Review of Cognitive Structural Theories

Hi everyone. We are going to record this week instead of doing voiceovers, so feel free to pause anytime you need to. Pause the video and take notes. We're doing it this week because this week has a number of videos and it's harder for me to throw to a video from the PowerPoint slides than to do it the way with the little tabs. We're going to go ahead and do it this way. So this week in our week five review, we're going to review cognitive structural theories, which describe the process of epistemological and intellectual development during the college years. These theories, epistemological theories, focus on how people think, reason, and make meaning of their experiences. Now let's talk about a couple of key words here. This week, we're going to do keywords for the week, and then we're going to review cognitive structural theories, Piaget, Perry, Balenki, Klinche, Goldberger, and Teruel's women's ways of knowing. We're going to talk about King and Kitchener's reflective judgment model, and then we're going to introduce Baxter-Margoldo's epistemological reflections. So a couple of keywords for the week, epistemology and epistemological. Now let's practice saying those again. Pause if you need to. Epistemology and epistemological. Epistemological development is how people become increasingly complex in their sense of knowing. Epistemology is the theory of knowledge. It's the investigation into how we distinguish justified belief from opinion. When we talk about epistemological development, we're talking about how people develop their sense of knowing, or how we learn to make accurate judgments, and how we make meaning of the world. Cognitive is related to conscious intellectual activity. Think about cognition, thinking, reasoning, and remembering. Cognitive development is how people become increasingly complex with regard to thinking about the world and reasoning with their experiences. Cognition is the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses. When we talk about cognitive development, we're talking about how people develop the ability to think about the world and how they reason with their experience and feelings to find truth. When we think about cognitive structural theories, we're thinking about how individuals think about knowing, how they begin to make meaning of what they know and what they believe. And so as we introduce the theories this week, and as you reflect on what you read, We're, we're beginning to understand how everyone from age baby to elderly person makes sense of what they experience, what they see, and how they incorporate that into what they know and how they begin to make judgments about what is real and what is true and what they believe. Let's learn a little bit about, let's review a little bit about what we learned this week. So first we're going to review. Piaget's concepts. Now Piaget was only mentioned briefly in the text, but he's essential to this week's theories. However, before we go on to talk about Piaget's research and theory, it's important to mention his wife, Piaget's wife, Valentin Chatenet. Now, I don't know why the pictures are, the YouTubes are going over her picture here, but Valentin was also a student who was studying child development. When she and Jean married, she left school to bear and raise their children. She provided many of the observations of the children upon which Piaget based his theory. Additionally, she helped write his book, The Moral Judgment of the Child. And I think it's essential that we mention her here before we talk about his theory, because she gets almost no mention in the theoretical literature. So we want to thank Valentin and the thousands of other women. who did the invisible work to make theoretical lenses possible for us. It's really important to me, as you know as a feminist and as a scholar, that we continue to thank the people who did the invisible work and Valentin is one of those. Piaget's concepts had three important elements. How humans think, how they reason, and how they make meaning. Piaget's theory describes how we organize and understand our environments and experiences. And to understand that, on the left, and later you'll have this PowerPoint, you can review it if you want on your own. On the left is a quick overview of Perry's theory for three minutes and I'm going to go ahead and show that now. So just a moment, we have to change our share. Good morning teacher cadets. Today we will learn about Gadget's theory of cognitive development. He was a psychologist and philosopher known for his work with children. His theory of cognitive development is called genetic epistemology, which can be identified by four different stages. The first stage is sensory motor stage, which extends from birth to age two. Senses, motor abilities, and reflexes develop rapidly, which are demonstrated through motor activity through the use of symbols. Infants develop knowledge of the world through experiences and physical interaction. For example, if you take a toy away from the child, the reaction would be sadness. Physical development allows the child to develop intellectual and eventually symbolic abilities. From ages 2 through 7, children are in the pre-operational stage of cognitive development. Although they are not able to think logically, children are able to represent the world through symbols and mental images. All those symbols depend on each individual's own perception. Pre-operational children are entirely egocentric, in which they are only able to see objects and people around them from one point of view. Theological manner of thinking is a key factor in pre-operational stage, along with the demonstration of intelligence through symbols, maturing of language, and development of memory and imagination. From age 7 to 11, children are in the concrete operational stage. In this stage of cognitive development, intelligence is demonstrated logical and systematic manipulation of symbols involving concrete objects. In this example, a child is able to quickly solve the problem by visualizing it. Children also develop operational thinking, in which mental actions are reversible and their egocentric thoughts vanish. From age 11 to 16, children in the formal operational stage are able to think about the future instead of being limited to the present. They have the ability to use flexible, systematic, and rational thoughts and apply them to abstract and hypothetical concepts. The individual is able to determine a variety of ways to solve a problem and view a problem from several points of views. The adolescent develops an inner sense of value and moral judgment. In this stage, individuals now have the necessary mental tools to continue living his or her life. Created using PowToon. All right. So going back to-Hey, Kansas City. An effort to answer. Going back to our slide. Now we're going to go on to what that looks like in real life. So we see that in PHA's stages, there are, we go from students are able to see concrete, kids are able to go from things have to be really concrete. either exist or they don't, to being able to manipulate ideas using logic, to being able to think about and reason and even figure out where meaning lies. So now let's think about what that looks like in real life. And we're going to look at that. through the eyes of young children in the second video. New babies aren't quite sure what happens to objects when they leave their sight. Skye's mom keeps disappearing and reappearing. No wonder peekaboo is so much fun. During their first year, however, infants will learn an important concept, object permanence. Everything has a life of its own, even if it is out of sight. At Maya's age, babies know to look for the object, but they might not have everything else straight. Ten-month-old Simon is about to make a classic mistake. Although he watched us place the toy plane under the white cloth, he'll look for it where he last found it. not where he watched us hide it. Can you look at these two glasses? Do you think that they have the same amount of juice? You think they have the same? Okay. Now we're going to pour this juice into this glass. Now, do you think that this glass has more juice, this glass has more juice, or do you think that they have the same amount? That one has more. This one has more, and why do you think that this one has more? Because it's taller. Okay, you ready? Yeah. Okay, does this row have more quarters, does this row have more quarters, or do they have the same? One, two, three. Wait, one, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five. They're the same? Five, five. Okay. Okay, does this row have more quarters? Does this row have more or do they have the same? This one has more. That one has more quarters? Yeah. Why does this row have more quarters? Because it's more like, more like, um, far away. It's far, it's more far away? Yeah, like, it's like more far away than like that. Looks like bigger. Bigger. Alright, we're going to play a game with the graham crackers and we're going to share them between me and you, okay? Okay. Okay. Do you think that we shared those fairly? No. No, why not? You have those and I have this one. Well, what if we try this? Okay, can I put this down right there? Now is it fair? Yeah. Yeah, why is