Big New Ideas–Where are They Today?

Why not big ideas and big interventions?

"Big ideas" serve as a pivotal concept that occupies a central position in mathematics, connecting various knowledge points within the mathematics curriculum. The unit integration teaching of primary school mathematics based on big ideas leverages the structural framework of the discipline, facilitating students to actively construct knowledge through deeper understanding. Interviews revealed that while most front-line primary school mathematics teachers recognize the value of unit teaching under the big ideas framework and understand its basic process, challenges remain in determining unit teaching objectives, selecting appropriate teaching content, and formulating effective evaluation methods. Therefore, from the perspectives of teachers, schools, and educational research departments, specific strategies have been proposed to optimize the integration of primary school mathematics units based on big ideas.

Purpose: With globalization, the need to foster global citizenship with global competencies has increased. The purpose of this study was to propose a music-centered integrated unit design based on big ideas to promote students' learning transfer and foster global citizenship through the pursuit of enduring understanding.
 Methods: The core competencies and learning areas of global citizenship education proposed by UNESCO, as well as the big idea and backward design, were examined through a literature review. The curriculum was analyzed to design a music-centered integrated unit. Big ideas were extracted by analyzing the music, social studies, and moral curriculum for grades 5-6 of the 2022 revised curriculum. A music-centered integrated unit was designed to holistically address UNESCO's cognitive, social, emotional, and behavioral domains.
 Results: Based on the Big Idea of Music's Unique modalities, principles, contexts, and expressions, global Issues, peace and prosperity, a total of fifteen lesson plans integrating music, social studies,and moral studies were developed using the three-step process of backward design outlined by Wiggins and Mctighe. Step 1: Set unit goals to prioritize learning based on the big idea. In Step 2, a performance assessment task, “Work with an NGO to put on a musical play about global peace”, was proposed to check for understanding through assessment. In step 3, Investigating the musical characteristics of countries undergoing cultural conflicts and analyzing musical dramas across multiple cultures to transfer learning based on big ideas. The central task involved composing and performing a musical drama that expressed worldwide conflicts.
 Conclusion: Based on the big idea of global citizenship education, this study proposed a design plan for a total of fifteen music-centered integrated units by integrating music, social studies, and moral studies. Through this study, the author expects students to transfer their learning and understanding in music and other subjects to real-life contexts in an integrated way to enhance their global citizenship skills and cultivate pluralistic values to become global citizens.

Teaching Secondary History provides a comprehensive introduction to the theory and practice of teaching History to years 7–12 in Australian schools. Engaging directly with the Australian Curriculum, this text introduces pre-service teachers to the discipline of History. It builds on students' historical knowledge, thinking and skills and offers practical guidance on how to construct well-rounded History lessons for students. From inquiry strategies and teacher- and student-centred practice, to embedding the cross-curriculum priorities in planning and assessment, this text supports the learning and development of pre-service History teachers by connecting the 'big ideas' of teaching with the nuance of History content. Each chapter features short-answer and Pause and think questions to enhance understanding of key concepts, Bringing it together review questions to consolidate learning, classroom scenarios, examples of classroom work and a range of information boxes to connect students to additional material.

