To Inform and Delight: Employing Synthesis for Scholarship That Shines M. Laurel Walsh Writing Faculty Center for Student Success

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To Inform and Delight Employing Synthesis for
Scholarship That ShinesM. Laurel WalshWriting
FacultyCenter for Student Success
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Synthesis

• Overview of Five Minds by Gardner (2005)
• New Learning Paradigms
• Operational Definition of Synthesis
• Group Work

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Five Minds for the Future

• Howard Gardner Multiple Intelligences
• Overview
• The disciplined mind
• The synthesizing mind
• The ethical mind
• The creating mind
• The respectful mind

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The Disciplined Mind

• has mastered at least one way of thinkinga
  distinctive mode of cognition that characterizes
  a specific scholarly discipline, craft, or
  profession (p. 3).
• A lifelong learner because given the
  accumulation of new data, knowledge, and methods,
  she must be a lifelong studentand she has come
  to enjoyindeed she has become passionate
  aboutthe process of learning about the world
  (p. 41).

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A Disciplined Mind

• Physics Stephen Hawking
• "If human life were long enough to find the
  ultimate theory, everything would have been
  solved by previous generations. Nothing would be
  left to be discovered (Hawking, p. 11, 2007).

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The Creative Mind An Intersection

• The individual (who has mastered a discipline)
• The social fieldthe individuals and institutions
  that provide access to relevant educational
  experiences as well as the cultural domain in
  which they work
• Opportunities to perform

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Sherman Alexie

• Ill make movies like I write poems, knowing
  full well that 99.9 of the world couldnt care
  less, but equally aware that a tiny little 0.1
  of the world needs and loves poetry (Alexie,
  2007, p. ii).

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The Creating Mind

• This has not always been a prized or rewarded
  mode of thinking. Gardner says that creative
  minds break new ground (p. 3), but it is also
  that true creativity is difficult to nurture.

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The Respectful Mind

• Respect for others should permeate ones life.
  Most of us spend most of our waking hours at
  work. In our final portrait, we turn to the kind
  of mind that individuals should display as they
  pursue their vocations and fulfill their roles as
  citizens (Gardner, 2006, p. 125).

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Riane Eisler

• Let us use our human thrust for creation rather
  than destruction. Let us teach our sons and
  daughters that men's conquest of nature, of
  women, and of other men is not a heroic virtue
  that we have the knowledge and the capacity to
  survive (Eisler, 1998, p. 87).

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The Ethical Mind

• Gardner (2006) is speaking here of good work in
  the profession (p. 128). And argues that
  ethics involves a stance that is inherently more
  distanced than face-to-face relationships
  embodied in tolerance, respect, and other
  examples of personal morality (p. 128).

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An Ethical Mind Bishop Tutu

• Together we will work to support courage where
  there is fear, foster agreement where there is
  conflict, and inspire hope where there is
  despair (Tutu, 2006, p. 17).

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The Synthesizing Mind

• Intelligence is an adaptationit is essentially
  an organization and its function is to structure
  the universe just as the organism structures its
  immediate environment (Piaget, 1963, pp. 3-4)
• Evaluative skills, weighing and measuring,
  sorting and comparing, application beyond the
  scope of the immediate usage

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Synthesis The Act

• It is next to impossible to prove that a certain
  treatment has an effect because it is impossible
  to dissociate from various confounding factors
  such as novelty, quality of teaching, motor
  involvement, tactile pleasure, spatial
  configurations, etc. (Gardners personal
  communication with Dr. Walter Enloe, 1993 in
  reference to paper folding in origami).

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Scholarship as Transformation

• Synthesis is mental gymnastics. Inside your
  mind, you combine elements of separate material
  or abstract entities into one uniform concept.

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Synthesis is an act

• Reports from other sources without bias in new
  words for an informed reader
• Employs an organizational form that eases
  understanding for the reader
• Synthesis makes difficult material clear it is a
  form of translation
• Presents information in a clear and helpful
  format that is useful

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Synthesis in the Lit Review

• Exhaustive therefore inclusive
• Avoids regressive material that falls outside the
  scope of the study
• Treats all studies as unique not equal
• Balances quantitative and qualitative studies
• Weighs and measures the research
• Reflection is essential for synthesis Take time
  to consider what is confusing to you
• Keep a journal of those surprising findings

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Lets Try to Synthesize!

• Well split into three separate groups. These
  handouts represent material on similar topics
  from three separate disciplines. The groups have
  documents labeled either A, B, or C.

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Group Work

• Summarize the material in the space provided.
  Work quietly for the next ten-fifteen minutes to
  summarize the three main ideas that you find in
  the text that you have been given. Try not to
  disturb others.

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Process

• Find an individual from the other two groups to
  attempt to turn your three summarized documents
  into one cohesive piece of synthesis.
• Together, come up with a few sentences that
  incorporates the divergent concepts and looks at
  them with a singular lens.
• This will take between fifteen and twenty
  minutes. Come back together for discussion.

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In a New York Times editorial

• The central process driving this shift away
  from manufacturing is not globalization. Its
  the skills revolution. Were moving into a more
  demanding cognitive age. In order to thrive,
  people are compelled to become better at
  absorbing, processing and combining information.
  This is happening in localized and globalized
  sectors, and it would be happening even if you
  tore up every free trade deal ever inked
  (Brooks, 2008, E6).

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Questions?