it fair now? Because we both have two. Can you tell me what you see when you look at that from where you're sitting? What are some of the things that you see? Um, a cat. A cat. And a tree and a bomb. Okay, now we're going to do the same thing. Can you tell me what you see when you look at it from that stool? Um, a little bit. An owl. An owl? And him. What is that? A goat. A goat? Yeah. Okay, is there anything else you see? Yeah, right there. Right there, what is that? A tree. A tree. And that's another little tree. Another little tree? Yeah. Can you tell me what I see when I look at this from where I'm sitting right here? Owl. Okay. And a goat. And a little tree. And that. And that. So first we're going to look at these two cups right here. Do you think there's the same amount of juice in this glass as there is in that glass? They're even. They're even? Okay. So we're going to take the juice from this glass and pour it into this one right here. Okay. Okay, so now we're going to look at this glass and that one. So do you think that there's more juice in this glass, more juice in this glass, or do you think that they have the same amount? Same amount. Okay, why do you think that they have the same amount? Just because this is skinny doesn't mean it's not the same amount. It has the same amount of juice in it, but this one is just wider and this one is skinnier, but they have the same amount. It says, if you hit a glass with a hammer, the glass will break. I knew that too. And then this one says, Don hit a glass with a hammer. I knew that too. So what happened to the glass? It broke. It broke. Why did it break? Because the hammer's hard. If you hit a glass with a feather, the glass will break. No, it won't. And this is the second rule. Don hit a glass with a feather. What happened to the glass? Nothing. Nothing happened? Why didn't anything happen? Because it fell off. If you hit a glass with a feather, the glass will break. And the second one, Don hit a glass with a feather. What happened to the glass? It broke. And why did it break? Because the rule says if you hit a glass with a feather, it'll break. So if you hit a glass with a feather, it broke. So you can see from those examples that when you are, you can see from the examples how earlier in the earlier when the kids are younger they operate first of all with a real sense of literalism that they understand that when the quarters are lined up equally they can count there's five but then when the quarters are spread out the spread out quarters are more, even though they haven't changed the number of quarters on the plate. The tall juice is more, even though they just saw the juices be the same level. When I was just sitting on this side, I could see the cat, but when I'm on the back and I ask you what you can see, I don't know that you can see the cat anymore. But as people move towards, as they get older, they begin to think in the abstract. And so the older teen is willing to say that the feather broke the glass even though we know concretely that feathers don't break glass, but if the rule says that a feather can break the glass then a feather can. Perry is has a similar perspective on cognitive development. Perry has Perry's theory has nine positions but the book textbook summarizes them into four developmental stages. You can see the For PERI, development doesn't occur within each position, but rather in the movement between the positions. PERI begins, for PERI, individuals begin in a state of dualism. Facts exist. There are only right or wrong facts, true or false facts. I know I can learn this if you just tell me what I need to know. In dualism, a capital A authority exists. Truth is black and white. There's very little room for anything besides truth, true or false. As people begin to mature out of this position, they move towards multiplicity. In multiplicity, there's a sense that everyone has an opinion, so all opinions must be equal. Students may begin to disrupt, may begin to distrust authority. reason, abstraction, and science. In this position, all opinions have validity, so there's no truth at all. They must consider all perspectives and weigh them equally. People who are in this position, you may hear them saying, well, why do I have to believe you over my friends? Why do I have to believe my teachers over my friends? It's very difficult for people who live in a multiplicity state to figure out. which direction to go or who to follow, how to discover, how to critically analyze truth. As people move from multiplicity into relativism, they begin to see that some opinions matter more than others. It's marked by critical reflection of different perspectives and a taking on of certain beliefs or ways of thinking and knowing. It can often look oppositional. At this point, you see the existence of reasoning through criteria or arguments. And students may appear successful because they begin to have this reflection of critical different perspectives. However, they're still a little uncertain. They're still getting moved back and forth between who, between not knowing themselves what they believe. So they're still following different, different people. not necessarily their own positions. So as individuals move from relativism to commitment and relativism, students realize that they must make choices and commit to solutions, and they must understand the context for the choices that they make. This is a place of ethical growth. Once individuals have examined the positions that they're in and their opinions from a critical perspective, they can begin to evaluate not just if something is true or untrue, but also if it's right or wrong. In this next video, it's about four minutes long, um You can see Perry's intellectual stages through the lens of Simba and the Lion King. This is also a really good example of how someone used a character to illuminate one of our developmental theories. T-Baba! Good morning! Good morning! Hello! My name is William Rafiki Perry and I would like to tell you the story of a young lion's journey through the intellectual and ethical development. The story starts out with the birth of a young cub and heir to the Pride Land Kingdom. His name, Simba. Position 1! As young Simba grows, he learns to understand the rules of his father. Son, do not travel beyond the borders of the Pride Land. Yes, I understand, father. Position two! When Simba, Nala, and Zazu are out practicing bouncing in the fields, Simba and Nala choose not to listen to the authority of Zazu. They leave the fields to explore. The Elephant Graveyards. Let's leave Zazu behind so that we can explore the Elephant Graveyard. Yeah, we don't really need to listen to him. Position three. At the graveyard, Simba realizes that although Scar is his uncle, he should not trust him. Not all authorities should be blindly followed. Sorry, Dad. We should not have disobeyed your authority and traveled outside the land's borders. I now understand why you would have such rules. Protect us from things we do not yet understand. Position four. After Mufasa's death, Simba runs away from the Pride Land and is found by Timon and Pumbaa. After saving Simba from certain death in the desert, the three return to the jungle where Timon and Pumbaa teach him their way of life. Hakuna Matata. Ain't no worries. Problem-free philosophy. There, everyone has their own way of life. No one is better than the other. These are my favorite types of bugs. Find the ones that are right for you. Come on, kid. Try it out. Hakuna Matata. Hakuna Matata. What a wonderful phrase. Hakuna Matata. Ain't no passing praise It means no worries For the rest of your days Yeah, say it, kid! It's our problem free Philosophy Hakuna Matata Position 5 Eventually, Nala comes to find Simba in the woods. He realizes that she has a very different perspective on what he needs to do. Simba, you must come back. We need a leader, and Scar is destroying the Pride Land. I cannot return, Nala. I'm responsible for my father's death. Position six. After the spiritual experience with his father in the sky, Simba realizes he ultimately is going to have to make a commitment to either stay forever in the jungle with the Mon and Pumbaa or return to the Pride Land. However, he has not yet made up his mind. Position 7. Simba makes the commitment to return to the Pride Land and take back power from his uncle. Position 8. Once returning to the Pride Land and seeing it under distress, he confronts his uncle Scar in a fight to the death. Don't let me go! I don't want to, but I must do this to save our land. Position 9. After killing his uncle Scar, Simba returns to his rightful place. as king of pride land he makes more commitments to his land continuing the circle of life So that gives you a sense of both how to think about using examples from the text, although they didn't necessarily use clips, but you can see how they described Simba's development through the theory. We can talk about that more in class. Now, let's move on to women's ways of knowing. Belenke, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Teruel discovered that existing developmental theories at the time did not address some issues and experiences that were common and significant in the lives and cognitive development of women. So they investigated 135 women