Coping with the existential risk of synthetic biology Synthetic biology (synbio) is a domain in full development, with a potentially big impact on humanity, both in a positive and a negative way. In that sense, synbio is not unique. After a short introduction into synbio, we survey the natural phenomena and technologies that can lead to a premature extinction of Earth-originating life or that can lead to the permanent and drastic reduction of its potential. Within that framework, synbio can be (...) classified as an anthropogenic existential risk in the short term. This leads to the question of how to deal with such risky technologies taking into account existential risks. For emerging technologies, Europe has chosen to be guided by the precautionary principle, focussing heavily on the prevention of possible harm. Implementing the principle has however not been able to offset the increase in anthropogenic existential risks. In addition the principle prevents synbio to play an important role in mitigating intermediate existential risks. Hence, there are reasons to abandon the precautionary principle in favour of a European version of the proactionary principle. (shrink)

It is commonly accepted that technology and society have always been intertwined. The question is rather how we should understand that relation. This introduction to the special issue ‘Technology and Society’ gives a brief overview of the history of the questions related to this intertwinement. The special issue consists of six essays, emanating from presentations at the 2019 conference on Technology and Society at the Institute of Philosophy, KU Leuven. It was organized by the Working Group on Philosophy of Technology, (...) whose aim is to promote philosophy of technology at the KU Leuven, but also more broadly in Belgium. (shrink)

In The Failure of Environmental Education, Saylan and Blumstein articulate the problems with contemporary environmental education in America and suggest ways that it could do more to improve the ov...

The preparation of teachers in higher education is increasingly valued in institutions around the world. On the other hand, training models are not standardized and valorization varies. Considering that the initial or professional development of teachers passes, at least in part, by the development of a reflective practice supported on basis of scientific literature, we propose to the on think on one hand about a model of reflective practice, that of Kelchtermans, through four dimensions (instrumental, moral, political, and emotional), (...) and on the other hand about training of teachers in higher education from the perspective of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. This article, which is meant to be an open discussion on the development of reflective practice in Higher education Training, is based on a review of the scientific literature on the topic, but also in large part on our teaching practice. (shrink)

Greta Garbo named herself. It was she who invented the name “Garbo” and officially registered the change from Greta Gustafsson to Greta Garbo at the Ministry of Justice in Sweden on 4 December 1923. The name had the metonymic virtue of suggesting the nature of her screen presence. The Swedish meaning of garbo, “wood nymph,” suggests the association with otherworldly forces that became part of her image; while the Spanish meaning of the word, “animal grace sublimated,” combines the animal passion (...) and spiritual grace that were part of her power.1 And yet in most accounts of Garbo’s life and work the legend still persists that it was Swedish director Mauritz Stiller who named her after a seventeenth-century Hungarian king. The extent to which the legend has obscured Garbo’s initial act of self-naming is symptomatic of the larger tendency in film theory and criticism to mask the creative power of the actress by treating her as the blank sheet upon which the director inscribes his own signature.What is particularly misleading about the Svengali metaphor as it has figured in studies of Garbo is that it so deliberately masks the evidence. In her article “Gish and Garbo: The Executive War on the Stars,” Louise Brooks suggests that the popular image of Garbo—the “dumb Swede” transformed by Stiller’s art—was perpetuated by Hollywood executives eager to play down the very real power that Garbo already exhibited in the rushes for her first American film, The Torrent . “The whole MGM studio, including Monta Bell, the director, watched the daily rushes with amazement as Garbo created out of the stales, thinnest material the complex, enchanting shadow of a soul upon the screen.” Although recent accounts of Garbo’s life and work have advanced beyond the “dumb Swede” publicity of Photoplay magazine, critics still reveal a similar, almost vampish determination to deprive Garbo of her creative power. “Her contribution,” states Kenneth Tynan, “is calm and receptiveness, an absorbent repose which normally, in women, coexists only with the utmost vanity. Tranced by the ecstasy of existing, she gives to each onlooker what he needs” . Comparing Garbo to a “watermark in a blank sheet of paper,” David Thomson says in an essay in honor of her seventy-fifth birthday: “She must be no one in herself if she is to signify so much to so many others…. All the moods and moments of love are encompassed because the appearance is hollow. We are to inhabit it, to flesh it out.” In these accounts, Garbo is presented not as an active shaping power but as a passive female vessel, ready to receive the impress of male voyeuristic fantasy. Betsy Erkkila, assistant professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania, is author of Walt Whitman among the French: Poet and Myth and editor of Ezra Pound: The Critical Reception. She is currently working on a book, Whitman the Political Poet, and a collection of essays, American Women Poets Musing. (shrink)

