Rhetoric Soup |
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A Suggestion for Strategic Pedagogical Framework: Knowing, Doing, Making |
In Aristotle for Everybody, Mortimer J. Adler outlined some Aristotelean concepts in chapters titled “Man the Knower,” "Man the Doer,” and “Man the Maker.” Adler's thoughts on theoretical, practical, and productive reasoning prompted me to think about how these ideas find place in teaching. While Adler might shudder at my shameless appropriation, I have found a strategy based on these ideas to be helpful in situating course learning.
I see students as knowers, doers, and makers, and try to structure attention to each in planning course engagement. The simple framework is as follows: Knowing: Students need to know material about the topic on which they are working. This usually comes in the form of readings and lectures. Doing: Students should “play” with the ideas they have learned in the Knowing stage, questioning, conjecturing, problematizing, and imagining the application and ramification of ideas in form of proposals, drafts, exemplars, and creative works. Making: Students should produce something that expresses their knowledge of the material, and their process of “playing/working” with the ideas. This production can take the shape of finished papers, projects, and presentations. Not all topics or units in a course will have the same weight placed on each of these areas, but having a view to integrate these three areas opens up opportunities to leverage student interest and provoke thinking in new ways. |
Sample lecture portion from "Storytelling: Narratives Across Media" Online Course
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Mini-lecture on "Hitchcock as Tech Innovator" for Turner Classic Movies & Ball State Summer Course
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