Personal Statement:
Furthering Critical Thinking, especially about Environment, Science & Society[*]
Peter J. Taylor
Program in Critical & Creative Thinking
Graduate College of Education, University of Massachusetts, Boston
September 1999

Preamble
I joined the Critical and Creative Thinking (CCT) Program and the Graduate College of Education (GCOE) in the fall of 1998 and am enjoying new challenges in teaching prospective K-12 teachers, experienced teachers, and other working, mature-age students.
My prior training, teaching, and research experience has been at intersection of the life/environmental sciences and social studies of science and technology (STS). My research career started in Australia in ecology and agriculture, areas I was drawn to by my environmental and social activism. I moved outwards into studies that incorporate socially-generated effects in the agriculture and the environment, and into STS. After completing a doctorate in ecology in 1985 (with a minor focus in STS), I have combined scientific investigations with interpretive inquiries from the different disciplines that make up STS.[1]
This dual background has allowed me to examine specifically how scientists as practicing social and intellectual agents build diverse aspects of their "sociality" into the particular ways they know the world and practice their science. The framework I call "heterogeneous construction" highlights the diverse resources scientists harness-from funding opportunities to metaphors, from status hierarchies in their field to available sources of data.[2] Accordingly, whether in my science-STS classes or in research workshops with practicing scientists, the participants learn to tease out the diverse linguistic, intellectual, and practical resources harnessed in scientific work.[3] My goal is that they bring such understanding to bear on their own projects as learners, researchers, and social agents--that they become reflective practitioners.
As I endeavored to stimulate life and environmental students and scientists to draw on STS perspectives, I saw that critical thinking and critical pedagogy were central to my intellectual and professional project.[4] I had to encourage students and scientists to contrast the paths taken by science, society, learning, and people's lives with other paths that might be taken, and to foster their acting upon the insights gained. I now have the opportunity in CCT and GCOE to extend this work in two directions: i) from teaching college students to working with educators who teach from K through college levels, and ii) from workshops with already reflective researchers to a wider group of scientists and citizens, especially those involved in debates about the social impact of science and in community-based research. (Now also that I have learned more about the tradition of critical and creative thinking, it is clear that my emphasis on using critical thinking and pedagogy to change one's practice spans both aspects of CCT's mission.) Bringing critical analysis of science to bear on the practice and application of science has not been well developed or supported institutionally, and so my contributions to this project necessarily span the three areas of research and writing, teaching and advising, and service and institutional development.[5] New collaborations, programs, and other activities, new directions for existing programs, and collegial interactions across disciplines are needed. In this light, I set myself the goals for 1998-99 of bringing my work into the setting of the Program in Critical and Creative Thinking, the Graduate College of Education, and U. Mass. Boston. This would require learning about and responding to the culture of CCT and the field of public education more generally, and starting to build space and support for the directions I have been describing.

