News2014December
News from the Graduate Program in Critical & Creative Thinking
University of Massachusetts Boston23 December 2014
Student Matters
Spring 2015 courses are open for registration. Continuing students must register by December 31, 2014 to avoid late fees. Non-degree students may register through http://caps-courses.umb.edu/courses/spring/cr/gr/crcrth/.
Hybrid (note class numbers following each course; distance students should register for those labeled as online)
CRCRTH 615 Holistic and Transformative Teaching (Wednesdays 4:00-6:45pm / face-to-face:#7315 / online:#7314)
CRCRTH 652L Children and Science (emphasis on Conceptual Change and Learning) (Mondays 4:00-6:45pm / face-to-face:#7218 / online:#6783)
CRCRTH 653L Epidemiological Thinking and Population Health (Tuesdays 4:00-6:45pm / face-to-face:#7219 / online:#6784)
CRCRTH 688 Reflective Practice (first Monday of each month 6:30-9:00pm / face-to-face:#7220 / online:#6785)
CRCRTH 693 Action Research for Educational, Professional, and Personal Change (Wednesdays, 7:00-9:45pm / face-to-face:#7221 / online:#6786)
CRCRTH 694 Synthesis of Theory and Practice Seminar (Tuesdays, 7:00-9:45pm / face-to-face:#7222 / online:#6787)
Fully Online:
CRCRTH 602 Creative Thinking (#6780)
CRCRTH 616 Dialogue Processes (#6781)
Face-to-face:
WGS 597 Gender, Race & the Complexities of Science and Technology (inter-campus course, co-taught by Peter Taylor, meets at MIT, Thurs 4-7pm, place TBA (#13501); application form )
The Critical and Creative Thinking program is pleased to announce two new accelerated Bachelors-to-Masters programs that allow undergraduate students with majors within either the College of Liberal Arts or the Honors Program to get a CCT degree in 5 years. Participants can work toward the track in Critical and Creative Thinking or Science in a Changing World. While reaching 120 undergraduate credits for is required for graduate from a Bachelors program, the accelerated program allows a student to earn a Masters with only 140 credits (107 undergraduate, 33 graduate) and benefit from the engagement with other graduate students and faculty.
For more information:
Critical and Creative Thinking track: http://bit.ly/CCTBAMA
Science in a Changing World track: http://bit.ly/SICWBAMA
CCT Community
CCT Instructor Mark Robinson (instructor of CCT course Biomedical Ethics) has recently joined the faculty of the School for New Learning at DePaul University as Assistant Professor. Congratulations Mark!
UMass Boston announces the passing of Lisa Lavely, who served on the staff of the university for 25 years in roles as the Director of Graduate Admissions and Records, and then as Associate Registrar. Lisa retired in 2012 and continued to consult with the university until shortly before her death.
CCT Events
New England Workshop on Science and Social Change
Location: Old Fire Station, Woods Hole MA, USA*
Dates May 2015, 8:00am Sat. May 23 - 2:30pm Weds. May 27
Organizer: CCT Professor Peter Taylor
(*a limited number can participate from a distance via Google+ Hangout)
Full details, fees, and to register: http://sicw.wikispaces.com/newssc15
Applications via http://bit.ly/NewSSCa. Target date for applications: 31 January 2015.
In this five-day workshop participants will create spaces, interactions, and support in formulating plans to extend our own projects of inquiry and engagement around "Fostering Critical Thinking and Reflective Practice in Times of Crisis." A wide range of projects might fit under this intentionally broad topic, allowing, in 2015, for projects that are not directly related to science and society. Activities will, as they have at NewSSC since 2004, build on what the particular group of participants contribute and employ a range of tools and processes for "connecting, probing, and reflecting" so as to support and learn from each others' inquiries.
CCT Community Open Houses will continue in spring 2015. Look for announcements and schedules in next month's newsletter; events are planned for early February, March, April, and May (some online and some on campus at UMass Boston).
