Extra Credit Blog!

 Surprise! I am back for one final blog! During week eight we discussed and learned about effective arguments and debates. Because of the highly polarized political climate, I had a difficult time grappling with the idea of productive conversations. Conversations where people with opposing views are able to come together, and maybe not change their minds but at least learn new things and find some compromises. Because of this I chose to dive into more research about how to have efficient debates and why they are important. During my research I came across a TedTalk by a young leader about what you can learn from people who disagree with you. If you are interested in watching the video, you can click here.

 

This TedTalk had a lot of connections to our week eight module in this course as well as some ties to the content in modules seven and nine. The speaker in the video talked about the dangers of echo-chambers and how sometimes individuals can receive misinformation and because of echo-chambers continue to refer to and believe that false information. Misinformation was a large part of the week seven module. The speaker also discussed the importance of civil and calm debates where both parties are willing to hear and attempt to understand new perspectives which correlates well to the discussions in module eight. Summing all of this up, the speaker emphasized how valuable it is to talk to people with different beliefs, backgrounds and perspectives, as well as the importance of completing your own nonpartisan research. The video went well with the learning in week eight as it was encouraged to do lots of research and find multiple views on the podcast topic. The weekly discussion posts in this course also reflect the importance of hearing someone else's ideas and what they bring to the discussion. Similar to the video, week eight as a whole highlighted the significance of exposing ourselves to new ideas because it can result in valuable learning. 

I hope that everyone has a wonderful winter break! Thanks again for being here!