Cecilia Graham, in the 2015 Cerasoli lecture, shared her passion for a new curricular model, the concept-based curriculum. Big ideas are the focus of this type of curriculum development and the instructional goal is to develop a deep understanding of these ideas in the learner by exploring linkages between the concepts and active learning.1 A big idea is certainly embodied in the vision statement for the physical therapy profession: “Transforming society by optimizing movement to improve the human experience.”2 This vision statement has been rapidly integrated into the organizational life of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA). For example, APTA's Board of Directors has set its 3 major goals of transforming society, the profession, and the association. Many of the components are building plans and developing activities in a similar fashion. In addition to the vision statement, 8 guiding principles have been adopted to demonstrate how the profession will appear when this vision is enacted. One of those principles is “identity”: The physical therapy profession will define and promote the movement system as the foundation for optimizing movement to improve the health of society. Recognition and validation of the movement system is essential to understand the structure, function, and potential of the human body. The physical therapist will be responsible for evaluating and managing an individual's movement system across the lifespan to promote optimal development; diagnose impairments, activity limitations, and participation restrictions; and provide interventions targeted at preventing or ameliorating activity limitations and participation restrictions. The movement system is the core of physical therapist practice, education, and research.2 This principle has generated a great deal of conversation. For example, the APTA Board has adopted this definition of the movement system: “The human movement system comprises the anatomic structures and physiologic functions that interact to move the body or its component parts.”3 At the same time, the Board adopted the following statement on the specific role of the physical therapist relative to the human movement system.3 PHYSICAL THERAPIST PRACTICE AND THE MOVEMENT SYSTEM Human movement is a complex behavior within a specific context. Physical therapists provide a unique perspective on purposeful, precise, and efficient movement across the lifespan based upon the synthesis of their distinctive knowledge of the movement system and expertise in mobility and locomotion. Physical therapists examine and evaluate the movement system (including diagnosis and prognosis) to provide a customized and integrated plan of care to achieve the individual's goal-directed outcomes. Physical therapists maximize an individual's ability to engage with and respond to their environment using movement-related interventions to optimize functional capacity and performance. Read that again. We have defined a new system of the human body and stated that physical therapists bring a unique perspective to evaluation of this system and to movement-related interventions. Nordstrom used this concept to develop an Ignite Talk at the 2014 Geneva R. Johnson Innovations in Physical Therapy Education Forum. He postulated that this topic could become the universal accepted framework for physical therapist education curriculum.4 Graham also speaks to this, saying: We envision movement system experts who are leaders, innovators, collaborators, and entrepreneurs who can synthesize rapidly changing information, integrate advances in technology into practice, and have the flexibility to thrive in an evolving health care environment.5 This is indeed a big idea, one that can serve as the focus of our curricula, our research, and our practice. Do you understand the implications of defining a new body system on all that we do? How will you change what you teach, how you teach it, or how you organize your teaching? Are you prepared for this big idea?

In recent years, the 'Grand Challenges' idea has become widely used in research and innovation policy around the world, shifting the focus to tackling global societal problems in areas such as energy, health and environment through boundary spanning collaborations. This paper traces origins and global diffusion of the concept and analyses it in the context of long-term development of science, technology and innovation policy. It argues that the content and organisational dimensions of the Grand Challenges concept represent both continuity and change in research and innovation policy: although the concept draws on traditional and more recent ideas about the social function of science and collaborations among heterogeneous actors, its focus on tackling large-scale global societal problems is novel. Scientific leaders and the private sector have played an important role in the emergence and diffusion of the concept, which was afterwards taken up by international organisations, national governments and research organisations.

IF THERE IS ONE RUSSIAN ECONOMIST active during the period of the Soviet Union's existence who is universally known to all Western economists today, that person is Nikolai Dmitrievich Kondrat'ev.2 His name is forever linked to the idea of long waves in capitalist economic development, an idea which has since been expounded by Marxist and non-Marxist economists such as Ernest Mandel and Joseph Schumpeter, and which found new impetus during the world economic crisis which began in the 1970s. Long waves are 50-60 year economic cycles revealed in price levels and trade statistics which appear to provoke social upheavals and technical innovations and which, according to Kondrat'ev, were caused by periodic renewal of basic capital goods. However, while the idea of long waves has been thoroughly investigated ever since it was first proposed, Kondrat'ev himself has received little attention over the years. Perhaps this is because Western economists and economic historians do not usually understand Russian, Russian scholars were discouraged from pursuing this topic for political reasons until 1987, and Western Sovietologists were reluctant to focus on a figure whose 'big idea' had little to do with the USSR.3 This article attempts to partially redress this imbalance by focusing on Kondrat'ev and the institute which he created in Moscow in the 1920s specially for the study of market fluctuations, the Conjuncture Institute.4 The Conjuncture Institute is relevant not only to those interested in Soviet history. It was one of the first academic institutes in the world to be devoted specifically to the study of market conjuncture, and certainly the first which grew in non-capitalist surroundings. The Soviet Conjuncture Institute should be placed with, for example, Wesley Mitchell's National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), which pioneered empirical description of the business cycle in the USA in the first half of this century, and Michal Kalecki's work in the Institute for Research on Business Cycles and Prices in Warsaw between 1929 and 1936, where a macroeconomic theory of