Check out next month's newsletter for information about the next Collaborative Exploration (CE), expected to begin in February 2015. These free, online learning experiences are open to all. Participants investigate critical and creative thinking in more specific contexts. A CE involves four 1-hour online meetings in Google+ Hangout spaced one week apart, with time in between the online meetings for independent investigation of the topic according to individual interest. The day and time of the online meetings will be determined based on availability of those who register early. For more information, see http://collabex.wikispaces.com/
Alum and CCT associates Notes
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
Graduate Consortium in Women’s Studies (GCWS) at MIT
Spring courses are open for registration. For more information, please see http://web.mit.edu/gcws/.
1) Gender, Race, and the Complexities of Science and Technology
Thursdays, 4:00 PM – 7:00 PM, February 5 - May 14, 2015, Meets at MIT
Faculty: Peter Taylor (CCT Professor), Kim Surkan
Science and Technology are relatively insulated from wider public deliberation -- art and literary criticism are familiar; but not "science criticism." Yet there is a large body of social interpretation of science and technology, to which feminist, anti-racist, and other critical analysts and activists have made significant contributions. Building on this work, this course sets out to challenge the barriers of expertise, gender, race, class, and place that restrict wider access to and understanding of the production of scientific knowledge and technologies. In this spirit, students participate in an innovative, problem-based learning approach that allows you to shape your own directions of inquiry and re-engage with yourselves as avid learners and inquirers. At the same time as you are developing critical faculties as investigators you are also learning tools and processes for teaching and engagement with wider communities. In these inquiries students are guided by individualized bibliographies co-constructed with the instructors and by the projects of the other students. Students from all fields and levels of preparation are encouraged to join and learn about gender, race, and the complexities of science and technology.
2) Feminist Inquiry
Mondays, 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM, February 2 - May 11, 2015, Meets at MIT
Faculty: Jo Trigilio, Sabina E. Vaught
Feminist Inquiry is a seminar designed to investigate the conceptual frameworks that inform practices of feminist interrogation, critique, analysis, and research across a range of disciplines. We will focus on epistemology and methodology: the types of questions asked, the assumptions that serve as foundation, the frameworks that structure the method of inquiry, the values and power relations inherent in particular approached, and the criteria used to determine what constitutes knowledge. Over the last 30 years, feminist epistemologists, theorists, and researchers have developed profound critiques of traditional constructions of Western knowledge and knowledge seeking. How are feminists to construct methods of inquiry that give voice to the multiply located perspectives of the marginalized without replicating the masculinist, racist, classist conceptual structures and methodologies that constitute traditional Western epistemologies? Different questions require different modes of inquiry. In this seminar we will examine the various paths explored by feminist scholars.
35th International Conference on Critical Thinking and Educational Reform
Theme: Cultivating World Justice and Freedom of Thought Through Educational and Social Reform
Sponsored by the Foundation for Critical Thinking
July 25-30, 2015
Berkeley, CA
Call for Proposals: http://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/call-for-proposals/1206?
Participant registration: http://www.criticalthinking.org/prelogin.php?redirect=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.criticalthinking.org%2Fstore%2Fevents%2Fregister_1.php%3Fid%3D477
ERPA International Congresses on Education
Theme: Interdisciplinary Research in Education
Jun 4-7, 2015
Athens, Greece
For full details, please visit http://www.erpacongress.com/
This conference aims to provide a highly positive intellectual experience for all the participants as a place where you discussed the issues and questions that count for your research, renewed relations with your colleagues and made contacts that helped you to develop new directions in your work. Official congress languages are English, Greek and Turkish.
Brief abstracts are being sought as part of a book that will be published based on conference proceedings.
Abstract Submission Deadline: 6 May 2015
Registration Deadline: 15 May 2015
Full Paper Deadline: 26 June 2015
2015 Creativity World Forum
March 31, 2015, Civic Center Music Hall, Oklahoma City
Registration: https://register.wciconferences.org/ehome/index.php?eventid=107848&mc_cid=63d6105e48&mc_eid=f23c111032
Creative Oklahoma (http://stateofcreativity.com/) is excited to announce registration for the 2015 Creativity World Forum, "All Our Futures: Ideas That Matter," is now open!
