Research shows that various pharmaceuticals can offer modest cognition enhancing effects for healthy individuals. These finding have caused some academics to support liberal use of pharmacological cognitive enhancement (PCE) in schools and universities. This approach partially arises from arguments implying there is little moral justification for…

For decades, professors and administrators espoused notions like "knowledge for knowledge's sake" and "the transformative power of the liberal arts," paying little heed as the American populace shifted from widespread respect for the academy to considerable skepticism of it. Today's students occupy the leading edge of that…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to seek to conceptualize a theory of self-contribution as a framework for understanding and demonstrating the dispositions and skills academics and educational leaders need to break the silence and engage in constructive talk about race across color lines. Design/methodology/approach: Brian Fay's framework for…

This paper argues for an action-oriented conception of learning in higher education: one which marries higher order learning (coming to understand) with apprenticeship in knowledge work. It introduces epistemic tasks, forms and fluency as constructs that are useful in giving a more precise meaning to ideas about collaboration in knowledge…

Asserts that the problems of struggling university students are neither entirely technical, as suggested by traditionalists, nor entirely social/structural, as suggested by postmodernists. Suggests that these students need an alternative epistemological view, one that enables them to see themselves as creators of personal knowledge rather than as…

Traces the evolution of college students' assumptions about knowledge and how it is gained, and examines how their judgment can be enhanced through teaching. Summarizes seven stages of reflective judgment, including three stages of prereflective thinking, two stages of quasi-reflective thinking, and two stages of reflective thinking. Suggests ways…

This summary chapter organizes recommendations from the first eight chapters of this journal issue into a framework that helps faculty understand and incorporate students' meaning-making into the learning process. Longitudinal data on young adults' learning and development are used to integrate multiple dimensions of development. (Author/DB)

Discusses use of phenomenographic research methods in different cultures, drawing on two University of the South Pacific (Fiji) studies of student learning. Argues that although similar conceptions of learning may be found in diverse settings, different learning styles may be emphasized. Differentiates between students' conceptions of learning and…

Asserts the importance of developing in students an intrinsic valuing of intellectual activities as the firmest basis for sustaining intellectual motivation. Discusses how to develop in students an understanding of what it means to learn and to know, including a movement up the levels of epistemological understanding from realist to evaluativist.…

Noting that linguistic and mathematical/logical are the two kinds of intelligences the educational system encourages and that the educational system, as well as science in general, tends to neglect the nonverbal form of intellect, this paper describes Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences theory and Peter Kline's theory of integrative learning…

This paper considers how establishing and maintaining the student-teacher relationship can be epistemologically transforming for both college students and faculty. The paper draws on a constructivist-developmental theory of self and cognitive development, knowledge construction, and the author's own teaching experiences. First, underlying…

Argues that Frye's concept of academic freedom is based on an espistemological dualism that separates knowledge from experience. This distinction severely limits his account of academic freedom by excluding fundamental aspects of knowledge (experience, value judgments, teacher-student dialogue, rational argument, interdisciplinary inquiry,…