Syntactically branching out beyond the traditional classroom: A report on the discovery method

This article reports on the successful implementation of the DISCOVERY METHOD in an undergraduate Generative Syntax course. Rather than reading textbooks on syntactic analysis and doing exercises to apply what was read, students embark on a nine-stage learning cycle consisting of interactive, guided, and independent work. They engage with problem sets to build their own analyses of syntactic phenomena step by step. This method—meant to resemble the work of real-life scientists—allows students to hypothesize, experiment, and build knowledge from trial and error (Kolb 1984, Prince 2004). To measure the effectiveness of our pedagogy, we analyzed course evaluations submitted from 2012 to the present. Learner feedback shows that they find the assignments and activities helpful, that the course challenges them to think and learn, and that they consider the weekly write-ups demanding, yet highly beneficial for their learning.