crashing the gate

Reading notes – Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the rise of People-Powered Politics by Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga 2006

Political ads – republicans came to understand the difference between persuasion and emotion, a la commercial advertising, top three ads remembered by viewers in 2004 election were Ashley, Swift Boat and Wolves – seeking to be memorable and to memorable and persuasive is the best, tell us something that is news and that can be persuasive

We bring good things to life and pepsi generation ads – company also did Reagon’s Morning in America ads, even Eisenhower would film his answers first and then they would go out on the street and get people to ask the questions

Changing media landscape – during the 70’s advertisers could reach 90% of households during prime time, now less than 40%, moving from major networks to the nearly 400 cable networks (which have more aggregate viewers than the main networks), no longer need saturation broadcasting for political campaigns, be more strategic, more local and use all outlets

New database technology tracking voters and go after Democrats who are urban gun owners or republicans who have family members who would benefit from stem cell research (alzheimers, parkinsons) – use census material about income, ethnicity, education but also gain information about tv shows watched, magazines read, and choice of beverages, turns out that lifestyle groupings are more important than demographics in predicting voter trends – what car you drive, cable channel you watch, website you visit tells more of what you believe than social group – this is called psychographics or values- based research

Go after every voter, not just (galvanize) your base

Usability Testing Handbook

Handbook of Usability Testing by Jeffrey Rubin

Designers (who have usually been hired for technical expertise rather than design – communication – expertise) need to realize that they are not designing products but a relationship of product and human (reminds me of teaching!!) Designer needs to help human focus on task at hand not the means by which to do the task (this is different in subtle ways in what teaching is about)

Three principles 1) an early focus on users and tasks (as in effective speech development) 2) empirical measurement of product usage 3) iterative design whereby a product is designed, modified, and tested repeatedly

Usability goals and objectives
1) usefulness 2) effectiveness (ease of use) 3) learnability (this is a key new idea and related to teaching) – can operate the system after a predetermined amount and period of training, an infrequent users can relearn the system after a period of inactivity 4) attitude (likeability)

Four types of usability testing
1) exploratory – early in the process, seeking to answer fundamental questions and product does not have to be fully functional, measure high level
2) assessment – early to midway, after high-level design or organization has been established, seek to evaluate lower-level operations
3) validation – nearer toward release, participants get little help from test monitor
4) comparison – can be done at any of the above stages, provide alternatives, no “winner”, usually best design is a combination of alternatives, the best aspects of each design to form a hybrid

basic elements of usability testing (and this is different from classical research)
1) development of problem statements or test objectives rather than hypotheses
2) representative sample of end users
3) representation of actual work environment
4) observation of end users
5) collection of qualitative and quantitative performance and preference measures
6) recommendations of improvements

frustration is inevitable for participants, need to be careful as test monitor not to interfere with this too much, the frustration is what tells us what we need to know, be impartial, it is not the problem with the participant but with the product but participants will still blame themselves, encourage them to freely explore areas without concern for looking good

In debrief (and in any kind of assessment) good to focus on what the participants expected to happen, begin by letting the participant say whatever is on their mind

Before giving the test, give it to yourself, in giving the test to others expect the unexpected

Before starting, ask the participant to parrot back what they have been told about the test and process

Provide prerequisite training if necessary, remember posttest questionnaires (this can focus more on preference while the test focuses on performance)

Can test two participants at once (use their conversation like a “think outloud”), (this could work for testing student powerpoints)

Book to check out The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman, and newsletter called Common Ground (from Usability Professional Association)

New Horizons – usability for not just product development but for also assessing the entire product ownership life cycle, some automated usability evaluations are being directly built into software products (reminds me of remote car article in Wired, a step toward artificial intelligence), codewriting will also become more automated which may mean a greater need for usability testing

Don't Think of an Elephant

Don’t Think of an Elephant by George Lakoff (2004)
www.rockridgeinstitute.org

Frames are mental structures that shape the way we see the world – our goals, plans, acts, and what counts as good or bad outcome of actions

Cognitive unconscious – structures in the brain we cannot consciously access but know of their consequences: our reasoning and what counts as common sense

Language also tells us, all words are defined relative to conceptual frames, hearing a word activates its frame in our brain

Reframing is changing how someone sees the world and common sense, we need new language for new frames

Exercise – Don’t think of an elephant! Whatever you do, do not think of an elephant. (no one can do this, elephant evokes a frame, when we negate a frame we evoke it) (Nixon - I am not a crook)

A basic principle of framing – if you are arguing against the other side don’t use their language (this language picks the frame, one you don’t want)

Framing is about getting language to fit your worldview, but ideas are primary – the language carries the ideas (this is about metaphors)

Metaphor for nation as a family – the Founding Fathers, the Daughters of the American Revolution, sending our “sons” to war, a natural metaphor to compare large social groups such as a nation in terms of a small one, like family

