Fall 2010 Critical Thinking First Field Notes

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Mark Alfino

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Hania Burrows

Yesterday I was in a situation in which I felt I was in a reflective context. Originally I wasn't going to be going home for Thanksgiving break, but I decided that I really wanted to. I started thinking about the best and cheapest way to get home. Flying would be a great option because it would only be about a 30 minute flight to Portland, but ticket prices were expensive. After thinking about it, I realized there was a simple solution. My grandparents live in Spokane, so if they came to Portland for the holiday I could just ride down with them, and the get a ride back up to Spokane as well.

Casey Birdsell

Reflective Context Number One: New Laundry Schedule

This past week I became aware of a situation that could be considered a reflective context in my new dorm regarding a proposed laundry schedule from our RAs. After not even a week on campus the two building RAs felt a laundry plan needed to be implemented. The claim the RAs made was that there were physical fights over the two washing machines in our dorm last year. This claim did indeed turn out to be true as confirmed by a friend of my roommate who resided in the dorm for the 2010-2011 school years. About ten residents on my floor later involved themselves in a conversation about this issue because they felt the action was unfair to new freshmen residents and that the decision should have been made by the hall occupants and not just the RAs. Other residents felt that the issue should not be discussed too much until we learned of the RAs concrete plan for the laundry schedule to be implemented. Each of the individuals, regardless of their views, entered conversation with a tone of betrayal and uncertainty as nobody truly knew what was going to happen and whether the laundry schedule would mess with their own personal agendas. I began feeling as if my independence had been stripped away; we are students in college now and should be able to monitor our own laundry needs and control our emotions regarding such a simple task that everyone needed to get done. As I thought further I really felt as if our RAs should have previously discussed matters similar to this at our first hall meeting to give us all a heads up for what could potentially need to happen if conflict were to occur. I vented to my hall mates, many of whom had similar views as me, and found that there was only one realistic solution of which could have two outcomes. My solution, found with the help of my friends, was to wait until the schedule was presented to us where I would (1) express my concern that this issue should have been discussed by the hall before the schedule was enforced by the RAs if it was presented to the group unfairly, or (2) find that the schedule was satisfactory and plan to abide by it as long as it appeared in the residents best interests.

Reflective Context Number Two: Pig Out in the Park Plans

Another situation of reflective context occurred where our neighbor, Kevin, came in saying, “We should go to Pig Out in the Park tomorrow instead of today, because our friends are out doing other things and we had planned on going with them and it doesn’t look like they’ll be able to go today.” His rationale was correct and supported his conclusion and premise; however it launched my roommate and me into a world of thought about how we should spend our Saturday. My roommate decided she wanted to go as planned while providing the claim that “If I do not go today as planned, my study schedule for tomorrow will be thrown off.” This was a reasonable claim in which I supported with the rationale of “I agree, Pig Out in the Park will take away a minimum of two hours of my time tomorrow that I had planned to spend at Foley.” In both of our claims we were thinking about the object of our thought “studying” and examining the importance we should give it in our thoughts. Were we thinking about studying too much? Was it really as important as we were letting off? Are my first week jitters causing me to think differently about this issue? Am I allowing my thoughts on studying to be altered by those around me? While I can’t completely speak for my roommate these were the thoughts flying through my head as I thought this issue through while “thinking in stereo.”

Reflective Context Number Three: Old Spaghetti Factory

My third and final reflective context happened this weekend when I needed to explain to another student from a different region of the country why I really enjoyed the restaurant, The Old Spaghetti Factory. My claim was that I enjoyed the restaurant because it was inexpensive and catered to my dietary needs seeing that I have a food allergy. I supported that claim with the rationale that I usually got a meal for ten dollars, which included a salad, entrée, and dessert, and that the OSF had more than ten gluten free pasta options that allowed me to have just as much selection as the other individuals I went to dinner with on most occasions. Therefore, the individual I explained my reasoning with could then dine at the Old Spaghetti Factory and evaluate my claim as true or false, although, their view could be slightly different with their socio-economic perception of inexpensive and their idea of selection if they did not share the same dietary restrictions as me.

