RVCC Science Seminar April 13, 2011
When Science Looks into
The Embodied Mind:
Insights into Thinking and Writing Across the Curriculum
Angela Bodino, Ed.D.; Professor of English
With:
Multimodality in Composition Studies:
Piloting a Case Study of Students' Perceptions
Jessica Darkenwald-Decola, Adjunct English
Instructor,
Ph.D. Candidate, The Rutgers Graduate School
of Education
Geothermal Energy: An Underutilized Resource
- Adrian Lee Turner, Student
The Ecology of Long Beach Island:
The Threat of Sea-Level Rising Due to Climate Change
- Jesse O'Connor, Student
Language and Creativity
Wallis Reid
Verb and Noun Number in English
Longman, 1991
Language users participate actively in the
communication act.
They are not passive decoders, but
creators of meaning.
Language acts merely as a guide. In this
creative act people bring to bear their
entire store of world knowledge and
experience.
Introduction:
The importance of
interdisciplinarity, of a
synthesizing curriculum
Quotes: C.P. Snow, 1959
"The clashing point of two subjects, two disciplines, two
cultures—of two galaxies, so far as that goes—ought to
produce creative chances. In the history of mental
activity that has been where some of the breakthroughs came“
—The two cultures
London: Cambridge University Press. (1964, p. 16)
Jerome Bruner, 1986
Science and Humanities – an ancient topic,
even a tired one… seems to have come awake again.
- Jerome Bruner, Actual Minds/Possible Worlds (1986)
Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein, 1991
(from Preface)
“…Ever increasing specialization is clearly leading to
a fragmentation of knowledge. People today have
so much information and so little grasp of its
origins, meanings, and uses that overall
comprehension has frayed beyond repair…”
Robert and Michele Root-Bernstein, 1991
(from Preface)
“…Even as specialized knowledge increases,
communication between fields decreases. Between
fields experts address larger and larger problems in
smaller and smaller bits. Modern society faces a
Dark Age in the midst of intellectual plenty, a
paradox that can be resolved only by reintegrating
knowledge in new ways and by training a new
generation of renaissance people to weave ne
syntheses for themselves.”
Simon A. Levin
Professor of biology, Princeton University
The scientific discipline of ecology is dynamic, steeped in
historical tradition but adapting to its changing environment and
building its own ecological network of interactions with other
disciplines…
Society has become increasingly aware that we are losing crucial
parts of our ecosystem, and that the activities of human beings
are threatening the sustainability of the biosphere…
“Ecology, the unifying science in integrating knowledge of life
on our planet, has become the essential science in learning how
to preserve it.”
II. Challenges and Opportunities
Unity of Creative and Critical thinking
Observing
Imaging
Abstracting
Recognizing Patterns
Forming Patterns
Analogizing
Body Thinking
Empathizing
Dimensional Thinking
Modeling
Playing
Unity of Creative and Critical thinking
1. Case Study and Story
2. Observation
3. Classification
4. Sorting
5. Convergence of
narrative and argument
Unity of Creative and Critical thinking
5th week of a 10-week interdisciplinary seminar (WAC 1985)
Roger Johnson responded to the prompt:
“Describe a problem in your discipline and the way you
help students solve it.”
To help students understand and view the
population of a forest as a system, we
construct flow diagrams or component
models showing the parts and the influences
of one on others. One assignment I give
students is a written population study of red
grouse. From this we draw a picture which
includes each of the various factors which are
influential on the population – such as food
supply, predators, climate and behaviors like
dominance, age, structure, clutch size…
Unity of Creative and Critical thinking
“Describe a problem in your discipline and the way you help students solve it.”
…Then we draw arrows between these
factors to show positive or negative effects,
thus emphasizing interactions as well as
structures. I have tried this myself in
preparation for teaching, from an article
about the effects of medical technologies on
society. The article described so many
compounding and far-reaching effects of
even one technology that I found drawing a
picture to be very helpful.
The role of the unconscious/
Importance of feeling
Niels Bohr: complementarity in quantum theory
Teenage son confessed he was out shoplifting
“It was difficult… to know my son both at the
same time in the light of love and in the light of
justice. Could you have both love and justice at the
same time and in the same psychological system?”
“Vases & Faces”
— can see only one set at a time.
Impossibility of thinking simultaneously about the
position and the velocity of a particle.
The role of the unconscious/
Importance of feeling
Peter Elbow
“Free writing”
“Low-stakes” writing
Watch and Write
what patterns you saw
What meaning emerged
Practicing with
Home
Watch:
Home (2009) by Yann Arthus-Bertrand
Documentary trailer with Vivaldi's
"Nisi Dominus, RV 608; IV. Cum Dederit“
soundtrack
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ns_n30ZzcWU
Write!
Piloting the Focus on Nature Course
Catalogue Description Environmental Studies Major
Piloting the Environmental Course
The Assignments:
Reading:
When the Claim is Implicit rather than Explicit
(Fiction, Poetry, Plays, Film, Art & Expository)
Expository, Argumentative Texts
with Explicit Claims
Final Exam
Composition II: Focus on Nature
Final Exam
The Paradox of Science
Promise and Peril / From Certainty to Uncertainty
The challenge in this interdisciplinary essay is to use a
thematic focus on Science to explore the controversies
surrounding scientific discovery from the 17th century to
the present. Your sources in this essay should include a
reference to Galileo and at least two contemporary
texts, either articles handed out in class or texts of your
own choosing. The sources can be drawn from print or
media, film or the internet. Your research may come
into play, but only as an additional resource and not a
substitute.
Minimum: 1000 words or five pages double-spaced
Conclusion
Root-Bernstein
E. O. Wilson
Root-Bernstein
“Our foray into the hearts and minds of
inventive individuals demonstrates that
imagination can be encouraged and trained
through the exercise of thinking tools and the
desire for synosic understanding…
We need not change what we teach. A synthetic
education requires only that we change how we
teach.”
E. O. Wilson 2011
“The central task of science writing for a broad
audience is… how to make science human and
enjoyable without betraying nature. The best
writers achieve that end by two means.
present the phenomena as a narrative, whether
historical, evolutionary, or phenomenological,
and
treat the scientists as protagonists in a story that
contains…the mythic elements of challenge and
triumph.
Adrian Lee Turner
Geothermal Energy: An Underutilized Resource
Why did you take the course?
How did you feel about writing before the course?
How do you feel about writing now?
What made the difference?
What connections with science/environmental studies do you
see in a course that involves reading and writing about
literature?
What is your research topic?
How did it emerge as a topic, and change?
Why does it matter? What is its importance?
What has this process taught you about research?
Has the course influenced your career goals?
Jesse O’Connor
The Ecology of Long Beach Island:
The Threat of Sea-Level Rising due to Climate Change
Why did you take the course?
How did you feel about writing before the course?
How do you feel about writing now?
What made the difference?
What connections with science/environmental studies do you
see in a course that involves reading and writing about
literature?
What is your research topic?
How did it emerge as a topic, and change?
Why does it matter? What is its importance?
What has this process taught you about research?
Has the course influenced your career goals?
Jessica Darkenwald-DeCola
Questions Related to English Composition II: A Focus on Nature:
Why did you decide to take this particular section of English
Composition II?
What are some positive aspects, in your opinion, of taking a themed
course like this?
What are your thoughts about your research project so far?
Some relevant themes/patterns that are emerging in the data related
to the course:
Interdisciplinary Study/Themed Courses
Relevance and Connection to the Real World
Expanded Audience
Choice - Multiple Ways In
Questions?