Our nation can be compared to strict father nation (Republicans) or nurturing parent family (Democrats), we have both models imprinted on our synapses as passively and actively, we can use them both but in different parts of our lives

Strict father approach = protect family in dangerous world, support family in difficult world, teach children right from wrong – pursue self interest and grow up to be self-reliant is moral, good people will be (deservedly) rewarded, the world is dangerous and difficult, children are born bad and must be made good, need to be disciplined

Other metaphor for foreign policy = rational actor and nation as a person (“friendly” nation, “rogue” nation, “enemy” nation, “adult” nation, “child” –developing- nation), maximize self interest is the rational thing to do

Nurturant parent metaphor – empathy (caring and feeling how others feel) and responsibility (taking care of others whom we feel responsible), the world is basically good and can be made better – seek fulfillment in life, fairness, freedom, open two-way communication

Each of these frames forces a certain logic, for facts to be accepted they must fit the frame, if the facts do not fit the frame, the frame stays and the facts bounce off (myth= the truth will set us free, tell the facts and since people are basically rational they will reach the right conclusions)

Neuroscience says that our long-term concepts that structure how we think are “instantiated” in the synapse of our brains. Concepts are not things that can be changed by telling us a fact. It not, it is not heard or mystifies us – seen as irrational, crazy or stupid.

Economics – people are rational actors following their self-interest, this does not bear out to true in how people really think, people vote their identity (who they identify with) and their values not their self-interest, and it’s not as if they don’t care about self-interest but it isn’t as simply that

We tend to have both family metaphors – the john wayne movie and the cosby show, both worldviews are widely present in our culture, people do not necessarily live by one worldview all the time

Orwellian language – language that means the opposite of what you say, used by conservatives when they are weak, when they cannot come right out and say what they mean, Orwellian language points to weakness, note where this is for this is were they are vulnerable

Language can be used honestly or harmfully, the right language starts with ideas, ideas come first and are used to frame

When you think you lack words you really lack ideas, ideas come in the form of frames, when frames are there the words come readily

Hypocognition – lack of ideas that you need, the lack of a relatively fixed frame that can be evoked with a word or two
Study by bob levy in Tahiti – many suicides, Tahitians feel grief but have no concept of it or name for it, no rituals or seen as a normal emotion and end up committing suicide too often

Hierarchy of values (what’s the top value) and strategic initiatives (has multiple, long-range effects) instead of issue by issue approach, also slippery slope strategic initiatives (taking small steps toward a larger issue, understand the consequences of steps)

In reframing be proactive, not reactive, practice every day on every issue, use your frames not theirs, use then because they fit the values you believe in

Even if frame doesn’t fit the facts, there is grain of truth to it and that holds

Campaigning as marketing metaphor – look to a list that most people support, move to the “right” on some issues to get the centrist vote, a list is not a moral vision, does not present voters with an identity (someone to identify with)

Marriage – a word, and a metaphor – symbolizes an institution, life goal, dreams, dates, gossip, anxiety, shower, wedding, rituals, invitations, vows, honeymoon, family, children, grandchildren, in-laws, games, graduations, a journey, partnership, complementary parts, sacrament, home, social status, sex

Mirror neurons – these fire either when we perform an action or we see someone perform the same action. And these are connected to the emotional parts of our brain. The basis of empathy

Gandhi – Be the change you want

Metaphors can kill (http://philosophy.uoregon.edu/metaphor/lakoff-1.htm) war is fought against a person (Saddam Hussein) not the Iraqi people, protesters are against the country (not patriotic) not Bush
Nation as a person – a “just” war, self-defense story or rescue story, in both a hero, a crime, a victim, a villain (in self-defense story victim and hero are the same), villain can’t be reasoned with and needs to be defeated or killed, victim is innocent and beyond reproach

Lies – what is difference between lies and exaggerations, misleading statements, mistakes, rhetorical excesses
For a linguist when considering whether statement is a lie the least important consideration for most people is whether it is true
More important is – did he believe it, did he intend to deceive, was he trying to gain an advantage or to harm someone, is this a serious matter or trivial one?
Most people see that if the statement is false but if he believed it, wasn’t trying to deceive, was not trying to gain advantage then no lie
If in the service of a good cause then it is a white lie, based on faulty information then an honest mistake, used for emphasis then exaggeration
Difference between a lie and betrayal of trust

What divides progressives (understanding change)
Local interests
Idealism vs. pragmatism
Radical change vs. moderate change
Militant vs. moderate advocacy
Types of thought processes (socioeconomic, identity politics, environmentalism, civil libertarianism, spiritual and antiauthoritarian)

What can unify (understanding change)
Values coming out of a basic vision
Principles to realize vision
Policy directions that fit values and principles
Brief ten-word philosophy that encapsulates all of the above

How is framing different from spin, manipulation, and propaganda? Framing is normal, every sentence is framed in some way, when we say something we believe then we are using frames that we think are relatively accurate, spin is a manipulative use of framing, it is used when something embarrassing has happened or said and is an attempt to put a clean frame around it and make it look normal or good, propaganda is an attempt to get the public to adopt a frame that is not true and is known not to be true for the purpose of gaining control or power
Avoid deceptive framing, speak from what you believe