Elizabeth Breen

Dinner Downtown

This week I experienced a few situations in which I was in a reflective context. One domain being when a few of my friends and I went downtown for dinner one night and we had to decide on a restaurant. At first our plan had been to go to the Nordstrom café but when we arrived we realized that it had closed thirty minuets earlier. We were then posed with the dilemma of where to get dinner. Out of the six of us only two attend school at Gonzaga and none of us are from Spokane or know the area well enough to be aware of what the good restaurants are. We walked out of the mall to see if we could find anywhere to eat; we found a café, the melting pot and a P. F. Changs. My friend Matt made the claim that we are all college students and for that reason we could not afford to eat the melting pot. I then made the claim that we should go to P.F. Changs and supported my claim with the reasons that the food is good, reasonably priced and the portions are large so instead of ordering pizza later in the night we could eat out leftovers and save money. With the premise that in the end eating at P.F. Changs would save us money our conclusion to this domain was to in fact eat at P.F. Changs. In this situation Matt and I entered into stereo thinking when we used conceptual knowledge to make a decision on where to eat dinner.

Friends for the Weekend

Another situation in which I experienced reflective context was when four of my friends from Seattle came into town. They arrived here at GU on Thursday and were posed with the problem of when to return back to Seattle. Their parents did not want them driving back on Monday because of the labor day traffic so they had the option to either leave on Sunday or stay until Tuesday. This domain was particularly complex because it involved so many people; not only my friends who were in town but also myself, my roommate and the other GU students that were to be hosts for the weekend. I made the claim that although we had a three day weekend the students here had just completed their first week of classes and would be spending some of Sunday and the majority of Monday studying and completing assignments. I also claimed that five nights was a long time to have people other than my roommate and I staying in our room; the reason for this is the dorms are small and can get extremely crowded with more people and suitcases. Although I love my friends in my eyes it made more sense for them to leave on Sunday. My friends however disagreed with me. They claimed that they drove up from Seattle and wanted to stay as long as they could. The main reason for this is that they are all moving to Santa Clara in a few weeks and we will not all be reunited again until the holiday break. The premise that they wanted to spend as much time with their GU friends as possible before moving led to the ultimate conclusion that they would be staying until Tuesday. They did make a good argument, that although we may be staying in tiny rooms for a few days it will be well worth it when we look back on the fun we had this weekend and we will be grateful that we were able to spend time together before they all left for California. I also think that this situation is one of stereo thinking because we focused mainly on facts; my friends drove to Spokane, they could not return to Seattle on Monday, GU students had studying to do, and so on.

Homework

My final reflective context began on Sunday when I went to the library to start my assignments that are to be due this week. I quickly became overwhelmed with all of the work I had in the small amount of time. I began an internal argument to decide which assignments could wait and assignment needed to be completed. I made the claim that I was not going to be able to finish the week’s homework in two days. The main reason was that I had friends in town and was distracted. In addition there was the premise that I should have spaces out my work more as to not stress myself out. In the end the conclusion was I decided to complete the assignments due earlier in the week first and then schedule time on Tuesday and Wednesday to finish my work. Due to the factual and conceptual knowledge reflected upon during this domain stereo thinking was used.

Stephanie Gosse

Movie night

My first encounter with reflective context occurred last night. My friends and I crammed into a dorm room with a box of DVDs and a TV, and we had a wide variety of movie genres to choose from. Suggestions were made to watch a scary movie, a comedy movie, or an action movie. A friend came to the conclusion that we would definitely not be watching a scary movie under the premise that she did not like the contents of the genre: gore, suspense, etc. I made the claim that we should watch a funny movie because girls outnumbered guys in the room and an action movie would not satisfy everyone in the room. We watched the comedy movie and everyone enjoyed themselves.

Studying/Reading

Saturday I had a personal, internal argument on whether or not I should start my homework and studying. One argument favored starting and completing a small portion of my reading that day so I wouldn't fall behind and succumb to procrastination. My other internal argument favored giving myself a day off and promised to start Sunday and finish by Monday. Upon reaching these two conclusions, I entered stereo thinking and really thought about each argument and their future consequences and outcomes. I decided I would give myself a day to relax and enjoy my first official weekend on campus and spend the next two days completing my assignments. So far my decision has proved nothing but success and I have not fallen behind.

Milk

This morning my roommate and I awoke only to find that our fridge lost power early that morning or sometime last night. I advised her it wouldn't be safe to drink it, so we would have to get a new carton of milk. We researched the issue further and came to the conclusion that it was possible that I accidentally hit or kicked the cord out of the power strip enough for the fridge to lose power. The conclusion and premise that I established was I caused the fridge to lose power so I should replace the carton of milk. My roommate resisted my offer to buy another carton of milk but I convinced her it would only be fair. Through stereo thinking I believe my final conclusion and decision was an effective one.