about the journal

inventio is a project of the Division of Instructional and Technology Support Services (DoIT) at George Mason University.

The journal's name — inventio — is taken from the first of the five arts of classical rhetoric: thinking out the subject, identifying the issue at question, exploring the means of persuasion. We hope that the journal will be a source of just this kind of creative thinking about learning and teaching.

With initial sponsorship from the College of Arts and Sciences, the Graduate School of Education, and New Century College, DoIT published a special first issue in February 1999, to focus on the theme — The Scholarship of Teaching — part of George Mason's participation in the Carnegie Foundation's Teaching Academy program. Invited contributors from the University addressed definitions of the scholarship of teaching and looked at ways that campus practices, policies, and conditions work for or against a scholarship of teaching.

Regular issues, one each semester, feature peer-reviewed articles on instructional research, instructional philosophy, pedagogy, learning theory, and other significant issues related to excellence in learning and teaching. In addition to these feature articles, inventio also includes shorter articles on classroom practice and response and dialog sections about issues raised in the feature articles.

While inventio initially focussed on the George Mason community, in Spring 2001 the journal published its first national issue under the guest editorship of Carnegie Scholar Charles Carter (of Seton Hall University). In subsequent issues, DoIT hopes to build this peer-reviewed publication into a nationally respected journal.

  about the photo

Cover Photo by Nick Cahill, "Temple of Hera at Akragas" courtesy of the Perseus Project used with permission.

  about the designer

inventio page design by Kerin Seward, George Mason University.

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