My Reaction to Fisher's "Perception of Self"

What do you see? A vase or...?

Over the past six years, the Fisher article in our Reader has become of my favorites. It is good for our students to think about this stuff. I wish I had been equipped with awareness of the nature and elements of human perception when I was 18 years old.

Fisher basically explains his theory that perception is experiential, selective, inferential, inaccurate, and evaluative. In other words, our interpretations of what we sense in the world are influenced by our past experiences, our selective filtering of a limited amount of sensory information, our inferences from that selective information, and our evaluations of that information as important or not important, or positive or negative. As a result, we have to accept that, to some extent, our perceptions of the world are incomplete and inaccurate.

Fisher also explains that our perceptions are influenced by not only 1) senses and our interpretations of them, but our 2) expectations, 3) the figure/ground effect (what we see or are led to see as important), 4) comparisons of our interpretations with others, and 5) the context that we are in. All of these points seem reasonable to me.

The limited nature of perception and the various elements that influence it are why different people end up with different perceptions regarding the same things, whether it is fashion or politics. It is good to be aware of this the next time you wonder why your boyfriend or girlfriend seems so insensitive.

Critically speaking, is Fisher's explanation enough? Has he left anything out (intentionally or unintentionally)? I think one point that Fisher has NOT explained is the effect of genetic differences on perception. One question I would ask him would be "In addition to experiences, how much effect does one's DNA have on the personal differences have on how we perceive something?" For example, some people may not like this question, but do men and women perceive the world differently due to physical differences? Or do certain elements of brain chemistry or genetic elements of personality (if such things exist) influence how we see things. Just wondering.

One related topic to perception that we haven't talked about is "perceptions of beauty". What do you see as beautiful? Where do your perceptions of beauty come from? Are certain definitions of "beautiful" harmful or undesirable?

The following YouTube video makes us think about this. This might be an essay topic to consider.

Huge typhoon! Looks like it will be going right over our heads

A good day to stay inside and read book...stay safe everyone!

A rising hydro-hegemon by B. Chellaney...the need for transboundary cooperation on water

I have a feeling this water issue is going to have a serious effect on political stability in Asia in the next few decades...definitely something to keep an eye on.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/eo20110921bc.html

"Water indeed has emerged as a source of increasing intercountry competition and discord in Asia, the most-populous and fastest-developing continent whose per capita freshwater availability is less than half the global average.

The growing water stress threatens Asia's continued rapid economic growth. And for investors, it carries risks that potentially are as damaging as nonperforming loans, real estate bubbles, infrastructure overbuilding, and political corruption.

Because of China's centrality in the Asian water map, international pressure must be exerted on Beijing to respect the rights of subjacent states and halt further unilateralist appropriation of shared waters."

The map below is from:
http://www.asianoffbeat.com/CrazyPictures/China-Dam-Interactive-Map.jpg

 

My Reaction to Barna's "Six Stumbling Blocks in Intercultural Communication"

This is my 6th time to be teaching this text at ICU. It has some limitations, but basically it is a very good introduction to what factors problems in intercultural communication and how to avoid them.

The idea that the six stumbling blocks of "Assumption of Similarities" "Language Differences" "Non-Verbal Misinterpretations" "Preconceptions and Stereotypes" "A Tendency to Evaluate (the other culture)" and "High Anxiety (Stress such as Culture Shock)" are some of the main problems in communication is quite reasonable.

LaRay Barna, author of "Stumbling Blocks..." passed away in October 2010.

In my opinion, the most important key word in the Barna text appears in the conclusion, where Barna talks about the need for people to not only be aware of the stumbling blocks, but also to make efforts to gradually improve their "intercultural communication competence".

So, what is the competence? How can we improve it? The most important part of intercultural competence is the ability to listen and try to understand with an open mind. When we encounter a person or custom who we cannot understand, when tend to jump to evaluate them as being wrong or crazy and to distance ourselves from them. We prefer to stay close to people who we "get".

To improve our ability to listen and try to understand people, the best thing to do is to try to get to know as many "different" people as possible. Actively make chances to talk with people who you feel are different from yourself. Invite them to some event you are holding. Go to some event that you feel is "unacceptable" or "alien" (politically or culturally) and see what happens. Try to get to know people without judging them from their fashion, labels, appearance etc.

