Signs and Symbols in Education

Semiotics is the science of signs and symbols, it focuses on meaning making processes. "Signs & Symbols in Education: Educational Semiotics" is a highly original work of scholarship, helpful to semioticians, teacher educators, and all those interested in how professionals learn through experience. The author, François Victor Tochon, is professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In four ingeniously designed studies, Francois Victor Tochon demonstrates how semiotic analysis can be used to deconstruct the professional learning experiences of preservice teachers. Educational Semiotics is truly a groundbreaking work on a number of fronts. In a concise and brilliant introductory comments, Tochon debunks the potential notion that semiotics might provide yet another methodological tool in the toolkit of educational researchers. He shows how fundamentally different semiotic research can be when compared to the modes and techniques that have dominated educational research for decades. Tochon (pronounce 'touch on') offers us a sampling of practical teaching and research tools based in semiotic principles that help move education away from fixed methods imposing best practices and rigid standards. Tochon is pointing the way to a new field of endeavor that he has termed Educational Semiotics. He raises contemporary questions about the search for meaning and the processes through which we make meaning. Learning is meaning-making, in all levels of life. The implications of this work are profound and their potential for further investigation is enormous.