So how do you know how well you're doing in our class? The information below will give you a sense of what is expected of you in our course and how your final grade will be calculated.
| Exams: 30% | Quizzes: 25% | Projects/Presentations: 25% | Participation: 20% |
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*Indicates lowest score will be dropped.
How Will You Learn?
Hybrid Course?
In a hybrid course you will be learning both online and in the classroom.
Online: You'll begin most of your learning outside of our classroom through readings, recorded lecture videos, and online discussions on Canvas. Be sure to do required all readings, lectures and activities before their due date so that you are prepared for our live class sessions.
In-Class: We all meet together at the end of each week to help each other make sense of what you've been learning by doing activities, watching movies, working on projects, and incorporating what you've learned online with new material.
Weekly Flow of the Course
Our Canvas course is designed for you to go through each page of each module sequentially. There is usually no skipping or jumping past pages.
Here's a breakdown of important days of the week in our course:
Wednesday: All online readings, lectures, quizzes, and activities are due by Wednesday. I encourage you to do your work earlier in the week!
Thursday: Complete all of the above so you are prepared to participate in our live in-class meeting on Thursday.
Sunday: You will have projects, exams, and weekly reviews to complete before the end of Sunday.
*Note: If you have trouble opening an assignment, it's probably because you skipped past some earlier pages. You must go through each page of each module in order.
Many Methods of Learning
We each have our own preferred ways of learning. Some of us learn best by reading on our own, while others learn best by working with others. Some us learn best by listening or watching, while others learn best by discussing or actively doing.
In an attempt to appeal to how you learn best, our class is designed with several methods of learning in mind. You can see the various methods of teaching I'll be using in class in the table below.
1. Feature Films (2)
2. Recorded Video Lectures
3. Live Lectures
4. FlipGrid Reflections
5. In-Class Activities/Games 6. "You Choose" Reviews
7. Readings 8. Office Hours 9. Assignment Feedback
10. Group Projects 11. Student Presentations
Course Overview
An introduction to the study of creativity in human life; its sources, development, social purpose, and role in culture change.
Students analyze creativity as a central source of meaning and purpose in their lives as well as a development of their unique combination of human intelligences. Lives of creative people from all over the world are examined and contextualized. This course builds commitment to civic and moral responsibility for diverse, equitable, healthy and sustainable communities. Students engage themselves as members of larger social fabrics and develop the abilities and motivation to take informed action for change.
Student Learning Outcomes
Student Learning Outcome: Students synthesize their critical thinking, imaginative, cooperative, and empathetic abilities as whole persons in order to contextualize knowledge, interpret and communicate meaning, and cultivate their capacity for personal, as well as social change.
Student Learning Outcome: Cultivate and demonstrate an awareness of the power of creativity and the potential of the creative process through direct involvement.
Course Goals
Students will have been exposed to a broad, cross-disciplined approach to creativity by exploring this topic through the lens of neuroscience, psychology, business, art, spirituality, and by examining real-world examples of creative individuals.
Compared the difference between critical and creative thinking and examined how the two complementary cognitive faculties can be implemented for optimal living.
Through lecture, discussion, improvisational activities, games, and self-reflection, students will have further exercised their innate creative thinking skills and gained knowledge of psychological obstacles inherent within the creative process.
Students will have learned how the latest research into creativity advocates the need for a greater sense of play, a sense of humor, and provides greater reason to appreciate mythology, poetry, and religious practices.
By the end of the course students, will have developed a greater comprehension of the significance of creativity in maintaining a healthy society and in accessing a more meaningful life.
Click "Next" to continue to the next page of this Orientation Module. -->
The official first day of our course is Monday, but you should have access to our Orientation Module on Canvas starting today and our Week 1 material starting Monday (maybe Sunday). Here’s a heads up on other things you need to know:
Hybrid Class: Every week, you begin learning online through Canvas. Then, we meet on Thursday in room ADM101 (the Administration Building) from 12:30 PM to 2:45 PM. Bring a notebook and a pen/pencil to all our in-class meetings.
Canvas Course: Online learning consists of readings, recorded lectures, and assignments in modules on Canvas. You can use your school issued username and password to log in here: https://deanza.instructure.com/.
Textbooks: Our required textbook is The Power of Thinking Differently by J. Galindo (2010). BUT I will provide pdfs of readings from this text on Canvas, so purchasing the book is optional. If you prefer to have a physical copy to read from, you can find this book in the bookstore and through online vendors like Amazon.com.
COVID Safety: For some of us, this will be our first time back to face-to-face instruction. You can learn more about the school COVID policies here https://www.deanza.edu/covid/protocols.html and in our course Orientation Module.
Orientation Module: The most important thing to do after reading this letter is to log in to Canvas, enter our course, and follow the prompts to go through the Course Orientation module (~30 minutes) to get a better sense of how the course works. If you’re currently waitlisted, message me on Sunday and hopefully add codes will be available by then for me to give you.
I want you to have a great start to our class, so don’t hesitate to ask me any questions about our course and how to succeed in it. It's as easy as replying to this email!
Respond to this question (using at least one assigned reading)::
What is one way in which past racism continues to influence racial relations today?
There are multiple ways that racism in the past continues to haunt racial relations today. For Americans, one of the most obvious ways in which we can see that today is through the treatment of Black communities in America by other races. It is not only ignorant but harmful to believe that the emancipation proclamation or the thirteenth amendment, the abolishment of slavery, simply one of the many physical embodiments of Black oppression and not the attitudes of it, was the solution to dissolve not only slavery but racism and white supremacist attitudes. It is important to understand that these beliefs and attitudes toward race do not end at a simple executive order and that racism runs deep and is ingrained in society's mind. Like Rodney King, Oscar Grant, Daunte Wright, Andre Hill, Breonna Taylor, and very recently, George Floyd, Black people are de-valued and are marketed as threats in society, even when they are obviously doing nothing wrong. The "othering" of Black communities through mistreatment and neglect by other races causes psychological distress, which adds to the generational trauma that Black American populations endure from the trauma from slavery. Skewed life expectancies, higher rates of incarceration, disproportionate access to medical and educational resources, impoverishment, violence, and extremely high rates of police brutality are only some of the ways in which Black communities are still absolutely oppressed in this country, and through the world, according to Saidiya Hartman in "Lose Your Mother". Just because slavery was technically, shallowly "abolished", absolutely does NOT signify the end of racist ideology and white supremacy. As said by Hartman, "I too, am the afterlife of slavery." Slavery, our history, has set the stage for the humanity and attitudes of racial relations and humanity today.
Matt Taibbi states that he set out to write a sequel to Chomsky & Herman's Manufacturing Consent, but ended up writing an account of the ways in which media turns us against each other and stokes partisan conflict. What do you think of what he calls the "rules of hate" that govern partisan media? Can you provide examples of the types of "team" thinking and coverage he describes?
1. What is your 'favorite' text from the class (i.e. not necessarily the one you agree with most, but perhaps the one you enjoyed most or thought to be the most interesting).
2. What outside text (on any topic we covered, or any related content) would you recommend to your peers and why?