1. RESEARCH AND WRITING

If critical thinking and critical pedagogy have become central to my intellectual and professional project, the challenge now in my research and writing is to make that explicit for audiences in education, and to make that compelling for audiences in the life and environmental sciences and STS.
I am currently working on the last chapter of The Limits of Ecology, a book under contract with the University of Chicago Press. (Working on the manuscript is the focus of my writing for this academic year.) This book develops the framework of heterogeneous construction and explores its implications through conceptual, historical, and sociological reconstructions of selected episodes in ecology and environmental studies.[6] The link between critical thinking/pedagogy and the book's concerns is becoming more explicit than I had originally envisioned, which is true in varying degrees for the related essays that I completed during the year.[7] The conceptual/ pedagogical/ practical issue holding my attention at the moment is as follows:
When science is analyzed as heterogeneous construction, one has to address a large range of relevant social agents, diversity of resources they mobilize, and possible points of engagement and reconstruction. In thinking about angles from which to encourage others to deal with this complexity, I have to recognize that simple themes, such as "Population growth will lead to environmental degradation," are easier to communicate to a general audience than particular reconstructions of the complexity in environmental situations or in the social context of researchers. In that sense, such themes appear to provide the bases for effective social mobilization--whether at the level of global environmental politics or, more modestly, at the level of teaching students and influencing colleagues. Yet, the logic of my book's development implies that simpler, more memorable and adaptable, accounts are only apparently simple. Their impact and importance depends on how they are linked to webs of other resources by scientists and other agents negotiating their contributions to changing knowledge, society, and ecology.
My pedagogical and expository response is to present situations or scenarios that are readily communicated and, at the same time, introduce "critical heuristics" that always point to the complexity temporarily backgrounded in the attempt to communicate to others. For example, I often run a classroom simulation involving population growth in two islands--one with equal distribution of resources; the other with three unequal social classes. The critical heuristic that emerges is to consider how the analysis of causes and their implications changes if equal units are replaced by unequal units, differentiating as a result on on-going social, political, and economic dynamics.[8] By introducing such critical heuristics, I aim to keep the tension between the logic of complexification and the pragmatics of apparent simplification active and make it productive. This endeavor is most fully realized to date in the recent essay, "What can agents do?"[9] and in new classes I introduced to the core Critical Thinking course (CCT601) this spring.[10]
Through teaching courses examining science in its social context I have generated extensive notes on almost thirty cases, which cover selected historical and contemporary texts and episodes in the life and environmental sciences, that introduce and illustrate a range of critical heuristics (a.k.a., "angles of illumination").[11] After completion of The Limits of Ecology I plan to produce a text and a web-site of associated pedagogical material to promote critical thinking about the reciprocal relationships between developments in the life sciences and changes in society. I intend the text/website combination both to reach a wider biologist and STS readership and to contribute to bringing STS into science education and science into liberal arts education. The cases explore different connections between the science and four strands of social life--scientists' use of language; their social/historical location; their political and economic interests; and their views of causality and responsibility--and thereby break down the barriers between the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities (see "Reciprocal animation" in section 2).[12]
I moved forward a little this last year on this project by preparing a proposal to the UMass Boston Professional Development Support (PDS) competition to revise an NSF proposal, and by delivering presentations at conferences, workshops, and the Changing Life working group on teaching critical thinking about the life and environmental sciences.[13] The PDS proposal was favorably reviewed but not funded, yet I still plan to revise and resubmit early in 2000 the NSF proposal, which concerns the intellectual history, current concerns, and reception of the fields of "gestational programming" and "life events and difficulties." These two cases--the last ones I plan to add to the text--allow me to bring more attention to the complexities of the concept "environment," and to enrich discussion in this Age of DNA about the environment's contribution to the development of behavioral and medical conditions over any individual's lifetime.
In addition to the text/website, it is clear that, now I am in a College of Education, I need to develop a program of research on dissemination and implementation of my framework for critical thinking about the life and environmental sciences. The research would center around the question: To what extent and under what conditions does placing developments in science and technology in their social context lead to deeper, more complex understanding and more active inquiry in college science education, high school education, and citizen involvement in scientific debates? One preliminary step is to connect with teachers willing to bring STS into their science and environmental curricula. With this goal among others, I convened this spring a monthly working group, Changing Life, on fostering critical thinking about the life and environmental sciences. With a seed grant from STEMTEC (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics Teacher Education Collaborative) I also organized a one day practitioners' workshop on this topic;[14] a more intensive weekend workshop for college faculty and graduate students will follow in the fall or spring. If I am successful in finding teacher collaborators, I plan to seek funding for systematic research from, say the Spencer Foundation.[15] Another preparatory step is to read more widely and systematically in the relevant educational research literature. In this spirit, I volunteered to compile a draft syllabus/ annotated bibliography for the Critical Issues in Math. and Science Education course in the proposed M. Ed. track in Math. and Science Ed.

2. TEACHING AND ADVISING

My courses at U. Mass. include two in my specialty area of science in its social context ("science-STS") (one of these I have not yet taught), another that combined science-STS with computers in education, and four required CCT courses for students beyond my speciality area. Reviews and evaluations of each of the courses are contained in the Portfolio. What follows are some general remarks on my experience and plans as a teacher and advisor, which end by referring to the goal of "on-going development of pedagogy" and the exhibits in the Portfolio chosen to illustrate that goal.