Hi Reddit, I’ve been a science reporter for more than 30 years. I have a PhD in Psychology from UC Santa Cruz. I have worked at Nature, Science, and now NPR. Over the years I've traveled around the world covering science stories: from to the South Pole to the top of Mauna Kea, to inside the plume of the Eyjafjallajokull during its eruption in 2010. I've been at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory while 5 different probes successfully landed on Mars, I've been to Stockholm to watch the King of Sweden award the Nobel prizes, and I've interviewed many of the world's top scientists: Jim Watson, Francis Crick, Carol Greider, Martine Reiss, Andrea Ghez, Roger Angel, Jennifer Doudna…you get the idea. I host a series called Joe’s Big Idea that focuses on the minds and motivations of scientists and inventors. The "Big Idea" is to present science not as a set of discoveries but a process of understanding. Most of the news media depict science lurching from breakthrough to breakthrough. I want to show the hard work, frustration, creativity, persistence and occasionally joy that truly represents what science is all about. Want to see what I’m up to and chat with me after this AMA? Message me and follow me on Facebook at Joe’s Big Idea. I will be back at 1 pm Et to answer your questions, Ask me anything. I am blown away by all the interesting questions. You have set the bar very high. I’ve been writing answers for a couple hours now, and if I could only type faster, I’d answer more. I hope this discussion we started today can continue. I’m very committed to accurate communication of science, and welcome thoughts, ideas, and critiques going forward. I’ll watch /r/Science for questions going forward, or you can get in touch via the Joe’s Big Idea Facebook page or joesbigidea@npr.org

For reasons which are understandable enough, Shakespeare's modern editors have decided that of Athens play in which, as David Bevington puts it, dramatic situation also unusually static for Shakespeare. Frank Kermode, in the most widely used college text, comments that a tragedy of ideas, much more schematic than Hamlet and adds that play was evidently designed to consist of two halves illustrating contrasting modes of excess. In spite of a cunning diversification of texture . . . the series of interviews between Timon's servants and false friends which constitutes the bulk of Act III shows how simple the scheme of the play is; and the second half consists of procession of visitors to static More recently, in chapter entitled Big Idea, John Bayley has been even more emphatic; claiming that 'big idea' does not [generally] go with Shakespearean tragedy, he considers to be an exception. There nothing in the least elusive about Timon. He the centre of his play and his point and function are equally unmistakable . . . the idea seems so tyrannical that the construction process has to be continued all the way. Two 'states,' of generosity and misanthropy, are necessary for displaying the point and drama of Timon: he moves from one to the other, and that the end of the matter. The language of the play brilliantly rhetorical, but mechanical nonetheless, while himself lacks inwardness, although his hurt touching. His violence, Bayley concludes, is never quite convincing, never rings and, instead of subtle character, we are left with a 'case'-of special sort-but sort that Shakespeare's sympathy can make us see and feel with.' Because Timon's dramatic structure has seemed to many as oversimplified as the character of himself, the play has often been called Morality, written possibly for an academic occasion. Timon [Shakespeare's] true morality play in the straight sense said A. S. Collins in 1946, and his argument has been elaborated by Anne Lancashire, Michael Tinker, Lewis Walker, and others.2 Yet the immediate source of Shakespeare's ideas about bounty and generosity has not been identified, although Geoffrey Bullough came close when he discussed Cicero's epistle to Laelius.3 More than any other play of Shakespeare's, indebted for its ideas