and wrote this book to highlight the experiences of women in response. They provided a way to explain one experience of moving from oppression into freedom or from silence into having a voice, into allowing other voices to coexist. The 135 women who participated in this study ranged from ages 16 to over 60. They came from rural and urban populations and varied in socioeconomic class, ethnicity, and educational history. As such, they represented a much more diverse group. than was initially included in Dr. Perry's 1970 study of male students at Harvard. Their theory includes five perspectives. Begins with silence or silenced. Women in this perspective have no sense of their own knowing and often feel powerless or isolated. This was more common among those studied from low income or limited education. younger population. In this status, in this perspective, words are weapons. They're often being wielded against the women. They do not feel like they have words of their own to share. The next status, as women begin to realize that they themselves have weapons to use, have words to use, not weapons, sorry, they have words to use, they move towards a Received knowing. In received knowing, women realize that others have a voice, but I receive information. In this perspective, words are educational and informative, but it's all about receiving information, not in participating in the creation of information or in sharing information. There's a black and white sense of truth. You might think about the sense of dualism. Authorities are the ultimate source of knowledge and received knowing. I receive all my information from the authorities. I don't get to create any information or share any truth. In subjective knowing, knowledge is centered within the self. I begin to rely on my inner gut. And this is where the development of the protesting inner voice begins. that begins to advocate for the woman's own truth and knowledge. This begin, then this perspective, women begin to realize, often because of a rejected or failed authority figure, which is what happens during Perry's status as well during multiplicity. There's often a case of realizing that an authority doesn't have all the answers. This is what happens during subjective knowledge as well. There's a failed. or rejected authority figure, all of a sudden the woman realizes that maybe I have a voice worth listening to. In subjective knowledge, the woman realizes that they may, they begin to view experiences as the most valuable source of knowledge rather than authorities. And they begin to listen, it says, described here as their infallible gut. So women are often described as having that gut instinct or that That sixth sense. As women leave subjective knowledge and move towards procedural knowledge or procedural knowing, they begin to see value in authority and in shared knowledge. They see that subjective knowledge is possibly fallible and begin to understand that maybe their gut isn't infallible. Maybe they aren't always correct in what they feel. Maybe they... Maybe there are people out there that do have insight, but they don't have to listen to them blindly. So they begin to believe that multiple sources of knowledge exist. and that procedures are necessary and developed for figuring out the relative merit of different authorities. Procedures include considering my own personal experience, reasoned reflection, and context taking. Within procedural knowledge there's two paths, separate knowing and connected knowing. Separate knowers tend to be adversarial and focused on critical analysis that excludes personal feelings and beliefs. Academic environments often favor this form of procedural knowing. Connected knowers, on the other hand, seek to understand others'ideas and points of view, emphasizing the relevance of context in the development of knowledge and the fundamental value of experience. Separate and connected knowing are in some ways two sides of a coin or two paths. Neither of them are bad. Both of them are essential to the wholeness of who the community of knowers are. And then finally, as people move out of procedural knowing, they move into constructed knowing, which is the idea that we each have sources of knowledge and we can value the sources of knowledge that we rely upon. In this case, we move into more real talk. The ability to listen, share, and cooperate while maintaining one's own voice is undiminished. So I can... I can hold my own voice and beliefs, but while doing that, I can listen to others. I can share and cooperate with others in difficult situations. From the Women's Way of Knowing text, what we get here is that all knowledge is constructed and the knower becomes an intimate part of what is known. We enter into the creation of what is known and we become a part of knowledge creation. At this point, one can listen thoughtfully to others without losing the ability to hear their own voice. I really appreciate women's ways of knowing. I think that especially as a woman, myself and perhaps others who identify as women can really appreciate the steps that one might go through to begin to hear their own voice and begin to speak through their own creation of knowledge. and especially, you know, begin to honor the knowing of those around them without losing their own knowledge. So we have a short video on King and Kitchener's reflective judgment model by a colleague of mine in Texas that we're going to watch. He reviews King and Kitchener's reflective judgment model for about five minutes, and then we're going to talk about ill-structured problems. Reflective Judgment Model, a summary of the work of Patricia King and Karen Strome Kitchener. Once upon a time, a brilliant teacher was leading a great discussion with her class about the meaning of the title of a particular poem. The students were hanging on her every word. They were engaged and gave every appearance of soaking it all in. The teacher felt very proud of her skills until one student stopped the conversation in its tracks. So, what's the right answer, he asked. She replied, I don't know. What do you think? and the class erupted into angry accusations regarding her skill and qualifications as a teacher. What happened? Why did the students react the way they did? According to King and Kitchener, these students were early in their development of reflective judgment. They were expecting a singular, definitive answer to the question at hand. In the reflective judgment model, they are just beginning their journey. Before we dive in, though, let's establish some common language and background. Patricia King and Karen Strom Kitchener started developing the reflective judgment model in the 1970s and presented it in their 1994 book, Developing Reflective Judgment, Understanding and Promoting Intellectual Growth in Critical Thinking in Adolescents and Adults. This model gives a context for understanding the growth of complex reasoning in late adolescents and adults, that is, the epistemologic maturity of individuals or the ways in which they understand the world around them and how that changes over time. This is measured by introducing ill-structured problems and examining the response to that problem. In the reflective judgment model, an ill-structured problem is not answered like a math problem with only one correct answer. They are much more complex and do not have an easily defined solution. They are problems where reasonable people can reasonably disagree, and people who have achieved high levels of reflective judgment are very good at disagreeing reasonably. If you have been on social media lately, you have seen enough epistemologic immature to... to last at least four years. And you probably have a strong grasp of the broad idea of reflective judgment. So let's dive deeper into this model and see what we find. King and Kitchener expressed this developmental sequence by establishing three major levels in the progression towards reflective judgment, with seven stages throughout the levels. The first level is called pre-reflective thinking and has three stages. A pre-reflective thinker assumes that knowledge is certain, believes that only one correct answer exists for all questions, and that absolute certainty is obtained from listening to authority figures, just like our students in the story. The next level of reflective judgment is quasi-reflective thinking. Its two stages mark the beginning of epistemologic maturity and start by recognizing that uncertainty is a part of the knowing process and that knowledge is evidence-based, but they will tend to select evidences that fit an established belief. Eventually, they will hold that knowledge is contextual and subjective because it is filtered through personal perceptions. They finally see that other theories can be considered valid based on different evidence and perspectives. Finally, an epistemologically mature person joins the group of reflective thinkers. The two stages of this level consider that beliefs are justified by comparing evidence and opinion from different perspectives. The process of knowing requires that many factors are weighed and judged sound, while knowledge claims must be understood in the context they were created and can be evaluated for coherence and consistency by using available information. Ultimately, Beliefs