A blog post by Michael Stout led me to the movement started by Kiran Bir Sethi, who was at the JALT conference I just attended in Nagoya.
I think my college students should be doing what her primary school kids are doing: Moving their communities to change as part of their process of education. Get outside of the classroom and actually do things. Learning the attitude of "I can" and "being the change" (Ghandi) are both activities that I want to incorporate in my classroom.
The first step will be to show this TED video in my classes and also the Design for Change website.
Then...start brainstorming what change needs to come about and what we can do? Will this work with Japanese college students in an English class? Making a video and posting on the Design for Change website seems to be a very meaningful project.
2010年11月25日木曜日
NY Times: Growing Up Digital, Wired for Distraction
See: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/21/technology/21brain.html
Two interesting quotes from this article expressing parent and teacher concerns that the new generation of students may have difficulty concentrating on a long text or task at hand...
Quote by high school student:
“I’m doing Facebook, YouTube, having a conversation or two with a friend, listening to music at the same time. I’m doing a million things at once, like a lot of people my age,” he says. “Sometimes I’ll say: I need to stop this and do my schoolwork, but I can’t.” “If it weren’t for the Internet, I’d focus more on school and be doing better academically,” he says. But thanks to the Internet, he says, he has discovered and pursued his passion: filmmaking. Without the Internet, “I also wouldn’t know what I want to do with my life.”
With my own 7-year-old son rapidly becoming an online game maniac addict (with every moment he can get on our home computer-scary), I want to know the line between "too much networking" and "just right to pick up the digital skills needed to be a successful professional" in the next 20 years. It sounds like this student is finding his calling in film-making...Will my son find a fulfilling career and human relationships by becoming constantly networked like it seems that many people will be in the near future.
As a parent, what boundaries can and should I set? Right now we are trying to restrict computer time and are refusing to buy Playstation and other games...how long can we hold out?
According to Tony Wagner, the Harvard-based education expert and author of “The Global Achievement Gap,”
There are three basic skills that students need if they want to thrive in a knowledge economy: the ability to do critical thinking and problem-solving; the ability to communicate effectively; and the ability to collaborate."
The list of 3 key skills is good for self-analysis of our program at ICU:
-critical thinking/problem solving
-effective communication
-effective collaboration
Are these really the most important?
Are we really helping students develop competence in these skills?
I think we might be weakest in the area of collaboration...students collaborate on a variety of projects and gain experience to some extent, but we do not "teach" how to be good collaborators. That may be an area to improve in.
Two interesting quotes from this article expressing parent and teacher concerns that the new generation of students may have difficulty concentrating on a long text or task at hand...
Quote by high school student:
“I’m doing Facebook, YouTube, having a conversation or two with a friend, listening to music at the same time. I’m doing a million things at once, like a lot of people my age,” he says. “Sometimes I’ll say: I need to stop this and do my schoolwork, but I can’t.” “If it weren’t for the Internet, I’d focus more on school and be doing better academically,” he says. But thanks to the Internet, he says, he has discovered and pursued his passion: filmmaking. Without the Internet, “I also wouldn’t know what I want to do with my life.”
With my own 7-year-old son rapidly becoming an online game maniac addict (with every moment he can get on our home computer-scary), I want to know the line between "too much networking" and "just right to pick up the digital skills needed to be a successful professional" in the next 20 years. It sounds like this student is finding his calling in film-making...Will my son find a fulfilling career and human relationships by becoming constantly networked like it seems that many people will be in the near future.
As a parent, what boundaries can and should I set? Right now we are trying to restrict computer time and are refusing to buy Playstation and other games...how long can we hold out?
According to Tony Wagner, the Harvard-based education expert and author of “The Global Achievement Gap,”
There are three basic skills that students need if they want to thrive in a knowledge economy: the ability to do critical thinking and problem-solving; the ability to communicate effectively; and the ability to collaborate."
The list of 3 key skills is good for self-analysis of our program at ICU:
-critical thinking/problem solving
-effective communication
-effective collaboration
Are these really the most important?
Are we really helping students develop competence in these skills?
I think we might be weakest in the area of collaboration...students collaborate on a variety of projects and gain experience to some extent, but we do not "teach" how to be good collaborators. That may be an area to improve in.
Looking Back on ARW Autumn 2010
This was another very good term with two wonderful ARW sections, BB and BH.
Thanks students!
Below are my reflections and some pondering of issues for future courses...
