction; Instrument; Diagrams; Text; Instrument-maker; Collaboration. (shrink)

This book is an attempt to write about Kierkegaard's philosophy in the style of Kierkegaard's philosophy: energetic, playful, free spirited, surprising, and joyous. It is a deliberately crumby book in the sense that it seeks out the fragments, scraps, and crumbs of philosophical arguments that are generally ignored or swept away, like so much rubbish, but that are actually the most interesting parts of the meal. The Anti-Assistant-Professor Method that this book follows adopts Kierkegaard's many excellent jokes about assistant professors (...) as a guide to how not to write about Kierkegaard's philosophy; specifically: - Don't cease to be human. - Don't be a parasite, merely feeding off other people's creations and never creating anything new. - Don't reduce or simplify or systematize Kierkegaard's ideas in order to make life easier for everyone (because that was never the point). - Don't kill Kierkegaard's philosophy by lecturing on it, thereby turning it into a collection of dead ideas for nonhumans rather than subjective truths that need to be lived. Following these guidelines, the book attempts to extend and amplify some of Kierkegaard's most important ideas in a way that combats the persistent problem of nihilism--a disease that even Kierkegaard succumbed to at the end of his life. (shrink)

Requirements for business ethics education and organizational ethics trainings mark an important step in encouraging ethical behavior among business students and professionals. However, the lack of specificity in these guidelines as to how, what, and where business ethics should be taught has led to stark differences in approaches and content. The present effort uses meta-analytic procedures to examine the effectiveness of current approaches across organizational ethics trainings and business school courses. to provide practical suggestions for business ethics interventions and research. (...) Thus, the primary questions driving this research are as follows: what course characteristics moderate the effectiveness of ethics instruction?, and have ethics education and training efforts improved? Findings suggest that professional, focused, and workshop-based training programs are especially effective for improving business ethics. However, results also reveal considerable problems with many of the criteria used to evaluate the effectiveness of business ethics interventions. Practical suggestions for course design and evaluation in business ethics efforts are discussed along with future research needs. (shrink)

Employing conversation analysis, this article investigates instructions in lessons for guitar and Japanese calligraphy. In receiving an instruction, the students in the guitar lessons are expected to immediately follow the instruction. In contrast to the guitar lessons, the students in the calligraphy lessons are not institutionally expected to immediately follow the teacher’s instructions but to receive them. However, the students often gesticulate what they learned from and could make sense of the prior instruction upon completion of an (...) instruction activity. I call this phenomenon embodied solitary confirmation. By demonstrating the interactional procedure for this practice, this article respecifies reflection as an interactional phenomenon and elucidates an organization of multiactivity. (shrink)

Teacher-student dialogue plays a central role in facilitating the ongoing growth of those engaged in education, particularly dialogue that invites student reflection on the instruction being given and the teacher herself. Dialogue should aid students in articulating self-awareness regarding their behaviour and learning habits and the learning process and its results at the same time as assessing their quality and the ways in which they may be improved. One of the reasons behind our increasing inability to break down the (...) inherent barrier between teachers and students is due to a lack of engagement in ongoing dialogical reflection as a means of advancing the teaching-learning process within the school. This article summarizes the philosophical concepts of a ten years of teacher education program which was designed according to the principals of Philosophy with Children. The program fostered creativity and self-reflective thinking in schools and in teacher education and offered dialogical methods. It is based also on six dimensions that are the basis of Philosophy with Children: learning from a place of questions, community of learning that resists the educational hierarchy that boasts of omniscience, coordinator as a participant in the learning process, learning in the real present, legitimization of improvisation as a way of learning, learning as liberating the learner from disciplinary boundaries. All six dimensions view Philosophy with Children as a pedagogy of searching at whose center lies the pursuit of meaning that facilitates personal development—and thus self-direction and capability. (shrink)

Institutional operability refers to the normative conditions governing the exercise of power of office that makes an institution work. Because institutional action occurs by the interrelated actions of the officeholders, a focus on institutional operability requires the analysis and assessment of the officeholders’ conduct in their institutional capacity. This article distinguishes two perspectives on operability: ‘outward’ and ‘inward.’ The outward view emphasizes predefined instructions for efficient execution, focusing on rule-following to achieve institutional purposes. The inward perspective highlights role-playing and (...) reflective engagement among officeholders to uphold an institution’s raison d’être. The inward perspective brings to the fore the relational aspect of institutional life and officeholders’ interrelated responsibility for guiding institutional action. (shrink)

Many studies have investigated the effect of multilingualism on improving personality traits, namely cultural empathy, open-mindedness, flexibility, emotional stability, and social initiative of international students, or students in an international degree program. However, few studies have examined such an issue for EFL learners as they further their academic levels in English as a medium of instruction setting. The main tool used in this exploratory descriptive study was the short version of the multicultural personality questionnaire that was developed by Van (...) der Zee et al. Five hundred and seventy-seven Saudi female EFL undergraduates participated voluntarily across various academic levels, as well as recently graduated students; all of whom were exposed to various amounts of EMI. Prior to the study and before administering the questionnaire, the IELTS test was used to measure language proficiency of EFL learners to make sure that the collected data of the MPQ were analyzed statistically to generate means and standard deviations. The results of ANOVA test revealed that not only did all participants improved in cultural empathy followed by open-mindedness, but their improvement of the other dimensions of flexibility, social initiative, and emotional stability appeared to be randomly similar between only two or three groups of academic levels. The results also showed that there was no gradual sequence of developments or deterioration of any multicultural personality dimensions as students advanced in their academic levels or as a result of getting exposed to various amounts of EMI. Finally, this research provides some implications related to widening the scope of the study for further research such as comparing trilingual and bilingual learners and modifying the diagnostic ability of the MPQ. (shrink)

