Although the fields of chaos and complexity are important in a number of disciplines, they have not yet been influential in education. This book remedies this dilemma by gathering essays by authors from around the world who have studied and applied chaos and complexity theories to their teaching. Rich in its material, recursive in its interweaving of themes, conversational in its relationships, and rigorous in its analysis, the book is essential reading for undergraduates, graduate students, and professionals who deal with these important topics.

The first collection of the key works of the major curriculum studies scholar William E. Doll, Jr., this volume provides an overview of his scholarship over his fifty-year career and documents the theoretical and practical contribution he has made to the field . The book is organized in five thematic sections: Personal Reflections; Dewey, Piaget, Bruner, Whitehead: Process And Transformation; Modern/Post-Modern: Structures, Forms and Organization; Complexity Thinking; and Reflections on Teaching . The complicated intellectual trajectory through pragmatism, postmodernism and complexity theory not only testifies to Doll’s individual lifetime works but is also intimately related to the landscape of education to which he has made an important contribution. Of interest to curriculum scholars around the world, the book will hold special significance for graduate students and junior scholars who came of the age in the field Doll helped create: one crafted by postmodernism and, more recently, complexity theory.

Inspiring teachers to teach with more spontaneity and creativity within a highly constrained educational environment, this text demonstrates through descriptive stories strategies for emergent teaching. The text is consistent with the theoretical understandings and research in...

Shakespeare and Complexity Theory is the first book-length examination into how complexity theory may be incorporated within Shakespeare studies. The book demonstrates how complexity theory can illuminate our understanding of Shakespeare’s texts, early modern theatrical practices (from dance to co-authorship to stagecraft), pedagogy, and Shakespeare’s canonical place in contemporary culture. In its implementation of a scientific framework, this monograph taps into an area of increasing academic and research interest: the relationship between the sciences and the humanities.

This book examines the transformative potential of collaborative teacher research. Specifically, Kalin shares the perspectives of educators as they investigate the teaching and learning of drawing within their own elementary classrooms and within the context of an action research group. The innovative a/r/tographic design of the project provides a rich balance between the arts and educational research, as it allows for the complex unfolding of relational transformation, alongside the artistic renditions of each person exploring their understandings of drawing. The products and processes of this book provide alternative approaches for the design of future pre-service and in-service programs that aim to serve teachers as learners rather than teachers as teachers. In this vein, the book offers worthy insights into how the arts and collaborative action research groups assist participants in finding other ways of seeing, imaging, and knowing the world. The book will appeal to practitioners, teacher educators, educational researchers, as well as those interested in professional development, complexity thinking, curriculum studies, collaborative action research, and arts-based educational research methodologies.

The 'Encyclopedia' provides an introduction to the social and cultural foundations of education. The first two volumes consist of A-Z entries, featuring essays representing the major disciplines including philosophy, history, and sociology, and a third volume is made up of documentary, photographic, and visual resources.

The underlying idea and motive for the book is that the notion of complexity may humanize the social sciences, may conceive the complex human being as more human, and turn reality as assumed in our doing social science into a more complex, that is a richer reality for all. The main focus of this book is on new thinking in complexity, with complexity to be taken as derived from the Latin word complexus: ‘that which is interwoven.’ The trans-disciplinary approach advocated here will be trans-disciplinary in two ways: firstly, by going beyond the separate disciplines within the fields of both natural sciences and social sciences, and, secondly, by going beyond the separate cultures of the natural sciences and of the social sciences and humanities.

This book explores the contributions, actual and potential, of complexity thinking to educational research and practice. While its focus is on the theoretical premises and the methodology, not specific applications, the aim is pragmatic--to present complexity thinking as an important and appropriate attitude for educators and educational researchers. Part I is concerned with global issues around complexity thinking, as read through an educational lens. Part II cites a diversity of practices and studies that are either explicitly informed by or that might be aligned with complexity research, and offers focused and practiced advice for structuring projects in ways that are consistent with complexity thinking. Complexity thinking offers a powerful alternative to the linear, reductionist approaches to inquiry that have dominated the sciences for hundreds of years and educational research for more than a century. It has captured the attention of many researchers whose studies reach across traditional disciplinary boundaries to investigate phenomena such as: How does the brain work? What is consciousness? What is intelligence? What is the role of emergent technologies in shaping personalities and possibilities? How do social collectives work? What is knowledge? Complexity research posits that a deep similarity among these phenomena is that each points toward some sort of system that learns. The authors’ intent is not to offer a complete account of the relevance of complexity thinking to education, not to prescribe and delimit, but to challenge readers to examine their own assumptions and theoretical commitments--whether anchored by commonsense, classical thought or any of the posts (such as postmodernism, poststructuralism, postcolonialism, postpositivism, postformalism, postepistemology) that mark the edges of current discursive possibility. Complexity and Education is THE introduction to the emerging field of complexity thinking for the education community. It is specifically relevant for educational researchers, graduate students, and inquiry-oriented teacher practitioners.

The essays in this volume bring together leading-edge scholars to illuminate the work of William E. Doll, Jr., as a key curriculum thinker of global impact, and introduce his work and influence to new generations of scholars, teachers, and students of education. Drawing on their individual contexts, contributors cover a range of topics and themes, including engagement with pragmatism, the work of John Dewey, and the inclusion of post-modern, chaos, and complexity theories to education and curriculum. Advancing our understanding and conversation of existing problems and possibilities in education, this collection serves as both an homage to Doll and a call for action and consideration of what matters in education.

These proceedings from the 2013 symposium on "Chaos, complexity and leadership" reflect current research results from all branches of Chaos, Complex Systems and their applications in Management. Included are the diverse results in the fields of applied nonlinear methods, modeling of data and simulations, as well as theoretical achievements of Chaos and Complex Systems. Also highlighted are Leadership and Management applications of Chaos and Complexity Theory.