Linguistics and the Language Sciences: New Computer Based Methods and Materials for Undergraduate Education

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DUE-9653366 PI: Barbara Lust Cornell University - Endowed Title: Linguistics and the Language Sciences: New Computer Based Methods and Materials for Undergraduate Education This proposal is to conduct a 6-day Workshop at the national Linguistic Society of America biennial meeting, to be held in Summer 1997, at Cornell University. At this workshop, which is expected to attract between 500-700 linguists, including both faculty and students, the major goals are to (i) provoke rethinking of current approaches to undergraduate education in linguistics; (ii) redirect attention to the fundamental properties of linguistics as a science, and as a medium for teaching essential concepts of scientific inquiry; (iii) introduce, disseminate and exchange current developments involving computer assisted teaching materials which foster this essential aspect of the field of linguistics. Participants will be able to gain experience with these recent teaching materials through the use of a newly equipped network of computer labs at Cornell. Within the last decade, a number of curricular efforts have emerged that attempt to utilize linguistics as a vehicle for undergraduate science teaching. This project will bring together a number of these efforts, introducing their design philosophy and results to a wider audience. Three current projects will be featured in curricular part of this workshop. The project called "Grammar as Science" started by Professor Richard Larson at SUNY-Stony Brook is one of these. This has reached the point of publishing software called Semantica and Syntactica for high school seniors and lower division undergraduates, which is available now through MIT Press. A second focal point is the Teacher Training Program at Wheelock College -- a participant in the Boston Collaborative for Excellence in Teacher Preparation, and one of the largest producers of K-12 teachers in Massachusetts. This program is focused on the objective of discovering how implicit knowledge of languag e can be used to develop an explicit grasp of the constructivist nature of scientific inquiry. This is being done by developing the use of linguistics as a tool for teaching scientific inquiry to 7th to 11th graders, and teaching undergraduates preparing for teaching careers in this method. The third project to be featured will be the Cornell University Network of Language Labs in the Cognitive Studies Program, which has been supported by an ILI grant from the NSF. This program is currently seeking to coordinate the study of linguistics with related subfields of Cognitive Studies -- psychology, computer science, and philosophy, by developing a unified, laboratory-based curriculum.