Play Based Learning and Special Needs

"Table of Contents / Pagination is incorrect:
THE WAYS OF ARISTOTLE – ARISTOTELIAN PHRÓNÊSIS, ARISTOTELIAN PHILOSOPHY OF DIALOGUE, AND ACTION RESEARCH
Olav Eikeland
Preface 1
PART 1 – ARISTOTLE, SOCIAL RESEARCH, AND ACTION RESEARCH 3
1. Introduction – The Challenge of Phrónêsis 3
1.1 Three Kinds of General Theory 10
1.2 Aristotle and Critical Action Research 17
2. Action Research Approaching Phrónêsis 20
2.1 A Philosopher Defending Action Research 21
2.2 Making Social Science Matter 23
2.3 Abandoning Techniques 25
PART 2 – READING ARISTOTLE – LIMITS AND POSSIBILITIES FOR PHRÓNÊSIS 27
3. Virtues – Intellectual and Ethical 29
3.1 Particulars of Ethical Virtues 34
4. Phrónêsis and the Other Intellectual Virtues 38
4.1 Theoretical Knowledge, and Knowledge about Things We Influence 40
4.1.1 Overlaps and Intermeshes 45
4.2 Phrónêsis as an Intellectual Virtue 48
4.2.1 Excursus: Knowledge Forms and Ways of Knowing in Aristotle 49
4.2.1.1 Praxis, Poíêsis, Khrêsis, Páthos – And the Various Forms of the Epistêmai 50
4.2.1.2 Theoretical and Practical Truth 61
4.2 (Continued) Phrónêsis as an Intellectual Virtue 64
4.3 Phrónêsis and Rhetoric, Phrónêsis and Practical Syllogisms 70
4.3.1 The relationship to rhetoric 70
4.3.2 The relationship to practical syllogisms 75
5. Phrónêsis on Means and Ends, Phrónêsis and General Knowledge 76
5.1 Means and Ends, and Kinds of Causes 76
5.1.1 Poíêsis Makes Things, Praxis Makes Perfect 81
5.1.2 “Professional” Deliberations and Deductions 89
5.2 Knowledge, General and Particular 94
5.2.1 General Knowledge, Appropriate Knowledge, Knowledge in Action 94
5.2.2 Héxis (Habitus), and Empeiría (Experience) 103
5.2.3 Knowing Particulars 109
5.2.3.1 By What? 110
5.2.3.2 How? 111
5.2.3.3 Preconditions for a Universally Flexible Consideration 115
6. Developing and Defining Virtue 126
6.1 Developing Virtue 127
6.1.1 Epistêmê and Virtue through the Formation of Habit, Once More 130
6.1.2 What “Means” Means 136
6.1.3 Practical Development with a Hinge to It, the Question of Standards Again 138
6.2 Defining Virtue 145
6.2.1 Nóêsis as Dialogue, or, the Reason Why Aristotle Insists on Letting Phrónêsis Deliberate about Means Only 150
6.2.1.1 The Unfolded Know-How of Nous 152
6.2.1.2 The Topica and the Enfolded Habitus of Dialectics 154
6.2.1.3 The Philosopher, the Dialectician, and Experience 160
6.2.1.3.1 Dialogical Peculiarities 165
6.2.1.3.2 Dialogue and Experience 170
6.2.1.3.3 Basic Principle, Beginning, Medium, and End 182
6.2.1.4 Ways of Learning 185
6.2.1.5 Self-Evident First Principles? 191
6.2.1.6 Praxis1, and Praxis2 194
6.2.2 The Ethical Works do not Deliberate about Means, They Develop and Define Ends 198
6.2.3 Epistêmê, Virtue, and Phrónêsis Defined 205
6.3 Who Develops and Defines? The Art and Practice of Architectonics 214
7. Eudaimonía and Wisdom as “The Highest Practical Good”; Aristotelian Phron-Ethics, Theor-Ethics, and the Way of the Intellectual Commons 219
7.1 Kinds of Theory, Kinds of Practice 220
7.2 Ethics and Politics as Methodological Guidelines for Autonomous Practitioners 230
7.2.1 The Laws of Virtue 233
7.2.2 Tékhnê and Phrónêsis – At the Parting of the Ways 239
7.3 The Wisdom of the Commons – Common Wisdom 242
7.3.1 Tà Koiná – The Commons 247
7.3.2 The Common Skholê 252
7.4 Theor-Ethics and Primary Friendship 254
7.4.1 The Noetic “I” and the Psychological “Me” 259
7.4.2 Theorethical Interventions? 268
7.5 The Way of Theor-Ethics 269
7.5.1 Ethical Excellence – Settling with the Best “for Us”, i.e. for the Second Best “Absolutely” 277
7.6 The Ways of Politics – Continuous Learning in Common 288
7.6.1 Community: What Are the Things Common? 289
7.6.2 Oikos, Pólis, and Constitutions 294
7.6.3 Developing Concord – The Ethico-Political Role of Dialogical Gatherings 299
7.6.4 Different Concepts of Politics 310
7.6.5 Unity and Diversity in the Pólis 318
7.6.6 The Koinópolis as Panarchy – Aristocracy Suspended and Transcended 328
7.6.7 Religious Politics? 338
PART 3 – ARISTOTELIAN ACTION RESEARCH – WISDOM AND EUDAIMONÍA TRANSPOSED, SOCIAL RESEARCH TRANSFORMED 344
8. Neo-Epistemic, Dialogical Action Research 344
9. From Oikos to Pólis, and Beyond 349
10. Aristotle, Marx, and Modern Work Life 359
11. Aristotle Suspended 370
12. Epilogue 376
REFERENCES 381
Appendix 394"

