The Center for Learning and Teaching, the History department and the Associate Provost for International Programs cordially invite you to participate in a two-day workshop on Teaching and Learning through ‘Reacting to the past’. This is an innovative pedagogy which consists of elaborate games, set in the past, where students are assigned roles in which they must persuade others that “their” views make more sense than those of their opponents, thereby motivating and empowering students to engage with primary sources and key philosophical, historical, and scientific subjects.

As a participant in this workshop you will have the opportunity to participate in two games in order to experience firsthand what a powerful learning tool role plays can be and to better understand what students experience in a role play game.  Mini versions of two games have been chosen with your particular academic interests in mind: The Threshold of Democracy:  Athens in 403 B.C and The Trial of Galileo. 

The workshop will take place on Friday Feb 1st and Saturday Feb 2nd 2008. 

Because the workshop will be limited to 20 participants, we would like you to sign up as soon as possible should you wish to participate. For this please send an email to clt@aucegypt.edu
Materials for the workshop will be available for you to pick up at the Center for Learning and Teaching in early January (Room 212A, New Falaki).

For more information on the “Reacting to the Past” pedagogy you can go to
 http://www.barnard.columbia.edu/reacting/index.htm

Workshop Agenda:
Day 1 (Feb. 1st 2008): The Threshold of Democracy: Athens in 403 B.C.
Day 2 (Feb. 2nd 2008): The Trial of Galileo

Preparation:  All participants should read the following, in addition to their assigned role sheets for each game

Day 1:  Ober, Josiah and Mark C. Carnes.  The Threshold of Democracy: Athens in 403 B.C.  Third Ed.  New York: Longman, 2004.

Plato.  The Republic.  Trans. Desmond Lee.  Second Ed.  New York: Penguin, 2003.

Day 2:  Purnell, Frederick Jr., Michael S. Pettersen, and Mark C. Carnes.  The Trial of Galileo: the “New Cosmology” versus Aristotelianism and the Catholic Church, 1616-1633.  New York: Longman, 2007; paying special attention to Aristotle’s On the Heavens (Appendix B) and Galileo’s Starry Messenger (Appendix D) and Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina (Appendix E).