Category Archives: Phenomenology

What is it like to learn? An introduction to “Learning-as-Experience”

Learning-as-experience, learning as it one lives or undergoes it everyday, exposes the Achilles heel of any learning “theory:” Namely, that we have almost no quantifiable, empirical access to learning as a phenomenon, and that the only thing of this kind we … Continue reading

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Unsettling the Pedagogical Relation – Starting with a Glance

This image from Ghirlandaio’s An Old Man and his Grandson (recently restored, left), was used as the cover image by Klaus Mollenhauer for his 1983 book, Forgotten Connections: On Culture and Upbringing (translated 2014), and eight years later, on the cover of … Continue reading

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Herbart on Pedagogical Tact

In 1802, J.F. Herbart (1776-1841) gave a brilliant lecture on pedagogical tact, which provides many insights that remain relevant today. Here’s a 1898 translation of Herbart’s lecture, provided courtesy of Google Books. See the whole PowerPoint presentation, which situates Herbart’s discussion of tact … Continue reading

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Hiedegger – the Magus of Messkirch

A 1989 documentary about Martin Heidegger, born and raised a Roman Catholic in Messkirch, Baden-Württemberg. An excellent video with well-translated English subtitles. In a number of interview fragments included here, Heidegger explains his thinking with atypical simplicity and clarity. His … Continue reading

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Waldenfels' Responsive Phenomenology

Bernhard Waldenfels has been taking phenomenology in a new direction –one that has implications for phenomenologies of technology. Instead of focusing on intentionality and the relationship between self and other, he has, over more than a dozen books, articulated a … Continue reading

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Faculty ProD Keynote: Simulation, Stimulation & Silence – Learning Online and Off

I gave this keynote at an excellent professional development event at my alma mater, the University of Alberta in August. CTL TECHKNOWLEDGY Symposium Keynote Here’s the abstract: Almost 20 years after the popular adoption of the Internet, we are still … Continue reading

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Bernhard Waldenfels: Responsivity and Tele-absence

Two things regarding the contemporary German phenomenologist, Bernhard Waldenfels (pictured, right, with his wife Christine on his way to a Merleau-Ponty seminar in 1961): I’ve tracked down a hard-to-find piece by Waldenfels in which he explains one of the main … Continue reading

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CFP: Special issue of Phenomenology & Practice on "Being Online"

Phenomenology & Practice announces a special issue devoted to the phenomenological description and exploration of the experience of being online in educational or pedagogical contexts. The intent of this special issue is to focus particularly on epistemology of practice, on … Continue reading

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Reviews for Forgotten Connections & The Place of the Classroom

Two  reviews are in for a couple of my book projects: The first is for The Place of the Classroom and the Space of the Screen (Peter Lang, 2011), which has just been reviewed by Robert Rosenberger at Georgia Tech for the … Continue reading

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The Disappearing Teacher –& Teaching

A new, special issue of the free, online journal, Phenomenology & Practice, is out. The theme of this issue is “the call of teaching.” One excellent article in the issue is by Gert Biesta. It looks at a question that has … Continue reading

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