Before coming to U. Mass. Boston, the key opportunity I had to develop as a teacher and to shape new models of teaching came through developing new courses and teaching methods appropriate to Cornell University's unique Biology and Society major and the STS Program/Department (1990-96).[16] This work took place, moreover, in the context of increasing emphasis on teaching and advising at research universities, which motivated my contributions to new models of documentation and evaluation of teaching,[17] and to formal and informal collegial interaction around teaching, including a peer observation "teaching co-op." Academics need, I have long believed, the same level of sustained collegial give-and-take, collaboration, critique, and mentorship that we value around research and writing. The Fall 1999 faculty seminar of the Center for the Improvement of Teaching (CIT) on "Becoming a Teacher-Researcher," in which I am participating, promises to provide more of such interaction.[18]
My own learning as a teacher over the last five or so years, representing a more self-conscious constructivism in my educational philosophy, has focused on writing through the curriculum and promoting student-teacher dialogue around written work,[19] attention to learning and writing preferences,[20] developing an STS-style of critical thinking about science[21] (including critical heuristics[22] and diagrams and maps of more complex heterogeneous construction[23]), and designing opportunities for small group, co-operative, experiential, and problem- or project-based learning.[24] The ideas and tools I bring to facilitating participation in groups and workshops have also been expanded through connections to Re-evaluation Counselling,[25] and, more recently, the International Society for Exploring Teaching Alternatives,[26] the Institute for Cultural Affairs,[27] the school of Sense-Making that builds on the work of Prof. Brenda Dervin of the Department of Communication at Ohio State,[28] and the BioQuest Curriculum Consortium.[29]
Having joined the GCOE, I am taking up the challenge, as described earlier, of showing that K-12 science education can be enlivened and enriched by placing developments in science and technology in their social context.[30] I built my spring seminar on "Science in society" (CCT611) and to some extent in my fall course, "Thinking, Learning, and Computers" (CCT670), on three complementary features of my approach to teaching science and STS together, which are closely allied to themes of my research and writing:[31]
Reciprocal animation: Close examination of conceptual developments within the sciences can lead to questions about the social influences shaping scientists' work or its application, which, in turn, can lead to new questions and awareness of alternative approaches in those sciences. For example, although developments in computers are often promoted in terms of social or educational progress, historical and social analysis reveals the central role of military and, more recently, corporate objectives in determining which directions "progress" takes; [32]
Critical thinking in the following sense: Theories and practices that have been accepted or taken for granted can be better understood by placing them in tension with what else could be, or could have been, e.g., contrasting dominant models of global environmental change with those that emphasize the political and economic dynamics among unequal social agents;[33] and
Heterogeneous construction: Diverse practical considerations, not just their conceptual frameworks, shape people's knowledge-making, including their ideas about educational and social change.[34]
In CCT611 and CCT670 I wanted to extend my previous science-STS courses so that CCT and GCOE students would address the course material not only as an opportunity to learn the subjects themselves, but also as providing pedagogical models for their own future teaching, and as a basis for discussions about educational practice and philosophy. The first level, however, still dominated in CCT611 and somewhat in CCT670. In future science-STS courses I will keep working to boost the other two levels, for example, by preparing handouts so class activities can be readily adapted into lesson plans, and encouraging students to undertake lesson plans, not only research papers, for their course projects.[35]
Taking up this last point, an equally significant challenge in my CCT/GCOE experience as a teacher and advisor has been adapting my teaching to reach prospective K-12 teachers in M. Ed. programs and the diverse array of experienced teachers, and other working, mature-age students in the CCT Program. Some of what I learned in my first semester was reflected in the syllabi for the second semester courses, especially what I learned in the not-so-accurately named "Practicum" (CCT698)--in reality a course on "processes of research and engagement" (which is its new subtitle). Teaching teachers "Issues in Educational Evaluation" (CCT685) in the spring and co-teaching the large core course on Critical Thinking (CCT601)--both new kinds of courses for me--gave me further insight into the range of CCT and GCOE students.[36] I came to see that my model was "developmental," aiming not for a given final standard of work, but to guide and support each student to develop or improve as much as they can in their current, usually overburdened, circumstances.