This research examines teacher-child and peer interactions during collaborative writing and writing-mediated play in 10 northern Canadian primary classrooms. Purposes of children's and teachers' language in these informal writing contexts, captured in video-recordings, were analysed inductively. In the play-mediated writing context, where children created texts as needed to support their dramatic play narratives, children were more likely to use language to explain purposes and meanings of the text they created as part of dramatic play narratives. In the collaborative writing contexts involving teacher-assigned texts, children more frequently talked about the letters and sounds of words, or the details of drawings in their texts. In both contexts, children used language for affiliative purposes, as the demands of the collaborative settings required that they find ways to get along with each other. Teachers' language was often for typical instructional purposes (e.g., building on children's knowledge of print and helping them to work together) and for affiliative purposes (e.g., to show interest in children's writing and in their play narratives). Additionally, in dramatic play-mediated writing contexts, teachers frequently used language to model social conventions of the play contexts. In the collaborative writing contexts, teachers more frequently directed children's behaviour to ensure that all children could participate in the tasks. Our findings show that collaborative writing and writing as part of dramatic play provide contexts for authentic interactions around text construction and for supporting children's abilities to collaborate. These contexts offer promising alternatives to mainstream views of exemplary writing instruction that involve planned lessons with teachers' questions and modelling and feedback on students' independent writing.

Vulnerable young people such as those with Autism Spectrum Disorders, intellectual disabilities, or social, behavioural and emotional difficulties – often lack the skills to make the right decisions when faced with potentially dangerous scenarios. This fun and interactive game helps to open up discussion and teach young people the social skills they need to stay safe in school and in the wider community.
The Choices Game has been specially designed to help older children and teenagers learn how to make positive choices. As players move around the game board, they pick up Choice Cards which invite them to imagine themselves in a scenario and make a choice about how they would respond in that situation. The outcome of their decision is then revealed, and the more safe choices they make the further they progress in the game!
This game will be an invaluable tool for teachers, parents, social workers and anyone else teaching social skills and personal safety to young people with special needs or emotional difficulties. It includes a helpful teacher's guide with advice to aid learning through discussion.

A way to scaffold students’ understanding of abstract physics concepts is through fun activities that help in visualisation. This article highlights a simple flying wheel toy can be used as a demonstration kit in presenting the equation ‘Work Done = Force × Distance’. The kit has helped the author’s students visualise the equation, getting them to appreciate how components of the equation are related to one another, which otherwise may have been abstract for them.