Reading Skills: I required submission of reading notes (summmary, critical reactions, and discussion questions) for every text we read, and almost all students kept up with submission. Ideally, this should be done on a class blog so that all students can see each other's ideas, but I did not require that because I wanted students to bring their ideas to every class and have the ease of just writing their ideas anywhere without having to go to a computer. Last Winter term, I did blogs, and students kept up with them, but complained about inconvenience for having to go to a computer...
So, what is the best balance? A paperless system (at least in terms of not having to collect notebooks) would be ideal...perhaps with annotation in the textbook to prepare ideas for discussion followed by a blog update on what was learned in the discussion? Also, should I designate some students as being in charge of preparing summary/reactions/discussion questions in advance of class? That would ensure that at least some students are well-prepared for discussion while for other students it will be up to them to prepare.
Another issue in reading is that "understanding the text" is taking too long in our discussion time, both as a small group and as a whole group. I want to spend more time on critical reactions and open discussion of opinions and related issues, but...it seems that students' grasp of the main ideas (or at least their ability to summarize them orally) is not at a high enough level to do a coherent critical discussion. The solution? Cut the number of required reading pages (as a whole ELP decision) or use texts that can be more easily grasped by our students.
As an example for readers who are not familiar with ICU's ELP, "RACE WITHOUT COLOR" is a text our high intermediate (TOEFL 450 to 500ish) Japanese 1st year college EFL students at ICU would be required to read for homework over 4 to 5 days and discuss in one or two class periods of 70 minutes. In their notebooks, they would need to summarize and react and prepare for discussion as follows:
1) What is Diamond's thesis and supporting evidence?
2) What are the weaknesses of his argument? How could it be stronger?
3) What ideas of the text do you want to discuss? Prepare two stimulating discussion questions for your classmates.
Not an easy task. The idea is to make sure our students are ready to take college level classes in English, and this level of work will surely be required by non-Japanese professors who they take courses from at ICU or overseas schools...but are they really thriving on this type/level of assignment and class content? More examination seems needed. Perhaps a Focus Group interview would be enlightening.
Essay Writing Skills: Students wrote two research documented essays of 800-1000 words on any issue broadly related to "communication, culture, ethnicity, or race," with many students going over into 1200 or 1400 words. Most students made very tangible progress from Essay No.1 to No.2, so I was very happy to see that. I think almost all got a pretty good idea of the process of selecting a key word of interest, developing a meaningful research question such as "Why has Christianity failed to become popular in Japan compared to Korea?" and research and organize ideas into an introduction, thesis and supporting paragraphs.
Some students had difficulty, but my feeling was that those were the students who underestimated(perhaps?) the time they would need to spend in the library to find sources and develop a supportable thesis on the topic. Students who started early were able to visit me, get advice in tutorials (one-on-one conferences), and develop their paper further. Students who started late often had very little to show me or discuss with me when we met for conferences.
So...what is the solution for helping the students who had difficulty? More examples of how an essay develops? More warning that research takes time and creativity and endurance?
In any case, I hope all of my students can say they developed their confidence as a reader/writer of academic materials and their ability to research, react to, and discuss critical issues. Is my hope real? Students did student evals, but I wonder if those will really show how they feel.
Need to do a focus group interviews!
Thanks students!
Below are my reflections and some pondering of issues for future courses...
Reading Skills: I required submission of reading notes (summmary, critical reactions, and discussion questions) for every text we read, and almost all students kept up with submission. Ideally, this should be done on a class blog so that all students can see each other's ideas, but I did not require that because I wanted students to bring their ideas to every class and have the ease of just writing their ideas anywhere without having to go to a computer. Last Winter term, I did blogs, and students kept up with them, but complained about inconvenience for having to go to a computer...
So, what is the best balance? A paperless system (at least in terms of not having to collect notebooks) would be ideal...perhaps with annotation in the textbook to prepare ideas for discussion followed by a blog update on what was learned in the discussion? Also, should I designate some students as being in charge of preparing summary/reactions/discussion questions in advance of class? That would ensure that at least some students are well-prepared for discussion while for other students it will be up to them to prepare.
Another issue in reading is that "understanding the text" is taking too long in our discussion time, both as a small group and as a whole group. I want to spend more time on critical reactions and open discussion of opinions and related issues, but...it seems that students' grasp of the main ideas (or at least their ability to summarize them orally) is not at a high enough level to do a coherent critical discussion. The solution? Cut the number of required reading pages (as a whole ELP decision) or use texts that can be more easily grasped by our students.
As an example for readers who are not familiar with ICU's ELP, "RACE WITHOUT COLOR" is a text our high intermediate (TOEFL 450 to 500ish) Japanese 1st year college EFL students at ICU would be required to read for homework over 4 to 5 days and discuss in one or two class periods of 70 minutes. In their notebooks, they would need to summarize and react and prepare for discussion as follows:
1) What is Diamond's thesis and supporting evidence?
