Location：Jingtang Building 313 (教育學院井塘樓313會議室) & online
Time：9:10-10:00 am
Prof. Maurizio Toscano, University of Melbourne
22 April, Session 1 speech title: Measuring what matters
29 April, Session 2 speech title: Science and the meaning beyond the data
Dr Maurizio Toscano is a Senior Lecturer in Science Education in the University of Melbourne Faculty of Education. His academic research and teaching work focuses on understanding the relationships between science, art, the environment, philosophy, and education. His work is informed by his wide-ranging academic experiences: his doctoral training was in astrophysics; he has undertaken and supervised research on aesthetics and the scientific imagination; he has produced artworks, collaborated with artists, and written about art and science; and more recently he has examined philosophical perspectives on science and education that draw upon the works of Martin Heidegger.
The philosopher Stephen Toulmin, in his seminal work, The Uses of Argument (1958), underscored that evidence alone was insufficient in supporting the claims we make about the world. What makes something (like data or research findings) legitimate evidence for a claim often depends on a set of assumptions on the part of the person making the argument. These assumptions are often unspoken or undeclared. Yet, they frame the epistemological, ontological, axiological, and praxeological aspects of the discourses and practices in which the arguments are applied. Gert Biesta (2007, 2010, 2015) recognised this in educational research, policy, and practice. The influence in recent decades of evidence-based education calls on us – as this presentation does – to re-examine these hidden assumptions. This is not to abandon the use of quantitative research, but rather to use evidence to explore what matters in education, and why.
This presentation explores the question of how we assess and judge entities in the word in which we live. These entities may include students, teachers, schools, classrooms, education systems, psychological states, what people think, what people do, or what they say. Assessing and judging are different kinds of meaningful activity (Cavell, 1979). Whilst the former evaluates the status of an entity against what is known, judgement is more akin to the process of discovery. This presentation uses this distinction to examine the nature of educational research and practice. It asks whether we should take education and educational research as forms of science, or alternatively, forms of artistic practice and appreciation.
Contact: College of Education, educ91@nccu.edu.tw
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