News2017January
News from the Graduate Program in Critical & Creative Thinking
University of Massachusetts Boston6 January 2017
Student Matters
Spring 2017 courses are open for registration and there is still room in several courses for CCT students as well as non-degree students. Hybrid courses involve weekly class meetings on campus, where online students can participate by web video conference. Register for the face-to-face or online section based on how you'll participate--see the class numbers below. Continuing students are encouraged to register soon on WISER, and non-degree students should see this page. Courses begin the week of January 30. All times are Eastern time zone.
CRCRTH 602 Creative Thinking (online). Class #5319.
CRCRTH 615 Transformative & Holistic Teaching (hybrid). Mondays, 4:00-6:45pm. (Face-to-face: #5327, online: #5320)
CRCRTH 616 Dialogue Processes (online). Class #5321.
CRCRTH 653 Epidemiological Thinking (hybrid). Tuesdays, 4:00-6:45pm. (Face-to-face: #5329, online: #5323)
CRCRTH 688 Reflective Practice (hybrid). Mondays, 7:00-9:45pm. (Face-to-face: #5330, online: #5324)
CRCRTH 693 Action Research for Professional, Educational, and Personal Change (hybrid). Thursdays, 7:00-9:45pm. (Face-to-face: #5331, online: #5325)
Changing Life: Reading the Intersections of Race, Biology, and Literature (co-taught by Peter Taylor through a cross-campus consortium). Wednesdays, 5:00-8:00pm at MIT campus (and online by permission). For registration, see this page.
At the end of of the spring 2017 semester, the UMass Boston library is discontinuing access to Refworks, the online system for managing references and citations to research articles and other publications. Students using RefWorks to store personal information should plan to migrate to other systems, as this information will be deleted automatically after that time. See this library guide for more information and assistance.
CCT Community
The UMass Boston Scholarworks collection contains the archive of past capstone projects by students and other writings by the CCT faculty. Around 350 papers from the CCT program were downloaded close to 3,500 times during 2016, with more than 16,000 total downloads of CCT materials since fall of 2011. All are welcome to browse the collection, which provides abstracts of all previous capstone projects. Many recent full-text papers are available for download in PDF format, and past projects continue to get added to the collection.
CCT Events
Spring 2017 Dialogues on Reflective Practice in a Changing World
Please join us for one or more of these events, free and open to the public.
Attend in person, or online through Google+ Hangout. RSVP to cct@umb.edu and look for additional details in future newsletters.
Themes:
Monday, March 6, 2017: Public Dialogue on "Reflective Practice to Support Creative Habits"
Monday, April 3, 2017: Public Dialogue on "Reflective Practice to Build Resilience Through Life Transitions"
Monday, May 1 and Tuesday, May 2, 2017: Student Presentations (completion of Critical and Creative Thinking Synthesis projects, and Reflective Practice projects).
Reflective Practice refers to ways that people continually develop or change the practices that they use in their workplaces, schools, and lives. Through reflection, we examine our experiences and seek to understand how they can guide us to make those changes. In this series of participatory dialogues, we'll explore together how we might then relate our individual directions to the bigger picture -- the changing world around us.
"Making and Breaking: Research and Engagement in the Neo-Liberal Economy"
Applications welcome from faculty, professional staff, doctoral students, and retired faculty for this Inter-college Seminar in Humanities and Sciences to meet bi-weekly during Spring '17.
See the web site for full description and details:
http://www.stv.umb.edu/ishs17.html
To apply send to sicw@umb.edu
-your name and affiliation
-1-2 sentences locating your interests in relation to the theme (for distribution to the other participants)
-times of the week you could attend for 1.5 hour sessions (in person or by google+ hangout).
(Later applications accepted, but the meeting time will be set to suit the initial applicants who apply by by December 20, 2016.) ISHS is hosted by the Program on Science, Technology & Values and the Science in a Changing World Graduate track. The seminar is offered with the support of the College of Advancing and Professional Studies.