are justified probabilistically on the basis of a variety of interpretive considerations. Based on the research, King and Kitchener do not believe a person is limited to one developmental stage at a time. Instead, a person progresses across stages like a cresting wave, primarily functioning in one area, but showing hints of the adjacent stages. I found an excellent example of the reflective judgment model being used in practice in a paper titled Developing Reflective Judgment Through Master of Social Work Education by Potter and East. The authors present the reflective judgment model as a way to recognize that students differ in their assumptions about knowledge and their approaches to thinking, give students opportunities to observe the reasoning of those operating at higher levels, and demonstrate that effective teachers operate at high reflective judgment levels. The authors of this paper encourage social work educators to support the development of critical thinking skills in a field where that skill is highly desired. There are several key implications for higher education administrative professionals. The evidence indicates that the college experience seems to promote a move towards higher levels of reflective judgment. However, a great deal of time is required to move the crest of the wave in that direction since each of the seven stages of progression reflects a major change in the worldview of the student. The reflective judgment model can give educators context for understanding how some students reduce complex issues to simplistic views or binary choices between right and wrong, while others are able to step outside of their own views and beliefs to objectively examine foreign points of view. Is that your knitting needle? Great. In the reflective judgment model, the key element of reflective judgment model, as you heard, are ill-structured problems. And this is why we use case studies in our class and in other parts of the program. Case studies are a way, and you heard Claire Robbins talk about ill-structured problems as well. Case studies are a way to help us search for the best, if not the only solution to problems. So in the pre-reflective thinking stages one through three, we look for simple answers to hard questions. That's what people do. In the quasi-reflective thinking stages four to five, we have a recognition that answers may not have easy, that questions may not have easy answers. but we're still searching for the best or most true answer. In reflective thinking stages six through seven, we begin to understand that complex answers and we begin to understand that questions, that the difficult questions have complex answers and we recognize that context matters and that answers may change over time. We begin to see different sides for the answers to a question. And we ultimately decide on answers to questions or paths to solutions that recognize the challenges. And we understand that, for example, that governments or universities or even our families may make decisions that don't always benefit every single person being affected. And I would say we try to make the decision that benefits the most marginalized person or persons within our family. university or group, or we hope that we will. But we also recognize that the reason that institutions and organizations and governments don't do that is laced with power, oppression, kind of capitalism, consumerism, and that there are all sorts of opposing forces that are influencing the way decisions are made. And that is why these problems are so wicked and so hard to solve. And the reflective judgment model helps us to understand why when we're young, we think, oh, these are really simple problems. Just... build an apartment to house all the homeless people. That's what my seven-year-old and my nine-year-old say. And when we are in our late forties and early fifties and beyond, we begin to understand all of the complex implications that come with trying to solve the problem of the unhoused in our communities. So as an example. So lastly, in our reflection today, we are going to think about epistemological reflections with Dr. Baxter-Migulda. Baxter-Migulda. So Dr. Baxter-Migulda thought about the ways that individuals go from absolute knowing. Now, again, remember, these are all going to sound really similar because we're all trying to, all of these theorists are trying to understand how we go from young people who really believe concrete black and white thinking to individuals who are fully formed and critically reflecting. So Dr. Marsha Baxter-Migolda developed this philosophy of epistemological reflections. And in her theory, she also identified some gender differences. So we'll talk about those as we go through her theory today. Out of this came self-authorship, which we'll talk about next week. She starts with absolute knowing, that knowledge is certain and absolute. In her theory, an instructor or an authority shares knowledge and ensures that students understand, like I'm trying to do today, such as it is. You might compare it to dualism or to silence and received knowing. Students expect authorities to have the correct knowledge and to correct others if they're wrong. at this stage. Knowledge is obtained, it's not created or discovered. In transitional knowing, you might compare it to multiplicity. Knowledge can be certain or uncertain. Students learn through engagement. For women, this happens and Dr. and Dr. Magulda saw that this was interpersonal and this happened through interactions with peers to gather and share ideas. There was also rapport with instructors with with instructors and inner individual differences. For men, she observed that this was impersonal, that they liked to be forced to think, that they wanted to lean towards a debate of ideas, towards logic and research. Moving towards independent knowing, there began to be a feeling that knowledge was uncertain. Peers can create ideas. Wait, I can create ideas. Instructors who conform, who... who inform, who lecture, become less interesting than those who encourage thinking, who encourage creative ideas. For women, this was again inter-individual. Ideas were shared across peer relationships. There began to be connections between all aspects of life, social, academic, familial. She observed that men found this to be very individual. They wanted to voice their opinions, to be free from the need for validation. They wanted to have their own opinion and to have their own opinion reign supreme. Finally, as men and women moved into contextual knowing, there was a convergence between the genders. She found that new ideas required critical analysis to be accepted, that context and supporting evidence mattered for both men and women. New ideas, that validation came from a productive exchange of ideas. And you would compare this to the commitment in relativism. That there's a sense that at this point in contextual knowing, I can hold firm with what I believe and I can listen to your perspectives and understand them and think about them. And maybe I'll reconsider my ideas, but also I can hear you and listen to you and keep my own ideas. And so that's the last of our theories to review today. We'll talk about all of these more in class. And I'm really looking forward to. Sorry, I forgot that I had one more in here. Just ways of knowing because it's not on our slide at the top. I just added it this year. So the last thing we're going to be talking about, and I apologize for forgetting it was on our slide since it wasn't at the beginning, is indigenous knowing systems. So IKS, we read about this week, helps us to think about how the authors of this is actually what I want us to talk about in class. So you're going to have a preview. We're going to have this conversation in class on Thursday. Indigenous ways of knowing, thinking about the difference between all of these Western theories that we've been talking about and the ways. that knowing has been investigated primarily through studies of white people and thinking about the ways that these structures of whiteness have thought about knowing from capital A authority through multiplicity, through contextual understanding, all the way through commitment to relativism. The authors in the chapter on Indigenous knowing systems really challenge Western ways of knowing and challenge that idea of independence and self-reliance that we see in the cognitive structural theories that we discussed this week. So thinking about what we read, I want you to be reflecting on how we can reimagine some of these cognitive structural theories. If we were thinking about more of communal. discovery of knowledge? And how do ill-structured problems change if we consider shared values of community, family, future generations, and the land? What does it look like if we, rather than thinking about the competing priorities that I mentioned, the oppressive competing priorities, what if we thought about communal priorities? How does that change the way we handle ill-structured systems? We'll be talking about that this week in class. And that is the end of our lecture and review for this week. And I'm looking forward to seeing you all on Thursday. I hope you enjoyed this review. And let me know if you have any questions. See you Thursday.

