News2015November
News from the Graduate Program in Critical & Creative Thinking
University of Massachusetts Boston13 November 2015
Student Matters
Spring 2016 Courses
Registration for spring 2016 courses is open for continuing and non-degree students. Continuing students may register through WISER, and those taking courses as non-degree students may register here: http://caps-courses.umb.edu/courses/spring/cr/gr/crcrth/.Hybrid courses involve face-to-face meetings on campus and allow students at a distance to join via web conference during weekly meetings. Please register for either the face-to-face or online section based on how you'll participate.
CRCRTH 602 Creative Thinking (hybrid), 4:00-6:45pm Mondays, starts January 25 (Face-to-face: class #8136, online: class #7815).
CRCRTH 616 Dialogue Processes (online), Starts February 1 (Class #7816).
CRCRTH 649L Scientific and Political Change (hybrid), 4:00-6:45pm Wednesdays, starts February 3 (Face-to-face: class #7814, online: class #7817).
CRCRTH 688 Reflective Practice (hybrid), Class meetings on some Thursdays, starts February 4 (Face-to-face: class #6963, online: class #7819).
CRCRTH 693 Action Research for Educational, Professional, and Personal Change (hybrid), 4:00-6:45pm Tuesdays, starts February 2 (Face-to-face: class #6956, online: class #7818).
CRCRTH 697 Special Topics Course: Positive Psychology (hybrid), 1:00-3:45pm Mondays, starts January 25 (Class numbers TBA).
CCT Community
What is "something" for the Critical and Creative Thinking graduate Program?
A 22-minute video on what it is that students have become by the time they graduate from the Critical and Creative Thinking program, how that happens, and ways it contrasts with alternative models. This exposition builds on recent posts about teaching critical thinking and previous posts about studios and a slow mode.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQOgdlvBdA0
CCT Events
Work-in-progress presentations for pre-capstone CCT course will be livestreamed from 7:00-9.45pm on Tuesday, November 17th at URL to be posted to http://bit.ly/692hangout1
Each audience member is encouraged to submit a plus-delta comment on each presentation using the form at http://bit.ly/PlusDelta -- These will be compiled and made available to the presenters.
CCT Community Open Houses:
Thursday, November 19, 2015, 7:00-8:30pm
Online in Google+ Hangout: see below. Those on campus may join us in Wheatley Hall, 4th floor, room W04-170.
Join online: RSVP to: https://plus.google.com/u/0/events/cv4mfkk844qhdutv37goj9ismao?authkey=CI2l-qm_4KXebw
Free and open to all.
Theme: Engaging Children in Philosophical Thinking
Join us online for a discussion about philosophy for children and the possibilities for teachers, parents, and others in fostering philosophical thinking.
Thursday, December 10, 2015, time TBA
On campus, with participation possible from a distance through Google Hangout.
Free and open to all.
Theme: Student Presentations on Reflective Practice and Critical & Creative Thinking
Hear from students about the development of their work as they complete projects in reflective practice and creativity related to literature and arts
Visit CCT at the UMass Boston Graduate Showcase on Wednesday, November 18, from 4:00-7:30pm in the UMass Boston campus center. Speak with CCT representatives and learn more about courses, applying, and what you can do with a CCT Graduate Certificate or MA degree. For more information, see https://www.umb.edu/admissions/visit/graduate_studies_showcase
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
Building Inclusive Communities Global Conference 2015
Hosted by the UMass Boston School for Global Inclusion and Social Development
December 3-4, 2015, Park Plaza Hotel, Boston
The conference brings together leaders across industries and disciplines to foster new strategies for increased inclusion. Our attendees and presenters are policymakers, educators, faith leaders, and entrepreneurs–as well as self-advocates who are making inclusion a reality in underserved populations.
For more information about speakers, schedules, and registration, see:
http://www.buildinginclusion.org/
The Power of Stories: Moving Beyond "Them" and "Us"
Hosted by the Public Converrsations Project
December 3, 8:30am-4:30pm
Conversations Place, 51 Kondazian Street, Watertown, MA 02472
Cost: $150
Some stories stick with us...
Changing how we see each other, and the world(s).
We make sense of the world through stories: heroes, villains, wars lost and won, adversity overcome. But as creatures of category, we can can easily fall victim to simplifying a complicated narrative to a tale of light vs. dark, Empire vs. Alliance, us vs. them. But when we cling to assumptions about the "other," the stories we tell can corrode relationships, alienating us from each other, and deepening rifts in a community.
For more information and to register: http://www.publicconversations.org/workshop/power-stories-moving-beyond-them-and-us
UMass Boston 5th Annual Public Lecture by Recipients of the 2015 Chancellor's Awards
Tuesday, December 15th, 2015
3:30-5:00pm
Alumni Lounge, UMass Boston Campus Center
Each year at commencement, the University of Massachusetts Boston presents the Chancellor's Awards for Distinguished Scholarship, Service, and Teaching to faculty members who have made exceptional contributions in these areas. Speakers will include the following:
Distinguished Scholarship: Jean Rhodes
Distinguished Teaching: Erik Blaser
Distinguished Service: William E. Robinson
Problem-Based Learning 2016 Winter Institute
January 6-8, 2016 at University of Delaware in Newark, Delaware
This workshop is for educators interested in learning about problem-based learning, both in its classic form and recent variations. We welcome those new to PBL as well as experienced practitioners. We welcome teachers at all grade levels, graduate students, and faculty and instructional support staff at colleges and universities. We expect off-campus participants will participate the full three days. University of Delaware participants are encouraged to choose individual sessions of the most value.
