John Dewey's Community of Inquiry (original) (raw)

John Dewey's Dual Theory of Inquiry and Its Value for the Creation of an Alternative Curriculum

Dewey's theory of inquiry cannot be reduced to the pattern of inquiry common to both common-sense inquiry and scientific inquiry, which is grounded in the human life process, since such a reduction ignores Dewey's differentiation of the two forms of inquiry. The difference has to do with the focus of inquiry, with common-sense inquiry concentrating on ends characteristic of everyday life and scientific inquiry concentrating on the perfection of the means to inquiry as an end in itself. By not differentiating the two forms of inquiry, the significance of Dewey's innovations in curriculum construction has been underrated. The curriculum created in the University Laboratory School (the Dewey School), was designed to gradually shift children's and adolescents' concerns for ends typical of common-sense inquiry to a concern for means and their coordination, which thereby approaches more closely scientific inquiry. This curriculum was grounded in the basic economic structure of human life for the production of food, clothing and shelter, with reading, writing and arithmetic, along with the disciplines (physics, chemistry and so forth) emerging as functions of life, initially. This curriculum, with modifications, could function to provide a critical basis of modern capitalist relations of production and exchange and the capitalist state.

Rediscovering John Dewey ’ S Model of Learning Through Reflective Inquiry

2015

During the 21st century, in the sphere of Science education, there has been an increasing interest in the problem of operationalizing reflection because it’s one of the most powerful mechanisms for developing students’ thinking and forming key competencies – learning to learn and science literacy. The classical legacy of the American philosopher and pedagogue John Dewey provides a source for valuable ideas for solving this problem. The goal of this qualitative study is to focus on John Dewey’s concept for reflective inquiry as well as on the interpretations of his ideas by other authors. The intention is to merge these interpretations into a whole for two reasons: 1) to reconstruct John Dewey’s model for reflective inquiry, 2) to adapt this model to the peculiarities of Science education practice. To realize this goal, a comparison should be drawn between the meanings of key concepts from Dewey’s texts and those in the texts of his followers and reviewers. As a result of this interp...

John Dewey A Pioneer in Educational Philosophy

John Dewey (1859 -1952) has made, arguably, the most significant contribution to the development of educational thinking in the twentieth century. He was an American psychologist, philosopher, educator, social critic and political activist. Dewey's philosophical pragmatism, concern with interaction, reflection and experience, and interest in community and democracy, were brought together to form a highly suggestive educative form. John Dewey is often misrepresented -and wrongly associated with child-centered education. In many respects his work cannot be easily slotted into any one of the curriculum traditions that have dominated north American and UK schooling traditions over the last century.

Action and Inquiry in Dewey's Philosophy

Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, 2007

1 Dewey's conception of inquiry is often criticized for misdescribing the complexities of life that outstrip the reach of intelligence. This article argues that we can ascertain his subtle account of inquiry if we read it as a transformation of Aristotle's categories of knowledge: epistèmè, phronèsis, and technè. For Dewey, inquiry is the process by which practical as well as theoretical knowledge emerges. He thus extends the contingency Aristotle attributes to ethical and political life to all domains of action. Knowledge claims become experimental, the result of which makes them revisable in the context of experience. As a result, when we say a person (e.g., scientist, craftsman, or citizen) displays practical wisdom we are reading their judgments within a complex horizon, whose success as judgments require alertness and discernment of salient features in response to an uncertain environment. Contrary to his critics, he seeks to make us attuned to the world's inescapable, and sometimes, tragic complexity.

John Dewey's Philosophy of Education

2023

This paper on John Dewey, a leading educator of the twentieth century, examines his pedagogical ideas and works, which helped to shape teaching-learning practice. In the areas of education, politics, humanism, logic, and aesthetics, Dewey's contributions are enormous and overpowering. This paper will center on Dewey's educational theory, pedagogical concerns, and the connections he established between education, democracy, experience, and society. The child is at the center of his educational philosophy. Dewey's concept of humanism stems from his democratic leanings and search for liberty, justice, and the worth of a child's experience.

Dewey's Logic as a Methodological Grounding Point for Practitioner-Based Inquiry

Journal of Research and Practice for Adult Literacy, Secondary, and Basic Education, 2012

The purpose of this essay is to draw out key insights from Dewey's important text Logic: The Theory of Inquiry to provide theoretical and practical support for the emergent field of teacher research. The specific focal point is the argument in Cochran-Smith and Lytle's Inside/Outside: Teacher Research and Knowledge on the significance of " systematic, intentional inquiry " as the methodological underpinning of teacher research. While Cochran-Smith & Lytle do not offer a sharply articulated definition, I refer to Dewey's Logic as providing a cogent example of how this methodology could play out within a practitioner inquiry-based format. I also discuss the usefulness of philosophical pragmatism in opening up a taproot within the theory development of teacher research. Demand for the solution of perplexity is the steady and guiding factor of reflection (Dewey,1933/1988, p. 122). The unique feature of the questions that prompt teacher research is that they emanate from neither theory or practice alone but from critical reflection of the two (Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1993, p 15). Overview This article has three interrelated objectives. An overarching purpose is the importance that theory plays both for practitioners and researchers in the emergent field of teacher research. I raise this point because formal theoretical development gets little sustained attention within the literature on teacher research and is a critical component for developing a sound structure for a branch of educational research which at this time has not gained widespread legitimacy. I am using the term teacher research interchangeably with that of practitioner-based inquiry and am extending on argument on the importance of theory for this field which I've made previously (Demetrion, 2001). A second focus is that of providing one working model of what this could look like. I do so through Dewey's (1933/1998) pragmatic theory of inquiry to flesh out what Cochran-Smith & Lytle (1993) refer to as " systematic, intentional inquiry " (p. 5) which the authors refer to as the very definition of teacher research. While more in terms of work yet to be accomplished than centrally highlighted in the essay, I draw attention both to the importance and difficulty of moving teacher research to a more central status within the realm of educational research. As Cochran-Smith & Lytle well point out this will require the community of engaged teacher researchers to establish field-wide legitimacy based on its own intrinsic standards of theory and practice in a manner that also resonates with the broader educational sector (pp. 85-103). This is challenging because of the intense narrow concentration of the vast preponderance of teacher research on first-hand classroom dynamics and/or first-person teacher consciousness. A great deal of work yet needs to be done on extending the essential autobiographical emphasis in teacher research to broader collective themes as well as that of developing new studies which connect this emerging genre with other PAGE 12