CCT News

27 March 2011

See also previous news, alum news and exchanges, upcoming news, and CCT calendar.
Inform cct@umb.edu if you have news OR want to be emailed when there's a new news compilation (no more than once/month) OR want to be removed from such mailings.

Contents: Student matters, CCT community, CCT events, alums, other events, opportunities, resources, food for thought, humor

Student Matters


CCT Master's Degree can now be completed from a distance over a 2.5 year period (both the regular track and the new Science in a Changing World track). The UMB Faculty Council has approved the change that allows this. Prospective students wishing to take the regular track are encouraged to come to Boston to begin the degree with the face2face courses of the July summer institute (actually starting June 27 this year). If that is not possible, try to take the 2-day Reflective Practice course on July 15-16 to be brought into the CCT community. Note: CrCrTh 655 can substitute for required course 651 Cognitive Psychology.

Registration begins on March 28th for CCT Summer courses and April 4th for CCT Fall courses.
July Summer Institute Face to face:
CRCRTH 655 "Metacognition," M-Th 1:00pm-4:00pm, June 27-July 14, Class #1853
CRCRTH 601 "Critical Thinking," M-Th 5:00pm-8:00pm, June 27-July 14, Class #1607
CRCRTH 618 "Creative Thinking, Collaboration and Organizational Change," Fr, Sa July 8-23, 9:00am-4:15pm, Class #1048
CRCRTH 688 "Reflective Practice" Fr, Sa, July 15-16, 9:00am-4:15pm (students can be brought in from a distance)
Online:
CRCRTH 612 ONLINE "Seminar in Creative Thinking", theme: "creative realization of ideas: exploring elemental awareness and customized constructs," May 31-July 13, Class #1296
CRCRTH 619 ONLINE "Biomedical Ethics," online, July 18-Aug 25, Class #1575
CRCRTH 688 -- see above.

CCT Marathon Day, Monday April 18th, 10-5pm, in W-2-157
This is a day for students to get faculty and peer input and support to finish their syntheses and incompletes.
It is also a day for you to initiate or advance your Reflective Practice /Metacognitive Portfolio; see http://www.cct.umb.edu/rpp. Each Master's student is required to develop a Portfolio through their program of studies. Please RSVP to cct@umb.edu if you plan to attend.

CCT Community

Friday, April 15, 2011: Deadline to apply for the Delores Gallo fund
The Delores Gallo fund (established on the occasion of her retirement) invites proposals for funding small projects of CCT students and alums, e.g., to bring in guests to your classes, initiate a new creative project, prepare your writing/photography/etc. for publication, buy materials for your classroom...
More info at: http://www.cct.umb.edu/gallofund.html

CCT Events

CCT Community Open House-- Rescheduled from snowed-out Feb. 1
Reflecting and Connecting for Lifelong Learning: Celebrating the Accomplishments of CCT
Tuesday, March 29; 6:45- 9:00pm
Campus Center 03-3540. Email cct@umb.edu to RSVP and for additional details. Refreshments will be served.
Come meet the CCT community! For this special open house, we'll start off the spring semester of 2011, we'll discuss successes and challenges and hear from a number of part-time and other faculty about their experiences with the CCT program.

Student presentations, March 31, 3.30-6pm, from the cross-campus course on Gender, Race & the Complexities of Science & Technology, co-taught by Peter Taylor and Sally Haslanger using a PBL format, http://www.stv.umb.edu/grst/CaseFamilies.html -- Has genomics reconfigured family and kinship? Visitors welcome (in person or by skype). At MIT, Bldg 56 Room 180

CCT Community Open House: Stories of Care Given and Received
Monday, April 4th; 6:45- 9:00pm
Wheatley W04-0148 (4th floor lounge). Email cct@umb.edu to RSVP and for additional details. Refreshments will be served.
Join us in a conversation about caregiving and its many dimensions -- including the medical, spiritual, financial, social, and physical. Based on Betsy Campbell's own experience as a full-time caregiver for a terminally-ill parent, she will guide us in a whole-group discussion about our own experiences as caregivers (and receivers) and the meanings that we associate with these experiences.

When the Social, not the Medium, is the Message: A Workshop on Community-building and Research Collaboration in Virtual Spaces
April 25, 2011 - 9am to 5:30pm, UMass Boston - Campus Center Room 1313
Hosted by Science in a Changing World graduate track,
with special guest, Marius Foley, Professional Practice Coordinator, School of Media and Communication, RMIT University, Australia
REGISTER (it's free)

Alum and CCT associates Notes

Ben Schwendener is organizing musicians at Night Song each Sunday through May to offer jazz as prayer, or to put it another way - as a vehicle to transport the listeners into a realm of tranquility, meditation, and introspection, http://www.nightsong.org/jazz.shtml

Events

Invention to Venture Workshop
Wednesday, April 13, 2011, 11:30 AM to 5 PM (with a mixer to follow 5 to 7 pm)
University of Vermont, http://www.invention2venture.org/vermont11/

Advancing Teacher Quality
UMass Boston Curriculum and Instruction (C&I) Department Spring Symposium
Saturday, May 14th, 9am-1pm (various locations throughout campus, TBD)
Attend presentations and panel discussions involving faculty, alumni, and students from throughout the Curriculum and Instruction department as we learn about accomplishments across the department and share resources and discussion related to advancing teacher quality.

Fifth Annual Educational Technology Conference
Sponsored by IT, CIT, and the Healey Library
Thursday, May 12 at UMass Boston, various locations throughout campus.
Registration details and complete schedule to be announced.
Presentations and talks on many areas of educational technology by faculty, staff, and students.
This conference will be combined with presentations planned originally for the January 2011 Center for the Improvement of Teaching’s “Teaching for Transformation" conference, which was canceled due to bad weather.

Opportunities


Resources


Food for Thought

Past medical testing on humans revealed

Dog loyalty after tsunami

Humor

Mt. Rushmore by google

listen to the story at 3m38s into the talk

Lonely hearts, a letter to New Scientist magazine, 16 March 2011
"I was pondering why the Neanderthals might have died out. Close inspection of New Scientist's illustrations past and present suggests the cause was a singular lack of females."
Katka Kessler