The field of education is rich with metaphors that reveal one's perspective on the nature of teaching and learning--ideas are "covered," students "absorb" information, teachers offer writing "clinics." Each of these metaphors indicate nuanced ideas about what schooling is and is for--to be checked off? Taken in…

In this paper, we question how we might disrupt positivist research paradigms that preclude students from engaging and experiencing ownership in the research process. We question what we, as professors, could do to facilitate the transition from traditional research reporting to a disposition of inquiry that allows for ambiguity and discovery in…

In this article, the authors advance a metaphor born of chaos theory that views the college classroom as a complex dynamical system. The authors reason further that "teaching as chaos" provides a more accurate representation of the teaching-learning process than the existing linear scientific metaphors on which traditional learning assessments are…

Student teaching evaluations (STEs) are increasingly used in the process of determining promotion and tenure. While most research has focused on career consequences, there has been little inquiry into the remarks students write at the end of the evaluation form. The structure of the collection process, involving emotional arousal and anonymity in…

When the author retired from teaching after thirty-seven years, he had taught elementary school, junior high school, and thirty years at Johns Hopkins University. He always loved being in the classroom with his students. They energized him, inspired him, humbled him, and taught him in many ways. He learned more from them than they learned from…

"Melioration" is borrowing and using an idea from another field not closely associated with your field of expertise. Using the borrowed concept to address a challenge in your field potentially provides new avenues of action and insight. I borrow the concept of boundary objects from science fields and use it to examine assignments in the college…

The author devised a classroom activity that facilitates discussion and increases awareness about sexual assault. Students read scenarios involving sexual situations that varied in ambiguity, then labeled whether the situations involved a sexual assault. Students also gave their definitions of sexual assault and completed an evaluation of the…