Purpose: Preservice English teachers are expected to use literary theories and criticism to read and respond to literary texts. Over the past century, two of the most common approaches to literary encounters in secondary schools have been New Criticism -- particularly the practice of close reading -- and Rosenblatt's transactional theory, both of…

This essay offers an organizational critique based on ongoing observations and reflections from a two-year process of establishing collective gardens that honor Traditional Ecological Knowledge. Key findings include illuminating interconnected relationships among plants, animals, and people living near one another, new meanings of power, and why…

The literature indicates that collaborative activities can support professional learning (PL) for academics teaching in higher education (HE). Nevertheless, limited approaches for collegial PL exist that can be embedded in the day-to-day work of busy academics. This paper reports on an evidence-based approach to practice that was undertaken to…

This accessible guide will help studio art and design professors meaningfully and effectively transform their curriculum and pedagogy so that it is relevant to today's learners. Situating contemporary college teaching within a historic art and design continuum, the author provides a practical framework for considering complex interactions within…

This article provides and reflects on an original lesson plan for engaging high school, undergraduate, or graduate students in learning fundamental concepts of environmental ethics. Implementation of this lesson plan effectively promoted critical analysis, reflection, and communication of environmental ethics issues in a seminar for second-year…

Primarily methodological in its orientation, this paper offers a presentation of 'research outcomes' in ways that challenge and disrupt commonplace notions of data and analysis. In an attempt to write against the grain of conventional qualitative research practice and to experiment with alternative encounters with data and analysis, I present…

Ludwig Wittgenstein was a reclusive and enigmatic philosopher, writing his most significant work off campus in remote locations. He also held a chair in the Philosophy Department at Cambridge, and is one of the university's most recognized even if, as Ray Monk says (1990, 401), 'reluctant professors' of philosophy. Paradoxically, although…

This article offers a description and critical evaluation of a novel method for inquiry-based learning (IBL) directed at undergraduate students: a Global Health Hackathon. The hackathon was piloted as part of an "Introduction to Global Health" undergraduate course in order to enable students to gain "and" create knowledge about…

Students in inquiry science classrooms face an essential tension between sharing new ideas and critically evaluating those ideas. This tension poses affective risks that can discourage further discussion, such as the embarrassment of having an idea rejected. In this article, we analyze the discourse of three groups of undergraduate physics…

Given that human suffering persists globally on a massive scale, are scholars doing all they ought to be in the pursuit of knowledge? To explore this question, the author analyzes works by Alasdair MacIntyre, Nicholas Maxwell, and Bill Readings. Based on implications derived from their moral critiques of higher education, an alternative, broadened…

This collaborative self-study explores how seven members of a Faculty Self-Study Learning Group (FS-SLG) attempt to foster cultures of inquiry with teacher candidates. In so doing, we simultaneously describe a professional learning community of teacher educators engaging in reflective practice via the teaching, learning, and enacting of self-study…

It is one sign of the lack of understanding of the value of the humanities, to educational research and inquiry as well as to our world more widely, that such justifications of them as are offered frequently take a crudely instrumental form. The humanities (which in this essay are not distinguished from the arts) are welcomed insofar as they are…

"Violating Pedagogy: Literary Theory in the Twenty-first Century College Classroom" discusses the challenge of teaching literary theory to undergraduate and graduate students in a cultural atmosphere that may at times feel simultaneously anti-intellectual and overpopulated with competing scholarly concerns. Approaching theory as a…

This article opens with an overview of the current policy interest in "teacher leadership" with its particular challenges and opportunities. Teacher-leader interpretations based on standardized instructional management platforms grounded in neoliberalism are critically challenged. The referent for this critical questioning is a normative…

Art criticism was introduced into art education to help students understand works of art. However, art interpretation methods differ according to the educational goals specified for various types of art students. The fine arts interpretation procedures established in education are usually purely theoretical and exclusively verbal, and are thus…