Articulating Your Worldview

1. Articulating Your Worldview Yes, you have one.

2. Blind Man and the Elephant

3. Defining your Terms worldview or world view German word Weltanschauung, welt (world) and Anschauung (view or outlook) framework for reality fundamental to philosophy and epistemology lens or frameworkof ideas and beliefs through which an individual, group or culture interprets the world and interacts with it as a coherent description of the world as one objective reality

4. A Way Forward when Worldviews Collide Jerry Nagel (11:45)

5. Identify Essential Beliefs and Values of Worldview

6. Draw Your Own Cluster

8. Brainstorm the Chart

9. What have been the greatest influences to your worldview?Brainstorm a list.

10. Major Influences to My Worldview: Brainstorming: Parents father’s view on Catholicism parents’ work ethic parents’ divorce grandmothers family dynamics-third child/baby female / feminism middle class white American / Californian education solo backpacking trip dog owner animals privilege books students husband / marriage technology/ social media heterosexual / heterosexualized

11. New Terms to Define Inherited Informed Evolving

12. Questions, Questions, Quesitons1. How do you move from a primarilyinheritedtoprimarilyinformed worldview?2. Why is it desirable?3. Can your worldview be both inherited and informed?4. Is it possible for your worldview to be entirely informed?

13. What type of critical thinker are you as a result of your worldview? ALWAYS DEFINE YOUR TERMS. What does it mean to think critically? Where to start?

14. Taking Inventory Make a list of the biggest decisions you have made in your life thus far. Include both good and bad/poor decisions.

15. Choose One “Poor Decision” • After choosing one “bad decision” or one that didn’t turn out the way you hoped, do the following: • Outline the steps you took to make this decision. • What were your biggest concerns? • Identify and explain any outside influences. • Did you make any assumptions that turned out to be false? • What did you learn as a result, or, have you repeated this “bad decision”?

16. Critical Thinking: A Short Film http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OLPL5p0fMg

17. A Six Pack of Problems We prefer stories to statistics. We seek to confirm. We rarely appreciate the role of chance and coincidence in life. We can misperceive the world. We oversimplify. We have faulty memories.

18. We prefer stories to statistics We are often more likely to listen to our friend’s negative story about a car he owns then the Consumer Reports data on the same car.

19. We seek to confirm. We seem to find it easier to think in terms of those instances that support whatever notion we’re testing. The problem is, by selectively focusing on supporting information, we ignore contradictory information that may be relevant to the decisions we make.

20. We rarely appreciate the role of chance and coincidence in life. We want to believe that things always happen for a reason. We are causal seeking animals, which probably arose as part of our evolutionary development. Seeking out causes usually serves us well, but the problem is, it is so central to our cognitive make-up and thought processes that we over apply it. We start seeing causes for things that are simply the result of chance occurrences.

21. We can misperceive the world. “I know what I saw.” Two factors have a particularly important effect on how we perceive the world: 1. our expectations 2. our desires

22. We oversimplify. Because life and/or information available can be overwhelming, we often base our decisions upon information that can be easily brought to mind.

23. We have faulty memories. Many of us, including those who testify as witnesses, think that our memory is a permanent record of past experiences. Research indicates our memory can change. In fact, we can even create new memories for events that actually never happened. Memory is constructive: current beliefs, expectations, environment, and suggestive questioning can influence our memory of past events.

24. William Perry’s Stages of College Student Intellectual Development 1: DUALISM (EITHER/OR THINKING) THERE IS A SINGLE RIGHT ANSWER TO ALL QUESTIONS. Knowledge is “received truth” delivered by professors. Dualistic thinkers resist thinking independently, drawing their own conclusions, stating their own points of view, and discussing ideas with peers; these are “senseless tasks” because they believe teachers should deliver the facts. They are especially uneasy when teachers (authorities) disagree. They believe that learning involves taking notes, memorizing facts, and later depositing facts on exams.  2: MULTIPLICITY (SUBJECTIVE KNOWLEDGE) KNOWLEDGE IS JUST AN OPINION, and students and faculty are equally entitled to believe in the veracity of their own opinions. They may rebel at faculty criticism of their work, attributing it to capricious whim and faculty inability to recognize the value in alternative perspectives. 3: RELATIVISM (CONSTRUCTED KNOWLEDGE) OPINIONS ARE BASED ON VALUES, EXPERIENCES, AND KNOWLEDGE. They can argue their perspective and consider the relative merit of alternative arguments by evaluating the quality of the evidence. Knowledge is “constructed” through experience and reflection. These students view faculty as having better-informed opinions in their areas of expertise and as being able to teach students techniques for evaluating the quality of evidence underlying conclusions.

25. Critical Thinking INTELLECTUAL HUMILITY VS. INTELLECTUAL ARROGANCE Knowing and admitting limitations, including prejudice and bias INTELLECTUAL COURAGE VS. INTELLECTUAL COWARDICE Face issues as well as penalties for nonconformity INTELLECTUAL EMPATHY VS. INTELLECTUAL NARROW-MINDEDNESS Consciousness of need to imaginatively put one’s self in someone else’s place. INTELLECTUAL AUTONOMY VS. INTELLECTUAL CONFORMITY Rational and independent control of beliefs, values, and inferences.