On Dialogue (1)
Today was our first Learning Processes session. We inquired into specific types of learning and the process we're aiming at in the MPC.
Didactics: Methods for obtaining and delivering information. (Lecture, Conference, Texts, Videos, Podcasts, etc.)
Praxis: Putting into practice what you've learned. (Dialogue, Projects, Experiments)
Autopoïesis: Prove mastery to yourself. A method of verifying that you've learned. (Documentation, Vlog, Blog, Reflection, Self-Assesments, etc.)
Allopoïesis: Show mastery to others. The student shows that he understands the subject and is able to transmit it to others. (Presentation, Essay, Video, Media, Projects, etc.)
We'll be reading both On Dialogue by David Bohm and Difficult Conversations by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen.
Our approach to On Dialogue has begun differently. We started by glancing at the preface and creating a Conceptual Inventory (an inventory of those terms and concepts that we think are essential in the reading.)
Our first list was not specific and this is what we ended up with:
-Dialogue -Practical -Engaging -Theoretical -Foundation -Old -Various views -Field -Multi-faceted -Process -Exchange -Range -Human Experience -Emotions -Patterns of Thought -Function of Memory -Import of cultural myth -Thought -Civilization
We did a second draft, this time aiming for specifics. Now we were only allowed to select 7 terms (They didn't have to come from the previous list but rather from the reading and connections) This was our Critical Conceptual Inventory:
1. Practical Working Manual
2. Dialogical World View
3. Range of Human Experience
4. Thought sustained at the collective level
5. Multi-faceted process
6. Meaning of being human
7. Enhanced Humanity
Our final stage was to make a Super Critical Conceptual inventory, where we had to select 3 - 5 terms we considered really aimed at the nature of the book:
1. Practical Working Manual
2. Dialogical World View
3. Range of Human Experience
4. Thought sustained at the collective level
Condense all of this into a sentence and this is what I came up with:
It’s a practical working manual on the processes of dialogue as means of enhancing human experience.