News from the Graduate Program in Critical & Creative Thinking
University of Massachusetts Boston26 April 2019
Student Matters
Current students and recent alums are encouraged to complete this brief survey in response to a draft of a proposed name change to the CCT program.
Summer 2019 courses open for registration. For course details, see the descriptions, and enroll through WISER (current students) or here, for non-degree registration.
CrCrTh 612 Seminar in Creativity (Theme: Creative Realization of Ideas)
Synchronous Online, May 28 - July 11, 2019.
Register for class #2222.
CrCrTh 618 Creative Thinking, Collaboration, and Organizational Change
All-day workshops on Friday and Saturday over three consecutive weeks.
9:00am-4:15pm, July 12-13, July 19-20, July 26-27, 2019; Format: Hybrid (on campus, with option for online participation).
Register for class #2225.
CrCrTh 619 Biomedical Ethics
Online, July 15 - August 22, 2019. Register for class #2224.
CCT Community
The CCT program has recognized students completing their capstone work for the spring 2019 Convocation/Graduation Awards. Congratulations to all!
Lauren Taub: Critical and Creative Thinking Award for Personal and Professional Development
Casey Andrews: Delores Gallo Award for Creative Development and Outreach
Janelle Burley Hofmann: nomination as student speaker at graduate commencement
Taking Yourself Seriously: A Fieldbook of Processes of Research and Engagement (revised & expanded), by Peter Taylor & Jeremy Szteiter) is now available. This book presents a wide range of tools and processes for research, writing, and collaboration to help those in all fields develop as researchers, teachers, facilitators, and agents of change. Available for purchase here.
The CCT program is pleased to annouce a new partnership with the Kodály Music Institute. See more details below under Opporunities.
This upcoming spring marks the 40th anniversary of the CCT Program and will be celebrated by a one-day conference. See below under Events.
CCT Events
CCT Community Open House Event: Spring 2019 Presentations by CCT StudentsMay 6, 2019Presentations ongoing throughout the day between 12:00noon and 9:30pm. Join or leave the Zoom conference at any time using this link. See the event page for full schedule and other presentation details.This event includes presentations by students in Critical and Creative Thinking program completing major projects toward their capstone requirement as they finish the MA degree program. All are welcome to attend, including prospective students and all others in the university community. Contact cct@umb.edu to RSVP (optional) or for more information.
Sunday, May 5, 2019, 8:45am-5:15pm in Arlington, MA, with evening reception/dinner to follow for local participants who can join. Late registration welcome, including those attending only dinner hours.
Journeys: Changing Our Schools, Workplaces, and Lives
A conference-workshop to mark 40 years of the Graduate Program in Critical & Creative Thinking
Participate in person or online. Open to all.
During this one-day conference-workshop, we will create spaces,
interactions, and support that help us recognize and extend the changes
that we—students, alums, faculty, and associates from CCT's 40
years—have made in our schools, workplaces, and lives.
Preparing for and participating in this conference-workshop will provide
an opportunity to reflect on ways that developing as a critical,
creative and reflective practitioner is like a journey into unfamiliar
areas—journeying involves risk, opens up questions, creates more
experiences than can be integrated at first, requires support, and
yields personal and professional change. See the web site for more details and as new information is added.
Alum and CCT associates Notes
Current students and recent alums are encouraged to respond to this survey in response to a draft of a proposed name change to the CCT program.
CCT alums and associates are encouraged to send items of interest to
the Critical and Creative Thinking community to be included in future
newsletters. Please submit events, announcements, and opportunities
through this form: http://bit.ly/CCTSICWi
Events
Upcoming events and activities on campus and throughout Boston in support of the Cherish Act, which addresses the funding of higher education in the state of Massachusetts:
April 30th at 10:00 a.m. in room A1 at the State House in Boston the Legislature’s Joint Committee on Higher Education will be holding a public hearing on the Cherish Act. The Debt-free college bills (for students) will also be heard.
Please RSVP here: https://actionnetwork.org/events/hearing-on-the-cherish-act
May 2, 12 noon: Legislative Lunch in Ballroom A, campus center. Discuss the Cherish Act with legislators, discuss how the budget cuts have affected you, and get support for this legislation.
May 16th – Rally & Day of Action. We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to repair the persistent funding inequality that exists in our schools. In mid-May legislators will be in the middle of their annual budget debate and they will be thinking about how much money they can put into our schools, colleges and universities. Come to Boston to show legislators that they must deliver legislation that fully funds our schools now. The Massachusetts Teachers Association is organizing a full afternoon of events from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. at the State House, including a teach-in, followed by a major rally and march around the State House starting at 5 p.m.