We invite you to join Creative Oklahoma as we welcome back internationally recognized leader and speaker on the importance of creativity in educating today’s workforce, Sir Ken Robinson. He will return to Oklahoma for our ten-year anniversary after serving as national advisor to the startup of Creative Oklahoma in 2005. Along with Sir Ken Robinson, Creative Oklahoma is also excited to welcome our other Forum speakers including Michael Strautmanis of the Walt Disney Corporation, Stephan Turnipseed of LEGO Education and Jamie Gallagher of Faber-Castell USA.
Opportunities
Extended Call For Proposals: “Breaking Futures: Imaginative (Re)visions of Time”
Deadline: January 5, 2015
Join us for the 13th annual conference hosted by the graduate students of the IU Department of English to be held at Indiana University, Bloomington on March 26-28, 2015.
“Breaking Futures: Imaginative (Re)visions of Time” invites scholars from the humanities, sciences, education, law, and public health to explore the diverse meanings of the future across texts, methodologies, and time periods. How do some futures “break” by intruding on the present? How are others “broken?” How do genre, discipline, and methodology impact representations of, expectations for, and prescience regarding the future? What do local, national, and global futures look like from the vantage point of higher education’s shifting landscape?
Please submit (both as an attachment AND in the body of the email) an abstract of no more than 250 words along with a few personal details (name, institutional affiliation, degree level, email, and phone number) by our extended deadline, January 5, 2015, to iugradconference@gmail.com.
Our complete CFP is located at iugradconference.blogspot.com
Resources
Video recordings from IDEAS UMass Boston 2014 are now available for all speakers. View them here:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0DisQjzQhFpkMcax3wlaQIhfMls-3SbC
The Mycelium School offers The Learning Journey as a 12-week program that engages participants in developing their work and life projects and helping them access personalized coaching and a supportive community for entering new experiences and levels of work. For more information:
http://mycelium.is/learningjourney/
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)
From Parker Palmer's Let Your Life Speak, p. 54
"Each time a door closes, the rest of the world opens us. All we need to do is stop pounding on the door that just closed, turn around-which puts the door behind us-and welcome the largeness of life that now lies open to our souls. The door that closed kept us from entering a room, but what now lies before us is the rest of reality."
To Watch:
Abilities Expo: FreeWheel - Wheelchair Attachment
Flow, the secret to happiness
Headis: Use Your Head with this sport
To Read:
New Republic's 100 Years, 100 Thinkers
There’s More Than One Way to Be Good at Math
10 times science ruled in 2014
Dazzling Images of the Brain Created by Neuroscientist-Artist
Design Against Crime: Addressing crime through socially-conscious design
How 3-D Printing Will Change Education
STEM + Art: A Brilliant Combination
Habits of Mind: Why college students who do serious historical research become independent, analytical thinkers
Building A _____ Learning Movement
Incredible Snow Art Created By Foot
Mycelium: A Resource and Community for Supporting Your Learning Journey
Leonardo Da Vinci’s To Do List (circa 1490)
Uneven Growth: Tactical Urbanisms for Expanding Megacities
Despite Fines and Prison Time, Parents Keep Jumping School Boundaries for a Quality Education
The 21 Most Creative Job Titles
This Reusable Paper Saves Trees and Prints Using Ultraviolet Light
Scientists create 'dry water'
The 5 Coolest Things About The Revamped Smithsonian Design Museum
Science Shows Art Can Do Incredible Things for Your Mind and Body
Pedal-Powered Pod Cars: Public Transit Alternative
The hybrid electronic bike of the future
When the Art Is Watching You
The STEM Crisis Is a Myth
Why are Women Leaving Science, Engineering, and Tech Jobs?
HumorTurtles: On Kindness
Signs of the times:
source: http://cdn.happyplace.com/assets/images/2014/04/534f1be6c875e.jpg
source: http://cdn.someecards.com/someecards/filestorage/jWeJncvqhjx.png
source: http://i.imgur.com/YEjGWUG.jpg