Once your frame is accepted in the discourse, everything you say is just common sense
Guidelines
Show respect
Respond by reframing
Think and talk at the level of values
Say what you believe

Access by Design

Access by Design by Sarah Horton (2006)

Introduction by Ben Shneiderman
Three waves of web dissemination 1) users learn about possibilities and get connect, one in six 2) second wave users create web pages, produce content and disseminate ideas, music, photos etc., shift from information access to content generation = ebay, wikis, blogs 3) transformation from information to action, effective international development and innovation education and safe neighborhoods and health care and environmental protection and conflict resolution = requires open discussion and broad participation

Preface
Web has democratized design – both process and attendant responsibilities
Best practices – depends on our definition of users
Stages of web development 1) graphic design 2) user-centered design 3) web accessibility 4) web standards 5) universal design 6) universal usability
Layers of web design (a) function (b) interface (c) content which is the ends if function and interface are the means (Horton focuses on function)
Design and designers – we don’t think of ourselves as designers but we make soup, sand castles, we are not making t-shirts, one size can fit all, the web makes it so

Intro
Designing tools to fit the task so that it becomes part of the task (sleeping in bed, getting time from clock)
*Form follows function (architect Louis Sullivan) observed in nature, this relates to communication being audience driven
Divides visual users and nonvisual users – critical differences and ways of using the web, nonvisual users include text readers and search engines (machine use of web site)
Two basic function of web site 1) communication of information, key is accessibility 2) user interaction, key is functionality
Web is universal because powered by text, test can be read and understood by computers
1) when web content is presented as text then communication
2) when web content is structured then meaningful communication can occur
3) when web pages are operable and functional according to expectations, interaction can occur
4) if web pages are flexible and device-independent, communication and interaction can occur for more users (harder for physical world to be customized, most is fixed in form, with one-size-fits-all someone has to compromise)
Conclusion – designers must compromise, quality site not simple to design but can be as hard as building a site that is not good, need to understand and honor the web, also partnering with users, both are responsibly and collaborative
Feels counterintuitive that users can change elements of web site and violate design conventions, but we cannot make design decisions that work for everybody so users must be able to make their own decisions
Applying conventions undermines the strengths of the web
Design collaboration with users requires two things 1) design for transformation = flexible elements and overall design must hold up to change, keep setting fluid so that settings can be overrode without breaking the page 2) recognize and respect boundaries of user domain, the web gives designer control to users

Chap 1 fundamentals
Design simply “typography exist to honor content”, well designed web site has enough emphasis to spark interest and draw attention to important elements but not to enough to distract or limit functionality
Build fallbacks is one UD strategy, html is generally the most universal format and can be a viable alternative format to address accessibility, html is the web’s native language and web access software such as browsers and search engines are written to read it (not the most powerful of tools but none others are explicated designed to provide access)
More fallback – video might fall back to slide show, then audio, then image and finally text
From mark-up perspective three attributes need to be accounted for 1) keyboard accessibility 2) flexibility 3) user control
Keyboard control means using tab or arrow key to select elements and return or enter key to activate them (two steps), language counts so should be able to understand purpose of element without expanding focus to surrounding context
Web pages are inherently dynamic, design used to be for static items such as posters, books or billboards with only one view in mind, use relative measurements (percentages)
The potential for user customization offers an opportunity to redefine the relationship between designer and user, the boundary between the domain of the designer and the user

Chap.2
Device-independent format is dependent upon separating content and presentation
Creating html documents is not a visual process but an intellectual one, use html for content and use CSS for presentation
Use html mark-up tags to create meaning (structural elements)
CSS allows for reduced web pages cluttered with presentation markup, allow for audible reading of html pages better, can use one master sheet and effect changes across the site more easily and consistently
But pages must be able to function with style (sheets)
Linked (external) style sheets are better than embedded (or inline) ones

Chap. 3 text
Text can be sized, colored, style, copied, pasted, indexed, searched – images and graphics text cannot
Use markup tags to indicate information hierarchy and use flexible widths
Avoid using color alone to convey information

Chap. 4 images
Do not have to abandon images – this would make it difficult for those who depend on images for help
Images are not for “spicing up” or because it is a visual medium, but for providing information, establishing context, providing direction, establishing brand or identity, but images draw the eye first and must be used purposely

Chap. 5 data tables Chap. 6 layout tables
Software cannot distinguish “real” tables from layout tables
Layout is best handled by css, use tables for layout only when necessary
One benefit of structured documents is their ability to be indexed and then discovered by search engine software
Software that reads web pages linearizes tables
For both visual and nonvisual users we need to design code as well as visual display

Chap. 7 frames
Avoid using frames

Chap. 8 lists
Markup lists so that lists (including navigation bars, tabs and breadcrumbs) can be understood by nonvisual users

