Educational Films against Critical Pedagogy

1987 ◽  
Vol 169 (3) ◽  
pp. 32-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Ellsworth

Teachers committed to practicing critical pedagogy often must do so in spite of the curriculum materials available to them. This paper analyzes the conventions of form and style that typify traditional educational film. The argument is made that while teachers and students are active producers and negotiators of meaning, the aesthetic conventions of most educational films negate this classroom reality. The paper analyzes a sample of films produced between 1940 and 1960 to determine the norms that were set in place during the time when the dominant style of educational films became fully established. It then compares these norms to the forms and styles of two contemporary educational films that deal with social issues. It suggests that while some conventions have changed across time, they continue to be employed in ways that actively work against critical thinking and liberatory education.

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yi-Huang Shih

Paulo Freire was a Brazilian educator, and was seen as a theorist of critical pedagogy. Freire’s works have a particular significance for contemporary education in different countries. This paper aims to rethink Freire’s dialogic pedagogy, and further illuminate its implications for teachers’ teaching. In order to do so, firstly, we explain the importance of Freire’s dialogic pedagogy. Secondly, we explore the theory & practice of dialogue. Thirdly, this study explains that the dialogue between teachers and students is a way of promoting critical consciousness. Finally, we explore dialogic pedagogy, and illuminate its implications for teachers’ teaching. By reading and analyzing related studies, the implications can be summarized as follows: (1) practicing love-based teaching, (2) developing humility-based teaching, (3) nourishing hope-centered teaching, (4) enriching humor-based teaching, (5) developing silence-based teaching, (6) teachers should promotes students’ critical thinking ability in their teaching, and (7) teachers deeply believe that their students will achieve a better vocation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 388-403 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriel Velez ◽  
Séamus A. Power

Academia is often critiqued as an “ivory tower” where research, thinking, and teaching are isolated from the complexity and everyday experience of so many people. As instructors of political and other psychology courses, we strive to break down these barriers and engage with the dynamic and nuanced nature of phenomena as situated in lived social and political contexts. In this report, we unpack and detail how we strive to achieve this goal by expanding on Plous’ articulation of action teaching (2012). We first define our pedagogical focus on active engagement, critical thinking, and staying on the move between multiple perspectives. We then provide specific examples of how we enact our philosophy in activities and assessment. We end by articulating how this approach to teaching in social and political psychology can be understood as furthering not only our students’ intellectual growth as psychologists, but also their development as democratic citizens. In doing so, we argue that action teaching not only involves course activities directly engaging with social issues, but also provides students with a scaffold to actually do so in a way that is attentive to the complexity, pluralism, and dynamism of social and political issues.


2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 410-418
Author(s):  
Sadegh Rahimi Pordanjani ◽  
Laode Muhammad Firman Guntur

Critical literacy, which is derived from critical pedagogy and critical thinking, is crucial for teachers and students to acquire throughout their education. According to critical literacy approach, students are not only expected to read and write different texts but are also required to challenge, synthesize, analyze, and go beyond these forms of skills analytically and critically. With regard to reviewing various literature, this approach is not implemented effectively in the Middle East education systems due to some main obstacles. This paper is aimed at reviewing different literature and case studies in order to grasp these pivotal constraints that students and teachers encounter while learning and teaching in Middle-Eastern educational settings. The main purpose of this article is to review critically the domination of education by politics and religion, the lack of communicative language teaching approach, and the exclusion of teachers from making decisions as to the major impediments of enacting critical literacy in the Middle-east contexts.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriel Velez ◽  
Seamus A. Power

Academia is often critiqued as an “ivory tower” where research, thinking, and teaching is isolated from the complexity and everyday experience of so many people. As instructors of political and other psychology courses, we strive to break down these barriers and engage with the dynamic and nuanced nature of phenomena as situated in lived social and political contexts. In this report, we unpack and detail how we strive to achieve this goal by expanding on Plous’ articulation of action teaching (2012). We first define our pedagogical focus on active engagement, critical thinking, and staying on the move between multiple perspectives. We then provide specific examples of how we enact our philosophy in activities and assessment. We end by articulating how this approach to teaching in social and political psychology can be understood as furthering not only our students’ intellectual growth as psychologists, but also their development as democratic citizens. In doing so, we argue that action teaching not only involves course activities directly engaging with social issues, but also provides students with a scaffold to actually do so in a way that is attentive to the complexity, pluralism, and dynamism of social and political issues.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Suharno Suharno ◽  
Sri Setyarini

The current rate of advancement in information and technology presents new challenges for EFL teachers at all levels of education. Students are confronted with perplexing data, leaving them feeling disoriented in the digital world and ignoring their awareness of social issues. This problem prompts the teachers to encourage students’ critical thinking skills through various strategies that require them to participate in learning.  This study describes the implementation of analogical reasoning in a narrative text to promote EFL junior secondary students’ critical thinking skills and investigate the levels of students’ thinking skills promoted by the teachers through the learning strategy. A classroom action research covering two cycles was employed as a research design. There were three instruments to collect the data: classroom observation, interview with the teachers and students, and document analysis. The collected data were then analyzed and interpreted by referring to the theory of analogical reasoning, narrative text, and promoting critical thinking skills. This study revealed that the teachers applied analogical reasoning in three stages, such as retrieval, mapping, and reflecting integrated with students’ schemata. In terms of the students’ levels of thinking, this learning strategy had successfully promoted students’ thinking skills from applying to creating levels as indicated from the inferences made by the students.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 260
Author(s):  
Jayson Parba