A centerpiece of this developmental approach is what I have come to call "dialogue around written work." For each class I require a journal and set a variety of written assignments, including steps towards a final project report.[37] I make most of my comments not in the margins, but on a cover page in which I attempt to show students their voice has been heard, to reflect back to them where they were taking me, before making suggestions for how to clarify and extend the impact on readers of what was written. Although the appreciations section of my comments tends to be shorter than my suggestions--I still get to the "but" quickly--student evaluations acknowledge the feedback they are getting.[38] I ask students to revise and resubmit work as long as I judge that the interaction can still yield significant learning, which departs from most students' expectations of "produce a product one time only and receive a grade." To keep the focus on the individual's development, the rubric for the course grade does not involve my awarding grades until the final projects for the semester. Responding to students' misunderstanding of or resistance to this unfamiliar system has led to the streamlined set of requirements and grading rubric presented in my current syllabi,[39]and to the "Notes on Teaching/Learning Interactions" distributed as part of a course packet at the start of the semester.
Of course, articulating the desired teaching/learning interactions and including them in a course packet only takes one so far. The gap between the actual teaching-learning interactions and my ideals, in particular with respect to dialogue around written work, is what I want to be illuminated by peer observation and reflection in the Fall 1999 CIT seminar.[40] During the last academic year, I saw the need for more time to talk with and listen to students.[41] Given students' work schedules, I have to make the the time immediately before and after classes free of other tasks, such as last minute preparation for class. I also have to make more space and take more risks to address "difficult" students, those who want to proceed as they always have, interpret my developmental approach and the "revise and resubmit" system as an affront to their maturity and independence, avoid dialogue around their mis/understandings of my expectations, and miss out on the learning that takes place through dialogue and when we confront our resistances to truly sharing our work with others.
One consequence of the developmental approach is that students often characterize the early stages of my courses, including the early assignments as "ambiguous."[42] In response to specific questions I do work to clarify and streamline my instructions, and I think about whether re-ordering classes or redesigning activities would take students more gradually from the familiar to the new. Yet, I have learned that the root issue is generally one of students' confidence in their own thinking. If I patiently encourage them to reflect in their journals, submit thought-pieces, and revise in response to comments, and so on, they usually weave together the strands and end up with a stronger sense of making the course material their own. Evidence for this can be seen, for example, when at the end of a "historical scan"[43] of "Thinking, Learning, and Computers," students divided the course into two phases and suggested the names "Big Bang" (for all the new issues that were introduced) and "Realizations" (for ways that the issues came together for them). Similarly, co-teaching "Critical Thinking" the next semester, students persistently asked us what "exactly" we wanted in the end-of-semester manifestos. The stated goal of the assignment was for them "to finish the semester with a synthesis of elements from the course selected and organized so as to inspire and inform [their] efforts in extending critical thinking beyond the course." Because this was a new assignment, we had no examples from previous courses, and so the main response we could make to their anxiety was to ask them to wait and see what emerged for them by the end of the semester. This advice paid off. The resulting manifestos were more powerful and personally reflective than even we had hoped, especially when viewed against several students' claims during the course not to be the critical thinking type.[44]
Despite successes, I see my CCT and GCOE teaching as very much a "work in progress." Indeed, I sometimes make a virtue of this, modelling what I expect of my students--to experiment, take risks, adjust plans, and through experience and reflection build up a set of tools that work for oneself. Of course, this does not play well to all adult learners, especially when they are pragmatic about what they can and need to accomplish in their limited time left after work and their other responsibilities. Even CCT students do not all embrace the ideal of becoming reflective practitioners, and, if I am to serve non-CCT students as well, I need to keep addressing the tension between the CCT ideal and losing students who come to class, or to the course as a whole, un(der)prepared to engage for themselves and most comfortable when the important lessons are didactically presented. The best evidence that I will continue to make progress on this front is the variety of ways, illustrated in the Portfolio, that I evaluate and reflect on my own practice, especially with respect to the goal of "on-going development of pedagogy."[45]

