A longstanding aim of education efforts to position students as knowledge constructors so they are engaged in the building and shaping their learning environment. Current education reforms situate student sense making around authentic science inquiries where students are engaged in the practices of science. In the science classroom, this means…

European and international research shows how the child has an attitude, in relation to the knowledge of the natural world, characterized by curiosity and free exploration. My research refers to the theoretical contribution of Dewey ([1933. "How We Think: A Restatement of the Relationship of Reflective Thinking to the Educational…

Responsibilist approaches to virtue epistemology examine the epistemic significance of intellectual virtues like curiosity, attentiveness, intellectual humility, open-mindedness, intellectual courage, and intellectual tenacity. On one way of thinking about these traits, they are the deep personal qualities or character traits of a good thinker or…

The learning goals of a well-designed course in the liberal arts include not only the imparting of knowledge but also the development of critical thinking and disciplinary expertise. A class on Luther can help students acquire those intellectual skills associated with the discipline of history and the liberal arts more generally as they consider…

Dualisms pervade the language of higher education research providing an over-simplified roadmap to the field. However, the lazy logic of their popular appeal supports the perpetuation of erroneous and often outdated assumptions about the nature of modern higher education. This paper explores nine commonly occurring dualisms:…

While British Romantic literature provides ample evidence of the pleasures of knowledge, it also reveals strong counter-evidence of its power to inflict a sense of intellectual impairment and diminution. This Romantic ambivalence sprang from a complex of ideas and anxieties about the potentially corrosive effects of certain kinds of education and…

Argumentative thinking requires not only the "skill" to apply argumentative strategies such as supporting theories with evidence but also the "will" to apply these strategies by considering argumentative thinking to be both reasonable and worthwhile. Focusing on direct instruction for the initial acquisition of both skill and…

In this paper, I argue that when teacher education (TE) only aims at student teachers' mastery of procedural knowledge, the envisaged intellectual development that teachers need so that they can, in turn, facilitate similar development in their learners cannot be realized. My argument is based on a study I conducted in Kenya, in which I…

Learning is a continuous process, and through the process of learning, people acquire or construct new knowledge; this knowledge is evaluated implicitly or explicitly (Hofer, 2000). Research on beliefs about knowledge has become an important field of inquiry in educational research (Hofer & Pintrich, 1997). This field of research has emerged…

One of the overarching goals of education is the development of intellectual abilities (IA). Yet, there are not enough tools to identify pedagogies that maximize students' IA. In this research, we consider the way teachers' reinforcing of versatility of opinions (pluralism) vs. teachers encouraging community views (communalism) has on developing…

Most people can recall a time when they learned a skill or came to understand an idea while participating in an experience: learning in such a way that the action being taken and the resulting learning outcomes were synonymous. Time spent in hands-on efforts tend to engage learners physically and emotionally in both the process of learning and the…

Behind the lectern stands the professor, deploying course management systems, online quizzes, wireless clickers, PowerPoint slides, podcasts, and plagiarism-detection software. In the seats are the students, armed with smartphones, laptops, tablets, music players, and social networking. Although these two forces seem poised to do battle with each…

Personal epistemological beliefs, one's beliefs about the nature and acquisition of knowledge, and their role in the learning process have become a focus of a growing body of research in recent years. Studies show that a person's epistemological beliefs play an important role in their intellectual development as well as in learning specific…

Ability and non-ability traits were examined as predictors of learning, operationalized as the development of knowledge structure accuracy, and exam performance in a semester-long course. As predicted by investment theories of intellectual development, both cognitive ability and non-ability traits were important determinants of learning and exam…

This paper outlines the development of a reflective process through which student feelings are brought to the surface to advance their learning outcomes. A key notion in relation to the capacity of student development is the ability of students to alter their collective habits of thought and in turn the nature of the learning environment. The…