peter j. taylor <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> in CRITICAL THINKING about
> SCIENCE, EDUCATION, AND SOCIETY
>
> Courses and Workshops
> presented by the
> Critical and Creative Thinking Program
> Graduate College of Education
> University of Massachusetts, Boston
>
> July 14 - August 5, 2000
>
> The Institute will bring together educators, students, and other concerned
> citizens who want to enliven science education and, more broadly, enrich
> people's understanding of the role of science and technology in society.
> Join the Institute by registering for one or more of the following courses:
>
>         Critical Thinking
>                    Biomedical ethics
>                               New Directions in Science Education
>
> or, on a reduced-fee, non-credit basis, for any of the 2-day "New
> Directions" workshops:
>   Critical Thinking And Science Education
>        Ill-Defined Encounters Are The Right Kind!
>               Science In Its Social Context
>                     Aligning Innovation With Science Education Standards
>
> Register through UMass Continuing Education, 617.287.7900 or www.conted.umb.edu.
>
> The Institute courses count towards a 15 credit Graduate Certificate in
> Science, Education, and Society, which can be completed by taking
> additional CCT courses in the fall or spring semesters.
>
> For more information on the Institute, Graduate Certificate, or CCT
> Program, please call 617 287-6520, email [log in to unmask], or visit
> omega.cc.umb.edu/~cct on the WWW.
>
> COURSES
> CrCrTh 601  Critical Thinking
> Janet Farrell Smith & Co-instructor TBA
> July 17-Aug 3, MTuWTh 1:00pm-4:00pm,  3 credits, #701981
> Issues about the nature and techniques of critical thought, viewed as a way
> of thinking aimed at minimizing error and irrationality in our beliefs and
> attitudes. 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.
>
> CrCrTh 697A  Biomedical ethics
> Janet Farrell Smith, Philosophy & CCT Program, UMass Boston
> July 17-Aug 3, MTuWTh  9:00am-12:00pm, 3 credits, #708330
> Critical thinking about dilemmas in medicine and health care policy:
> Allocation of scarce resources in organ transplants and managed care,
> informed consent, experimentation on human subjects, AIDS research, the
> ethics of genetic screening, and finally, euthanasia and physician assisted
> suicide.
>
> CrCrTh 697C  New Directions in Science Education
> July 14-Aug 5, FSa 9-4.30, 3 or 4 credits, or not-for-credit option
> A series of two-day experiential workshops designed for educators to learn
> and practice new approaches to teaching science in schools and colleges and
> promoting public understanding of science.  Students seeking only 3 credits
> can choose any three of the workshops.  Non-credit fee is $100 per
> workshop.  For planning purposes, permission of the Program is needed
> before registering for the course or workshops.
> -------------------
> WORKSHOPS
> Workshop 1.  July 14-15
> CRITICAL THINKING AND SCIENCE EDUCATION
> Philip Higgs, Educational Studies, Uni. of South Africa
>
> Paulo Freire describes the possibility of education as a "practice of
> freedom" by which men and women deal critically and creatively with
> reality, and discover how to participate in the transformation of the
> world.  To explore the meaning of science as the "practice of freedom,"
> participants will:
> *  be introduced to different methods of inquiry which share the common
> goal of exploring human knowledge and experience in trying to bring what is
> hidden to light
> *  re-examine the concept of science from different perspectives
> *  transfer their ideas and thinking from one context to another
> The overall outcome of the workshop will be directed at exploring the
> significance, for curriculum materials and assessment strategies in science
> education,  of giving due attention to the idea  that nothing is ultimate
> or final, that there is no 'one truth', but rather a range of options and
> possibilities in the pursuit of knowledge.
>
> Workshop 2.  July 21-22
> ILL-DEFINED ENCOUNTERS ARE THE RIGHT KIND!
> (problem-based learning in science classrooms)
> Nina Greenwald, CCT Program, UMass Boston
>
> Students understand science best by experiencing the problems that
> challenge science, and the thought, habits of mind and actions associated
> with trying to solve them.  Based on a conversation by a leading biomedical
> scientist about perplexing aspects of their research workshop participants
> "unearth" a problem that interests them and initiate its investigation
> through a particular model for problem-based learning (PBL).   PBL is an
> authentic, experiential form of learning involving collaborative
> investigation and solution-finding for ill-defined (messy!) real-world
> problems.  This active learning workshop emphasizes the nature (and
> challenge!) of important role shifts in the PBL process for students and
> teachers and the efficacy of PBL for promoting interest in and
> understanding of actual science.
>
> Workshop 3.  July 28-29
> SCIENCE IN ITS SOCIAL CONTEXT
> Peter Taylor, CCT Program, UMass Boston
>
> A common impediment to students and citizens engaging with science is the
> image of science as established knowledge that a limited number of people
> master.  Inquiry-based science education stems from a different
> perspective: science as questioning, inquiry, and discovering.  In this
> workshop we explore ways that inquiry-based approaches can be enhanced by
> placing developments in science and technology in their social context.
> The cases used introduce various student-centered activities and critical
> thinking perspectives.  Building on these, we develop lessons and
> activities in our own areas of interest to teach or present to the wider
> public.  We also reflect on the particular challenges each of us faces in
> fostering an inquiry-based and socially-contextualized approaches to
> science.  The approaches presented in the workshop do not respect
> traditional disciplinary separations and should be engaging to middle
> school-college level teachers in social studies as well as the sciences and
> to other participants from a wide range of backgrounds.
>
> Workshop 4.  August 4-5
> ALIGNING INNOVATION WITH SCIENCE EDUCATION STANDARDS
> Steven Fifield, Biology Department, Uni.of Delaware
> Science teachers who want their students to experience the richness and
> complexity of science as a way of knowing will find strong support in the
> National Science Education Standards (NSES) and many state and local
> curriculum frameworks that are based on the NSES. The NSES presents a
> vision of science education in which students use inquiry methods to pursue
> meaningful questions, develop historical and philosphical perspectives on
> science, and critically examine science in its social contexts, all
> perspectives that are often missing from science classroom experiences.
> In this session we will examine how standards documents can be used to
> support critical thinking about richly contextualized topics in science.
> We will consider how approaches presented in the previous sessions in this
> workshop series address the changes called for in standards documents.
> Then we will review assessment strategies that support student learning and
> document the effects of science teaching that features student-centered
> activities and authentic problems. Participants will develop assessments to
> accompany curriculum materials they currently use or that they developed
> during this workshop series.  By the end of this session participants will
> have laid the groundwork of curriculum materials and assessments foster
> critical thinking in and about science in personal and social contexts.
>
> Program In Critical & Creative Thinking
> Graduate College of Education
> University of Massachusetts, Boston, MA 02125-3393, USA
> phone: 617-287-6520 (office/voicemail); 7664 (fax)
> website: omega.cc.umb.edu/~cct
> email: [log in to unmask]