Chap. 9 forms
Forms should not be sole means of communication with site owners, have alternative methods (email, phone #, snail)
After links, forms are the controls we use most frequently to interact with the web
Importance of labeling
Form design is a process of simplification and clarification, keyboard accessibility needs to be made
Information flow must be predictable, anytime a user can successfully predict what come next, usability is enhanced

Chap. 10 links
We spend much of our time on the web following links, links must be displayed as text
Use descriptive text for links rather than “click here” etc. (doesn’t work for skimming page, will need to expand focus to surrounding context)
First word is important, one most likely to grab user’s attention
Link underlining is a user-defined setting
Differentiate between visited and unvisited links
Use “you are here” orientation

Chap. 11 color
Check out Colour Contrast Analyzer
Do not use color alone
Important to have color differences in brightness and hues (purple and yellow)

Chap. 12 audio and video
Provide alternative formats for media-based content (text)

Chap. 13 interactivity
Web is a client-server application, this allows for navigation to find information but is less functional as a software application, the web does not support page-level interactivity as we have come to expect from desktop and cd-rom applications, links and forms are the only native modes of interactivity

Chap. 14 editorial style
Need for accessible language
Need to be structured for skimming = information broken into segments, and using headings, lists
Skimming is enhanced with initial key words

Chap. 15 page layout
The ultimate test of a web page is how well it performs when read by software
Begin with primary page content as opposed to advertising and navigation links, put content as close as possible to the beginning
Feature creep – extensive navigation options, global navigation, local navigation, page navigation, bread crumbs, link creep
Be context sensitive for navigation, provide appropriate links based on content and available tasks rather than extensive link lists covering every possibility, some backtracking is reasonable
Design is a moving target, designer can only “suggest” attributes

fall 2005 - wisdom of crowds

Wisdom of the Crowds by James S
Reading notes

How to tap into the Wisdom of the Crowds, no method but need to satisfy certain conditions = diversity, independence, decentralization, three kinds of problems that groups face – cognition, coordination, cooperation

Diversity –meaningful differences among ideas not minor variations upon same concept, adds perspectives that would otherwise be absent and weakens some of destructive characteristics of group decision making (even more important for small groups, large groups normally have more diversity), development of knowledge depends on influx of the naïve, groups that are too much like each other find it harder to keep on learning because each member brings less and less information to the table, bringing in new members into an organization makes it smarter (even if the people are less experienced and capable, usually less than the person they replaced), diversity makes it easier for an individual to say what they really think, this all is about cognitive diversity

Independence – important for intelligent decision making for two reasons 1) keeps mistakes from being correlated 2) more likely to have new information than old data that others have, you can be biased and irrational but your independence does not make the group dumber, but are we really independent or able to act with only self-interest or are we embedded in social contexts, we are influenced by imitation and risk aversion = herding, information cascades = we supplement our information by looking at what others are doing and decisions are not made all at once but in sequence, at some point stop paying attention to our own knowledge and rely on the flow of others, depend more on public knowledge than private knowledge, then cascade stops becoming informative, imitation can be a rational response, no one knows everything and we can specialize, to improve organization’s decision making have decisions be made simultaneously, each person has to pay more attention to private information which can be wrong but collectively the group makes a better decision, more likely to be collectively right, encouraging people to make incorrect guesses makes the group smarter, reduce sequential element in the way people make decisions and get people to pay less attention to what everyone else is saying

Decentralization – what is = flocks of birds, free-market economies, p2p networks, public schools, modern corporations, decentralization fosters specialization (making people more productive and efficient) and increases scope of diversity of information (while the individual may become more narrow focused) and allows for tacit knowledge and the idea that the closer a person is to the problem the better to solve it, allows for individualization and specialization while being coordinated but there is no guarantee that valuable information will find its way into the system, the challenge is to find balance between making individual knowledge global and collectively useful while keeping it local and specific, need to aggregate information effectively

Coordination – it is possible for us to be coordinated even without talking to each other, people’s experiences of the world are often similar, this creates norms and conventions that regulate behavior but new rules can be formed quickly, conventions also reduce amount of cognitive work, first-come first-served seating in public places (subway, bus, movie theater, on the beach), not the best way to distribute seating but it is easy and internalized

Cooperation – need to adopt a larger view of self-interest than maximizing short term gain, have to trust those around them, societies need cooperation, laws alone wouldn’t work, but it is not rational to cooperate, “shadow of the future” by Robert Axelrod The Evolution of Cooperation, not about trust but about durability of relationship, the promise of continued interaction, but then we also cooperate with strangers such as donating to charities, buying on ebay, tipping, we see over time that trade and exchange are games that everyone gains rather than zero-sum games with only a winner and loser, reciprocity = key idea, we will pay our fair share of taxes (although we stand to benefit for services even if we don’t) if everyone does and there is a chance that those who don’t will get caught and punished, most of us are conditional consenters who cooperate if that is why the game works, it is important that we believe the system works, this creates a positive feedback loop and this is what creates societies rather than an random collection of people