The current times call for reforms in educational processes. The Covid-19 pandemic had an unforeseen impact on the educational system in all countries. This need for change requires new pedagogies and new methods for teaching and learning. Understanding the need for change is essential for the formulation of adaptive proposals, as well as for the generation of training activities to complement the teaching curriculum. New educational practices lead to a vision of educational quality, with new approaches that allow the continuous (...) integration of knowledge and permanent interaction with the student. This paper presents an analysis of the new teaching methodologies in times of confinement due to the pandemic caused by Covid-19. Keywords: Teaching methodologies, educational system, learning process. References [1]É. Tremblay-Wragg, C. Raby, L. Ménard y I. Plante, «El uso de estrategias didácticas diversificadas por cuatro profesores universitarios: ¿qué contribución a la motivación de aprendizaje de sus alumnos?,» Docencia en educación superior, vol. 26, nº 21, 2021. [2]L. Czerniewicz, R. Mogliacci, S. Walji, A. Cliff, B. Swinnerton y N. Morris, «Enseñanza y aprendizaje académico en el nexo: desagregación, mercantilización y digitalización en la educación superior,» Teaching in Higher Education, vol. 26, nº 2021, p. 16, 2021. [3]S. Dogan y A. Adam, «Aumentar el efecto del desarrollo profesional en la instrucción efectiva a través de comunidades profesionales,» Docentes y docencia: teoría y práctica, vol. 26, nº 3-4, pp. 326-349, 2020. [4]I. M. Torres Salas, «La enseñanza tradicional de las ciencias versus las nuevas tendencias educativas,» Educare, vol. 14, nº 1, pp. 131-142, 2010. [5]B. Fabio, J. Antonio Palomino y J. González Henríquez, «Evaluación y contraste de los métodos de enseñanza tradicional y lúdico,» Revista de Educación física y deportes, vol. 13, nº 94, pp. 29-36, 2008. [6]Y. Benítez y C. Mora, «Enseñanza tradicional vs aprendizaje activo,» Revista Cubana de Física, vol. 27, nº 2A, pp. 175-179, 2010. [7]P. Morales Bueno y V. Landa Fitzgerald, «Aprendizaje basado en problemas,» Theoria, vol. 13, nº 1, pp. 145-157, 2004. [8]R. Gil-Galván, I. Martín-Espinosa y F. Gil-Galván, «University student perceptions of competences acquired through problem-based learning,» Educación XXI, vol. 24, nº 1, pp. 271-295, 2020. [9]E. Ortiz Cermeño, «El aprendizaje basado en problemas,» Perfiles Educativos, vol. 41, nº 164, pp. 208-213, 2019. [10]E. Araos-Baeriswyl, C. Moll-Manzur, Á. Paredes y J. Landeros, «Aprendizaje invertido: un enfoque pedagógico en tiempos de pandemia,» Rev. Atención Primaria, vol. 53, nº 1, p. 117, 2021. [11]V. León-Carrascosa, M. Belando-Montoro y S. Sánchez-Serrano, «Design and validation of a questionnaire to evaluate the service-learning methodology,» Rev.Estudios sobre educación, vol. 39, nº 1, pp. 247-266, 2020. [12]J. Collado-Ruano, M. Ojeda, M. Malo y D. Amino, «Educación, arte e interculturalidad: El cine documental como lenguaje comunicativo y tecnología innovadora para el aprendizaje de la metodología I + D + I,» Rev. Texto livre, vol. 13, nº 3, pp. 376-393, 2020. [13]P. M. Bueno y V. Landa Fitzgerald, «Aprendizaje basado en problemas,» Theoria, vol. 13, nº 1, pp. 145-157, 2004. [14]J. A. Martí, M. Heydrich, M. Rojas y A. Hernández, «Aprendizaje basado en proyectos: Una experiencia de innovación docente,» Universidad EAFIT, vol. 46, nº 158, pp. 11-21, 2010. [15]L. Rojas y N. M. Jaimes, «Canvas LMS y el trabajo colaborativo como metodología de aprendizaje en entornos virtuales,» de Congreso Ibérico de Sistemas y Tecnologías de la Información, CISTI, Bogotá, Colombia, 2020. [16]B. Bordel y P. Mareca, «Results and Trends in educational MOOCs in the engineering area with MIRIADAX platform. A case study,» de 15th Iberian Conference on Information Systems and Technologies, CISTI 2020; Seville; Sevilla, España, 2020. [17]K. Vermeir y G. Kelchtermans, «Innovative practice as interpretative negotiation.A case-study on the kamishibai in Kindergarten.,» Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, vol. 26, nº 3-4, pp. 248-263, 2020. [18]B. Tucker, «The Flipped Classroom: Online instruction at home frees class time for learning,» Education Next, vol. 1, nº 1, pp. 82-84, 2012. [19]M. V. Ledo, N. R. Michelena, N. N. Cao, I. d. R. M. Suárez y M. N. Vialart Vidal, « Aula invertida, nueva estrategia didáctica,» Educación Médica Superior, vol. 30, nº 3, pp. 678-688, 2016. [20]Metodologías activas por medio de las TIC, [Online]. Available: https://www.campuseducacion.com/blog/recursos/articulos-campuseducacion metodologias-activas-por-medio-de-las-tic/?cn-reloaded=1. [Last access: February 14, 2021]. (shrink)

