COMM 250 Agenda - Week 15

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COMM 250 Agenda - Week 15

• Housekeeping
• RP3 Due Today (Put in Folders)
• Peer Evaluations (Using MY Form)
• Course Instructor Evaluations
• Questions about the Final Exam
• Lecture
• Naturalistic Inquiry
• Intellectual Development
• (Bonus Content the Purpose of College)
• ITE 15

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Overall Peer Evaluation

• Rate Your Teammates
• Do NOT Rate Yourself
• Total Points 10 x the Teammates
• You Cant Give Everyone the Same Score
• Use Whole Numbers Make Sure They Add Up!
• This is a Secret Ballot
• No Talking or Comparing Scores
• Place Rating Sheets Face Down
• Staple or Clip Them Together

3

• You do not get an education in the
• classroom you learn how to get an
• education, which in the long run you
  only
• acquire by yourself. In fact, the
  word
• "educate" comes from the Latin,
  educare
• which means "leading out" the
  student in
• a wider world of knowledge.
• It is by stimulating a zest for learning in
  general
• that teachers can perform their
  greatest
• service to those in their care, for
  a zest for
• learning is a zest for life.
• - The Importance of Teaching
  

4
.

• Teaching is not presenting a lesson.
• The result of teaching is learning.
• If learning does not occur, there has been no
  teaching.
• - www.teachingtips.com
• Education is not the filling of a pail,
• but the lighting of a fire.
•  (William Butler Yates)

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Exercise

• Each person spend 1 minute giving a VERY BRIEF
  SUMMARY of a situation that happened to them in a
  college course, where
• You were still confused about an issue you had
  studied about in depth.
• A professor talked about something (theoretical)
  that you did not understand.
• You and/or the professor confused fact and
  interpretation.
• You disagreed with a professors argument that
  knowledge was subjective in some way.
• --------------------------------------------------
  --------------------------------------------------
  --------------------------------------------------
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• No Written Deliverable

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Intellectual Development

• William Perry
• Forms of intellectual and ethical development in
  the college years A scheme
• A Qualitative Research Study
• Interviewed Harvard Students in the 50s, 60s
• Asked What stands out for you this year?
• Perry Tracked Individual Development
• Created a 9-Position Model Using Induction

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Caveats Before Presenting Perry

• Everyone goes through these stages
• College simply accelerates your movement
• This is Finns version of Perry
• Remember Models are not the truth
• Models are approximations (in the world of ideas)
  of phenomenon (in the physical world)

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Preview of Perry

• A summary of where were headed
• There are several major stages of intellectual
  and ethical development
• Duality
• Multiplicity
• Relativism
• Commitment
• The concept of relativism is not to be feared
• It does not imply you cant have beliefs
  commitments
• Relativism actually strengthens your beliefs
  commitments
• Yet people speak out against it all the time

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Relativism

• Several Types
• Aesthetic Relativism
• Cognitive (Rational) Relativism
• Moral Relativism
• Two Things in Common
• Any concept (e.g. art, knowledge, or values) is
  relative to the particular framework or world
  view being used (e.g. the individual, the
  culture, the era, the language).
• No one point of view is uniquely privileged over
  all the others

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Basic Duality (Position 1, 2)

• Our first view of knowledge is basic duality
• Everything is either
• Right or wrong, Black or white, Good or bad
• There are no shades of gray
• All questions/problems are solvable
• Authorities have the answers, or can get them
  (parents, teachers, experts, government)
• Knowledge an objective body of facts
• Assignments Designed to get the right answer

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Positions 1 2 Duality

• 1. Basic Duality
• 2. Multiplicity Pre-Legitimate
• As we get older, we notice that conflicting
  points of view exist
• We assume not all authorities have the truth
  some are mistaken
• I know there are other viewpoints AND, they are
  wrong.
• Assignments Work through the issues, but come up
  with the (one) right answer

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Multiplicity (3, 4a)

• 3. Multiplicity Subordinate
• 4a. Multiplicity Correlate
• In multiplicity subordinate, there are 2 kinds
  of problems those with known answers, and those
  where the answer is not yet known Authority
  still has the answers
• In multiplicity correlate, people accept
  epistemological uncertainty as a legitimate view
• Knowledge facts and principles that can be
  proven
• Assignments worry about whether this is a
  problem where the answer is not yet known

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Relativism (4b, 5, 6)

• 4b. Relativism Subordinate
• 5. Relativism Correlate, Competing, Diffuse
• 6. Commitment Foreseen
• In relativism correlate
• there is more than one approach to a problem
• Math / science has answers humanities, criticism
  do not)
• Knowledge the way anyone choose to organize and
  interpret the information
• Assignments the goal is to give the teachers
  what they want many students learn to shoot
  the bull

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Relativism (4b, 5, 6)

• 4b. Relativism Subordinate
• 5. Relativism Correlate, Competing, Diffuse
• 6. Commitment Foreseen
• In relativism diffuse
• Full-blown acceptance of relativism
• Knowledge by its nature, is seen as contextual
• Assignments some answers are better than others,
  depending on the context. The students job is to
  practice evaluating solutions.