3. SERVICE AND INSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT

In this section I review the initiatives I have taken and articulate some of the challenges I see in sustaining the CCT Program, promoting Critical and Creative Thinking and developing it in new directions, and establishing a place for the Program in the GCOE. I give special attention to my interest in strengthening the Science-in-Society strand in Science Education.

3.1 Critical and Creative Thinking Program
Traditionally, CCT courses and workshops have covered "psychological studies of the scope, limits, and techniques of critical and creative thought, information processing, and conceptual learning in children and young adults; philosophical studies of techniques in reasoning, argument, logical thinking, valuing, and judging; and work with cognitive structures and metacognitive techniques for stimulating creativity and critical thought." At the same time, social justice concerns have motivated the educational and social change work of many CCT students and faculty. I am building on this basis in developing another strand in CCT focusing on examining science in society in order to foster critical and creative thinking in science. I have been publicizing this direction for CCT and doing outreach the program more generally by various means: flyers at conferences, postings on email networks and announcements in journals, reviving the CCT web-site,[46]convening the "Changing Life" working group fostering critical thinking about the life and environmental sciences,[47] and, most importantly, a one day summer workshop, "Science in Society, Society in Science."[48] It is too early to see yield from this outreach in students joining the CCT Program or enrolling in relevant CCT courses, and I plan to continue promoting CCT and its Science in Society strand.
Over the course of the year I became aware how important outreach is in general for the CCT Program because there is no standard conduit of students. However, before having much time and energy spare for outreach, it has been necessary to share the administrative burden with the Director, Delores Gallo--the only other GCOE faculty member in the Program--and maintain the engagement of the crucial CCT faculty from outside GCOE. To this end, I reviewed applications and took on a growing number of advisees, prepared guidelines for students planning CCT course sequences, convened monthly faculty meetings in the spring that balanced business with discussions of each other's work, initiated discussion to review the required courses, re-established the CCT web-site, and completed the long-awaited CCT student handbook. Although Prof. Gallo's taking medical leave increases the load on me as an advisor, some of these initiatives will result in a streamlined and reduced advising load. Moreover, Prof. Gallo's efforts in recent years have cleared the backlog of students needing to complete their theses and synthesis projects. With Prof. Gallo not available to advise and support CCT students, I am working as acting Director to build more "horizontal" exchanges and support within the community of CCT students and alums. A regular (weekly?) program of events to help people meet and learn from each other is being planned for the evening before the Creative Thinking and Critical Thinking core courses are offered. In the same spirit, we are compiling a directory of current and former CCT students, which will include information about their interests and experience.[49]
I look forward to continuing such outreach, but these efforts would be enhanced by a clearer sense of the vision GCOE has for the Program now it is formally in the College, and by establishing a plan for the level of course offerings supported by GCOE and by CAS. To stimulate CCT's contribution to this clarification and planning, I prepared a set of "talking points" at the end of last semester and an analysis of long-term CCT course offerings for discussion during the Program's fall faculty meetings. The transitional and hybrid character of the CCT Program--formally in GCOE, but with most of its history and all but two of its faculty in CAS--also means that appropriate criteria for review, composition of review committee, and pool of potential outside reviewers have to be established. Given that I am the first person in CCT to whom this issue is relevant, I trust that this 4th year review will be taken as an opportunity to discuss, clarify and address these matters. Moreover, the nature of my interdisciplinarity means that it is not straightforward to define a community of peers for my work. In short, some of the best support I could get as a junior colleague, needing to decide what work to undertake and how to prepare the strongest tenure dossier, would be for explicit attention to be given to the particularities of my position.

