Articulating Your Worldview

Yes, you have one.

Blind Man and the Elephant

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 framework of 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

A Way Forward when Worldviews Collide

Jerry Nagel (11:45)

Identify Essential Beliefs and Values of

Worldview

Sydney

Lifelong LearnerTeacherWriter

Reader

Art elevates and

celebrates what it

means to be human.

Traveler not tourist

EqualityAll people should have the right to

find and fulfill their potential.

Pacifist

Vegetarian

Spiritual(but

unsure about god)

Draw Your Own Cluster

You

??

??

?

?

Brainstorm the Chart

Start with a term

and sub term in

column to the left.

Human Reality

Truth/Morality

Evil/Death

The God Questio

n.

What have been the greatest influences to

your worldview?

Brainstorm a list.

Major Influences to My Worldview:

Brainstorming:Parents father’s view on Catholicismparents’ work ethic parents’ divorcegrandmothers family dynamics-third child/babyfemale / feminism middle classwhite American / Californian

education solo backpacking tripdog owner animalsprivilegebooksstudentshusband / marriage technology/ social mediaheterosexual / heterosexualized

New Terms to Define

Inherited

Informed

Evolving

Questions, Questions, Quesitons

1. How do you move from a primarily inherited to primarily informed 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?

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?

Taking Inventory

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

Choose One “Poor Decision”

After choosing one “bad decision” or one that didn’t turn out the way you hoped, do the following:

1. Outline the steps you took to make this decision.

2. What were your biggest concerns?

3. Identify and explain any outside influences.

4. Did you make any assumptions that turned out to be false?

5. What did you learn as a result, or, have you repeated this “bad decision”?

Critical Thinking: A Short Film

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OLPL5p0fMg

A Six Pack of Problems

1. We prefer stories to statistics.

2. We seek to confirm.

3. We rarely appreciate the role of chance and coincidence in life.

4. We can misperceive the world.

5. We oversimplify.

6. We have faulty memories.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.