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Overview

Understanding Your Attitude toward Ambiguity

Activity: What Are Your Attitudes toward Ambiguity?

Learning Goal: To help learners understand their personal reaction when faced with ambiguous challenges. To help them develop self-awareness, creative confidence, and problem-solving skills.

Some things about our future are uncertain (Will the tornado season be bad?), and many more things are unknown (How will humans respond to the climate crisis?). Then there are ambiguous things. These are things that are unformed and emergent—they could be created or interpreted in any number of ways. While ambiguity may contain uncertainty, they’re different. Uncertainty implies that there is something to be certain about. An absolute truth or fact exists. With ambiguity there’s no singular, correct answer. It allows for layers of meaning on anything. Your mind is free to explore—and to imagine possibilities that are unknown or don’t currently exist.

The aim of this activity is to help you understand your attitude toward ambiguity so you can better respond when facing the unknown.

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Exam Copies for Educators

To request a complimentary examination copy to review for use in your classroom, contact Penguin Random House Education for PreK–12 Education or for Higher Education

Credits

Navigating Ambiguity by Andrea Small and Kelly Schumutte

Educator Guide: edited by Jennifer Brown and designed by Lauren Steltzer