Communication and Critical Thought

COM 367 Communication and Critical Thought

Have you thought about your thinking lately?

The headline above encapsulates the motif of this new course. It asks what is explicitly important for today, but especially your future in work, organizations, and life. In this way, I’d like to say the course is very much future-fit in a way that typical preparation in higher education is not. Here’s the broad context for the course:

• Organizations today operate in a dynamic and complex environment. The way we think about the world and work today must be equally complex and dynamic. Therefore, we must cultivate a sort of mental agility to absorb the complexity of work, world, and life events, and respond in productive and satisfying ways. We must think in a way that can solve problems effectively.
• If you are concerned about the AI “tsunami” that is coming for everyone’s jobs, understand that all apocalyptic futurists and industry experts agree on ONE THING: There will always be a need for human thinking and thinkers. This is “why AI will never replace humans.” Notably, the ability to think and solve problems flexibly are especially and specifically derived from the topics covered in the list at the bottom of this document. Check that out for a preview of the course’s content!

I’ll contend right here that this is a course you will have likely never been exposed to before.

It is built from my 30-some years of research and publication in critical and complexity study, consulting work, and connection and collaboration with other like -minded scholars world-wide. There’s a bedrock of knowledge and expertise here that is now available to you!

If you are ready to expand your ability to think about your thinking. . . Sign up! Grow! And get ready for your future! You can invite your friends to come with you! Get your friends to come with you !!

Course Content

In this class we’ll explore many ways of thinking and the communicative constituents and behaviors that might accompany them. Topics may include:

Traditional Critical Thinking

• Rhetorical thinking: “C’mon, let’s be rational here.” “We can drive all night looking for answers in the pouring rain. . .”
• Problem-solving thinking: “Let’s reflect a minute.”
• Liberatory thinking: “Caught in the devil’s bargain, and have to get ourselves back to the garden.”

Future-Fit Critical Thinking

• Systems thinking: “The answer is NOT right in front of you.”
• Chaos thinking: “Go ahead and wander around: The enjoyment – and productivity – of deviation.”
• Complexity thinking: “The emergence of ideas in volatility.”
• Paradoxical thinking: “Contradiction is exciting.”
• Integrative thinking: ”Is there a way both can work without compromise?”
• Generative (2nd and 3rd Order) thinking: “Where angels fear to tread . . .”
• Creative thinking: “To dream things that never were and ask “why not?”” or “We can drive all night looking for the questions in the pouring rain . . .”