Glossing over controversies and unresolved issues is a necessary evil in undergraduate courses. There is often not time to provide the context to appreciate subject area nuances.
As a result, sometimes undergraduates perceive a subject area as more static than it truly is. They falsely believe al the interesting and assessable questions have all been answered.
I try to avoid that cognitive trap by applying the "Past, Present, and Future" heuristic. For any given issue, I briefly cover past perspectives. I spend a majority of the time on the present, bookended with a discussion of possible future directions. This encourages the students to realize that knowledge is not static and they have the potential to contribute.
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