In spite of the wide variety of approaches to ethics training it is still debatable which approach has the highest potential to enhance professionals’ integrity. The current effort assesses a novel curriculum that focuses on metacognitive reasoning strategies researchers use when making sense of day-to-day professional practices that have ethical implications. The evaluated trainings effectiveness was assessed by examining five key sensemaking processes, such as framing, emotion regulation, forecasting, self-reflection, and information integration that experts and novices apply in ethical decision-making. (...) Mental models of trained and untrained graduate students, as well as faculty, working in the field of physical sciences were compared using a think-aloud protocol 6 months following the ethics training. Evaluation and comparison of the mental models of participants provided further validation evidence for sensemaking training. Specifically, it was found that trained students applied metacognitive reasoning strategies learned during training in their ethical decision-making that resulted in complex mental models focused on the objective assessment of the situation. Mental models of faculty and untrained students were externally-driven with a heavy focus on autobiographical processes. The study shows that sensemaking training has a potential to induce shifts in researchers’ mental models by making them more cognitively complex via the use of metacognitive reasoning strategies. Furthermore, field experts may benefit from sensemaking training to improve their ethical decision-making framework in highly complex, novel, and ambiguous situations. (shrink)

Advance directives are propagated as instruments to maintain patients’ autonomy in case they can no longer decide for themselves. It has been never been examined whether patients’ and healthy persons themselves are inclined to adhere to these documents. Patients’ and healthy persons’ views on whether instructions laid down in advance directives should be followed because that is (or is not) “the right thing to do”, not because one is legally obliged to do so, were studied and compared with that of (...) medical staff. Method: Vignette study presenting five cases. Cancer patients, healthy persons, nursing staff and physicians (n = 100 in each group) were interviewed. An adherence score was calculated (maximum value 5). The adherence score is found to be low in all groups, yet lowest in patients (1.55; standard deviation 1.13) and healthy controls (1.60; 1.37). The scores are significantly different between nursing staff on the one hand and patients and healthy controls on the other (p < 0.005 and p < 0.05, respectively), and between doctors and patients (p < 0.05). Interviewees who want these documents to be followed tend to live alone and to have already written an advance directive. Conclusions: Cancer patients and healthy persons widely disregard instructions laid down in advance directives and consider them less binding than physicians and nursing staff do. Only a minority tends to adhere more to advance directives. To improve decision-making at the end of life when patients are no longer able to decide for themselves alternative concepts, such as advanced care planning, should be considered. (shrink)

Some vegetative state patients show fMRI responses similar to those of healthy controls when instructed to perform mental imagery tasks. Many authors have argued that this provides evidence that such patients are in fact conscious, as response to commands requires intentional agency. I argue for an alternative reading, on which responsive patients have a deficit similar to that seen in severe forms of akinetic mutism. Akinetic mutism is marked by the inability to form and maintain intentions to act. Responsive patients (...) are likely still conscious. However, the route to this conclusion does not support attributions of intentional agency. I argue that aspects of consciousness, rather than broad diagnostic categories, are the more appropriate target of empirical investigation. Investigating aspects of consciousness provides a better method for investigating profound disorders of consciousness. 1 Introduction2 Responses in the Vegetative State2.1 The imaging evidence2.2 The need for models3 Responsive Patients and Akinetic Mutism3.1 Akinetic mutism3.2 Akinetic mutism as a deficit in intentions3.3 Arguments for the link3.4 Interim conclusion4 Other Models4.1 A deficit in ability?4.2 Modular intentions?5 Consciousness and Method5.1 Are they conscious?5.2 Aspects versus levels. (shrink)

In a context of high-stakes accountability in teacher education, concerns are emerging about challenges to the already tenuous position of elementary social studies teacher education. In this case study, the author administered a survey to elementary social studies teacher educators in Georgia and conducted follow-up interviews focusing on the impact of edTPA on elementary social studies teacher education and the ways in which they are navigating the new context of teaching elementary social studies methods. The findings reveal the possibility of (...) further decline of social studies in elementary teacher education programs due to elementary edTPA's singular focus on literacy and math content pedagogy along with the high-stakes nature of edTPA process. Implications for future research on edTPA and elementary social studies education are discussed. (shrink)

We sought to gain more insight into the effects of attention focus and time constraints on skill learning and performance in novices and experts by means of two complementary experiments using a table tennis paradigm. Experiment 1 showed that skill-focus conditions and slowed ball frequency disrupted the accuracy of experts, but dual-task conditions and speeded ball frequency did not. For novices, only speeded ball frequency disrupted accuracy. In Experiment 2, we extended these findings by instructing novices either explicitly or by (...) analogy . Explicitly instructed novices were less accurate in skill-focused and dual-task conditions than in single-task conditions. Following analogy instruction novices were less accurate in the skill-focused condition, but maintained accuracy under dual-task conditions. Participants in both conditions retained accuracy when ball frequency was slowed, but lost accuracy when ball frequency was speeded, suggesting that not attention, but motor dexterity, was inadequate under high temporal constraints. (shrink)

As visual art becomes more international, ways of writing about art become more uniform. This essay proposes that two disciplines concerned with contemporary visual art, art criticism and art theory, are on the verge of being effectively homogeneous around the world. They share concepts, artists, artworks, institutions, and bibliographic references. For comparison, I consider two other fields that may also be increasingly uniform: studio art instruction and the novel. The last, in particular, is the subject of a large literature; (...) critics and historians debate whether contemporary global novels are becoming more self-similar if not more predictable. The literature on the novel allows me to conclude that it is likely writing on art is following the same tendency. (shrink)