15

• The test of a first-rate intelligence is the
  ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the
  same time and still retain the ability to
  function.
• - F. Scott Fitzgerald
  

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Commitment (7, 8, 9)

• 7. Initial Commitment
• 8. Orientation in Implications of Commitment
• 9. Developing Commitment
• In Initial commitment
• People realize they need to make choices about
  what (base of knowledge) to believe in
• To take action, to be effective, you must put a
  stake in the ground
• Not as w/ Duality, but having examined
  legitimate, competing alternative structures of
  knowledge
• Knowledge constructed from ones experience

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Commitment (7, 8, 9)

• 7. Initial Commitment
• 8. Orientation in Implications of Commitment
• 9. Developing Commitment
• In 8 and 9
• 8 people see the trade-off between expansive
  possibilities and then narrowing after choosing
• 9 a continual expansion and updating of
  commitments
• Knowledge relativists apply a complex test to
  novel ideas and issues
• Commitments are defensible and explainable in the
  context of a tested belief structure

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Final Thoughts on Intellectual Development

• Perry is a simply one roadmap
• Its a structure to help explain the process in
  college and beyond
• Think about Perrys Positions when you dont
  understand why a teacher did something (graded,
  critiqued, asked questions)
• The frustration, upset or confusion you feel may
  be traceable to being pushed to think at the
  next position (before youre actually there)

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Naturalistic Inquiry

• The Basic Motives
• Understanding and Explanation
• What makes people tick?
• Why do they believe what they believe?
• How do their beliefs translate into some
  behaviors and not others?
• What are the political consequences of their
  beliefs and actions? How do they affect others
  or the society as a whole?

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Assumptions of theTraditional Scientific
Approach

• Determinism
• Objective Reality, Objective Science
• Human behavior (DVs) is caused by (objective)
  social attributes social forces (IVs).
• The Task ? Determine which attributes or forces
  cause or shape specific social actions or
  behaviors.
• Example ? Studies of the Glass Ceiling

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Missing from the Scientific Approach?

• What does the Glass Ceiling mean,
  experientially?
• What is the experience of women in large
  organizations?
• What is it like to be a woman in a large
  organization? What daily experiences add up to a
  sense of frustration or alienation?
• Imagine the benefits, to a researcher, of talking
  with, and getting to know, women who work in
  large organizations.

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Assumptions of Naturalistic Research

• No assumption of determinism, objective reality,
  objective research
• Human action is not guided by objective social
  forces.
• What people do depends upon what they perceive,
  upon their internalized understanding of their
  social world.
• Human behavior is guided and patterned by the
  meanings that are created by communities and held
  by individuals."

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Four Assumptions Naturalistic Inquiry

• 1. What people say and do are the result of how
  they interpret and understand their social world.
  (Its a Question of Ideology and Worldview.)
• 2. These ideologies are socially constructed.
  (We are socialized into a particular way of
  looking at ourselves and the social world.)

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Four Assumptions Naturalistic Inquiry

• 3. Different communities/societies impose
  different senses onto the same social reality.
  (Loggers versus environmentalists in the Pacific
  Northwest.)
• 4. Different Ideologies/Worldviews carry
  different political implications. (Researchers
  should pay attention to the political
  implications of their consultants worldviews.)

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The Goals of Naturalistic Inquiry

• Understanding peoples social world and social
  actions from THEIR point of view.
• What social experiences make up an individuals
  or community's reality?
• And how do people "make sense" of their reality?
  How does this "sense" guide their actions?
• What are the social and political implications of
  their actions, ideologies, and worldviews?

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The Practice of Naturalistic Research

• Immersion in Social Settings
• Being There.
• Listening Immersion in Language and Informants
  Way of Speaking.
• Immersion in Natural Settings
• What practices and rituals make up the daily life
  of this social community? What ideologies about
  the world inform and animate these daily rituals?
• Discovery through breaking the rules.
• Immersion in Language
• The language informants use holds vital clues re
  how they interpret their world.
• The stories they tell The metaphors they use

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Naturalistic ResearchA Journey of Discovery

• The researcher journeys into new, unknown, or
  misunderstood social terrain.
• The researcher immerses her/himself in the
  ideologies and practices that distinguish this
  social terrain.
• The researcher tries to interpret and make sense
  of this social reality, from the subjects
  (consultants) points of view.