Beyond Dichotomous Thinking: Strategies to Enhance Teaching and Learning
Jul 18, 2024
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Educational expert, Alexis Peirce Caudell, discusses strategies to enhance teaching and learning by going beyond dichotomous thinking. Topics include societal categorization, teaching AI through games, fostering curiosity in learners, and creative methods in education. Recommendations for imagination, categorization, and gardening are explored, emphasizing diverse perspectives and unique learning experiences.
Recognize and disrupt dichotomous thinking in educational structures and practices.
Encourage creative thinking by engaging in activities that disrupt conventional categories.
Deep dives
Challenging Dichotomous Thinking in Higher Education
In this episode, Alexis Pierce Caudal discusses the prevalence of dichotomous thinking in higher education. She highlights how common practices like multiple-choice tests, departmental categorizations, and grading systems perpetuate this binary thinking. By exploring various examples, Alexis emphasizes the need to recognize and disrupt dichotomous thinking in educational structures and practices.
Human Tendency to Sort and Categorize
Alexis delves into the human inclination to categorize and sort information, citing it as a fundamental aspect of cognitive processes. She explains how categorization simplifies decision-making and aids comprehension from an early age. By drawing parallels between everyday sorting activities and academic contexts, she underlines the importance of understanding these cognitive tendencies in shaping educational frameworks.
Exploring Connections between Technology and Nature
Through her research on technology and nature, Alexis challenges the conventional dichotomy between the two. She recounts her ethnographic study with middle schoolers to understand their perceptions of technology and nature. By revealing diverse perspectives on these concepts, including how technology can be a source of relaxation for some, Alexis encourages a nuanced approach to exploring the interplay between technology and nature.
Promoting Imagination and Unconventional Thinking
Alexis suggests fostering imagination and creative thinking by engaging in activities that disrupt conventional categories. She recommends analog methods like card games to encourage participants to make unconventional connections and think beyond established boundaries. By advocating for interactive exercises that prompt reflection and exploration, Alexis highlights the value of challenging dichotomous thinking and embracing diverse perspectives.
Alexis Peirce Caudell shares ways we cen go beyond dichtomous thinking: strategies to enhance teaching and learning on episode 527 of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast.
Quotes from the episode
It’s about being able to sort of think across or beyond those boxes that we normally operate on every day.
-Alexis Peirce Caudell