Dissertation Information for Mark R. ConnollyNAME:
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SCHOOL: ADVISORS: COMMITTEE MEMBERS: MPACT Status: Incomplete - Not_Inspected Title: Exploring cases of practical wisdom (phronesis) in postsecondary teaching Abstract: Despite growing interest in improving postsecondary teaching over the past two and a half decades, evidence suggests that these efforts have not made much difference in faculty teaching practices and their effects on student learning. One purported reason for this lack of success is that postsecondary instructors are not formally trained as teachers and instead base their teaching approach on personal, non-scientific forms of knowledge--namely, emulation, trial-and-error, and habit. The prevailing view in higher education holds that postsecondary instructors should learn to teach through the proper application of scientifically derived theory to practice, and that the best source of knowledge about effective teaching practices is education researchers rather than the instructors themselves. In contrast to this modernist view about pedagogical knowledge, this thesis argues that teaching should be viewed instead as what Aristotle called praxis (morally appropriate action), for which phronesis , or practical-moral judgment, is held as the most important form of pedagogical reasoning and knowledge. On this view, good teaching combines practical knowledge of certain educational "goods" or values with sound judgment about what, in a particular situation, constitutes an appropriate expression of those values. |
MPACT Scores for Mark R. ConnollyA = 0 Advisors and Advisees Graph |