2) What are the weaknesses of his argument? How could it be stronger?
3) What ideas of the text do you want to discuss? Prepare two stimulating discussion questions for your classmates.
Not an easy task. The idea is to make sure our students are ready to take college level classes in English, and this level of work will surely be required by non-Japanese professors who they take courses from at ICU or overseas schools...but are they really thriving on this type/level of assignment and class content? More examination seems needed. Perhaps a Focus Group interview would be enlightening.
Essay Writing Skills: Students wrote two research documented essays of 800-1000 words on any issue broadly related to "communication, culture, ethnicity, or race," with many students going over into 1200 or 1400 words. Most students made very tangible progress from Essay No.1 to No.2, so I was very happy to see that. I think almost all got a pretty good idea of the process of selecting a key word of interest, developing a meaningful research question such as "Why has Christianity failed to become popular in Japan compared to Korea?" and research and organize ideas into an introduction, thesis and supporting paragraphs.
Some students had difficulty, but my feeling was that those were the students who underestimated(perhaps?) the time they would need to spend in the library to find sources and develop a supportable thesis on the topic. Students who started early were able to visit me, get advice in tutorials (one-on-one conferences), and develop their paper further. Students who started late often had very little to show me or discuss with me when we met for conferences.
So...what is the solution for helping the students who had difficulty? More examples of how an essay develops? More warning that research takes time and creativity and endurance?
In any case, I hope all of my students can say they developed their confidence as a reader/writer of academic materials and their ability to research, react to, and discuss critical issues. Is my hope real? Students did student evals, but I wonder if those will really show how they feel.
Need to do a focus group interviews!
Falling behind in posting -- Why does blog writer's block happen?
I'm resuming my blog after almost two months with a reflection on "Writer's Block."
Why did I stop blogging? There wasn't any outside interference--I wasn't running away from any cyber stalkers or anything. All along, I had several things that I wanted to write about, so it wasn't a lack of topics either.
I just couldn't get myself to the key board for any more than basic work emails and documents.
Frankly, I really can't pinpoint any particular reason! Let's blame in fatigue of Autumn term, which really was a very busy term starting from the JACET Conference in Sendai and RW/WW Conference at ICU and also an LRB paper submission in October. November stayed busy with preparation for two presentations at JALT in Nagoya, which just finished this week.
Note: The following slide show has very little connection to my personal version of blog writer's block, but it has good music.
Anyway, I hope I can keep up my goal of 100 articles per year! Today is a catch up day and I'm going to stick a bunch of articles in October and November to hide my slacking...
Why did I stop blogging? There wasn't any outside interference--I wasn't running away from any cyber stalkers or anything. All along, I had several things that I wanted to write about, so it wasn't a lack of topics either.
I just couldn't get myself to the key board for any more than basic work emails and documents.
Frankly, I really can't pinpoint any particular reason! Let's blame in fatigue of Autumn term, which really was a very busy term starting from the JACET Conference in Sendai and RW/WW Conference at ICU and also an LRB paper submission in October. November stayed busy with preparation for two presentations at JALT in Nagoya, which just finished this week.
Note: The following slide show has very little connection to my personal version of blog writer's block, but it has good music.
Anyway, I hope I can keep up my goal of 100 articles per year! Today is a catch up day and I'm going to stick a bunch of articles in October and November to hide my slacking...
2010年11月24日水曜日
A 4th Tokyo Marathon!! なんと繰り上げ当選！
Dear Mr. Mark Christianson
ID No : 03878-000
We would like to announce that an additional selection has been done in mid-November to choose extra qualifiers for Tokyo Marathon 2011.
Congratulations! You have been selected as a runner for Tokyo Marathon 2011.
ーーーーーーーーーーーー
落選のメールが１０月に来ていたので諦めて他の春のマラソンを探していたところ、なななななな、なんと繰上げ当選のメールが今日来信！
来年２月２７日、もちろん走ります。
目指すは５キロ減量、そして念願のSub-4hタイム！
ID No : 03878-000
We would like to announce that an additional selection has been done in mid-November to choose extra qualifiers for Tokyo Marathon 2011.
Congratulations! You have been selected as a runner for Tokyo Marathon 2011.
ーーーーーーーーーーーー
落選のメールが１０月に来ていたので諦めて他の春のマラソンを探していたところ、なななななな、なんと繰上げ当選のメールが今日来信！
来年２月２７日、もちろん走ります。
目指すは５キロ減量、そして念願のSub-4hタイム！
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