MEETING OF THE MINDS SOCIAL HOUR PART I Creating Your Ticket to Attend Your ticket to get into the social hour will be a hard copy paper notes summarizing the most important aspects of your i e your theorist s work To do this you will need to find at LEAST 3 separate internet websites about your theorist and print them off Here are the steps 1 Locate websites for theorist and print 2 Using 4 different colored highlighters begin to highlight where you find answers to the following about your theorist The relative importance of heredity and the environment on development The historical and cultural milieu at the time you were developing your theory What types of data you used to develop your theory and or what other theorists influenced your thinking What mechanism or mechanisms cause change to occur over time 3 Once highlighting is completed compile your own notes from these sources listing only the information in each of the above categories This is not a formal essay therefore paragraphs are not necessary You can list outline make a web whatever helps you to integrate the information from several sources In your notes summarize your theory and the key vocabulary you as theorist use and what that vocabulary means If your theory says that development proceeds in a stage like fashion clearly specify how the stages differ from one another Make clear what mechanism or mechanisms you think cause change to occur over time Notes must be word processed 3 4 pages and saved on disk Your ticket to attend will consist of your compiled notes plus the highlighted webpage printoffs PART II Social Hour You will turn in your ticket to enter the social hour So make sure you make a separate copy of your notes to refer to while you are mingling You will be mingling with other important theorists attending the conference social hour You and your colleagues are all well known in your field and anxious to share with each other your perspectives on matters to which you have devoted your lives As is usually the case at such functions this is a very important occasion to get better acquainted with the ideas of others influencing your field find kindred spirits whose ideas parallel complement or enhance your own test your wits and your convictions against arguments and data of your best and brightest adversaries impress colleagues e g make a name for yourself During the Social Hour you will mingle with your peers engaging in conversation about your work and your views on children learning education development STAY IN CHARACTER but don t actually reveal your name in the conversation Keep moving Argue Probe for the weaknesses in each other s views Try to convince others of the rightness of your position Form alliances with those who seem to hold similar positions to your own Be a powerful voice in this field about which you are passionate PART III Forming Schools of Thought After socializing and sharing views with your colleagues you should feel you have at least some familiarity with the views of everyone in the room You will be asked to tentatively organize yourselves into clusters of kindred spirits This may require some further discussion and there may be disagreements who belongs and who does not Within each group guess who might be your long lost twin each of you will have one Each group will be given a large sheet of butcher paper to record the following 1 A name for your School of Thought Choose a title that clearly captures your essential shared features 2 A list of Core Principles to which you can all agree 3 A summary of how your individual theories make a unique and important contribution to the school of thought 4 One or two sentences aimed at convincing parents and educators how your school of thought best serves them Each group will orally present their posters with the rest of the class Convince us that yours is the most rational and relevant of all the schools of thought PART IV Revealing Identities Once schools of thought have shared their posters everyone will reveal their theorist s names
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