Making It Their Own: Helping Students Define and Internalize Their Discipline
One of the primary goals of education is to give students the freedom to think for themselves, and to engage in the world of ideas through reading, writing, question-asking, discussion, and practice. This interactive presentation will discuss how students who are actively involved in defining the parameters of and the controversies within a discipline come to see themselves as part of the discipline. They become part of its dialogue and are therefore empowered in their ongoing learning and practice. Through exposure to the literature and theory of a discipline, and through discussion, they internalize it for future practice. Advances in technology and egalitarian pedagogies are leading us back to Western civilization's earliest education models, used by Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle.
Keywords: Guided Learning, Classroom Discussion, Educating Educators, From Theory to Practice, Constructivism, Role-set Theory, Sociology of Knowledge, Defining a Discipline, Pedagogy
Dr. Kathy Enger
Assistant Professor, School of Education, North Dakota State University
Professor, English Department, Minnesota State University, Moorhead