GRAD > CRCRTH
Critical and Creative Thinking Courses
CRCRTH 601 Critical Thinking +
Description:
This course explores issues about the nature and techniques of critical thought, viewed as a way to establish a reliable basis for our claims, beliefs, and attitudes about the world. We explore multiple perspectives, placing established facts, theories, and practices in tension with alternatives to see how things could be otherwise. Views about observation and interpretation, reasoning and inference, valuing and judging, and the production of knowledge in its social context are considered. Special attention is given to translating what is learned into strategies, materials, and interventions for use in students' own educational and professional settings. More Info
Offered in:CRCRTH 602 Creative Thinking +
Description:
This course seeks to increase the participants' understanding of creativity, to improve their creative problem-solving skills, and to enhance their ability to promote these skills in others, in a variety of educational settings. Students participate in activities designed to help develop their own creativity and discuss the creative process from various theoretical perspectives. Readings are on such topics as creative individuals, environments that tend to enhance creative functioning, and related educational issues. Discussions with artists, scientists, and others particularly involved in the creative process focus on their techniques and on ways in which creativity can be nurtured. More Info
Offered in:CRCRTH 603L Foundations of Philosophical Thought +
Description:
By discussing four or five traditional substantive problems in philosophy-morality, the nature of knowledge, freedom of the will, the nature of mind, and social organization-we attempt to derive a common approach that philosophers bring to these problems when developing their own solutions or criticizing the solutions of other philosophers. We also consider some of the ways that substantive issues and debates in philosophy relate to contemporary non-philosophical issues in our society and can be introduced into a broad range of educational environments outside standard philosophy courses. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
CRCRTH 611 Seminar in Critical Thinking +
Description:
This course involves research on and discussion of important issues of current concern about critical thinking. Issues include critical thinking; logic and knowledge; critical thinking about facts and about values; knowledge in its social context; teaching to be critical; and evaluating critical thinking skills. The course addresses these issues through cases of topical interest. More Info
Offered in:CRCRTH 612 Seminar in Creativity +
Description:
This course delves deeply into the theory and practice of promoting creativity, using a specific theme, such as invention and innovation, humor, realizing creative aspiration, building creative communities, as a focus for the readings, discussions, class activities, and semester-long students' projects. The course materials, which are drawn from a variety of sources to match the instructor's specialty, student interests, and evolving trends in the literature, include biographies, intellectual histories, psychological studies, educational research, the popular media, guest speakers, and outside mentors. Details for the specific semester are publicized in advance by the Program. More Info
Offered in:CRCRTH 615 Holistic & Transformative Teaching +
Description:
This course explores approaches to realize teachers' and students' potential for learning, thinking, and creativity. It's primary focus is on holistic strategies to engage students in the creative arts and design. Participants are actively involved in preparing practical applications and demonstrations of concepts emerging from the class. More Info
Offered in:CRCRTH 616 Dialogue Processes +
Description:
Genuine dialogue provides a creative space in which may emerge entirely new ways of thinking, acting, and relating to others. At the heart of such dialogue is holding respect for oneself, for one another, and for a commonly created pool of meaning. Course participants learn and experience approaches to listening and dialogue derived from Buber, Bohm, Isaacs, Jackins, Weissglass, and others, that allow us to become more aware of the underlying beliefs, assumptions, and emotions that limit our thinking and our responses to the world. Discussions explore applications of dialogue processes in educational, organizational, social, and personal change. More Info
Offered in:CRCRTH 618 Creative Thinking, Collaboration, and Organizational Change +
Description:
Through interactive, experiential sessions and structured assignments, students learn critical and creative approaches to working in organizations. Skills addressed include: communication and team-building; facilitation of participation and collaboration in groups; promotion of learning from a diversity of perspectives; problem-finding and solving; and reflective practice. Students apply these skills to situations that arise in business, schools, social change groups, and other organizations with a view to taking initiative and generating constructive change. More Info
Offered in:CRCRTH 619 Biomedical Ethics +
Description:
This course develops students' critical thinking about dilemmas in medicine and health care policy, such as those that arise around allocation of scarce resources, criteria for organ transplants, informed consent, experimentation on human subjects, AIDS research, embryo research and selective termination of pregnancy, euthanasia, and physician-assisted suicide. Through such cases the course introduces methods in moral reasoning, rights-based reasoning, decision-making under uncertainty, and utilitarianism in classic and contemporary normative reasoning. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
CRCRTH 627 Issues and Controversies in Antiracist and Multicultural Education +
Description:
