Course Title: Ways of Knowing
Course Number: EDUC 800
Reflection: This was an interesting introduction to the fullness of GMU’s CEHD program and the graduate studies therein as we kicked off the semester with a bit of confusion over the fact that the two sections being taught were evidently to be combined and we were going to be team-taught as a result. Okay, interesting approach and displaying a strategy which communicated flexibility, agility, and innovation. What resulted was, however, a bit of a show as the professors displayed their varied approaches to the subject, which didn’t always agree. Having some exposure to this subject previously, my wife being a philosophy professor, I was a bit surprised at the seemingly agenda-oriented approach with which we were being taught. Overwhelmingly biased towards understanding the disadvantaged viewpoint (women’s ways of knowing, critical race theory, Bruner, etc.), this class seemed to be more a political statement than an open study of epistemology. While I, a distinct minority, did my best to communicate my beliefs as a realist, I couldn’t help but escape that the “tables had been turned” (did I even realize that I was an oppressor before this?) and I was going to simply going to have to grow to be a better listener.
Overall, a generous review of various points of light, but I would have preferred a more theoretical approach to the subject (maybe that’s more undergraduate?) to cover such perspectives as skepticism, coherentism, cognitivism, etc. I believe this approach would lead to better educational researchers overall as we would then be armed with evaluating authors based on their foundation, rather than have only dabbled with a few namesakes.
Artifacts: A combination of individual and group work (in order to even more so break down any real or perceived epistemological barriers).
Professors: Drs. Earle Reybold and Shelley Wong
Grade: A-