We're going to go ahead and do it this way. So this week in our week five review, we're going to review cognitive structural theories, which describe the process of epistemological and intellectual development during the college years. These theories, epistemological theories, focus on how people think, reason, and make meaning of their experiences. Now let's talk about a couple of key words here.

This week, we're going to do keywords for the week, and then we're going to review cognitive structural theories, Piaget, Perry, Balenki, Klinche, Goldberger, and Teruel's women's ways of knowing. We're going to talk about King and Kitchener's reflective judgment model, and then we're going to introduce Baxter-Margoldo's epistemological reflections. So a couple of keywords for the week, epistemology and epistemological.

Now let's practice saying those again. Pause if you need to. Epistemology and epistemological.

Epistemological development is how people become increasingly complex in their sense of knowing. Epistemology is the theory of knowledge. It's the investigation into how we distinguish justified belief from opinion. When we talk about epistemological development, we're talking about how people develop their sense of knowing, or how we learn to make accurate judgments, and how we make meaning of the world.

Cognitive is related to conscious intellectual activity. Think about cognition, thinking, reasoning, and remembering. Cognitive development is how people become increasingly complex with regard to thinking about the world and reasoning with their experiences. Cognition is the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses. When we talk about cognitive development, we're talking about how people develop the ability to think about the world and how they reason with their experience and feelings to find truth.

When we think about cognitive structural theories, we're thinking about how individuals think about knowing, how they begin to make meaning of what they know and what they believe. And so as we introduce the theories this week, and as you reflect on what you read, We're, we're beginning to understand how everyone from age baby to elderly person makes sense of what they experience, what they see, and how they incorporate that into what they know and how they begin to make judgments about what is real and what is true and what they believe. Let's learn a little bit about, let's review a little bit about what we learned this week.

So first we're going to review. Piaget's concepts. Now Piaget was only mentioned briefly in the text, but he's essential to this week's theories.

However, before we go on to talk about Piaget's research and theory, it's important to mention his wife, Piaget's wife, Valentin Chatenet. Now, I don't know why the pictures are, the YouTubes are going over her picture here, but Valentin was also a student who was studying child development. When she and Jean married, she left school to bear and raise their children.

She provided many of the observations of the children upon which Piaget based his theory. Additionally, she helped write his book, The Moral Judgment of the Child. And I think it's essential that we mention her here before we talk about his theory, because she gets almost no mention in the theoretical literature. So we want to thank Valentin and the thousands of other women.

who did the invisible work to make theoretical lenses possible for us. It's really important to me, as you know as a feminist and as a scholar, that we continue to thank the people who did the invisible work and Valentin is one of those. Piaget's concepts had three important elements.

How humans think, how they reason, and how they make meaning. Piaget's theory describes how we organize and understand our environments and experiences. And to understand that, on the left, and later you'll have this PowerPoint, you can review it if you want on your own.

On the left is a quick overview of Perry's theory for three minutes and I'm going to go ahead and show that now. So just a moment, we have to change our share. Good morning teacher cadets. Today we will learn about Gadget's theory of cognitive development.

He was a psychologist and philosopher known for his work with children. His theory of cognitive development is called genetic epistemology, which can be identified by four different stages. The first stage is sensory motor stage, which extends from birth to age two. Senses, motor abilities, and reflexes develop rapidly, which are demonstrated through motor activity through the use of symbols. Infants develop knowledge of the world through experiences and physical interaction.

For example, if you take a toy away from the child, the reaction would be sadness. Physical development allows the child to develop intellectual and eventually symbolic abilities. From ages 2 through 7, children are in the pre-operational stage of cognitive development. Although they are not able to think logically, children are able to represent the world through symbols and mental images.

All those symbols depend on each individual's own perception. Pre-operational children are entirely egocentric, in which they are only able to see objects and people around them from one point of view. Theological manner of thinking is a key factor in pre-operational stage, along with the demonstration of intelligence through symbols, maturing of language, and development of memory and imagination. From age 7 to 11, children are in the concrete operational stage.

In this stage of cognitive development, intelligence is demonstrated logical and systematic manipulation of symbols involving concrete objects. In this example, a child is able to quickly solve the problem by visualizing it. Children also develop operational thinking, in which mental actions are reversible and their egocentric thoughts vanish.

From age 11 to 16, children in the formal operational stage are able to think about the future instead of being limited to the present. They have the ability to use flexible, systematic, and rational thoughts and apply them to abstract and hypothetical concepts. The individual is able to determine a variety of ways to solve a problem and view a problem from several points of views. The adolescent develops an inner sense of value and moral judgment. In this stage, individuals now have the necessary mental tools to continue living his or her life.

Created using PowToon. All right. So going back to-Hey, Kansas City. An effort to answer.

Going back to our slide. Now we're going to go on to what that looks like in real life. So we see that in PHA's stages, there are, we go from students are able to see concrete, kids are able to go from things have to be really concrete.

either exist or they don't, to being able to manipulate ideas using logic, to being able to think about and reason and even figure out where meaning lies. So now let's think about what that looks like in real life. And we're going to look at that.

through the eyes of young children in the second video. New babies aren't quite sure what happens to objects when they leave their sight. Skye's mom keeps disappearing and reappearing. No wonder peekaboo is so much fun.

During their first year, however, infants will learn an important concept, object permanence. Everything has a life of its own, even if it is out of sight. At Maya's age, babies know to look for the object, but they might not have everything else straight. Ten-month-old Simon is about to make a classic mistake. Although he watched us place the toy plane under the white cloth, he'll look for it where he last found it.

not where he watched us hide it. Can you look at these two glasses? Do you think that they have the same amount of juice? You think they have the same?

Okay. Now we're going to pour this juice into this glass. Now, do you think that this glass has more juice, this glass has more juice, or do you think that they have the same amount? That one has more. This one has more, and why do you think that this one has more?

Because it's taller. Okay, you ready? Yeah. Okay, does this row have more quarters, does this row have more quarters, or do they have the same?

One, two, three. Wait, one, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five. They're the same?

Five, five. Okay. Okay, does this row have more quarters?

Does this row have more or do they have the same? This one has more. That one has more quarters? Yeah. Why does this row have more quarters?

Because it's more like, more like, um, far away. It's far, it's more far away? Yeah, like, it's like more far away than like that.

Looks like bigger. Bigger. Alright, we're going to play a game with the graham crackers and we're going to share them between me and you, okay?

Okay. Okay. Do you think that we shared those fairly? No.

No, why not? You have those and I have this one. Well, what if we try this?

Okay, can I put this down right there? Now is it fair? Yeah.

Yeah, why is it fair now? Because we both have two. Can you tell me what you see when you look at that from where you're sitting?

What are some of the things that you see? Um, a cat. A cat.

And a tree and a bomb. Okay, now we're going to do the same thing. Can you tell me what you see when you look at it from that stool? Um, a little bit.

An owl. An owl? And him.

What is that? A goat. A goat? Yeah.

