Fall 2010 Critical Thinking First Field Notes

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Mark Alfino

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Kevin Ward

Fantasy Football

Last night, my friends and I were having our fantasy football draft. I had already picked my first and second players and had a tough decision to make in the third round. There is a running back by the name of Cedric Benson who I was contemplating drafting. When I asked my friends what they thought of this pick, they gave me multiple claims and reasons as to why I should or shouldn't draft him. Come of the claims for or against the pick were; "he always puts up good stats," or "He gets in too much trouble with the law, he'll be arrested by week three." After weighing all the thoughts, I took the gamble and drafting him with the premise that in the past, he has had great stats and can help my team win.

Cog food dilemma... oh no

Yesterday morning, I wandered into the cog in the late afternoon looking for an early lunch. But when I saw that they were still serving breakfast, I died a little inside. Thus, thinking in stereo began. I could wait it out in the long omelet line, or I could go strait for the sausage, egg, and biscuit route, no wait included. On one hand, omelets are delicious, so the wait may have been worth it. But my conclusion was to go for the eggs, sausage and biscuits with a premise that any food is good food. I was hungry.

BBQ line....oh no

Yesterday, before my friends and I were about to have our fantasy football draft, we decided to check out the DeSmet BBQ. Some of us wanted to stay, others did not. Although the food looked great, my friend made the claim that if we wait in the line, we would not make it to our fantasy draft. So our next plan was to go to Pita Pit. I made the claim that it was quick, easy, and not too expensive. I backed up my claim some reasons; The Pita Pit is close to our draft location, and with the coupons we had, it would not be too expensive. Our conclusion was to eat dinner at the Pita Pit.

Hania Burrows

On saturday 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. This exchange mostly took place with myself, I worked through the problem and came up with a rather simple solution.

Over the weekend some girls in my dorm and I were watching a TV show called "Keeping up with the Kardashians." One of the characters in the TV show lost one of her earrings, she proceeded to have a full on panic attack. This caused a discussion to develop between us about how all of the characters in that show and very materialistic, which led us to realize how sad it was that we were watching it, and were completely entertained. Someone made a claim that it isn't there fault they are like that, and that the media and fame is to blame. This sparked an argument between the rest of the us and her, as everyone disagreed with her. There are many possible explanations for why the characters in this show are so materialistic, but eventually we all came to the conclusion that their lavish lifestyle and need for a reality check is to blame.

On friday I walked into Crosby and saw a sign that said they were hiring. This got me thinking to myself weather I needed to get a job this semester. I made the claim that I won't have enough time to work with trying to balance homework, friends, clubs, and intramural sports. Then I realized I needed to think about the big picture. I took out student loans to help pay for my tuition so it would pay off in the long run to have a job now. I would not make that much money, but every bit would help, and it would be less money to back in the future. I decided to apply for the job and that I was thinking about this all wrong. I was only looking short term, when sometimes it is important to look at the big picture.

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.

Samantha Mastaler

Country Music

On Friday night I attended a bbq at the quad. It was western themed and country music was playing. I said that I love country music and one of my friends responded that she hates country music and asked my why I liked it. I had to think it through becuase I didn't want to a pointless answer so I created a list of reasons, for example: country music has some very talented artists, it is very relatable, and I like the type of instruments used to make the country sound. She said these reasons were valid and helped her understand, but she is still not a fan.

Weather

One morning as I was getting dressed, I couldn't decide what to wear. I needed to figure out what would be most weather appropriate. It looked sunny and nice outside my window, but my experience the previous morning had showed me there could be a cool breeze. I finally checked the weather on my phone and decided since it would be a warmer day, I would just wear shorts and a tshirts. It proved to be a good decsion becuase the day did warm up.

Laundry

My roommate informed the other day that she has never done laundry before and has no idea how to do it. She asked if I would teach her and I said yes. I had to think about the best way to show her, becuase I want her to learn fast so she can do it on her own instead of waiting for me. I used an explaination rationale, becuase I was teaching her step by step. I had to explain to her what temperature of water to use with certain and colors and why. She would get confused and ask me for reasons for some of the step and I would have to think of the best way to tell her so it would make sense. Thank goodness she seemed to catch on quickly and can start doing her own.

Kasey Barghout

Protein Fight I was at lunch in the Cog sitting with a group of people talking about how it would be hard to be a vegetarian because I wouldn’t be good at finding other protein sources besides meat. The girl next to me, who is vegetarian, stated the claim that there are many different types of proteins vegetarians can eat. Then she gave us reason in claims like eggs, tofu, peanut butter etc. Another girl then argued that she would have to eat a lot of any of those proteins just to amount to the same amount as a small piece of meat. The argument went on for too long and neither came to an agreement.

Movie Night At our dorm we were debating what type of movie to watch. We had many choices and suggestions of movies and T V shows. Someone claimed that it was getting late and it might be nice to only watch for 30 minutes or an hour instead of a full 2 hour movie. We concluded that a TV show would be better for that reason. We watched It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and went to bed content in our decision.

Soccer Game A group of people in my dorm invited me to play soccer on the field but I reasoned with myself that I still had a lot of homework and probably shouldn’t go. I then made the claim to myself that I would eventually take a break sooner or later for fresh air, it was good exercise, and I would get to meet new people. So, I concluded that it was time for a break and went to play soccer for a while. When I got back it was actually a lot easier for me to focus on my homework because I had been away from it for a while.

Anna Brajcich

Birthday

Today is one of my brothers birthday. As much as I would love to be with him and help him celebrate, I knew that I had a lot of homework to get done. I stated the claim, that if I go to hang out with him all day, I will not be motivated to come back late tonight and start my homework. With the premise that we would have a late dinner and I would not be back to campus till late, I came to the conclusion that I would finish my homework this afternoon and go have a nice dinner and hang with him later tonight.

Restaurant Decisions

My oldest brother is visiting this weekend and I thought that it would be appropriate to take him to a fun and nice restaurant while he is in town. After debating between multiple choices such as Chilis, Olive Garden etc, I made the claim that Cyrus O'Leary's has a great menu and a very fun environment inside. My parents and I went there just a few weeks ago and my dad recommended my brothers goes there for the coconut chicken. We came to the conclusion to go to Cyrus O'Leary's for something new and exciting.

Jumping off the bridge

Many people in my hall have invited me multiple times to go jump off the bridge close to campus. As fun as it looks, it also looks scary to me. While thinking to myself, I made the claim that I am scared of heights and don't like jumping off high cliffs/bridges. With the premise that I don't like the thrill of free falling from high things, I came to the conclusion to stay back and do my homework. Maybe next time I will just go for a swim and not have to jump.