News2018February
News from the Graduate Program in Critical & Creative Thinking
University of Massachusetts Boston22 February 2018
Student Matters
Registration for summer 2018 courses opens on April 2nd. Current students may register through WISER. Courses are open to non-degree students, who may register here.
CRCRTH 611 Seminar in Critical Thinking (Theme: Design for Living Complexities); (hybrid; course meets Mon & Thurs 5:00-8:00pm EDT from July 16-Aug. 24; face-to-face #1272, online #1419). For more information on the theme, see the course descriptions.
CRCRTH 612 Seminar in Creativity (Theme: Overcoming Creative Blocks) (online only; register for class #1420)
CRCRTH 627 Issues and Controversies in Antiracist and Multicultural Education (online only; register for class #1421; May 29-July 12)
Students planning for May or August graduation need to apply by March 9th.
CCT Community
CCT Faculty Nina Greenwald and David Martin are pleased to announce an offer to bring a Thinking Matters special presentation to your organization, school, staff or personnel, on ways critical and creative thinking can assist everyone to become better problem-solvers. Increasingly, in this "beyond Google” age, standard thinking practices aren’t sufficient to avoid thinking traps and move us forward. In a fast-moving technological world, increasing interconnectedness, and new forms employment, learning new tools and techniques is essential for improving our thinking for life and work. Thinking effectiveness improves dramatically when practiced within relevant areas of focus and real-world contexts. It's why we like to talk with people internal to a group or an organization to understand important goals and objectives. From this, we can tailor presentations to incorporate relevant examples and exercises that address specific needs and interests. Our interactive sessions incorporate both learning and coaching in enjoyable formats that engage humor, and promote thinking agility and beneficial thinking attitudes in a climate of personal safety. As well, we are prepared to make presentations designed to engage localities or wider communities in problem-solving based on overarching matters of concern. Please share this announcement with others who might like to know about what we do. Currently, we are scheduling presentations for spring/summer/fall 2018 and can be reached at: nlgreenwald@comcast.net and davidmartindr@aol.com
Peggy Roldan, long-time Director of Graduate Admissions, is retiring this spring. We offer our best wishes to Peggy and gratitude for many years of service guiding students and staff around the application and admissions process toward joining the CCT program and the university community.
CCT student Russell DeLuca-Kavanagh is pleased to have started an internship in career services for 15 hours per week at Northern Essex Community College in Haverhill, MA. Russell is enjoying the experience and including it as part of his course project for CRCRTH 688 Reflective Practice this spring.
CCT Events
CCT Community Open House Event: Dialogue on Critical and Creative Habits to Support Shifting Career Paths
Monday, March 5, 2018, 7:00-8:30pm ET
Participate online (Zoom conferencing) or on campus (Wheatley Hall, 4th floor, room W04-170).
RSVP to cct@umb.edu. See the event page for details.
All are welcome to join us for this participatory dialogue on the role of critical and creative thinking and habits to support us at the points where career paths are transformed and we engage in reflection by questioning previous directions and making choices about moving into new ones. The dialogue process will allow time for all in attendance to listen well, share their own experiences, and build upon our ideas as we seek to recognize ways that critical and creative habits can support us through career change, whether that means taking on a new job, role, or direction within our field, or changing our field of work.
Spring 2018 Online Collaborative Exploration (CE) Series
Upcoming CE: Rise and fall of grassroots or citizen initiatives in shaping the directions taken in science and technology (full details and background)
Schedule: Last week of February and first three weeks of March, times TBD based on participant availability. Apply here to indicate interest and available times to join the weekly, 1-hour web conferences.
Description: A Collaborative Exploration (CE) in which participants consider the "Rise and fall of grassroots or citizen initiatives in shaping the directions taken in science and technology" at the same time as we explore and share emerging theory and research to inform and improve "Teaching about scientific and political change in times of crisis." In particular, we might chew on whether we have working under an outdated progressive imaginary about citizen engagement in science working with developments in social institutions to provide for the welfare of the populace.
This CE is part of the spring series on Teaching about scientific and political change in times of crisis
For more information about the series and planned upcoming monthly topics, see http://sicw.wikispaces.com/CE
CEs are free, non-credit learning experiences, based on a Project-Based Learning where participants explore a specific topic within the overall theme based on their own inquiry. Each four-week CE involves interaction through live web conferences once per week for an hour, and online written discussion in between to share ideas and questions. The schedules for the weekly conferences are set to accommodate as many people as possible once people apply.
Upcoming Topics:
Mar-Apr, U.S. versus Europe concerning the building of infrastructure built so that to make new genetic knowledge useful.
Apr-May, Teach and engage others to participate in questioning and shaping the direction of scientific and social changes.
Alum and CCT associates Notes
Ashok Panikkar (CCT '97) is offering a free, one-day workshop in the Boston area (Cambridge location) on conscious citizenship and democracy. See below under events for details.
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
Talk: Gender Matters in Heart Disease: Measuring the Impact of Sex and Gender on Heart Disease Risk and Outcomes
Louise Pilote, Professor of Medicine and the James McGill chair at McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
Thursday, March 1, 2018, 4-6 pm
Plimpton Room, Barker Center 133 12 Quincy St., Cambridge, MA
Free and open to the public.
Description: Sex and gender are distinct constructs. Sex differences in cardiovascular disease risk factors and outcome may be partly explained by patients’ gender-related characteristics. This talk will present a gender index built to analyze the association between gender, sex, and cardiovascular risk factors and outcome among patients with premature heart disease. The gender index offers a pragmatic measure of gender for biomedical health researchers.