Importance of small group work – small groups are ubiquitous to American life = juries, board of directors, small groups are different from large groups such as betters and stock investors, are inescapably influenced by others in the group with two consequences 1) making bad decisions tending to be more volatile and extreme 2) or can be greater than a sum of its parts by making people working harder and think smarter, two types of juries – evidence-based where do not take vote right away but sift through evidence and contemplate alternative explanations while there is also verdict-based juries where they see their mission to reach a decision as quickly and decisively as possible and usually take a vote before any discussion and debate concentrates on those who do not agree to agree, to help groups work better find a good way to aggravate their results and to include them in the actual decision-making process such as getting a vote (rather than in advisory function), group polarization = deliberation does not moderate but radicalize people’s points of view, social comparison is a factor in that if we are in the middle of group we shift to the side the group is going to keep ourselves within the middle relatively and when we move we are also moving the group to that place as in a self-fulfilling prophecy, in addition, talkativeness matters although there is no relationship between expertise and talkativeness and no relation between liking and talkativeness, talkativeness is influential (more men as jury foreman than women), sequence also matters and we tend to defer to higher status people although leaders tend to have higher opinion of themselves than justified, also extremists tend to be more sure and righteous of their ideas than moderates and will pull groups away from the middle, risky shift doesn’t always play out – sometimes groups will get less risky (conservative) as a more extreme response, if most of group already supports a position

Large group decision making – collective decision making is often confused with consensus, search for consensus encourages tepid, lowest-common denominator solutions that do not offend anyone rather than exciting everyone, does democracy (of the workplace) mean endless discussions or wider distribution of decision-making power, be careful not to think that intelligence is fungible (effective in every context), baiting crowds for suicide jumpers is how riots work, in the middle of riot they operate as one organism, some people will never riot and some will riot all the time but most people are in the middle, willingness to riot depends on what other people in crowd are doing, not if one person riots but if there is a mix of sizable people involved

Democracy – National Issues Convention Deliberative Poll, what is democracy for – do we have it because it gives people a sense of involvement and control over their lives and thus contribute to political stability or is it for individuals to have the right to rule themselves even if used in ridiculous ways, is democracy a vehicle for making intelligent decision and uncovering truths, studies of self-interest and politics, if it was solely about self-interest then government would increasingly get bigger and would also be ruled to serve the interest of powerful groups rather than the public as a whole, self-interest is important to voters but not the only factor (in fact, why would anyone vote at all, despite low turnout), ideology makes a difference, having all the knowledge is not important in a representative democracy, politicians have the information they need for good decisions while voters monitor the outcomes based on local knowledge, we need both “experts” and non experts to function well, How do we live together?, How can living together work to our mutual benefit?, the democratic experience is not getting everything that you want, seeing your opponents win and accepting it because you believe that they will not destroy things that you value and you know that you will get another chance to get what you want, compromise and change

fall 2005 - Blink

Nov. 23 2005
Notes on Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

Intro Adaptive unconscious – our brain quickly and quietly processing information we need to function as human beings, rapid cognition, which we tend to be suspicious of because we like to trust our conscious decision making abilities
Our unconscious is powerful but fallible – how then to trust our instincts?

Three premises 1) decisions made quickly can be every bit as good as decisions made cautiously and deliberately 2) what are the conditions that cause our rapid cognition to be wrong 3) snap judgments can be educated and controlled

I. Thin slices – Gottman’s studies of couples on (one hour of) videotape can predict with 95% accuracy if couple will be married in 15 years, some can it as quickly as three minutes (and not while fighting), nonexperts can make this same prediction (same tapes) as accurately as 80%
Two states of marriage 1) positive sentimental override (a buffer) 2) negative sentiment override (four horsemen of problems = defensiveness, stonewalling, criticism, contempt with contempt by and far being the worst) criticism is global condemnation of person’s character but with contempt it comes from a “superior” plane, hierarchical, this also predicts how many colds someone gets
Morse code analogy – “fists” the personal signature of someone’s sending, distinctive qualities appear naturally and automatically
Job interviews – personality workup – the Big Five Inventory
1) Extraversion. Are you sociable or retiring? Fun-loving or reserved?
2) Agreeableness. Are you trusting or suspicious? Helpful or uncooperative?
3) Conscientiousness. Are you organized or disorganized? Self-disciplined or weak willed?
4) Emotional Stability. Are you worried or calm? Insecure or secure?
5) Openness to new experiences. Are you imaginative or down-to-earth? Independent or conforming?
Compare thick slice – how a friend would rate you with someone who didn’t know you visiting your dorm room (gives us three clues to someone’s personality 1) identity claims or deliberative expression of how we would like to be seen by the world 2) behavioral residue such as dirty laudry or organized CDs 3) thoughts and feelings regulators or changes we make to our personal spaces to affect the way we feel when we inhabit them
What people tell us about themselves can be confusing, we are often unaware of how we are, don’t ask point blank a couple about their relationship ask them about their pets or such
Doctors – training vs. conversation – studies of transcripts
Not sued doctors spend more than 3 minutes longer with patients (18.3 mins. Vs. 15), also more orienting comments and active listening but no difference in amount or quality of information and not more details about meds or patient condition but how they spoke, treated patients as human beings


