The visual arguments in Arrival.
We are wrapping up our third day of the Philosophy as a Way of Life workshop. We started the morning with a fantastic plenary session lead by Prof. Maria McKenna from Notre Dame's Program on Education, Schooling, and Society and Dept of Africana Studies. We talked through evidence and psychological models of emerging adulthood, with an eye towards building PWOL courses which will be responsive to student diversity and effective at leveraging cultural knowledge. The session was interactive and encouraged faculty to think in interdisciplinary ways about learning goals and classroom tactics.
After lunch, breakout sessions focused on three themes. One group tackled designing assessment processes for innovative PWOL assignments. Another group considered immersive philosophy games and their uses for encouraging argument in courses and exploring key texts and traditions. A final group considered how philosophy curricula interact with school missions, in particular schools navigating religious missions.
In the afternoon plenary, Prof Jim Collins (Chair of the Film, Television Theater Department at Notre Dame) lead a masterclass on the film Arrival. He taught us how to engage students with questions of time, freedom, and identity by using the film. We talked about comparative methods in philosophy and film studies, and the various ways that narrative and semiotics help us understand philosophical concepts. We also learned some techniques for drawing students into critical appreciation of philosophy in films.
After the conference we will be hosting an informal kickball tournament, hoping to foster community among our faculty participants and continue all of the conversations from the day.
Maria McKenna shares data on diversity and emerging adulthood.