Conceptual integration is a key operating principle in education and a powerful skill for any teacher. Two different concepts are brought together in a way that recognises what is similar and different in them. This allows for an imaginative synthesis that can illuminate a complex process, such as when the heart is compared to a pump, or the cell to a factory. Good teachers do this intuitively all the time, but the act of conceptual integration is poorly understood and insufficiently (...) researched. With explicit knowledge teachers can gain productive, conscious control of this vital pedagogic act and educational researchers will have insightful tools to grasp the complex operating principles of the process. Thus the purpose of this book is to make the principles and practice visible."--Page [4] of book cover. (shrink)

All the schools of the world -- Unpacking classrooms -- How the 'brain' learns -- Charting the space between demons and angels -- History of the world in a child -- From one-world classroom to one learning sequence -- Conclusion, exercising the educational imagination.

Theorising Education shows basic theoretical moves for the educational imagination by stripping each move down to its most elementary function. The author opens out five basic theoretical moves - each one able to be used with the others, so that, by the end of the book, you will have the beginnings of a theoretical tool kit. This tool kit will enable you to imagine possible educational worlds different from ones you may have already encountered. A first of its kind, Theorising (...) Education is for the person who wants to learn how to think about education in an active, imaginative and systematic way."--Publisher's website. (shrink)