Learning to Flourish: A Philosophical Exploration of Liberal Education

Learning to Flourish: A Philosophical Exploration of Liberal Education Review

Buy From Amazon.com

What is a liberal arts education? How does it differ from other forms of learning? What are we to make of the debates that surround it? What are its place, its value, and its prospects in the contemporary world? These are questions that trouble students and their parents, educators, critics, and policy-makers, and philosophers of education--among others.Learning to Flourish offers a lucid, penetrating, philosophical exploration of liberal learning: a still-evolving tradition of theory and practice that has dominated and sustained intellectual life and learning in much of the globe for two millennia. This study will be of interest to anyone seeking to understand liberal arts education, as well as to educators and philosophers of education. Daniel R. DeNicola weighs the views of both advocates and critics of the liberal arts, and interprets liberal education as a vital tradition aimed supremely at understanding and living a flourishing life. He elaborates the tradition as expressed in five competing but complementary paradigms that transcend theories of curriculum and pedagogy and are manifested in particular social contexts. He examines the transformative power of liberal education and its relation to such values as freedom, autonomy, and democracy, reflecting on the importance of intrinsic value and moral understanding. Finally, DeNicola considers age-old obstacles and current threats to liberal education, ultimately asserting its value for and urgent need in a global, pluralistic, technologically advanced society. The result is a bold, yet nuanced theory, alert to both historical and contemporary discussions, and a significant contribution to the discourse on liberal education.

Buy From Amazon.com

How to Read Novels Like a Professor: A Jaunty Exploration of the World's Favorite Literary Form

How to Read Novels Like a Professor: A Jaunty Exploration of the World's Favorite Literary Form Review

Buy From Amazon.com

Of all the literary forms, the novel is arguably the most discussed . . . and fretted over. From Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote to the works of Jane Austen, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and today's masters, the novel has grown with and adapted to changing societies and technologies, mixing tradition and innovation in every age throughout history.

Thomas C. Foster—the sage and scholar who ingeniously led readers through the fascinating symbolic codes of great literature in his first book, How to Read Literature Like a Professor—now examines the grammar of the popular novel. Exploring how authors' choices about structure—point of view, narrative voice, first page, chapter construction, character emblems, and narrative (dis)continuity—create meaning and a special literary language, How to Read Novels Like a Professor shares the keys to this language with readers who want to get more insight, more understanding, and more pleasure from their reading.

Buy From Amazon.com

Machine Learning for Hackers

Machine Learning for Hackers Review

Buy From Amazon.com

If you’re an experienced programmer interested in crunching data, this book will get you started with machine learning—a toolkit of algorithms that enables computers to train themselves to automate useful tasks. Authors Drew Conway and John Myles White help you understand machine learning and statistics tools through a series of hands-on case studies, instead of a traditional math-heavy presentation.

Each chapter focuses on a specific problem in machine learning, such as classification, prediction, optimization, and recommendation. Using the R programming language, you’ll learn how to analyze sample datasets and write simple machine learning algorithms. Machine Learning for Hackers is ideal for programmers from any background, including business, government, and academic research.

• Develop a naïve Bayesian classifier to determine if an email is spam, based only on its text
• Use linear regression to predict the number of page views for the top 1,000 websites
• Learn optimization techniques by attempting to break a simple letter cipher
• Compare and contrast U.S. Senators statistically, based on their voting records
• Build a “whom to follow” recommendation system from Twitter data

Buy From Amazon.com

Trail Guide to Learning: Paths of Exploration Set

Trail Guide to Learning: Paths of Exploration Set Review

Buy From Amazon.com

Paths of Exploration takes students on a journey. Follow the steps of famous explorers and pioneers across America and let geography be your guide to science, history, language skills, and the arts. This journey will teach students HOW to think by asking, answering, and investigating questions about our great country's beginning and growth. The paths of the explorers are seen through multidisciplinary eyes, but always with the same goals: to make learning enjoyable, memorable, and motivating. This full one-year course for 3rd, 4th and 5th graders (adaptable for 2nd and 6th) covers six units in two volumes.

So, pack your bags and prepare to travel across time and territory with great explorers as your guide!

Buy From Amazon.com

Exploration and Conquest: The Americas After Columbus: 1500-1620 (American Story)

Exploration and Conquest: The Americas After Columbus: 1500-1620 (American Story) Review

Buy From Amazon.com

Christopher Columbus was not the first to discover the Americas, but his voyages led to European exploration of the New World. Rich in resources and natural beauty, the Americas were irresistible to gold-hungry conquistadors. The newcomers gave little thought to those who had called the lands their home, and exploration soon came to signify conquest. The New World -- and the lives of its inhabitants -- would be changed forever.

Buy From Amazon.com

New Guide for Occupational Exploration: Linking Interests, Learning and Careers

New Guide for Occupational Exploration: Linking Interests, Learning and Careers Review

The New Guide for Occupational Exploration is the most useful resource for matching interests to both job and learning options. As a major revision of the career resource previously titled the Guide for Occupational Exploration, this easy-to-use book is now based on the 16 U.S. Department of Education clusters that connect learning to careers. Readers can drill down to their most appealing job groups through questions that provide a feel for the work and whether it will interest them. The unique format of the New Guide for Occupational Exploration takes readers from broad interest areas to specific careers. More than 900 job descriptions from the U.S. Department of Labor’s O*NET (Occupational Information Network) database emphasize skills needed, related courses, education required, earnings, growth, and much more, all for helpful career-path planning. The New Guide for Occupational Exploration builds on solid research that supports exploring careers based on interests. For more than 25 years, the GOE has served as a key reference for helping people discover career and learning options.

Empowerment Through Experiential Learning: Explorations of Good Practice

Empowerment Through Experiential Learning: Explorations of Good Practice Review

This volume brings together papers from the 1991 Conference on Experiential Learning, and provides a broad illustration of best practice in this fast-developing field. The editors have highlighted the emerging ideas of empowerment, for example as a development of autonomy and control, public recognition of personal learning, a shift of emphasis from teaching to learning, the decoupling of learning and formal education, and the relocation of learning in the workplace, community and personal life. The contributions are provided by expert practitioners in the field from the UK, Australia, Italy, Hong Kong, Canada, South Africa and the USA. They have been grouped into five sections which examine theories in practice; assessment and accreditation; integrating experiential learning; learning to learn; and putting principles into practice. Themes covered in detail include learner experience - a rich resource; balancing facilitator authority and learner autonomy; adventure-based experiential learning; learning contracts - how they can be used; and developing a model to aid learners and facilitators.