THE PROBLEM OF INTERDISCIPLINARY INTEGRATION OF PHYSICS AND MATHEMATICS IN A HIGH SCHOOL

The paper is devoted to study the problem of interdisciplinary integration of physics and mathematics in educational system. It was shown that interdisciplinary integration is presented as a means of increasing students’ independent creative abilities, increasing and shaping their worldview and scientific thinking, ultimately improving the entire educational process.

Time

Philosophical thinking about time is characterised by tensions between competing conceptions. Different sources of evidence yield different conclusions about it. Common sense suggests there is an objective present, and that time is dynamic. Science recognises neither feature. This Element examines McTaggart's argument for the unreality of time, which epitomises this tension, showing how it gave rise to the A-theory/B-theory debate. Each theory is in tension with either ordinary or scientific thinking, so must accommodate the competing conception. Reconciling the A-theory with science does not look promising. Prospects look better for the B-theory's attempt to accommodate ordinary thinking about time.

HOW DO SOCIOLOGISTS KNOW WHAT THEY KNOW? AN EXAMINATION OF SOCIOLOGY TEXTBOOKS FOR EVIDENCE OF SOCIOLOGICAL AND SCIENTIFIC THINKING

I use qualitative content analysis to uncover how textbooks illuminate the process by which sociologists know what they know. I use the Sociology Literacy Framework (SLF) (Ferguson and Carbonaro 2016) to guide analysis, looking at how textbooks report on the research process and present research findings. Using a sample of 27 textbooks for introductory courses (N = 19) and intermediate elective courses (N = 8) from 12 publishers (copyright dated: 2015-2020), I found weak support for developing the research-focused SLF skills. Textbooks fail to explain and describe how sociologists know what they know. Instead, texts use false equivalence arguments and shortcuts to scientific credibility, among other means. Textbooks do an adequate job describing society using basic descriptive statistical data from think tanks or government sources but provide almost no instruction on how scholars gather or analyze data or draw conclusions about their data.

TOWARDS AN INTERPRETATION OF THE PHENOMENA OF DEMON POSSESSED/DEMONIZED CHRISTIANS

In the pre-modern world people generally believed in the supernatural. Individuals and culture as a whole believed in the existence of God (or gods), angels, and demons. The visible world owed its existence and meaning to a spiritual realm beyond the senses. However, such worldviews began to die with the coming of Enlightenment of 17th and 18th centuries. The age of reason, scientific thinking, and human autonomy that characterized the Enlightenment brought to being the so-called natural religion. The result was the disappearance of immanent God (Deism) and the rejection of the socalled “excluded middle” – the unseen world of spirits, and the supernatural. Such attitude may well be summarized in Rudolf Bultmann’ famous statement: “It is impossible to use electric light and the wireless and to avail ourselves of modern medical and surgical discovers, and at the same time to believe in the New Testament worlds of spirits and miracles.”

Understanding Teacher Education Students’ Research Competence Through Their Conceptions of Theory

Learning a scientific way of thinking is a fundamental aim of university education. It means that there are certain thinking skills that students across all disciplines should learn during their studies. For example, critical thinking and reasoning skills are essential for all university graduates. In addition, students are expected to achieve certain skill levels related to scientific research, for example: learning the basic concepts of science and research methodology, understanding the research process and understanding the nature and origins of scientific knowledge. We call these skills research competence and see research competence as one of the main elements of scientific thinking. We assume that understanding the basic concepts of science is a starting point for the development of research competence and more broadly, for scientific thinking. However, previous studies have shown that scientific concepts are not easy for students to learn. The aim of this study is to increase our understanding of a particular aspect of university students’ research competence by exploring teacher education students’ (N = 179) conceptions of one of these challenging concepts, the concept of theory. The results illustrate that understanding the concept of theory is challenging even for graduating (fourth and fifth year) master students. Only half of them were able to describe the concept of theory in a scientific context suggesting that the other half had unscientific conceptions of theory, named here as non-scientific conceptions. When looking at the students’ who reported scientific conceptions of theory, one quarter of graduating students and a few early stage (first and second year) students had a declarative approach meaning that they were able to describe the concept of theory by using some basic scientific terms. About one fifth of graduating and early stage students had a procedural approach meaning that they were able to describe theory related to research as “doing”. Only a small number of students showed an understanding of the nature and origins of scientific knowledge and the role of research and theory, called here an epistemic approach.

Teaching Design of "Properties of Sodium" based on the Core Literacy of Chemistry

The learning of sodium and its chemical compounds are the beginning of systematic learning of elemental compounds in senior high school, and have a vital influence on senior high school chemistry learning. This paper is about the teaching design of the first class --the properties of sodium. Based on the five core qualities of chemistry, it adopts the method of situational teaching, gives prominence to the connection and transition among knowledge points, and sets up multiple experiments and group discussions to guide students to construct and form their thinking pattern in chemistry and scientific thinking methods.

Creative laboratory of the author: functional bilingualism in the preparation of a written text

The report examines the peculiarities of bilingualism of the outstanding Russian-American sociologist Pitirim Sorokin (1898–1968) based on his archival working materials from the University of Saskatchewan (Canada). The purpose of the study is to identify and explain the linguistic features of his scientific thinking in connection with the conditions of translinguism. Based on the material of Pitirim Sorokin’s working notes, the features of his work on the creation of the book “Contemporary Sociological Theories” (1928) are considered. Correspondences between the preparatory notes and the final text of the book are established. The specifics of translingual practices in the scientific activity of a scientist are revealed. Archival manuscripts and notes allow you to trace not only the process of changing the language and switching codes. The use of a mixed meta-language by Pitirim Sorokin in the work on the preparatory materials of the book has been established. At the same time, a functional distribution of language codes is revealed. Russian language is a working tool of scientific thinking, planning and management of research activities.