II. Snap judgements are extremely fast but unconscious – behind a locked door
Priming experiments – suggest certain ideas using words (polite, rude, aged, think like professor, or to identify race on test, cooperativeness) and tendency of people to act in these ways, not brainwashing because you are not revealing deep personal information or act in drastically inappropriate ways, priming doesn’t work once you become aware of it but we are not aware of it at the time and do not credit it’s effects
Unconscious works like a mental valet taking care of the minor mental details of you life leaving you free to concentrate on the main problem at hand
Explaining yourself – we do not explain our snap judgements accurately, what we say and what we do are different, often provide different answers at different times or meaningless answers – a storytelling problem – explanations for things we don’t have explanations for, we need to be cautious in how we interpret other’s explanations for their instinctual behavior (we rarely say we are ignorant, that we “don’t know”)
Led astray by snap judgments – take rapid cognition seriously – acknowledge it power for better or worse – is a step toward controlling them

Implicit Association Test (IAT)

https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/

we make connections more quickly between pairs of ideas that are already associated in our minds than between pairs of ideas that are less related in our minds

do it as quickly as possible

don’t skip over words

don’t worry about making mistakes

strong prior association = difference in milliseconds

predictor of how we will act in certain types of spontaneous situations

not aware of bias but will, nonverbally act slightly differently and in such ways that others can perceive this (such as job interview)

study of half of CEOs of Fortune 500 are white males but also in height, generally average almost 3 inches higher than general male population (58% compared to 14.5 as over 6 feet) – it may be that our selection process is less rationale than we think

III. controlling rapid cognition – spontaneity isn’t random, good decision making under fast-moving high-stress situations is a function of training, rules, and rehearsal
as in comic improve – the concept of agreement, have characters accept everything that is happening to them, develop action rather than block it
create conditions for successful spontaneity
watch out for “verbal overshadowing” – use of words and introspection can separate us from our instincts and impede problems that can be solved with a flash of insight. Problems that could be solved with a flash of insight have a different set of rules than other problems. Language can get in the way, sometimes stopping to talk things over gets in the way
Less is more – Lee Goldman’s algorithm for heart patients – simplified what was important to look for. Too much information (which we often intuitively try to seek out especially when challenged or threatened or stressed about what to do). But how to ignore perfectly valid information? Particularly doctors who do not want to follow mundane guidelines, more gratifying to come up with decision on your own. With more information we become more certain of our answers but our answers do not necessarily get better or more consistently correct.
Two lessons here 1) successful decision making relies on balance of deliberative and instinctive thinking 2) in good decision making frugality matters – distill to simplest elements, clear patterns
Snap decisions can be made in a snap but not if you have too many choices (jam experiment – six choices 30% sales, twenty four choices 3% sales)
IV. Louis Cheskin (marketing guru) sensation transference – transferring the impressions or sensations from the packaging to product itself, the product is the package and product combined
Need to thin slice by also looking at the context, hard to do market research on something really different, first impressions don’t really count in these cases
First impressions of experts are different from others, our tastes become more complex and can explain their understanding better, have a vocabulary and rubrics/matrix for assessing things. We cannot look behind the locked door of unconscious but with experience we become expert at using our behavior and training to interpret and decode what is behind snap judgments and first impressions. This changes the nature of first impressions. Outside of our areas of expertise our impression may not be wrong but more likely shallow, hard to explain and easily disrupted. Just because we do a lot of something (drink cola) doesn’t mean we think about it a lot.
V. FAC facial action coding system can teach us how to better read each others faces – the face is not just a signal of what is going on inside our mind but it is what is going on inside our mind, emotions can start with the face, not just be a residue or secondary billboard for internal feelings, it is an equal partner
Micro expressions not made voluntarily, and inevitably no matter how hard we try to suppress them emotions do leak out and can be read, we don’t actually know what is on our face, in fact, this would make us better at concealing things which may not be a good things at least evolutionary wise. Most of time we read facial expressions easily and accurately so what happens when this breaks down.
We have different parts of brain for facial recognition and object recognition. Autism looks at faces as objects. What if this was also a temporary condition instead of a chronic one? Such as under extreme stress – extreme visual clarity, tunnel vision, diminished sound, sense that time is slowing down – police that don’t hear gun going off
An optimal state of arousal – Larry Bird seeing the whole court, we can exceed the optimal state and be too aroused, too much feeling of pressure and lose souces of information were we become useless, motor skills slow down as does cognitive processing and vision, blood withdrawn and we become clumsy, arousal can leave us mind-blind
Time is a factor – need “white space” time to react, without time you are subject to the lowest-quality intuitive reaction, can cause temporary autism when we run out of time, we can be guided by stereotypes and predijuces, when police officers by themselves (rather than in squad car with a partner) slow things down, less bravado, will not charge in as rapidly or be ambushedand have fewer problems, with partner they speed things up split second syndrome – rush into situation with no time for thought, can go through stress inoculation training with exposure to similar stress situations and over time heart rate goes down
The key to reading faces is practice, deliberate practice – the gift of training and expertise to extract an enormous amount of meaningful information from the very thinnest slice of experience, not a blur but a blink
VI. we can be careless about our powers of rapid cognition, need to take these powers seriously and acknowledge the subtle influences that can alter or undermine or bias the products of our unconscious
If we control the environment in which rapid cognition takes place then we can control it better

