Christopher Martin

University of Wisconsin – Green Bay

How to Succeed at Not Succeeding

(and still learn something from it)

Weekly Journals relating logical principles, arguments, or fallacies to my students’ lived

experiences will help them to better understand, appreciate, and utilize the various argumentative

techniques discussed in my course.

Weekly Journals AssignmentSome Examples:

My roommate referred to Macho Man Randy Savage in order to … and in so doing committed the genetic fallacy by …

My girlfriend made a faulty appeal to authority when …My boss displayed an awareness of physical possibility

when he fired me for …

Hypothesis I have yet to Support(and probably won’t):

Concept Comprehension

Basic Logical Principles

Applying Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy

Concept Comprehension Question Example:

What does it mean to characterize a person as a collection of ‘person-stages’?

Fallacy and ArgumentRecognition

Methodological Principlesof Arguments

Concept Comprehension

Basic Logical Principles

Applying Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy

Fallacy / Argument Recognition Question Example

What kind of argument is the following: “Many smaller creatures exhibit behaviors such as personal preferences or avoidance of pain. Because humans exhibit these same kinds of behaviors, and because we attribute them to our being conscious, it stands to reason that these smaller creatures are conscious.”

Argument Evaluation

Fallacy and ArgumentRecognition

Methodological Principlesof Arguments

Concept Comprehension

Basic Logical Principles

Applying Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy

Argument Evaluation Question Example

Suppose Sam attempts to persuade Gretchen that there is an afterlife by noting that if she refuses to believe in this then God will not save her, and she will then spend an eternal afterlife in Hell (or some such unpleasant state). Is Sam's argument persuasive?

Method: Compare Mean Difference per Question Type from Fall ‘12 to Spring ‘13

Argument Evaluation = .08

Fallacy and Argument Recognition = -.05

Methodological Principles = -.03

Concept Comprehension = .02

Basic Logical Principles = .01

First Conclusion: As evinced by their scores on

multiple-choice questions, either not enough time

has elapsed to determine whether weekly journals

assignments are helping students to better

understand and appreciate the efficacy of logical

thinking or, what is far worse, such exercises

simply do not help them to develop this skill.

Saving Grace: Weekly Journals helped students to write better composed and more informed essays on their Midterm Exam

Midterm Essay:

Fall 2012: 0.72

Spring 2013:

0.84

Difference: 0.12

Quiz 1 Quiz 2 Midterm0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0.3

0.35

0.4

0.45

0.5

Level 1Level 2Level 3Level 4Level 5

Epiphany: Am I asking too much too soon?

Future Intentions

(1) Better write and distribute quiz questions so as to move

upward, gradually, through Bloom’s taxonomy.

(2) Continue Weekly Journals.

(3) Structure earlier journal assignments to target concept

acquisition and build increasing degrees of argument

recognition and evaluation into later assignments .

(4) Pray that more writing eventually increases fallacy and

argument recognition and critical evaluation.

… but not my wife who REFUSED to help me cook the books in favor of my hypothesis (but who did

help with the Powerpoint Slides)

Thank you to Provost Wallace, OPID, and my fellow Teaching Fellows

and Scholars