Okay, is there anything else you see? Yeah, right there. Right there, what is that? A tree.

A tree. And that's another little tree. Another little tree? Yeah.

Can you tell me what I see when I look at this from where I'm sitting right here? Owl. Okay.

And a goat. And a little tree. And that.

And that. So first we're going to look at these two cups right here. Do you think there's the same amount of juice in this glass as there is in that glass?

They're even. They're even? Okay.

So we're going to take the juice from this glass and pour it into this one right here. Okay. Okay, so now we're going to look at this glass and that one. So do you think that there's more juice in this glass, more juice in this glass, or do you think that they have the same amount? Same amount.

Okay, why do you think that they have the same amount? Just because this is skinny doesn't mean it's not the same amount. It has the same amount of juice in it, but this one is just wider and this one is skinnier, but they have the same amount. It says, if you hit a glass with a hammer, the glass will break.

I knew that too. And then this one says, Don hit a glass with a hammer. I knew that too. So what happened to the glass? It broke.

It broke. Why did it break? Because the hammer's hard.

If you hit a glass with a feather, the glass will break. No, it won't. And this is the second rule.

Don hit a glass with a feather. What happened to the glass? Nothing. Nothing happened?

Why didn't anything happen? Because it fell off. If you hit a glass with a feather, the glass will break. And the second one, Don hit a glass with a feather.

What happened to the glass? It broke. And why did it break? Because the rule says if you hit a glass with a feather, it'll break.

So if you hit a glass with a feather, it broke. So you can see from those examples that when you are, you can see from the examples how earlier in the earlier when the kids are younger they operate first of all with a real sense of literalism that they understand that when the quarters are lined up equally they can count there's five but then when the quarters are spread out the spread out quarters are more, even though they haven't changed the number of quarters on the plate. The tall juice is more, even though they just saw the juices be the same level.

When I was just sitting on this side, I could see the cat, but when I'm on the back and I ask you what you can see, I don't know that you can see the cat anymore. But as people move towards, as they get older, they begin to think in the abstract. And so the older teen is willing to say that the feather broke the glass even though we know concretely that feathers don't break glass, but if the rule says that a feather can break the glass then a feather can. Perry is has a similar perspective on cognitive development.

Perry has Perry's theory has nine positions but the book textbook summarizes them into four developmental stages. You can see the For PERI, development doesn't occur within each position, but rather in the movement between the positions. PERI begins, for PERI, individuals begin in a state of dualism.

Facts exist. There are only right or wrong facts, true or false facts. I know I can learn this if you just tell me what I need to know.

In dualism, a capital A authority exists. Truth is black and white. There's very little room for anything besides truth, true or false. As people begin to mature out of this position, they move towards multiplicity. In multiplicity, there's a sense that everyone has an opinion, so all opinions must be equal.

Students may begin to disrupt, may begin to distrust authority. reason, abstraction, and science. In this position, all opinions have validity, so there's no truth at all. They must consider all perspectives and weigh them equally.

People who are in this position, you may hear them saying, well, why do I have to believe you over my friends? Why do I have to believe my teachers over my friends? It's very difficult for people who live in a multiplicity state to figure out.

which direction to go or who to follow, how to discover, how to critically analyze truth. As people move from multiplicity into relativism, they begin to see that some opinions matter more than others. It's marked by critical reflection of different perspectives and a taking on of certain beliefs or ways of thinking and knowing. It can often look oppositional. At this point, you see the existence of reasoning through criteria or arguments.

And students may appear successful because they begin to have this reflection of critical different perspectives. However, they're still a little uncertain. They're still getting moved back and forth between who, between not knowing themselves what they believe.

So they're still following different, different people. not necessarily their own positions. So as individuals move from relativism to commitment and relativism, students realize that they must make choices and commit to solutions, and they must understand the context for the choices that they make.

This is a place of ethical growth. Once individuals have examined the positions that they're in and their opinions from a critical perspective, they can begin to evaluate not just if something is true or untrue, but also if it's right or wrong. In this next video, it's about four minutes long, um You can see Perry's intellectual stages through the lens of Simba and the Lion King.

This is also a really good example of how someone used a character to illuminate one of our developmental theories. T-Baba! Good morning!

Good morning! Hello! My name is William Rafiki Perry and I would like to tell you the story of a young lion's journey through the intellectual and ethical development.

The story starts out with the birth of a young cub and heir to the Pride Land Kingdom. His name, Simba. Position 1! As young Simba grows, he learns to understand the rules of his father. Son, do not travel beyond the borders of the Pride Land.

Yes, I understand, father. Position two! When Simba, Nala, and Zazu are out practicing bouncing in the fields, Simba and Nala choose not to listen to the authority of Zazu. They leave the fields to explore. The Elephant Graveyards.

Let's leave Zazu behind so that we can explore the Elephant Graveyard. Yeah, we don't really need to listen to him. Position three. At the graveyard, Simba realizes that although Scar is his uncle, he should not trust him. Not all authorities should be blindly followed.

Sorry, Dad. We should not have disobeyed your authority and traveled outside the land's borders. I now understand why you would have such rules. Protect us from things we do not yet understand. Position four.

After Mufasa's death, Simba runs away from the Pride Land and is found by Timon and Pumbaa. After saving Simba from certain death in the desert, the three return to the jungle where Timon and Pumbaa teach him their way of life. Hakuna Matata. Ain't no worries. Problem-free philosophy.

There, everyone has their own way of life. No one is better than the other. These are my favorite types of bugs. Find the ones that are right for you. Come on, kid.

Try it out. Hakuna Matata. Hakuna Matata.

What a wonderful phrase. Hakuna Matata. Ain't no passing praise It means no worries For the rest of your days Yeah, say it, kid! It's our problem free Philosophy Hakuna Matata Position 5 Eventually, Nala comes to find Simba in the woods.

He realizes that she has a very different perspective on what he needs to do. Simba, you must come back. We need a leader, and Scar is destroying the Pride Land. I cannot return, Nala.

I'm responsible for my father's death. Position six. After the spiritual experience with his father in the sky, Simba realizes he ultimately is going to have to make a commitment to either stay forever in the jungle with the Mon and Pumbaa or return to the Pride Land. However, he has not yet made up his mind. Position 7. Simba makes the commitment to return to the Pride Land and take back power from his uncle.

Position 8. Once returning to the Pride Land and seeing it under distress, he confronts his uncle Scar in a fight to the death. Don't let me go! I don't want to, but I must do this to save our land.

Position 9. After killing his uncle Scar, Simba returns to his rightful place. as king of pride land he makes more commitments to his land continuing the circle of life So that gives you a sense of both how to think about using examples from the text, although they didn't necessarily use clips, but you can see how they described Simba's development through the theory. We can talk about that more in class.