The Times

From the NY Times Education Section (11/7/04) this Sunday. How to measure teaching effectiveness? The best correlation is teacher expertise accounts for more difference in student performance (40%) than any other factor. What is expertise? A constellation of factors = catagories such as subject knowledge, pedagogy, relationship between students and teachers. Effective teachers know their subject and have high expectations, do whatever it takes to help children learn the material and don't give up.

Also a web site on how to do sentence diagraming - would this be worth checking out? webster.commnet.edu/grammar/diagrams/diagrams.htm

last of best teachers

“I will do everything possible to help you learn and develop your abilities, but you must decide if you want to engage in this experience. If you do decide to join this enterprise, there are some things you must resolve to do to make worthwhile for you and others in the group.”
Trust again – little worry that students might try to trick them, take home tests, talking about own intellectual journey

Assessment – the question is not about the performance exactly, the test score but what kind of intellectual and personal development do I want my students to enjoy in this class and what evidence do I need to collect about the nature and progress of their development? Focus on the learning, not the score. This brings up counting off late papers – the rationale = need to learn to meet a deadline? Or how it impacts the community of learners? Do the students read each other’s papers? What are the standards for the “real world” and for professors? Counting off more often this relates to performance than learning. Another approach is to help students with time. Provide a 24/7 grid and identify when sleeping, eating etc. Need to have two hours of homework time or won’t have the time for this course. “If you finish each task by the appointed day, you will make orderly progress toward the goals of the semester.” Grades are to represent an assessment of students’ thinking not meeting some arbitrary rule – an emphasis upon learning. Another technique – using cumulative tests, the first test covers material from the beginning of the course and so do all subsequent tests to make learning permanent, not just something to get through in a single test

Does the teaching help and encourage students to learn in ways that make a sustained, substantial and positive difference in the way they think, act, or feel –without doing them any major harm. (1) Is the material worth learning? (2) Are my students learning what the course is supposedly teaching? (3) Am I helping and encouraging the students to learn (or do they learn despite me)? (4) Have I harmed my students (perhaps fostering short-term, strategic or bulimic learning)?

“Teaching with your mouth shut.”

summary: importance of focus on the student, understanding and dialoguing about the desire outcomes (goals), use of assessment to determine "performance vs. learning"

best college teachers

How do they conduct class? (1) An intriguing question or problem (2) helping to see the significance of the question (embed the disciplines issues in broader concerns) (3) higher-order intellectual activity - not only listen and remember but compare, apply, evaluate, analyze, synthesize (4) an enviroment that helps students answer the question (5) leaving students with a question "what's the next question?" (at the end of class - what conclusion did you draw? what questions remain in your mind?)
seek commitment - the decision to take the class is a decision to attend every class each time it meets and my commitment is offer sessions worth attending (let me know if it is not happening) Ask for a show of hands of students willing to be on time each day and participate intellectually, the decision to take the course is yours, but once you make that decision, you have responsibilities to everyone else in this community of learners.
emphasize basic concepts and then add more complexity, use everyday examples - good explanations are not necessarily the most accurate or detailed but allow for the beginning of constructing understanding
creating heterogenous communities - ask the most experienced person to stand in one place and match with less experienced
group work system = individually collect thoughts on paper, then with someone else (think then pair), then pairs pair up with other pairs (think/pair/square), then full class (think/pair/square/share)
Burgess minute around - each student gets one minute to make initial contribution to discussion, the longer students sit without saying anything, the harder it is to bring them into the discussion
- ask "before we get started" questions to avoid the "playing student" responses

Summary: present choice and expect commitment (personal responsibility), learning through "essences" and layers of increasing complexity, expect engagement and contribution (build community)