Alum and CCT associates Notes
CCT graduate, Ashok Panikkar, seeks leads to a rental or sublet in Boston area as he transitions back to USA after several years in Bangalore leading Meta-Culture, a Thinking and Human Engagement Studio, apanikkar@gmail.com
CCT graduate Mare Ambrose reports: "After completing my certificate in 2015, I designed a course called Philosophy for Children based on my work in CCT and am now teaching it at Bridgewater State University. In fact, I am slated to teach it again in the spring with several sections. This sophomore seminar elective has wide appeal as it can be applied across majors in Philosophy, Elementary Education, and Childhood Studies. So far the course has been preparation and practice in the college classroom only (mock Socratic Dialogues using picture books and novels as springboards), but recently I received a nod for a community-service learning application; therefore, it looks like I will have approval and funding to bring the undergrads and some third or fourth graders together in the Fall, 2017 for some philosophical inquiry. It will be limited at first, but I think it's a step in the right direction. Eventually, I hope we can become a regular fixture in the classroom and even provide some professional development for teachers who wish to practice with their own students. At least, in the meantime, we can demonstrate the benefits of doing philosophy with school children. This experience has been challenging and exhilarating, but it is so satisfying to see this work being put into practice."
CCT graduate Jane Alwis (Certificate, 2016) has written an essay, "Keeping History Alive: Integrating Writing Studio Pedagogy into the History Classroom", which will appear in a volume of collected works titled, "Writing Studio Pedagogy: Space, Place, and Rhetoric in Collaborative Environments", Russell Carpenter and Matthew Kim (editors), published by Rowman and Littlefield and expected to be available in May 2017.
Events2017 Graduate Student Conference on Gender, Culture, Women, & Sexuality
Theme: The Personal is Still Political: Challenging Marginalization Through Theory, Analysis, & Praxis
March 31-April 1, 2017 at the campus of MIT.
For more information contact the Consortium for Graduate Studies in Gender, Culture, Women, and Sexuality at gcws@mit.edu and http://web.mit.edu/GCWS
Sponsored by the Graduate Consotium for Graduate Studies in Gender, Culture, Women, & Sexuality, MIT.
In the late 1960s, the statement "the personal is political" emerged as a central rallying cry for feminist activists. While salient before, it has become all the more urgent in light of the 2016 United States election results. Given this, the Consortium for Graduate Studies in Gender, Culture, Women, and Sexuality (GCWS) is hosting a graduate student conference, The Personal Is Still Political: Challenging Marginalization through Theory, Analysis, & Praxis, to investigate how this slogan has been, can be, or is now being mobilized as a concept for resistance by marginalized groups theoretically, analytically, and practically. Thirty years ago, Audre Lorde remarked that "the absence of [race, sexuality, class, and age] weakens any feminist discussion of the personal and the political." We build upon this inclusive declaration to examine the diverse reach of state oppressions, violence, hegemonic intervention, and marginality in the contemporary moment. We also aim to explore modes of resistance to such repression.
Meridian's Center for Transformative Learning Presents: The Integral Practitioner Lab
January 21 and 22, 2017, 10am - 6pm, Impact Hub Boston, 50 Milk Street, Boston, MA
Cost: $150.00
What is an Integral Practitioner?
Integral practitioners foster the development and transformation of individuals, teams, organizations and communities by empowering the whole person and the whole system. In domains such as education, business, healing, coaching and the arts, integral practitioners bring imagination to complex challenges in the service of transforming mindsets, cultures and social systems. For more information, see
https://meridianuniversity.edu/public-programs/events/boston-integral-practitioner-lab
Workshop offered by Essential Partners: Reflection, Connection, and Mindfulness
January 26, 2017, at Essential Partners in Cambridge, MA
To register and for more information: http://www.whatisessential.org/workshop/reflection-connection-and-mindfulness
Though this workshop, you will learn to: connect a group more deeply to the purpose of their meetings, to themselves, and to their creative capacity; tap into the more creative, more intuitive parts of one’s intelligences; lead reflective exercises before, during, and after a meeting to help build creativity, eagerness to listen, and empathy; avoid groupthink, impulse towards conflict, and distractedness in a group setting; and, equip groups to make decisions more collaboratively, thoughtfully, and for maximal impact.
OpportunitiesCall for Proposals for 2017 Graduate Student Conference on Gender, Culture, Women, & Sexuality, to be held March 31-April 1, 2017. Submission deadline: January 6, 2017.
For more details: see the full description.
Academic Paper Submission: Paper submissions should be for 15-minute presentations. Please submit a 250-300 word abstract to http://tinyurl.com/GCWS2017 by January 6, 2017. Submissions should also include your name, program, university affiliation, e-mail address, a short bio (3-5 sentences), three to six keywords, and any audio/visual requirements. Participants will be notified about the status of their proposal no later than February 6th.