Engaging in critical dialogues in language classrooms that draw on critical pedagogical perspectives can be challenging for learners because of gaps in communicative resources in their L1 and L2. Since critically oriented classrooms involve discussing social issues, students are expected to deploy “literate talk” to engage in critiquing society and a wide range of texts. Although recent studies have explored teachers’ and students’ engagement with critical materials and critical dialogues, research that explores language development in critical language teaching remains a concern for language teachers. In this paper, I share my experience of fostering language development, specifically the overt teaching of critical vocabulary to students of (Tagalog-based) Filipino language at a university in Hawai’i. Through a discussion of racist stereotypes targeting Filipinos and the impacts of these discourses on students’ lived experiences, the notion of “critical vocabulary” emerges as an important tool for students to articulate the presence of and to dismantle oppressive structures of power, including everyday discourses supporting the status quo. This paper defines critical vocabulary and advances its theoretical and practical contribution to critical language teaching. It also includes students’ perspectives of their language development and ends with pedagogical implications for heritage/world language teachers around the world.


2003 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 446-454 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heinrich Mintrop

Using the representative database of the Second International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) Civic Education Study, this article takes a look at civic education through the lens of expert scholars, teachers, and students. The data reveals that, as some of the experts reported, political interest is not pervasive among students and classrooms are not places where a culture of debate, controversy, and critical thinking flourishes for students. But things have changed if civic education was primarily an imparting of facts about national history and the workings of the political system. As for teachers, now the discourse of rights and the social movements associated with it top the list of curricular concerns. Large majorities of teachers share with national scholars a conceptualization of civic education as critical thinking and value education, repudiating knowledge transformation as ideal, and they recognize the wide gulf that exists between these ideals and reality. As for many students, political disinterest notwithstanding, forms of participation born out of social movements and community organizing are the preferred channels of political activity. And yet, it seems the experts have a point: the field is not where it should be.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2 (22) ◽  
pp. 31
Author(s):  
Jordi Solbes-Matarredona ◽  
Nidia Yaneth Torres-Merchán

Este artículo forma parte de una investigación sobre el uso de cuestiones socio-científicas a fin de promover las competencias para el pensamiento crítico en estudiantes universitarios. La primera parte presenta las apreciaciones de un grupo de estudiantes en formación docente acerca de la criticidad de la ciencia y lo que entienden por ciencia crítica. También, se presenta y se discute sobre las experiencias de algunos investigadores perseguidos debido a sus contribuciones científicas, ya que tuvieron implicaciones sociales, o cuestiones sociocientíficas.Alternatives to Reflect on Critical Aspects of Science in the ClassroomThis paper is part of a research about the use of scientific-social issues to promote critical thinking skills in university students. The first part presents the considerations of a group of teacher training students about the criticality of science and what they understand about critical science. It also presents and discusses the experiences of some researchers who were persecuted because of their scientific contributions with social implications or scientific social issues.Alternativas para refletir aspectos críticos da ciência na sala de aulaEste artigo é parte de uma investigação sobre o uso de questões sociais científicos, para promover habilidades de pensamento crítico dos estudantes da universidade. A primeira parte apresenta os motivos que levaram um grupo de estudantes de formação de professores sobre a criticidade da ciência e o que eles querem dizer com uma ciência crítica. Ele também apresenta e discute alguns investigadores perseguidos por suas contribuições científicas para implicações sociais ou questões sociais científicos. 


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 937
Author(s):  
Hui Liu

The goal of college English teaching is not only to convey language knowledge and improve students’ language skills, but also closely related to the current political, economic, social and cultural realities. Its textbooks are largely a manifestation of the country’s dominant ideology and also the way the ruling class realizes social control. This study, based on Professor Apple’s theory of critical pedagogy, attempts to provide an insight into the most commonly used college EFL textbooks in Mainland China and show what and how ideologies and values are presented on the pages. Literature and content analysis methods are employed. The results reveal that the two sets of textbooks are imbued with the ideological ideas which center on the theme of "harmony", highlighting the peaceful coexistence between the country, society and individuals. Dominant ideologies have been implemented as the core spirit of textbook compilation, and the themes such as multiplicity, equality, tolerance and so on frequently appear in explicit and implicit ways. The implicitness of political ideologies, the prominence of economic development, the dominance of social issues, the awakening of individual consciousness, etc. are expressed and transmitted through EFL textbooks.


Author(s):  
Kirsten R. Butcher ◽  
Madlyn Runburg ◽  
Roger Altizer

Dino Lab is a serious game designed to explore the potential of using games in scientific domains to support critical thinking. Through collaborations with educators and scientists at the Natural History Museum of Utah (NHMU), game designers and learning scientists at the University of Utah, and Title I middle school teachers and students, the authors have developed a beta version of Dino Lab that supports critical thinking through engagement in a simulation-based game. Dino Lab is organized around four key game stages that incorporate high-level goals, domain-specific rule algorithms that govern legal plays and resulting outcomes, embedded reflection questions, and built-in motivational features. Initial play testing has shown positive results, with students highly engaged in strategic game play. Overall, results suggest that games that support critical thinking have strong potential as student-centered, authentic activities that facilitate domain-based engagement and strategic analysis.


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