Putting Theory Into Practice In The Contemporary Classroom

This collection of fourteen essays by scholars from Canada, Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States emerges from a growing interest in the ways postmodern theory can illuminate not just the products and ideas of high culture, but also the ins and outs of everyday life. Taking the university classroom, broadly construed, as a site of theoretical investigation, this volume helps us to understand troublesome classroom dynamics as well as offering pedagogical strategies for dealing with them. It also illuminates current pressures on higher education that find expression in the classroom. As a forum for these issues, these essays draw upon Deleuzian, feminist, Foucauldian, and psychoanalytic approaches, among others, recognizing not only that these approaches are often in conflict, but also that, collectively, they enhance our understanding of the classroom. Important questions posed here include whether, and if so how, we can combine a Marxist or Foucauldian emphasis on the disciplinary and hegemonic practices of educational institutions with a Lacanian or Barthesian appreciation for the disruptive pleasures and drives that the unconscious produces within and through students, teachers, and classrooms. Which theoretical and pedagogical innovations can help teachers and students to “get the job done” as well as to theorize “the job,” to simultaneously practice education and imagine other forms and ends for education? How can theory help us to historicize, criticize, and re-draw the productive, but sometimes disabling, lines that “make” the classroom and its subjects? A site for lively theoretical debate about these and related pedagogical issues, this volume will prove useful for anyone wanting to reinterpret, reinvent, and reinvigorate the classroom.

Educators in the K-12 and adult education milieu, including pre- and in-service educators, are expected to address, in and outside of the classroom, significant political and social issues including increased homelessness, food insecurity, poverty, gender dysphoria, school bullying, and marginalization of the LGBTQ population. Educators seek swift solutions to the situations at hand that will benefit K-12 students. Social Justice and Putting Theory Into Practice in Schools and Communities is an essential research publication that provides detailed research on the creation and implementation of social justice strategies in educational settings. Highlighting a wide range of topics such as gender equality, academic standards, and special education, this book is ideal for educators, sociologists, academicians, researchers, and curriculum designers.

Informal learning, also called free choice learning or out-of-school time, is a relatively new field that has grown exponentially in the past 15 years. Research on the learning and teaching that takes place in these non-traditional, non-classroom environments, such as museums, gardens, afterschool and community programs, has enjoyed tremendous growth; yet we still need to understand much more, and more deeply, how people actually interact, participate and learn in such settings. Putting Theory into Practice: Tools for Research in Informal Settings is designed as a research and practice toolkit, offering a range of theoretically well-grounded methods for assessing learning for life in diverse settings and among diverse populations. We pay special attention to the full complexity, challenges and richness involved in such research into learning in places like museums, aquariums, after-school clubs, and gardens. Putting Theory into Practice serves both, researchers and practitioners, as well as a more general audience. This book offers several field-tested methods for building empirically-based, informal learning settings and research deeply grounded and guided by theory. Sociocultural theory, broadly defined, forms the unifying theoretical framework for the different qualitative studies presented. Each chapter clearly lays out the theoretical underpinnings and how these inform the suggested methods. The chapters are written by recognized experts in the field, and each addresses, in its own way, “the synergy among different learning contexts and the benefits of studying how contexts influence learning.” Together they give voice to the diversity, richness, and complexity of the study of learners and learning for life.

One of the most important issues academic organizations face is how the administration and faculty handle cultural and varied differences in higher education. High racial tensions as well as the ever-increasing need for equality suggest that changes at the highest level are essential to move forward. Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity in Contemporary Higher Education is an essential reference source that discusses the need for academic organizations to establish policy that is current, alive, and fluid by design, thereby supporting an ongoing examination of best practices with an overt commitment to continued improvement, as well as an influence for future leaders who will emerge from the ranks. Featuring research on topics such as campus climate, university administration, and academic policy, this book is ideally designed for educators, department chairs, guidance professionals, career counselors, administrators, and policymakers who are seeking coverage on designing curricula that impact college and university admissions readiness and success.

This book provides innovative pedagogy, theory, and strategies for college and university professors who seek effective methods and materials for teaching about gender and sex to today’s students. It provides thoughtful reflections on the new struggles and opportunities instructors face in teaching gender and sex during what has been called the “post-feminist era.” Building off its predecessor: Teaching Race and Anti-Racism in Contemporary America, this book offers complementary classroom exercises for teachers, that foster active and collaborative learning. Through reflecting on the gendered dimensions of the current political, economic, and cultural climate, as well as presenting novel lesson plans and classroom activities, Teaching Gender and Sex in Contemporary America is a valuable resource for educators.

*HE07, Teaching: Theory into Practice, Allan C. Ornstein(Loyola University), H5778-9, 400 pp., 7 x 9 1/4, 0-205-15778-5, paperbound, 1995, $33.00nk, October*/A must-read for any future teacher, this contributed volume is aimed at giving the reader exposure to various aspects of teaching which have relevance for understanding what teachers do and how they think when they teach. It is an attempt to help the reader reflect on teaching, both in a theoretical and practical sense.

"Inclusive Character Analysis foregrounds representations of race, gender, class, ability, and sexual orientation by blending script analysis with a variety of critical theories in order to create a more inclusive performance practice for the classroom and the stage. This book merges a traditional Stanislavski-based play analysis with multiple theoretical frameworks, such as Gender Theory, Standpoint Theory, and Critical Race Theory, to give students in early level theatre courses foundational skills for analyzing a play, while also introducing them to contemporary thought about race, gender, and identity. Inclusive Character Analysis is a valuable resource for beginning acting courses, script analysis courses, the directing classroom, early design curriculum, dramaturgical explorations, the playwriting classroom, and introduction to performance studies classes. Additionally, the book offers a reader-style background on theoretical frames for performance faculty and practitioners who may need assistance to integrate non-performance centered theory into their classrooms"--