EDEP 653

Course Title: Culture and Intelligence

Course Number: EDEP 653

Reflection: What I really appreciated about this course was, in particular, the delivery.  Another successful demonstration of expecting responsibility and accountability on the part of the learner to demonstrate that they “get it” and take equal control of the process and product.  Reminiscent of my M.A. days when the facilitators at USF charged us with the same adult status and treated us less like sponges and more like partners.

Taking launch from the very start, we were introduced to examining literature critically for biased approaches.  This was presented using a framework co-developed by Dr. Kelly.

The course itself was primarily a multi-cultural focus on the beginnings of intelligence as a concept through how it is now become a discriminator of persons.  Several poignant examples were discussed in order to shake any previous notions that any of us knew what we were talking about.  Instead, the foundations of how we determine “who is” and “who isn’t” were evaluated and examined for their biases.  Particular examples included Jane Elliott’s ahead-of-her-time experiment on discrimination and (reference I shared from earlier coursework) Stanley Milgram’s infamous 1960′s experiment on obedience to authority.

While most class time was devoted to demographic, ethnographic, socio-cultural, or other common barriers to equality, I chose (as is typical) to take a slightly different tact with my final paper.  Requesting “special permission,” I chose to pursue examining whether any basis existed for the oft-talked-about “digital” barrier to equality and whether technology’s advance has introduced another distinction irrespective of skin color or verbal accent.  Investigating literature in support of digital literacy and digital intelligence, I found that there is room for codification regarding those competencies which are arising as a result of the silicon chip.

Artifacts:

Professor: Dr. Eamon Kelly

Grade: A