shift

Framing for CCT Program, including the SICW track
Version 27 October 2014, Peter Taylor, with addendum 5 November 2014



The byline of CCT program reads: "Using critical and creative thinking to develop reflective practice as we change our work, learning and lives." Students come to the program with aspirations to move their work and other life projects in new directions or to a new level, or to clarify what they want their projects of professional and personal development to be. Given the wide range of students' interests, the Program cannot provide specialized training or faculty modeling and mentoring engagement in each student's area. Instead, as stated in the CCT overview:

The distinctive quality of the CCT/SICW education might be captured by an addition to the byline: "Using critical and creative thinking to develop reflective practice as we take the time it takes to change our work, learning and lives." In saying this, the Program recognizes that students and graduates make their work and lives in a context in which they increasingly have to be entrepeneurial, take charge of making and taking opportunities, and generate products--including themselves as employable products. Still, in order to make best use of the one's skills, experience, and aspirations, it is valuable to give oneself ample time for connecting, probing, reflecting, and creating (CPRC). In this spirit, CCT and SICW introduce students to many and varied CPRC tools and processes, principles and themes, which, over the course of 2-5 years in Program, students build into their own toolboxes and "studios" for lifelong learning and mindful practice (see goal 1 and second schema below). Taking the time it takes might be called a "slow" mode, one that complements and moderates a "move" mode emphasized in many professional development workshops and courses as well as, more generally, in the neo-liberal economy (see first schema below and video made by a student during a 2-3 week visit to New York City). To maintain CCT/SICW's strength in the slow mode, the Program has to push back politely against the idea that the CCT's mission is--or should be--to deliver well-packaged training (and TEDx talks, books etc.) in Critical Thinking, Creative Thinking, or how to train others to deliver such training.

ModesandFocus.jpg

(animated & narrated version of the schema)

Three areas to which the Program has begun to give more attention:
  1. Building supportive studios and other spaces for reflective practice (see schema below)
  2. Slow design
  3. Keeping up with the latest research on self-actualization, flow, and creativity

CCRPEd.jpg

Elaboration
Goal 1. Combine 'move' and 'slow' modes: Instructors acknowledge that students are making their work and lives in a context in which they increasingly have to be entrepeneurial, take charge of making and taking opportunities, generate products (including themselves as employable products). Instructors coach students in this "move" mode. At the same time, they coach students to establish a complementary "slow" mode in which they pause to take stock ("refract") before leaving one phase/project and moving to a new one and identify alternative paths so they are not simply driven by the context and its changes. CCT as "education for critical, creative and reflective practice" spread out over a period of 2-5 years ensures that the slow mode is not eclipsed by the move mode as it often is in the rest of life. Indeed, the Program involves contributes more to general tools and processes for the slow mode than it can to the specialized knowledge needed for individually specific projects.

Basic approach:
Students apply to the Program with a broad prospect for moving their work and lives along. More specific proto-projects are brought to the surface at the outset, then get developed, refashioned, refined -- in whole or in components -- through the program of studies.
The development of projects and prospects happens, in particular, through a collaborative exploration/PBL structure in many courses and through other assignments in which students are expected to stretch the topic so that it connects with and extends their own personal and professional interests.
At the same time, from the outset, students will be led to build "studios" for their work and to make good use of studio and workshop spaces. "Good use" includes
a) drawing on new knowledge provided by courses, for example, about creativity [the loop of arrows on the left of the schema],
b) exploring possibilities for taking their projects out to engage in the wider world, which includes building a constituency around projects and conducting evaluations of their engagements in the wider community in ways from which they can learn to improve [the loop of arrows on the right of the schema], and
c) most importantly, allowing time and space to take stock, shift direction, and possibly return to old projects with new insights.
"Studios" range from: i. a space for the practitioner or artist or professional to be focused on one’s own creative or generative work; to ii. a space where the practitioner or artist or professional works with apprentices; to iii. a space where teams work together on a project.