Trust

This seems to be an important point in What the Best Teachers Do - trust. The need for assignments to flow, not from school or grade, but something that is of benefit personally and intellectually. Also from teacher's rejection of power over them, try to leave control over education to the students. And set standards where you are incapable of imagining students not thinking and acting on the highest level.
The promising syllabus (1) what opportunities will this course hold for intellectual and emotional growth (2) what will be done to realize these promises, if they decide to stay with the class what will they need to achieve (3) and a summary of what we understand learning to be - beginning a dialogue with the students
How to teach critical thinking - pit great thinkers (plato vs. aristotle) against each other and make students chose, enter great controversies, take a stand and defend it, careful questioning and structured assignments that allow for practice and feedback before evaluation, teach how to read material and critically think about it
to engage in meaningful learning (that allows re-examination of thinking in some fundamental ways) (1) need to care about the issue (2) ample opportunity to apply learning to meaningful problems
nonjudgemental responsiveness = challenging work and an environment that constantly tells them that intelligence can be expanded, "you don't teach a class, you teach a student"

Summary: ask and perform higher thinking skills that has personal relevance, creation of meaning must have some meaning to begin with

November, best teachers continued

I didn't fully appreciate the study cited in What the Best College Teachers Do about issues of racism and stereotypes at first. It seemed a little obvious but after awhile it became clear how this relates to Landmark students. First of all there is the obvious problem of facing repeated messages of being inferior and how this leads to dropping out and building a life in another area. But what about those who are well prepared and successful, who still as African Americans still lag behind similar groups on European American students. Is it possible that even as we, as targets, consciously reject negative images, these stereotypes still exert a strong influence upon our selfconcept. This is the theory, that we cannot escape the shadow of beliefs around us. In the very least there is this ongoing awareness of this prejudice adding a level of anxiety that others don't have to face. For those without the stereotypes they have to deal with the stress of the work itself, while those with the stereotypes (another example is females and math) have an additonal burdon, triggers of reminders. This is called "stereotype vulnerability." It's a matter of "vigilant worry about the future". The solution, as far as developed so far, seems to be if we can keep people from thinking that someone else is viewing them through the lens of a negative stereotype. This idea is simple enough but enacting it appears more difficult. It becomes a matter of explanation and expectation. Effective teaching appears to mean to "expect more and to get students to produce it with great satisfaction." It's a web, of which the individual strands seem a little superficial but put them together... here they are listed below.
1) look for and appreciate the individual value of each student
2) have great faith in students ability to achieve (this seems to be a critical step for working at Landmark. I am always alarmed when I hear faculty badmouth students, not in a personal way but more subtly, as in making assumptions and shortchanging their motivations and not seeing the overall complexity within our students that, like all humans, they operate under). This sounds a lot like the self-fulfilling prophecy idea - impacting others with genuine, challenging but realistic, serious work. An important implication for this our methods of feedback for students. One study suggests that very different, opposite types of feedback (one with directives, the other with compliments then criticisms) does not really change how many students made changes. However, those with negative images did not do much at all. They did however, respond to a third method - to combine high standards and assurance - suggesting that they will be judge by standards rather than negative images (which they are carrying in their heads). Set the standards and communicate a strong trust in students ability to meet them. It is important that this trust be surrounded by an attitude of intellectual excitement and curiousity (rather than worry and doubt).

Summary: remember the individual (and our personal barriers) and basic assumption that people want to learn (innate curiousity)

Internet in the news 1

I like to use an Internet in the News feature to my CO217 course but that isn't until next spring semester. So here are some notes to use in the future. These come from the Sunday NY Times Oct. 31, 2004.

Christian Porn sites - a way for ministry to reach out to people about this issue. xxxchurch.com is one example. What's interesting is that they have set up a system that does not use filters to screen out porn. Instead you can download something called x3watch that they call "accountability software." If you visit a porn site it sends a message to your "accountability partner." They say "Filters don't work. Kids are smarter than that. Filters don't bring up conversation. A filter avoids the topic. Accountability forces you and another person to talk about what you are looking at. That's hard. We would have more downloads if it was a filter."

Internet and politics (current election) - The internet has been a source of vicious and half-baked rumors. However it has also been an effective watchdog on mainstream media, a direct route to candidate's records and checking of facts - one good source = FactCheck.org from the Annenberg Center. On the other hand all this fact checking has reduced information to its smallest elements and reduced its value. Facts become subject to endless spin and truth becomes harder to tell. Wikipedia has been suffering from thousands of edits about wording of Kerry-Bush biographies with partisan tit-for-tat - called "edit wars." Despite this there seems to be some value for large collection of individuals to operate in a peer review way. For example, the exposure of CBS in using fraudulent documents for a story, or advertisements that are doctored. James Surowiecki suggest that online squads of opposition researchers is mostly a plus. He compares it to "open source" software - collective judgement is usually very good. The important thing to remember is that these systems work best when "people are diverse in information and attitude and opinion" and work independently of each other. Once they start taking cues from each other the benefits diminish because judgement becomes clouded by bias. By and large this online development is like the founders idea of marketplace of ideas where good ideas generally win out. Of course, there are online scams and shoddy goods - it's not a "perfect market" as EBay calls itself but we need a healthy dose of skepticism. The point is that we need to be savvy consumers in the marketplace of ideas.