Pay What You Want! (This allows us to meet our accessibility and diversity goals.)

Ages 8-14.

Meets on Zoom noon-1:00pm Pacific Time (3pm-4pm Eastern) , Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays December 22—January 2.

Led by Paradox Lab Founder, Dr. Iris Oved.

In this two-week (6-session) online discussion class, students will explore the nature of human connection, as a general phenomenon and in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. We will explore the impact of the pandemic on connections at home, at school, and on the street. Along the way we will consider the role of technology in human (dis)connection. As a final project, students will create a 5-minute presentation on what they have learned about human connection during the pandemic and their ideas for improving human connection in the future (parents are encouraged to observe).

****Consent to record the final session (presentations) is required for enrolling in this class. Recordings will be shared only within The Paradox Lab.

Details and Schedule:

Each session will include a stimulus (an image, a thought experiment, an observation from the world) and casual observations about a domain of human connection before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Most sessions will also include a formal inquiry, in which students will take turns making contributions and labeling them (hypothesis, reason, challenge, assumption, observation, analogy, distinction, clarification, etc.), calling on one another, and filling out an Inquiry Diagram (shown to the right) to map the discussion.

Students will then reflect on the discussion, sharing whether they felt heard, felt that they listened, and thought it was productive, fair, open, and respectful.

Below are the topics for each session:
[Tue Dec 22] Introductions, ground rules, informal discussion about human connection during COVID-19, plan for final projects.

[Thu Dec 24] What is human connection? What is necessary and sufficient for human connection? Can we have (some) human connection with a robot? Can we have (some) human connection with our pets?

[Sat Dec 26] Human Connection at Home (with family and friends). Observations before COVID-19. Observations during COVID-19. Formal Inquiry: Does the pandemic bring families closer together?

[Tue Dec 29] Human Connection at School (with teachers and friends). Observations before COVID-19. Observations during COVID-19. Formal Inquiry: Do humans learn better from each other in person than remotely?

[Thu Dec 31] Human Connection on the Street (with neighbors and strangers). Observations before COVID-19. Observations during COVID-19. Formal Inquiry: Is it better to connect with humans with masks or with a robot without masks?

[Sat Jan 2] Presentations. Each student shares their 5-minute presentation, with Q&A from the class. Parents are encouraged to join!

Learning Goals: Students will learn about the nature of human connection and how it has been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. More importantly, students will experience the process of doing inquiry in a group, learn how to formulate questions, entertain multiple hypotheses, find reasons and challenges for the hypotheses, and learn how to evaluate evidence. They will also gain skills for self-reflection, self-expression, listening, and perspective-taking.

Refund Policy: Full refund for the class up to 48 hours prior start of the session.

****Note: For this class to work, we must have at minimum 3 students enrolled. If this minimum is not reached by 48 hours prior to the session, we will cancel and issue a full refund.

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After purchase, please look for an email with the Zoom link!