Goal 2: Recognize limits: Students recognize that instructors are also committed to building and maintaining supportive studios for their own research and engagement projects, which means students accept that instructors have to set limits on the time they give to teaching, administering, and program development, that the Program will always therefore be a work-in-progress, and that instructors and students alike are teaching/coaching/supporting the work of others that is beyond their areas of comfort and competency. This contrasts with expectations that instructors
a) are experts with a polished package of up-to-date knowledge to transmit,
b) are models of being in the trenches with students, making work and lives in the "move" mode, or
c) can take the Program to center stage in new "move" developments (whether that be MOOCs, TED talks, best selling books, etc.)

Basic approach:
a) Students will join a "virtual studio" for at least three semesters during their studies with every member taking responsibility for supporting each person's studio-building initiatives, including those of the faculty member and alum that will join with the 4-6 students in each studio. Each studio creates the guidelines they use about how often to meet (in online google hangouts), what processes to use during the meetings, how to bring in newcomers, how to take stock and revise the studio's processes, and how to share (e.g., in a google+ blog, http://bit.ly/CCRPgplus) what they are learning about ways to build and run supportive studio spaces.

b) "Connecting, Probing, Reflecting" Workshop in Woods Hole (5 days)
In the late spring each year, prospective and recently matriculated students may participate along with core instructors, alums, and other allies of the Program, in the New England Workshop on Science and Social Change (NewSSC, which does not require a science background). Participants come together to
For students, products will also include establishing or updating their Reflective Practitioner's Portfolio and a plan to connect their individual projects to the opportunities of the next two weeks:
c) Treasure hunt in the Boston area or back in one's home community (2 weeks)

Goal 3. Build 'vertical' community: by encouraging alums as well as students to participate from time to time in the slow mode activities:
a) The virtual studios,
b) NewSSC workshops at Woods Hole,
c) Collaborative Explorations, which are open to the wider world, and
d) the once-per-semester open house in which alums explain their work and reflect on how this has developed in relation to their CCT experiences (see Our Lives and Other Worlds series). It is hoped that some alums go on to propose CE topics and host some CEs.

Basic approach:
Time and energy of program administrators is focused on
a) teaching/learning/connecting in the collaborative exploration/PBL mode and
b) building and maintaining supportive studios for their own research and engagement projects, including publication (see goal 2, item a.). The connections made in that way, not initiatives in the "move" mode, provide the basis for recruitment outreach.

Addendum
Proposed changes to CCT publicity text indicated in blue

"Using critical and creative thinking to develop reflective practice as we take the time it takes to change our work, learning and lives."

The Critical and Creative Thinking (CCT) program at the University of Massachusetts Boston provides its students with knowledge, tools, experience, and support so they can become constructive, reflective agents of change in education, work, social movements, science, and creative arts.

Critical thinking, creative thinking, and reflective practice are valued, of course, in all fields. In critical thinking we seek to scrutinize the assumptions, reasoning, and evidence brought to bear on an issue-by others and by oneself; such scrutiny is enhanced by placing ideas and practices in tension with alternatives. Key functions of creative thinking include generating alternative ideas, practices, and solutions that are unique and effective, and exploring ways to confront complex, messy, ambiguous problems, make new connections, and see how things could be otherwise. In reflective practice we take risks and experiment in putting ideas into practice, then take stock of the outcomes and revise our approaches accordingly.

The rationale for a distinct Masters and Certificate program of study in CCT is that an explicit and sustained focus on learning and applying ideas and tools in critical thinking, creative thinking, and reflective practice allows students involved in a wide array of professions and endeavors to develop clarity and confidence to make deep changes in their learning, teaching, work, activism, research, and artistry. By giving themselves an extended period for connecting, probing, reflecting, and creating, CCT students are able to examine their work and lives and to design changes that make best use of their skills, experience, and aspirations. By the time their capstone projects are complete, they are prepared to teach or guide others in ways that often depart markedly from their previous schooling, professional development activities, collaborations, and other experience.

In these processes of transformation and transfer, CCT students have to select and adapt the ideas and tools presented by faculty with diverse disciplinary and interdisciplinary concerns. Although each CCT course is self-contained and is open to students from other graduate programs, students matriculated in CCT benefit from extended relationships with core CCT faculty and fellow students who support each other's process-learning and experimenting—taking risks in applying what they are learning, reflecting on the outcomes and revising accordingly, and building up a set of tools, practices, and perspectives that work in their specific professional or personal endeavors.