Instructor: Peter Taylor, Critical & Creative Thinking Program

Email; Phone: peter.taylor@umb.edu; 617-287-7636

Office: Wheatley 2nd flr 143.09 (near Counseling & School Psychology)

Class Time: Tu 7-8

Office/phone call hours: M 3-4, Tu 5.30-6.30, or by arrangement (Tuesdays preferred)

General email: Emails sent to PT with "for CCT697B" in the subject line will be forwarded to all students in the course.

This course consists of weekly presentations and workshops given by current and former CCT students, faculty, and guest speakers describing their efforts putting critical and creative thinking into practice in schools, workplaces, and other settings.

A. Participation in sessions (13)

B. Journal, collected for perusal mid-semester (10/17) & end (12/12)

C. Three thought-pieces (200-300 words) extracted from your journal, and revised in response to comments on first draft

D. Annotated list of items you want to pursue in your subsequent CCT work; draft due 12/5

E. Spoken report on D on 12/12.

The Journal should contain your notes on and responses to each session, exploring, when appropriate, the relationship between it and your work/interests. The goal is to weave the experiences into your own thinking and practice. The raw journals will be collected for perusal twice during the semester. Bind together pages with post-its or otherwise indicate which bits you do not want me to read. I want to get an overall impression of your developing process of critical and creative thinking about course readings and discussions.

Submit thoughtpieces on or before 10/3, 10/24, 11/14. The first versions of these may be extracts from your journal, but, depending on the tightness and legibility of your writing, you might revise and type up something you'd been writing more loosely in the journal. I comment on these thoughtpieces, and then you revise and resubmit them in response to my comments. The final result may be structured more like a very short paper.

B+ is earned automatically for 80% of items fulfilled (16 of 20)

The qualities to follow will determine whether a higher grade is earned:

Active participation in all sessions

Active use of journal to respond to all sessions

Written assignments always by target dates, often revised thoroughly and with new thinking in response to comments

List well annotated, reflecting on what you have learned and indicating future directions to develop

If you do not reach the B+ level, the grade is pro-rated from B+ down to C for 10 items.

Schedule

9/12 "Critical thinking as a journey," activity led by Peter Taylor, CCT

9/19 "Nature takes back the UMass campus?" an environmental sustainability activity led (tentatively) by Rob Beattie, Environmental Studies Program.

9/26 "Teaching critical thinking through multiple intelligences," Nina Greenwald, CCT

10/3 --no session --

10/10 "How do adult learners learn?–perspectives from CCT students," Roy Dobbelaer and others TBA

10/17 "Conceptual Bootstrapping: Teaching Middle School Students about Matter and Density, " Carol Smith

10/24 "Breaking through Scripts and Creating New Spaces: Reframing Asian American Life Narratives," Cathy Wong, Counseling & School Psychology

10/31 "An introduction to the Dialogue Process," Allyn Bradford, CCT616 instructor in the spring

11/7 "An introduction to constructivist listening," Emmett Schaeffer, instructor, Winter session course

11/14 "Customizing creativity to produce viable products for one's life," Ben Schwendener, CCT612 instructor in the spring

Public presentations by Synthesis students (7-8.30), 11/21-12/5

11/21 Jack Sullivan, Rob Drake (provisional)

11/28 Tim Eagan, Cyndie Mignini (provisional)

12/5 Synthesis students TBA

12/12 Taking stock of course. Student reports on their annotated to-do lists

The sessions (except 12/12) are co-sponsored by the CCT Forum (the CCT grad. students' organization), which helps provide refreshments and honoraria for non UMass speakers.