For more information and registration: http://sites.udel.edu/pbl2016/
2016 QM Regional Conference
March 17-18, New York, NY
Hosted by Berkeley College
Call for presentations: due December 16, 2015
Share your experience in: Implementing QM, Addressing accreditation, Strategies for applying QM Standards at the course level, Research questions related to QM, Using QM beyond the online classroom.
For more information: https://www.qualitymatters.org/events/2016-nyc-regional
The XII International Transformative Learning Conference
October 20-23, 2016
Pacific Lutheran University
Tacoma, WA, USA
“Engaging at the Intersections”
Call for Proposals: Due February 1, 2016 (see here for instructions)
We invite educators, consultants, facilitators, practitioners, researchers and students from around the world to join in exploring the nature and practice of transformative learning at the intersections. Whether you are new to the field of transformative learning or long familiar, you bring vitality to the conversation. By bringing together an international community of theorists and practitioners, we will create, generate and explore points of intersection which hold transformative potential...more
Opportunities
Graduate Consortium in Women's Studies
Applications are being accepted from graduate students in all disciplines at our member institutions for our Spring 2016 seminars:
Feminist Inquiry: http://web.mit.edu/gcws/courses/15-16-FeministInquiry.html
The Secret Sex Life of Anthropological Artifacts: Gender and Race in the Museum: http://web.mit.edu/gcws/courses/15-16-sexlives.html
For more information and complete descriptions:
http://web.mit.edu/gcws/about/member-institutions+programs.html
Spring application deadline: January 4, 2016
Rolling admission until course is filled
Please call or email the GCWS at gcws@mit.edu <mailto:gcws@mit.edu> for more information about application procedures, member institution cross-registration policies, or credit questions, and visit our web site: http://web.mit.edu/GCWS
Trans-Scripts, the interdisciplinary journal in the Humanities and Social Sciences at UC Irvine invites graduate students to submit their work for publication in volume six, covering the theme of "Design in Humanistic Inquiry"
Call for Papers: Abstracts due January 8, 2016.
The theme of the sixth volume of Trans-Scripts is “Design in Humanistic Inquiry.” We welcome a wide range of submissions from a variety of disciplines. Founded in 2010, Trans-Scripts is a student-run and edited interdisciplinary journal, and the editorial collective of graduate students come from diverse academic fields, including English, History, Culture & Theory, Psychology and Social Behavior, Anthropology, Philosophy, Women’s Studies, and African-American Studies. Faculty advisors represent an even more varied range of disciplines. All submissions will be reviewed by both students and faculty to ensure the highest quality of work. Though primarily a forum for student work, faculty are welcome to contribute as well. We also publish editorials by renowned experts on each theme covered.
For more information, see http://www.humanities.uci.edu/collective/hctr/trans-scripts/
Forms of Feeling: Navigating the Affective Turn
Eighth Annual Interdisciplinary Conference of the English Graduate Organization at the University of Massachusetts Amherst
April 2, 2016
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Call for papers: Submission Deadline: January 25, 2016
Email: umassegoconference@gmail.com
For additional information: http://umassego.com/conference/
Keynote Speaker: Patricia Clough (The Graduate Center, CUNY)
Sibling rivalry, team camaraderie, Islamophobia, migrant nostalgia, outrage against state brutality, mourning sickness, FOMO, human-animal bonding, blushing, crying at the movies - feelings are everywhere. As the ongoing "affective turn" in the humanities and social sciences emphasizes, it is imperative to investigate the operations of affect in order to better address the complexities of our world(s). That the definitions of the terms affect, feeling, and emotion remain contested reveals one of the greatest challenges of such explorations: the nebulous, ineffable nature of feelings. Yet, like bodies animating a pride parade or the virulent rhetoric of hate speech, feelings do take forms - however transient and dynamic they may be...more
Certification in the Paul-Elder Approach to Critical Thinking
offered by the Foundation for Critical Thinking
For more information: see here
Resources
Recorded presentations by speakers participating in the recent IDEAS UMass Boston event are now posted on the event Youtube channel.
Materials produced in support of the recent 7th Annual Quality Matters Conference on Quality Assurance in Online Learning can now be found here:
https://www.qualitymatters.org/events/webcasting2015
including downloads of presentation materials and recordings of sessions.
The National Creativity Network engages organizations across North America in the exploration of the theory and practice of creativity through education, networking opportunities, and events: http://nationalcreativitynetwork.org/
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)
To Watch:
30 years of collaboration towards empowering children to be creative thinkers
This Is Water, by David Foster Wallace
To Read:
“Tsundoku,” the Japanese Word for the New Books That Pile Up on Our Shelves, Should Enter the English Language
Researchers Turn to Big Data to Justify Basic Science
The Myth of Basic Science
Paradigms lost: Science is not a ‘body of knowledge’ – it’s a dynamic, ongoing reconfiguration of knowledge and must be free to change
More Universities Move To Include Gender-Neutral Pronouns
The highest form of intelligence: Sarcasm increases creativity for both expressers and recipients
Keystone isn’t the only pipeline proposal out there
Creativity is not about being a “creative person”
A Canadian Cabinet for 2015: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau named the most diverse government in his country’s history
Liverpool Just Opened Fast-Walking Pedestrian Lanes
Sometimes a Slow Train Is a Good Thing
BioArt: Is It Art? Is It Science? Is It the Future?
Is great philosophy, by its nature, difficult and obscure?
Absolute English: Science once communicated in a polyglot of tongues, but now English rules alone. How did this happen – and at what cost?
Texas Public School Apologizes for Pushing Atheism on Children in ‘Critical Thinking Exercise’
World Indigenous Games 2015
5 Research-Based Tips for Providing Students with Meaningful Feedback
43 Words You Should Cut From Your Writing Immediately
Humor
Creative Thank-You Cards