Now, let's move on to women's ways of knowing. Belenke, Clinchy, Goldberger, and Teruel discovered that existing developmental theories at the time did not address some issues and experiences that were common and significant in the lives and cognitive development of women. So they investigated 135 women and wrote this book to highlight the experiences of women in response. They provided a way to explain one experience of moving from oppression into freedom or from silence into having a voice, into allowing other voices to coexist. The 135 women who participated in this study ranged from ages 16 to over 60. They came from rural and urban populations and varied in socioeconomic class, ethnicity, and educational history.

As such, they represented a much more diverse group. than was initially included in Dr. Perry's 1970 study of male students at Harvard. Their theory includes five perspectives. Begins with silence or silenced.

Women in this perspective have no sense of their own knowing and often feel powerless or isolated. This was more common among those studied from low income or limited education. younger population. In this status, in this perspective, words are weapons.

They're often being wielded against the women. They do not feel like they have words of their own to share. The next status, as women begin to realize that they themselves have weapons to use, have words to use, not weapons, sorry, they have words to use, they move towards a Received knowing.

In received knowing, women realize that others have a voice, but I receive information. In this perspective, words are educational and informative, but it's all about receiving information, not in participating in the creation of information or in sharing information. There's a black and white sense of truth. You might think about the sense of dualism.

Authorities are the ultimate source of knowledge and received knowing. I receive all my information from the authorities. I don't get to create any information or share any truth.

In subjective knowing, knowledge is centered within the self. I begin to rely on my inner gut. And this is where the development of the protesting inner voice begins.

that begins to advocate for the woman's own truth and knowledge. This begin, then this perspective, women begin to realize, often because of a rejected or failed authority figure, which is what happens during Perry's status as well during multiplicity. There's often a case of realizing that an authority doesn't have all the answers. This is what happens during subjective knowledge as well.

There's a failed. or rejected authority figure, all of a sudden the woman realizes that maybe I have a voice worth listening to. In subjective knowledge, the woman realizes that they may, they begin to view experiences as the most valuable source of knowledge rather than authorities.

And they begin to listen, it says, described here as their infallible gut. So women are often described as having that gut instinct or that That sixth sense. As women leave subjective knowledge and move towards procedural knowledge or procedural knowing, they begin to see value in authority and in shared knowledge.

They see that subjective knowledge is possibly fallible and begin to understand that maybe their gut isn't infallible. Maybe they aren't always correct in what they feel. Maybe they...

Maybe there are people out there that do have insight, but they don't have to listen to them blindly. So they begin to believe that multiple sources of knowledge exist. and that procedures are necessary and developed for figuring out the relative merit of different authorities. Procedures include considering my own personal experience, reasoned reflection, and context taking. Within procedural knowledge there's two paths, separate knowing and connected knowing.

Separate knowers tend to be adversarial and focused on critical analysis that excludes personal feelings and beliefs. Academic environments often favor this form of procedural knowing. Connected knowers, on the other hand, seek to understand others'ideas and points of view, emphasizing the relevance of context in the development of knowledge and the fundamental value of experience. Separate and connected knowing are in some ways two sides of a coin or two paths.

Neither of them are bad. Both of them are essential to the wholeness of who the community of knowers are. And then finally, as people move out of procedural knowing, they move into constructed knowing, which is the idea that we each have sources of knowledge and we can value the sources of knowledge that we rely upon.

In this case, we move into more real talk. The ability to listen, share, and cooperate while maintaining one's own voice is undiminished. So I can... I can hold my own voice and beliefs, but while doing that, I can listen to others. I can share and cooperate with others in difficult situations.

From the Women's Way of Knowing text, what we get here is that all knowledge is constructed and the knower becomes an intimate part of what is known. We enter into the creation of what is known and we become a part of knowledge creation. At this point, one can listen thoughtfully to others without losing the ability to hear their own voice. I really appreciate women's ways of knowing.

I think that especially as a woman, myself and perhaps others who identify as women can really appreciate the steps that one might go through to begin to hear their own voice and begin to speak through their own creation of knowledge. and especially, you know, begin to honor the knowing of those around them without losing their own knowledge. So we have a short video on King and Kitchener's reflective judgment model by a colleague of mine in Texas that we're going to watch. He reviews King and Kitchener's reflective judgment model for about five minutes, and then we're going to talk about ill-structured problems.

Reflective Judgment Model, a summary of the work of Patricia King and Karen Strome Kitchener. Once upon a time, a brilliant teacher was leading a great discussion with her class about the meaning of the title of a particular poem. The students were hanging on her every word.

They were engaged and gave every appearance of soaking it all in. The teacher felt very proud of her skills until one student stopped the conversation in its tracks. So, what's the right answer, he asked. She replied, I don't know.

What do you think? and the class erupted into angry accusations regarding her skill and qualifications as a teacher. What happened? Why did the students react the way they did?

According to King and Kitchener, these students were early in their development of reflective judgment. They were expecting a singular, definitive answer to the question at hand. In the reflective judgment model, they are just beginning their journey.

Before we dive in, though, let's establish some common language and background. Patricia King and Karen Strom Kitchener started developing the reflective judgment model in the 1970s and presented it in their 1994 book, Developing Reflective Judgment, Understanding and Promoting Intellectual Growth in Critical Thinking in Adolescents and Adults. This model gives a context for understanding the growth of complex reasoning in late adolescents and adults, that is, the epistemologic maturity of individuals or the ways in which they understand the world around them and how that changes over time.

This is measured by introducing ill-structured problems and examining the response to that problem. In the reflective judgment model, an ill-structured problem is not answered like a math problem with only one correct answer. They are much more complex and do not have an easily defined solution. They are problems where reasonable people can reasonably disagree, and people who have achieved high levels of reflective judgment are very good at disagreeing reasonably.

If you have been on social media lately, you have seen enough epistemologic immature to... to last at least four years. And you probably have a strong grasp of the broad idea of reflective judgment. So let's dive deeper into this model and see what we find. King and Kitchener expressed this developmental sequence by establishing three major levels in the progression towards reflective judgment, with seven stages throughout the levels.

The first level is called pre-reflective thinking and has three stages. A pre-reflective thinker assumes that knowledge is certain, believes that only one correct answer exists for all questions, and that absolute certainty is obtained from listening to authority figures, just like our students in the story. The next level of reflective judgment is quasi-reflective thinking. Its two stages mark the beginning of epistemologic maturity and start by recognizing that uncertainty is a part of the knowing process and that knowledge is evidence-based, but they will tend to select evidences that fit an established belief.

Eventually, they will hold that knowledge is contextual and subjective because it is filtered through personal perceptions. They finally see that other theories can be considered valid based on different evidence and perspectives. Finally, an epistemologically mature person joins the group of reflective thinkers. The two stages of this level consider that beliefs are justified by comparing evidence and opinion from different perspectives. The process of knowing requires that many factors are weighed and judged sound, while knowledge claims must be understood in the context they were created and can be evaluated for coherence and consistency by using available information.

