Friday, October 26, 2012
Talking About Knowledge and Ways of Knowing
12:00 - 2:00 pm LIB 302A
Epistemology
is a word that is challenging to pronounce, let alone discuss with our student.
And yet it lies at the core of our role as university professors. Irrespective
of our discipline, the content we deliver in our classrooms as well as the
manner in which we deliver it, reflects our own taken-for-granted assumptions
about what knowledge is, what is knowable, how knowledge is acquired, and
which forms of knowledge are best suited for directing action in the world.
For many of us, epistemological questions rarely arise within the confines of
our classrooms. For others, however, the questions pertaining to how we know
what we know, which forms of knowledge are privileged, and which forms
of knowledge merit inclusion in public discourse present themselves on a
regular basis. How can faculty respond to such challenges? This session will
focus on the use of one technique - structured debate - faculty can use to
facilitate student engagement and classroom discussion, surface the implicit
epistemological assumptions of the discipline, and clarify the advantages and
limitations of different ways of knowing.
Register Here
A Ford
Foundation grant allowed UAA and APU to create a
nationally-recognized book, Start Talking: A Handbook for Engaging
Difficult Dialogues in Higher Education, which addresses themes of academic
freedom; classroom safety; rhetoric and debate; race, class and culture;
science and religion; and business, politics and social justice. The
book is designed to serve as a manual for faculty who wish to strengthen
their teaching and engage students more effectively in conversations about the
most important issues of our time. 
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