RSVP here for the 5/16 #FundOurFuture Rally at the State House
Conference: Online Learning Consortium (OLC) Collaborate
June 4, 2019, San Diego
Vision 2029: Reimagining the Future of Digital Learning
Hosted by Ashford University
The Online Learning Consortium and partner institution Ashford University invite you to engage in Vision 2029: Re-imaging the Future of Digital Learning. Join us as we explore our shared responsibility as educators to meet our diverse and changing student populations where they are, and to improve student success in online and digital learning. The San Diego Collaborate will host thought leaders who will provoke and inspire participants.
For registration and conference information, see the web site.
The Greater Good Science Center Summer Institute for Educators 2019
July 14-19, 2019 at Clark Kerr Campus, UC Berkeley
A six-day workshop for education professionals that will transform their understanding of themselves and their students. Focused on PreK-12 educators.
The GGSC Summer Institute for Educators we focus on the well-being and personal growth of educators first. We believe that the more you deepen your knowledge and practice of these concepts, the better you’ll be able to deliver them to the students you serve. How do we do this? We start with the creation of a safe learning environment in which to question and perhaps re-shape our beliefs, assumptions, values, and practices around the educational process and our role in it. GGSC facilitators and guest faculty then integrate the science of social-emotional learning, mindfulness, character education, and other areas of prosocial human development, exploring with participants how this science can be woven into the DNA of schools, including school relationships, adult self-care, school climate, and academic content. We hope you'll join us for this inspiring, thought-provoking, and transformational week! Ultimately, participants will leave empowered with cutting-edge, science-based strategies, tools, and processes to adapt and share with students and adults in schools.
See the web site for information on costs and applying.
The 2019 National Conference on Student Leadership (NCSL)
November 22–24 in Orlando, Florida
In this conference we seek to inspire student leaders to dream more, learn more, do more and become more. We take leadership beyond a functionary title by exciting students with the vision of becoming positive change agents and leadership role models. With additional offerings to benefit advisors, NCSL offers a transformational learning opportunity for all attendees that will directly benefit your campus.
For fees, registration, and conference details, see the web site.
The CCT program is pleased to annouce a new partnership with the Kodály Music Institute. Students studying for the Kodály Music Institute (KMI) Certificate are welcome to apply to the Master's (M.A.) in Critical & Creative Thinking at UMass Boston. The combination of KMI and CCT allows music educators not only to become proficient in their field, but to reflect on practice, shape lifelong learning, and foster more self-conscious critical and creative thinking skills in others (as emphasized in standards for arts education), especially through writing to ensure subject matter understanding.
The Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility has released their 2019 Earth Day Lesson Collection, including 19 interactive lesson plans on everything from the Green New Deal to water use, using strategies ranging from classroom reading and discussion to analyzing photos and tweets, videos, and hands-on activities for younger ones. See the lesson compilation (PDF format).
The Foundation for Critical Thinking is currently offering 50% off of a number critical thinking resources, such as books, DVDs, and posters. Visit their online store to see what is available, while supplies last.
Food for Thought
(additional web links and posts can also be found on CCT's Diigo pages. General critical and creative thinking focus: https://groups.diigo.com/group/ccreflect; Science in a Changing World focus: https://groups.diigo.com/group/sicwumb)
Video:
Signing swear words: the stand-up comic bringing deaf culture to hearing people (Aeon)
Articles:
Beyond the Narrative Arc (The Paris Review)
The Jazz of Physics: Cosmologist and Saxophonist Stephon Alexander on Decoding the Song of the Universe (Brain Pickings)
https://www.brainpickings.org/2019/03/25/the-jazz-of-physics-stephon-alexander/
The Power (Relations) of Citizen Science (Civic Laboratory for Environmental Action Research)
A helpful chart to explain the difference between support and 'toxic positivity.’ (GOOD)
100 Solutions to Reduce Global Warming (Drawdown)
Mathematical thinking presents teachers and students with new challenges (The Learner’s Way)
Moving from Recipes to Projects (John Spencer)
Katie Bouman and the Black Hole That Made Her Famous (The Atlantic)
Why humor is an essential life skill (Big Think)
Snowplow parenting: The latest controversial technique (Today’s Parent)
Boston Creates Cultural Plan: A Plan for Action: Five Goals, Ten Years (Boston Creates)
Neurons as Art: See Beautiful Anatomy Drawings by the Father of Neuroscience, Santiago Ramón y Cajal (Open Culture)
It looks like human beings might be Good Samaritans after all (Aeon)
Humor
Lemoga: Yoga With Lemurs (Huffington Post)