The Center for Teaching and Learning has three main events series for the 2009-2010 academic year: Argument Across the Disciplines; Talking Teaching and Learning -- Brown Bag Lunches; and the New Faculty Seminars. All except the New Faculty Seminars are open to any member of the Trinity faculty. The events are listed below.
I. "I Came Here for an Argument" -- "No You Didn't": Argument and Evidence Across the Disciplines. A Year-Long Investigation
The humor of the Monty Python sketch “The Argument Clinic” (from which we take our title) rests on a basic disagreement between the protagonists about what an argument is. The consultant claims an argument is, or “can be,” just contradiction – perhaps the sense “argument” takes on when we go at it with our loved ones! The client, in contrast, insists that an argument is “a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.” They never come to an agreement about what an argument is, and the sketch terminates with a deus ex machina.
In the academic world, our sympathies surely lie with the client – an “argument” is a series of statements, supported by “facts” and “evidence”, intended to establish a proposition. But do we all mean the same thing when we speak of this species of argument? Do practitioners of various disciplines, from mathematics to English, all agree on what constitutes evidence and facts? Do we all put the pieces of our arguments together in the same way? Do we agree on what establishes a proposition? And perhaps most important, do we communicate our expectations clearly to our students? And do they understand the differences among disciplines, so that they can navigate varying expectations as they move through their career at Trinity?
“Argument and Evidence across the Disciplines” explores these questions through a Common Hour lecture in September followed by a series of panels and round-tables featuring short presentations by members of the Trinity Faculty followed by discussion.
Lecture and Workshop – Thursday, September 24, lecture at Common Hour by Greg Colomb, English Department, University of Virginia: “Thinking Critically in an Argument Culture”; reception at CTL 4.30-6 pm. Friday, September 25, workshop.
Workshop I – “Fair Argument as a Classroom Tool”, Greg Colomb (Friday, September 25, 2009)
In this workshop we will look at ways to use the structures of argument to focus class discussion, to foster critical thinking, to manage difficult and controversial topics, and to use what happens in class to prepare students to write more engaged and more thoughtful papers.
Workshop II – Formulating a Question (Tuesday, October 13, 2009)
Every argument starts with a proposition – a question, a hypothesis, a claim. How do you formulate a question that leads to a fruitful, rich argument? How do you avoid stale or dead-end questions – and how do you tell the difference? Are there rules for asking questions that vary from discipline to discipline?
Workshop III – Evidence (Wednesday, November 18, 2009)
What constitutes a piece of “evidence”? Is evidence categorically different in different disciplines?
Workshop IV – The Aesthetics of Argument (Date and Time TBA)
Is an argument better for being more beautiful? What is beauty or elegance in an argument? Do physicists and literary critics mean the same thing when they seek elegance and beauty in their arguments?
Workshop V – Designing and Assessing Assignments (Date and Time TBA)
Workshop VI – Bringing It Into the Public Sphere (Date and Time TBA)
Brown Bag Lunch Series
This informal series provides an opportunity for faculty to get together and talk about questions of teaching and learning of immediate (or long-term) interest. For the Fall Semester they are held Wednesdays, 12-1, in the CTL Library (Mason Room, Smith House).
September 30 -- Plagiarism. Discussion facilitated by Jeff Bayliss and John Mertens.
October 21
December 2
If you have a topic to suggest or would like to facilitate a discussion, please contact Dina Anselmi or Gary Reger.
New Faculty Seminars
These seminars, open only to new tenure-track faculty, take place in the Fall Semester Mondays, 3-5 pm, on September 14, October November 16, and December 14.