A Study on the Design and Possibilities of 'Big Ideas' in Art Education - Focused on 'Enduring ideas' in TETAC -

Why do poor and minority students under-perform in school? Do computer games help or hinder learning? What can new research in psychology teach our educational policy-makers?In this major new book, Gee tackles the 'big ideas' about language, literacy and learning, putting forward an integrated theory that crosses disciplinary boundaries, and applying it to some of the very real problems that face educationalists today.Situated Language and Learning looks at the specialist academic varieties of language that are used in disciplines such as mathematics and the sciences. It argues that the language acquisition process needed to learn these forms of language is not given enough attention by schools, and that this places unfair demands on poor and minority students.The book compares this with learning as a process outside the classroom, applying this idea to computer and video games, and exploring the particular processes of learning which take place as a child interacts with others and technology to learn and play. In doing so, Gee examines what video games can teach us about how to improve learning in schools and engages with current debates on subjects such as 'communities of practice' and 'digital literacies'.Bringing together the latest research from a number of disciplines, Situated Language and Learning is a bold and controversial book by a leading figure in the field, and is essential reading for anyone interested in education and language.

Teaching Secondary History provides a comprehensive introduction to the theory and practice of teaching History to years 7–12 in Australian schools. Engaging directly with the Australian Curriculum, this text introduces pre-service teachers to the discipline of History. It builds on students' historical knowledge, thinking and skills and offers practical guidance on how to construct well-rounded History lessons for students. From inquiry strategies and teacher- and student-centred practice, to embedding the cross-curriculum priorities in planning and assessment, this text supports the learning and development of pre-service History teachers by connecting the 'big ideas' of teaching with the nuance of History content. Each chapter features short-answer and Pause and think questions to enhance understanding of key concepts, Bringing it together review questions to consolidate learning, classroom scenarios, examples of classroom work and a range of information boxes to connect students to additional material.

The combination of research, regulation and precaution is all the generation has at its disposal as it seeks both to avoid unanticipated adverse consequences from new technologies for itself, and to do the right thing by way of its responsibilities to future generations. As far as sustainable development is concerned, it is that notion of intergenerational equity that marks it out from all those other notionally 'big ideas' that jostle for attention in today's febrile political marketplace. Theoretically, every government under the sun is signed up to that overarching understanding of sustainable development. The fast-moving consumer societies in the rich world are driven by an insatiable thirst for the new, for the next, for the neural numbing of life lived as a life-long shopping spree. And it is hard to ignore the fact that the emergence of today's increasingly sophisticated information and communication technologies has greatly exacerbated that consumerist frenzy.

Balancing it out: the process by which midwifery students provide care to women following stillbirth in Papua New Guinea

BackgroundInclusive research has sidelined discussion of theoretical issues with researchers with intellectual/learning disabilities. This is a situation which the Big Ideas initiative sought to change. Between 2021 and 2023, the Open University, Leipzig University and the University of Koblenz organised nine workshops to explore influential theories in disability research. The objective was to share a theory (Big Idea) that sheds light on disability with self‐advocates and discuss how it relates to their experience. By making theories accessible and discussing how they relate to lived experience, we aimed to inform self‐advocates and activist researchers about key concepts in disability, deepen their capacity for research and campaigning, and better equip them to activate for change.MethodsThe online workshops were evaluated by observers. These observations were used by an inclusive group of activist researchers as the basis for an overall evaluation of the project.FindingsPeople with learning disabilities can engage with complex theories if these are presented accessibly alongside opportunities for reflective discussion. Input from self‐advocates helps to broaden and deepen theoretical understanding.An unanticipated but important finding was that the Big Ideas workshops created a new space in which academics and self‐advocates could learn together as equals.ConclusionsMaking theory accessible and easier to understand is both possible and valuable.