3.2 GCOE initiatives, especially in Science Education
Of course, faculty within the College should serve students outside their home Program. In preparing and revising my science-STS courses, I have consulted with the Teacher Ed. Director and one of the Computer Ed. adjuncts, but would like to have more interaction with faculty, including adjuncts, in order to learn how best to meet the needs of both M.Ed. and CCT students in these courses. On another front, I became aware that many evaluation and research methods courses are being offered in different GCOE programs. I initiated syllabus sharing in the spring and plan to convene meetings of the relevant faculty this fall to share our experiences and explore co-ordination or rationalization of our efforts.[50] I would be happy if more non-CCT students took the two research courses I teach (CCT685 and CCT698). In this spirit, I designed my version of "Issues in Educational Evaluation" (CCT685) so that it would flexible enough to address the concerns of a range of students who might take the planned M.Ed. track in math. and science education. With support from Profs. Lukas and Clark, co-chairs of the committee to establish the Math./Sci. Ed. track, I am beginning to fashion a series of cases concerning Math. and Sci. Ed. for a case- or problem-based learning for this course.
As mentioned above, I also contributing to the development of a core course in the Math./Sci. Ed. track on Critical Issues in Math. and Science Education. When CCT and the science-STS strand within it is on a firmer footing--which would not be before my tenure review--I would like to teach such a course every other year in place of one of two science-STS courses. Although I hope to participate actively in the Math./Sci. Ed. track, I believe another faculty member, more experienced in and committed to standard Science Education, should be found to direct the Program. To redirect my work in that direction would not be the best use of my experience and passions around science-STS teaching. Splitting my energies between the CCT program and Math./Sci. Ed. track would do justice to neither.
The issue of GCOE's contribution to Science Education is an important one, not the least because of the looming shortfall in qualified Science teachers in Massachusetts. During the year and especially through organizing the summer workhop I became acquainted with the range of funded centers and initiatives in Science Education in the State. The College is not yet in a position to compete for funds with the more established programs, but collaboration with CAS may change this.[51] There is, however, a distinctive niche for contributions in the science-STS area. As Steve Fifield remarked in his evaluation of the summer CCT workshop: "The standards movement has a tendency to be interpreted as a push toward "the basics" (i.e., decontextualized facts and concepts), but it is important to make clear that the study of science in social context is a component of national reforms and most state standards."[52] Indeed, "Science, Technology and Human Affairs" is one of the four dimensions of the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks for Science. Unfortunately, the MCAS student tests discount that dimension. Nevertheless, I believe it is important enough to pursue, to identify allies and support teachers in "their attempts to broaden the meaning of science education."[53]

3.3 Initiatives outside U. Mass. Boston
As mentioned in the preamble, the idea that critical analysis of science can influence its practice and application is not well developed or supported institutionally, and so new collaborations, programs, and other activities--or new directions for existing programs--are needed. My work has involved many collaborations across disciplinary, institutional, and national boundaries.[54]
The most significant venue for me outside my formal appointments has been in the International Society for History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Biology (ISHPSSB). In its biennial summer meetings the ISHPSSB brings together scholars from diverse disciplines, including the life sciences and history, philosophy and social studies of science. I served on the Executive from 1993-99 as President-elect, President, and then past-President. My earlier contributions, however, on the program committee (1987-89) and as program organizer (1989-91), were equally significant. It was during this period that the society was being formalized, and I worked hard to ensure that institutionalization did not undermine the tradition of innovative, inter- and trans- disciplinary sessions and discussions. I have personally organized sets of sessions at almost all of the ISHPSSB meetings, many of which have led to special editions of journals and one book.[55]
I also served on the council of the Section on Science, Knowledge and Technology of the American Sociological Association (1993-96), and was nominated in 1994 as a candidate for the council of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S). My major contribution to both these groups has been organizing conference sessions that explore new or underdeveloped connections, e.g., between social studies of science and social theory. In recognition of my ability to make transdisciplinary connections, I have been invited to give commentaries in areas ranging from economics and STS to methodology in studies of communication.[56]
The main focus, however, of my current and planned service is in the area of education. I initiated and continue to chair the ISHPSSB Committee on Education, which aims to contribute to and link ISHPSSB members to current initiatives concerning the teaching of science in its social context.[57] The "Changing Life" working group is a local initiative in that direction. I have been asked to plan a future BioQuest curriculum development workshop on this theme in 2002, and am collaborating with Prof. Fifield from U. Delaware to organize a related workshop for college faculty in 2000 or 2001. In November I served as a consultant on the plans for a new interdisciplinary environmental studies doctoral program at the National University in Mexico (UNAM) and next month I will be consulting with Jin Sato from from the University of Tokyo who is in charge of initiating a similar program. I look forward to continuing to collaborate in boundary-crossing initiatives.