Ultimately, Beliefs are justified probabilistically on the basis of a variety of interpretive considerations. Based on the research, King and Kitchener do not believe a person is limited to one developmental stage at a time. Instead, a person progresses across stages like a cresting wave, primarily functioning in one area, but showing hints of the adjacent stages. I found an excellent example of the reflective judgment model being used in practice in a paper titled Developing Reflective Judgment Through Master of Social Work Education by Potter and East. The authors present the reflective judgment model as a way to recognize that students differ in their assumptions about knowledge and their approaches to thinking, give students opportunities to observe the reasoning of those operating at higher levels, and demonstrate that effective teachers operate at high reflective judgment levels.

The authors of this paper encourage social work educators to support the development of critical thinking skills in a field where that skill is highly desired. There are several key implications for higher education administrative professionals. The evidence indicates that the college experience seems to promote a move towards higher levels of reflective judgment. However, a great deal of time is required to move the crest of the wave in that direction since each of the seven stages of progression reflects a major change in the worldview of the student. The reflective judgment model can give educators context for understanding how some students reduce complex issues to simplistic views or binary choices between right and wrong, while others are able to step outside of their own views and beliefs to objectively examine foreign points of view.

Is that your knitting needle? Great. In the reflective judgment model, the key element of reflective judgment model, as you heard, are ill-structured problems.

And this is why we use case studies in our class and in other parts of the program. Case studies are a way, and you heard Claire Robbins talk about ill-structured problems as well. Case studies are a way to help us search for the best, if not the only solution to problems.

So in the pre-reflective thinking stages one through three, we look for simple answers to hard questions. That's what people do. In the quasi-reflective thinking stages four to five, we have a recognition that answers may not have easy, that questions may not have easy answers.

but we're still searching for the best or most true answer. In reflective thinking stages six through seven, we begin to understand that complex answers and we begin to understand that questions, that the difficult questions have complex answers and we recognize that context matters and that answers may change over time. We begin to see different sides for the answers to a question.

And we ultimately decide on answers to questions or paths to solutions that recognize the challenges. And we understand that, for example, that governments or universities or even our families may make decisions that don't always benefit every single person being affected. And I would say we try to make the decision that benefits the most marginalized person or persons within our family. university or group, or we hope that we will. But we also recognize that the reason that institutions and organizations and governments don't do that is laced with power, oppression, kind of capitalism, consumerism, and that there are all sorts of opposing forces that are influencing the way decisions are made.

And that is why these problems are so wicked and so hard to solve. And the reflective judgment model helps us to understand why when we're young, we think, oh, these are really simple problems. Just... build an apartment to house all the homeless people. That's what my seven-year-old and my nine-year-old say.

And when we are in our late forties and early fifties and beyond, we begin to understand all of the complex implications that come with trying to solve the problem of the unhoused in our communities. So as an example. So lastly, in our reflection today, we are going to think about epistemological reflections with Dr. Baxter-Migulda.

Baxter-Migulda. So Dr. Baxter-Migulda thought about the ways that individuals go from absolute knowing. Now, again, remember, these are all going to sound really similar because we're all trying to, all of these theorists are trying to understand how we go from young people who really believe concrete black and white thinking to individuals who are fully formed and critically reflecting. So Dr. Marsha Baxter-Migolda developed this philosophy of epistemological reflections.

And in her theory, she also identified some gender differences. So we'll talk about those as we go through her theory today. Out of this came self-authorship, which we'll talk about next week.

She starts with absolute knowing, that knowledge is certain and absolute. In her theory, an instructor or an authority shares knowledge and ensures that students understand, like I'm trying to do today, such as it is. You might compare it to dualism or to silence and received knowing.

Students expect authorities to have the correct knowledge and to correct others if they're wrong. at this stage. Knowledge is obtained, it's not created or discovered. In transitional knowing, you might compare it to multiplicity. Knowledge can be certain or uncertain.

Students learn through engagement. For women, this happens and Dr. and Dr. Magulda saw that this was interpersonal and this happened through interactions with peers to gather and share ideas. There was also rapport with instructors with with instructors and inner individual differences. For men, she observed that this was impersonal, that they liked to be forced to think, that they wanted to lean towards a debate of ideas, towards logic and research.

Moving towards independent knowing, there began to be a feeling that knowledge was uncertain. Peers can create ideas. Wait, I can create ideas.

Instructors who conform, who... who inform, who lecture, become less interesting than those who encourage thinking, who encourage creative ideas. For women, this was again inter-individual.

Ideas were shared across peer relationships. There began to be connections between all aspects of life, social, academic, familial. She observed that men found this to be very individual. They wanted to voice their opinions, to be free from the need for validation.

They wanted to have their own opinion and to have their own opinion reign supreme. Finally, as men and women moved into contextual knowing, there was a convergence between the genders. She found that new ideas required critical analysis to be accepted, that context and supporting evidence mattered for both men and women. New ideas, that validation came from a productive exchange of ideas.

And you would compare this to the commitment in relativism. That there's a sense that at this point in contextual knowing, I can hold firm with what I believe and I can listen to your perspectives and understand them and think about them. And maybe I'll reconsider my ideas, but also I can hear you and listen to you and keep my own ideas.

And so that's the last of our theories to review today. We'll talk about all of these more in class. And I'm really looking forward to. Sorry, I forgot that I had one more in here. Just ways of knowing because it's not on our slide at the top.

I just added it this year. So the last thing we're going to be talking about, and I apologize for forgetting it was on our slide since it wasn't at the beginning, is indigenous knowing systems. So IKS, we read about this week, helps us to think about how the authors of this is actually what I want us to talk about in class.

So you're going to have a preview. We're going to have this conversation in class on Thursday. Indigenous ways of knowing, thinking about the difference between all of these Western theories that we've been talking about and the ways.

that knowing has been investigated primarily through studies of white people and thinking about the ways that these structures of whiteness have thought about knowing from capital A authority through multiplicity, through contextual understanding, all the way through commitment to relativism. The authors in the chapter on Indigenous knowing systems really challenge Western ways of knowing and challenge that idea of independence and self-reliance that we see in the cognitive structural theories that we discussed this week. So thinking about what we read, I want you to be reflecting on how we can reimagine some of these cognitive structural theories. If we were thinking about more of communal.

discovery of knowledge? And how do ill-structured problems change if we consider shared values of community, family, future generations, and the land? What does it look like if we, rather than thinking about the competing priorities that I mentioned, the oppressive competing priorities, what if we thought about communal priorities?

How does that change the way we handle ill-structured systems? We'll be talking about that this week in class. And that is the end of our lecture and review for this week.

And I'm looking forward to seeing you all on Thursday. I hope you enjoyed this review. And let me know if you have any questions.

See you Thursday.

Transcript for:Review of Cognitive Structural Theories

Transcript for:
Review of Cognitive Structural Theories