Pragmatic prejudice: Six perspectives on innovative knowing, Power Point presentation for TCC Hawaii 2017

1. Pragmatic Prejudice:
Six perspectives on innovative knowing
Katherine Watson, Coastline Distance Learning, Fountain Valley, CA 92708 1

2. Knowing and not knowing
Some terms, their meanings, and their uses:
Knowing, knowledge….and learning
Known, unknown
Understanding
Belief
Katherine Watson, Coastline Distance Learning, Fountain Valley, CA 92708 2

3. Knowing & epistemology
Knowing: Is it always “innovative”?
What it means to “know”
What are “knowns” and “unknowns”
What it means to know, understand, believe
Epistemology: Does it influence “innovation”?
What it means, academically & classically & day-to-day
How it influences what
Katherine Watson, Coastline Distance Learning, Fountain Valley, CA 92708 3

4. Six stakeholders in institutional knowing
Administrators
Faculty
Politicians
Financialists
Community members
Students
Katherine Watson, Coastline Distance Learning, Fountain Valley, CA 92708 4

5. Administrative knowing
Deep background knowledge
Broad current awareness
Responsiveness
Leadership
Openness…
…to budgetary queries, policy & mission matters, contracts…
…community questions (safety/security), student concerns…
Katherine Watson, Coastline Distance Learning, Fountain Valley, CA 92708 5

6. Faculty epistemologies: How teachers know
How does “knowledge” affect education?
How do the ways of transmitting knowledge affect learning?
How do faculty-student opinions & interactions affect what goes on?
How much “outside world” knowledge gets into teaching & learning?
How has epistemology, or ways of exploiting it, changed for good/ill?
Katherine Watson, Coastline Distance Learning, Fountain Valley, CA 92708 6

7. Ideology, epistemology, pedagogy: An interplay
Katherine Watson, Coastline Distance Learning, Fountain Valley, CA 92708 7

8. Politics, politicos, and knowing
Questions re: Connections between politics & practice in education
Who/what “drives” practice? Is it politics?
What is a “knowledge-driven” curriculum/practice?
What is a “data-driven” practice?
Who decides what & how?
What is negotiable?
Cui bono?
Katherine Watson, Coastline Distance Learning, Fountain Valley, CA 92708 8

9. Purse-string epistemology: Accountants +
Question: Can educational “results” be bought?
Question: How to guarantee both “schooling” and “education”?
Question: Can we / should we always in all ways follow the $$?
Question: How can the accountant be “cultivated”?
Question: Is “cui bono?” always answered in $$?
Katherine Watson, Coastline Distance Learning, Fountain Valley, CA 92708 9

10. Community epistemology: Public knowledge
How to “connect concepts of community to questions of epistemology”?
How can “heterogeneous” CCs retain “a homogeneous set goals”?
How to engage the community so as to make the CC an integral part?
How to make the “macro-environment” of economy count?
How to make the community into a student body?
Katherine Watson Coastline Distance Learning Fountain Valley, CA 92708
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11. Students’ epistemologies: How to learn to know
Practically-based
Ideologically-based
Community-based
Present-v.-future-based
Sociopolitically “congruently” based
Katherine Watson, Coastline Distance Learning, Fountain Valley, CA 92708 11

12. Epistemology, knowing, and innovative learning
How do knowing and learning and epistemology intersect?
How to inventory people’s epistemologies in 5 areas? Find out…
(1) certain knowledge (CK), (“known unknowns”: absolute knowledge exists, &
will eventually be known)
(2) simple knowledge (SK), (“known knowns” knowledge comprising discrete facts)
(3) omniscient authority (OA), (the sense that certain “authorities” have access
to otherwise inaccessible knowledge)
(4) quick learning (QL), (belief that learning occurs in a quick or not-at-all fashion)
(5) fixed ability (FA), (the attitude that one’s ability to acquire knowledge is fixed)
Katherine Watson, Coastline Distance Learning, Fountain Valley, CA 92708 12

13. Conclusions, recommendations, questions
Talk about & define: Epistemology, understanding, belief
Test yourself (use a questionnaire such as Frugé’s)
Determine how to include all epistemologies
Know what are knowns & unknowns
Don’t just theorize; act!
Katherine Watson, Coastline Distance Learning, Fountain Valley, CA 92708 13