This course explores two related forms of education-antiracist education and multicultural education-approaching them as issues in moral and value education and exploring controversies in the theories and practices of antiracist and multicultural education. The course deals with both practical and theoretical issues but concentrates more on theory. Specific topics include racism, race, and school achievement; ethnic identity and self-esteem; Afrocentrism; religious pluralism; multiculturalism as a unifying or divisive force. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
CRCRTH 645L Biology in Society: Critical Thinking +
Description:
Current and historical cases are used to examine the political, ethical, and other social dimensions of the life sciences. Close examination of developments in the life sciences can lead to questions about the social influences shaping scientists' work or its application. This, in turn, can lead to new questions and alternative approaches for educators, biologists, health professionals, and concerned citizens. The specific thematic emphasis each semester is publicized by the Program. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
CRCRTH 653L Epidemiological Thinking and Population Health +
Description:
Introduction to the concepts, methods, and problems involved in analyzing the biological and social influences on behaviors and diseases and in translation such analyses into population health policy and practice. Special attention given to social inequalities, changes over the life course, and heterogeneous pathways. Case studies and course projects are shaped to accommodate students with interests in diverse fields related to health and public policy. Students are assumed to have a statistical background, but the course emphasizes epidemiological literacy with a view to collaborating thoughtfully with specialists, not technical expertise. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
CRCRTH 655 Metacognition +
Description:
This course considers various aspects of metacognition and how they influence behavior in children and adults. Topics include the individual's knowledge of his or her own cognition, self-awareness, the monitoring of conscious thought processes, inferences about unconscious thought processes, metacognition as a decision process, metacognitive strategies, the development of metacognition, and metacognition as a source of individual differences in children. More Info
Offered in:CRCRTH 670 Thinking, Learning, and Computers +
Description:
This course considers the consequences of using computers to aid our thinking, learning, communication, and action in classrooms, organizations, and social interactions. Class activities acquaint students with specific computer-based tools, the ideas and research behind them, and themes for critical thinking about these ideas and tools. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
CRCRTH 688 Reflective Practice +
Description:
Reflective practitioners in any profession pilot new practices, take stock of outcomes and reflect on possible directions, and make plans to revise their practice accordingly. They also make connections with colleagues who model new practices and support the experimenting and practice of others. Students in this course gain experiences and up-to-date tools for reflective practice through presentations, interactive and experiential sessions, and, optionally, supervised pilot activities in schools, workplaces, and communities. More Info
Offered in:CRCRTH 692 Processes of Research and Engagement +
Description:
In this course student identify issues in educational or other professional settings on which to focus their critical and creative thinking skills. Each student works through the different stages of research and action - from defining a manageable project to communicating findings and plans for further work. The classes run as workshops, in which student are introduced to and then practice using tools for research, writing, communicating, and supporting the work of others. More Info
Offered in:CRCRTH 693 Action Research for Educational, Professional & Personal change +
Description:
This course covers techniques for and critical thinking about the evaluation of changes in educational practices and policies in schools, organizations, and informal contexts. Topics include quantitative and qualitative methods for design and analysis, participatory design of practices and policies in a framework of action research, institutional learning, the wider reception or discounting of evaluations, and selected case studies, including those arising from semester-long student projects. More Info
Offered in:CRCRTH 694 Synthesis of Theory and Practice Seminar +
Description:
This seminar provides participants with an opportunity to review and reflect on their work in the program and its impact on their current and future professional and personal lives, through a final project that demonstrates knowledge and integration of critical and creative thinking skills, processes, and strategies. To facilitate the synthesis of ideas and the identification of a final project option, the seminar begins with group experiences. Students choosing the same final project option meet in small groups weekly to present their plans and progress notes for support and critique. A three-page final project description is presented early in the course, and all projects are presented during the last four weeks. More Info
Offered in:CRCRTH 696 Independent Study +
Description:
This course involves the comprehensive study of a particular topic or area of literature determined by the student's need; the study is pursued under the guidance, and subject to the examination, of the instructor. More Info
Offered in:- TBA
CRCRTH 697 Special Topics +
Description:
This course offers study of selected topics within this subject. Course content and credits vary according to topic and are announced prior to the registration period. More Info
Offered in:- TBA