ResourcesAuthor Gretchen Rubin offers several resources for understanding how we create happiness in our lives through her web site, weekly podcast, and several books on these subjects. Please refer to these resources to learn more about her "experiments in the pursuit of happiness and good habits", including ideas about how to start your own happiness project.
Videos of talks and panel discussions are now posted from the 2016 IDEAS Conference held at UMass Boston last fall. The conference brings together speakers from Boston and elsewhere who share their big ideas and projects at the edge of innovation across multiple fields.
The Call for Papers website is provided by the Department of English at the University of Pennsylvania as a courtesy to the academic community. We welcome literature and humanities calls for papers.
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)
Philographics is a series of posters that explain big ideas in simple shapes
Baltimore students get meditation, not detention
Albert Camus on the Will to Live and the Most Important Question of Existence
Top Issues Capturing the Minds of Educators and Parents in 2016
Teaching Gender Studies to Straight Men
Let's Banish the Phrase 'Creative Writing'
The Return of Civil Disobedience
The man who studies the spread of ignorance
Meet the Robin Hood of Science
Teachers Are Stressed, And That Should Stress Us All
Why the Widespread Belief in 'Learning Styles' Is Not Just Wrong; It's Also Dangerous
Learning styles & the importance of critical self-reflection
How I Teach My Students To Be On Guard Against Fake News
Wisconsin DNR: Climate change cause debatable
Stephen King on Childhood
How About a New Theory of Evolution with Less Natural Selection?
Teaching kids philosophy makes them smarter in math and English
What I learned about selfishness after using the “prisoner’s dilemma” on my college class
Steven Pinker: Linguistics as a Window to Understanding the Brain (+ transcript)
Scientists say your “mind” isn’t confined to your brain, or even your body
How rudeness spreads like a contagion
Lessons in the Delicate Art of Confronting Offensive Speech
Against EmpathyFake Medical Journals Are Spreading, And They Are Filled With Bad Science
Film student stalks his phone thief, makes a thrilling documentary
How Complaining Rewires Your Brain For Negativity (And How To Break The Habit)
The Most Valuable Skill that Nobody Teaches: How to Listen
'Your face is big data:' The title of this photographer's experiment says it all
Bang Your Head: Using Heavy Metal Music to Promote Scientific Thinking in the Classroom
Appreciating Toby Hemenway 1952-2016
The Year of Radical Vulnerability
AdAge: The Most Creative People of the Year
30 Of The Most Important Articles By People Of Color In 2016
A Rap on Race: Margaret Mead and James Baldwin’s Rare Conversation on Forgiveness and the Difference Between Guilt and Responsibility
There is only One Culture: Bringing Back Science into the Fold of Humanism
"I'm Not Going to Be Reading This Anymore": Student Resistance to Problematic Texts
Traumatic stress changes brains of boys, girls differently
This Is Why You Should Change The Frequency Of Your Music To 432 Hz
6 Odd Facts About Numbers That Sound Too Crazy to Be True
Pacific Standard: Our Best Education Stories From This Past Year
Matthew Pratt Guterl's Advice for Graduate Students
DeepBach: harmonization in the style of Bach generated using deep learning
“Science is Boring”
Kansas City Journal-Post: September 10, 1933 - Tremendous New Power Soon To Be Unleashed: Nikola Tesla, Starting His 78th Year, Works on Revolutionary Power Project and Also is Completing Process for Photographing Thought
Carol Dweck Explains The ‘False’ Growth Mindset That Worries Her
How Imagination Works In The Human Brain: Creative Thinking Allows Neurons To Work Together To Assemble Mental Images
Gesturing can boost children's creative thinking
Let’s waste more money on science
A Tale of Two Crises: Are dwindling support for the humanities and a lack of diversity in higher education two separate issues, asks Christine Henseler, or are they, in fact, closely intertwined?
Why schools should not teach general critical-thinking skills
Marie Kondo Organizes a Bookshelf: Marie Kondo, proponent of the KonMari method, gives a lesson on tidying and decluttering
TED talks are lying to you
Meet the Guy Corralling Billionaires to Fight Inequality
A Visualization of Human Population Through Time
Maria Popova: The Greatest Science Books of 2016
Vygotsky’s “Head Taller” Metaphor for Play
Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood
Final decision? Why the brain keeps on changing its mind
The Intersection of Critical Thinking and Investing
Humor
The Awkward Yeti: Heart and Brain Comics
30 Comics About Life’s Tragedies That Are So Hilariously Dry, They Will Make You Thirsty
Calvin and Hobbes would be proud