The general discourse on education stresses either the teacher’s or the student’s position. This article aims to contribute to a relational theory of teaching by discussing three significant concepts of teaching from the standpoint of Martin Buber’s relational philosophy. Feldman suggests that teaching implies being human in a particular way and in a particular context; Kelchtermans shows that a teacher’s ‘personal interpretative framework’ plays a crucial role in teaching and is constantly modified through interactions; Biesta defines the essence of (...) teaching in terms of the relation between the teacher’s address and the student’s personal response. Although they all contribute to the relational theory of teaching, they also seem to neglect a vital dimension found in Buber’s philosophy – the exceptional moment when a teacher and a student turn to each other as ‘this particular other person’. As a supplement to the other concepts, this article outlines the concept of ‘teaching as a way of bonding’ and makes three suggestions: (1) bonding is a prerequisite for teaching; (2) there are qualitative differences between ‘social bonding’ and ‘relational bonding’; and (3) the teaching is ultimately best understandable in terms of ‘relational bonding’. (shrink)

The general discourse on education stresses either the teacher’s or the student’s position. This article aims to contribute to a relational theory of teaching by discussing three significant concepts of teaching from the standpoint of Martin Buber’s relational philosophy. Feldman suggests that teaching implies being human in a particular way and in a particular context; Kelchtermans shows that a teacher’s ‘personal interpretative framework’ plays a crucial role in teaching and is constantly modified through interactions; Biesta defines the essence of (...) teaching in terms of the relation between the teacher’s address and the student’s personal response. Although they all contribute to the relational theory of teaching, they also seem to neglect a vital dimension found in Buber’s philosophy – the exceptional moment when a teacher and a student turn to each other as ‘this particular other person’. As a supplement to the other concepts, this article outlines the concept of ‘teaching as a way of bonding’ and makes three suggestions: (1) bonding is a prerequisite for teaching; (2) there are qualitative differences between ‘social bonding’ and ‘relational bonding’; and (3) the teaching is ultimately best understandable in terms of ‘relational bonding’. (shrink)