Journal of Academic Perspectives
Journal of Academic Perspectives

Volume 2014 No. 4

Making Sense of How Students Interpret Atomic Representations

Issa I. Salame, Samema Sarowar, Sazea Begum, and Richard Steinberg, City College of New York, US

 

When the Center Cannot Hold: A Paradigm for Reading Near Eastern Archaeology

Frederick L. Downing, Valdosta State University, US

 

On the Philosophical Validity of the Concept of The Sacred

Oscar E. Muñoz, Freelance Philosopher and Scholar, US

Making Sense of How Students Interpret Atomic Representations

Issa I. Salame, Samema Sarowar, Sazea Begum, and Richard Steinberg, City College of New York, US

The objective of this study is to examine students’ interpretations and understanding of atomic representations. Students struggle to learn chemistry and in their quest to pass classes they often harbor misconceptions about the atomic theory, misinterpret its representations, and possess a weak epistemology about the topic. Developing conceptual understanding of the particulate nature of matter and atomic theory and its structure is essential to understanding chemistry concepts. This research study took place at the City College of New York as part of a summer enrichment program for rising ninth through eleventh grade students from New York City schools. The program is academically selective. The qualitative data presented here are based on an open-ended questionnaire that was given to t
Salame.et_al.pdf
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When the Center Cannot Hold: A Paradigm for Reading Near Eastern Archaeology

Frederick L. Downing, Valdosta State University, US

The thesis of this essay is that a review of the current status of Near Eastern archaeology reveals the necessity for a heuristic paradigm of diverse perspectives in order to read and understand the complex views which run the gamut from ultra-conservative to revisionist with each holding distinctive archaeological views, unique approaches and methods of interpretation. A cursory review of the history of the archaeology of Israel over the last fifty years shows that the discipline is not monolithic; the discipline has splintered into three separate wings with serious tensions between the camps and with each having its own set of presuppositions and unique conclusions. More than approaches; the camps reflect states of mind and differing world views.
Narratives about the archaeology of I
Downing..pdf
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On the Philosophical Validity of the Concept of The Sacred

Oscar E. Muñoz, Freelance Philosopher and Scholar, US

The concept of the sacred (das Heilige) as something mysterious and irrational, although at the base of mythological narratives and religious experience, was first theologically shaped by Rudolf Otto, and later by Mircea Eliade, in their texts on the philosophy of religion. Otto’s work tries to lay the foundation of religion over Kantian epistemology, merging the rational construction of the first and second Critiques with the Theory of Genius of the third, but incurs in paralogisms and contradictions.
No less relevant than the epistemological objections to the concept of das Heilige are its anthropological difficulties. Anthropological experience shows that the qualification of an action or an object as sacred does not follow any universal principle -as Durkheim had already pointed out
Muñoz.pdf
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