Harvard’s 2017-18 Gender and Sexuality Seminar Series – Sex/Gender: Theory into Practice – engages feminist theorists, science studies scholars, and practicing scientists in conversation about the constructs of “sex” and “gender” in biological and health science research, highlighting the work of researchers who devise innovative ways to analyze gender in intersectional biomedical research.
A reading group will accompany the seminar. For details and readings, or with other questions, please email wgssymposia@fas.harvard.edu.
Sponsored by the Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard and the Committee on Degrees in Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality.
For more information on the spring seminar series, see the web site.
Free Workshop: The Conscious Citizens Workshop
"Do we just blame others? Or make democracy work for us?" A one-day workshop that focuses on an inside-out approach towards strengthening demoncracy.
Saturday, March 3, 2018, 10:00-5:00pm
150 Cambridge Park Drive, Cambridge, MA
Hosted by the Consensus Building Institute
RSVP and for more information: Ashok Panikkar, apanikkar@citizendemos.org
Stories & Storytelling For Thinking: for teachers and educators.
by The Philosophy Foundation
Rathfern Primary School, London, U.K.
Thursday and Friday, April 12-13, 2018
To register and for more information, see the course registration page.
Humans are natural storytellers and story-thinkers. With young and old we use stories to engage and provoke thought. Join us on this course to learn how to tell stories that hold your audience and entice them into philosophical reflection on fundamental questions.
This 2-day course teaches you specific strategies to tell stories confidently, as well as use them in educational settings to develop understanding through enquiry. On this course you will:
Learn at least 3 new stories you will be able to retell with confidence.
Learn how to use stories for thinking.
Receive an electronic copy of 'Sheherezad's Handbook: a guide for telling stories' taken from Once Upon an If by Peter Worley.
Practice your storytelling skills in a fun, and safe environment.
6th Annual Environmental Research Colloquium
Wednesday, April 18, 2018
University of Massachusetts Boston
Please RSVP here to attend and to receive exact location and schedule details.
The UMass Boston School for the Environment invites undergraduate and graduate students to attend the 6th Annual Environmental Research Colloquium, which is organized in commemoration of Earth Day and aims to create environmental awareness, spread the word about the amazing environmental research done by faculty and students at UMass Boston, and provide a networking platform for ideas exchange. Watch our online invitation and check out the attached poster. RSVP to attend by March 1, 2018. The School for the Environment invites graduate and undergraduate students to participate in the 6th Annual Environmental Research Colloquium to be held at the University of Massachusetts Boston on Wednesday, April 18, 2018. Students submit a 250-word abstract on a topic related to an environmental issue for a poster presentation or a 10-minute talk by March 1, 2018. The top three posters and oral presentations will receive certificates and awards.
Opportunities
Call for Presenters:
International Distance Education Conference (IDEC)
International Trends and Issues In Communication & Media Conference (ITICAM)
Both conferences to be held in Paris, France from July 18-20, 2018
Deadlines: July 15th for abstract submission; July 17th conference registration, August 30th for full paper submission. Presenters will be able to present their work at these conferences, and selected papers will be later published in a related journal.
For more information, see the ITICAM and IDEC web sites.
Resources
UMass Boston's new Engage portal: https://engage.umb.edu/
Over the fall, the UMB Office of Community Partnerships and the Information Technology Services Division visited several university departments to provide a preview of the UMass Boston Engage web portal, which connects students, faculty, and staff, along with community and global organizations. Some of the benefits discussed included: leveraging existing projects to build out further collaborations and respond to funding opportunities, learning about projects and faculty pertaining to specific interest areas, recruitment and retention of externally engaged students and faculty, and better telling the UMass Boston story of impact beyond our walls, among many others. We are excited to be sharing this tool with all of our campus community, and invite faculty and staff to take the time to log-in with your university credentials, and share with the world the great work that you are doing with external organizations, residents, and communities. The portal is the result of several years of surveying and data gathering from 2012-2015, and already houses thousands of activities. Now is the time to log-on and update your activities, add new projects, or discover what your colleagues are up to. Also, see the guide for getting started, and a short video on how some of our faculty are using the portal.
Kialo: An online debate platform that seeks to reorganize how discussion normally happens in social media to allow for more focused discussion around issues
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)
Articles:
Science & Engineering Indicators 2018 (National Science Board)
Significant but Irrelevant – Study on Correcting False Information (Neurological Blog)
How Utilitarian Are You? Measure on The Oxford Utilitarianism Scale (Practical Ethics)
Class Dismissed - The Movie
Read the CIA’s Simple Sabotage Field Manual: A Timeless Guide to Subverting Any Organization with “Purposeful Stupidity” (Open Culture)
Is Art Created by AI Really Art? (Scientific American)
Circling the Square: Designing with “Squircles” Instead of Rounded Rectangles (99% Invisible)
The Banana Trick and Other Acts of Self-Checkout Thievery (The Atlantic)
Undriven Snow: Activists Trace Winter Car Routes to Reshape City Streets (99% Invisible)
The Creative Brain is Wired Differently (Neuroscience News)
It’s Time To Throw Away The Dickensian Culture of Math Education (Medium)
8 Philosophical Thought Experiments That I Illustrated To Broaden Your Mind (Helen De Cruz)
Video:
How Stores Trick You Into Buying More Things (YouTube
Humor
Jimmy Tingle: Humor for Humanity shows and podcasts