Sometimes the stress may become too much, but my experience tells me that, more often than not, we discover that we actually much in common and you find out that, while they ARE different indeed, that difference is nothing to fear.

By the way, when we talk about "intercultural," many people tend to imagine very different groups from different continents or those who speak different languages, but in fact...almost any conversation we have with someone is an "intercultural" communication event. Even when I talk with my brother...he comes from several different cultures that I don't share such as his current company's culture, or Arizona culture, so we need to assume that we will have differences and use good intercultural communication competence. In that sense, there probably is NOT any major difference between interpersonal communication and intercultural communication.

PS: Of course, don't go to groups or places that are not safe. I will not be responsible for students who travel off to visit a cannibalistic tribe and get eaten etc.

Some "Digital Stories" on Intercultural Communication

I think Digital Storytelling has a lot of potential for use in language learning, and actually for any kind of learning. It is a way to help learners connect the subject to their own lives and make it part of themselves.

One example is how students might make digital stories in a cross-cultural communication class like the following.





PowerPoint from the International Digital Storytelling Conference, which I'm hoping to attend next year possibly...

And shouldn't we be making interesting stories like this to summarize and highlight the research we do for essays in ARW or for research papers published in academic journals? Few people want to listen to "research" but everyone loves a "story".

While "research papers" might be efficient for communicating information to people who are interested in that topic already and want to read about it in detail, "digital stories" with high impact images, audio, video, and highlights of the importance or impact of that research can be effective for engaging the interest of people who do not know so much about that field of research and making them potentially interested in learning more about it in the future.

So...I would argue that our students should be trained to learn BOTH essay writing AND digital storytelling!

Digital Storytelling at University of Houston: Survey Results of Education Use, Social Studies Examples (Very powerful holocaust/Hiroshima images with music and data, no narration)

Digital Stories in e-Portfolios (link)

Small Steps Out of Poverty -Hope and microlending/saving make a difference

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/15/opinion/kristof-sewing-her-way-out-of-poverty.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2011/09/15/opinion/09152011kristof.html?ref=opinion

Many of my students are interested in development studies and I think this type of story is one of the best ways to begin to understand how small efforts and projects can change people's lives and make a different step by step.

I really appreciate how Nicholas Kristof of the NYT shares these stories. The fact that one Swedish lady (Ms. Ingred Munro) running a NGO in Kenya to help female beggars can lead to a recovery from a difficult situation like this for this family is truly inspiring.

"Be the change that you expect to see in the world!"  -Ghandi

Why is Japan's spending on education so low in OECD countries??

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/nn20110915a5.html

3.3% Japan
5% OECD Avg.
7.3% Norway, the leader

My concern is that Japan is not investing sufficiently to develop the learning and teaching skills of its students and teachers. Teachers in Japan are working hard to serve a curriculum designed by "experts" hired by or working in the Ministry of Ed. and to serve parents who have expectations for teachers to help their students pass competitive examinations to get into good schools.

But is the system really investing in developing quality learning and personal development of students, teachers, and adults in society? My feeling is that the top-down control exerted on education by the central government makes innovation, experimentation, customization, community dialogue, and personal teaching skill development of teachers quite limited, and as a result teachers are just doing their best to serve the system rather than really seek to develop their students.

Of course, some teachers will always manage to find ways to deliver excellent learning and opportunities for personal development (as people who can love to learn and work together with others) despite the system, but I have a feeling a major overhaul of the system is in need...and I'm hoping to get more chances to observe what goes on the school systems as my children go to Japanese public schools.


Thursday, Sep. 15, 2011

Education spending lowest in OECD
Kyodo

Japan's spending on education as a percentage of gross domestic product in 2008 remained the lowest among 31 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the OECD says.

The ratio of educational expenditure to GDP in 2008 stood at 3.3 percent, the lowest among the 31 of the OECD's 34 members with comparable data, the group said in a report released Tuesday.

Japan's ratio was also the lowest in 2005 and 2007, and the second lowest in 2004 and 2006 in the annual OECD studies.

The average ratio of educational expenditure by central and local governments to GDP was 5.0 percent, with Norway ranking highest at 7.3 percent, followed by Iceland at 7.2 percent and Denmark at 6.5 percent.

Meanwhile, private spending on education as a proportion of total educational expenditure stood at 33.6 percent in Japan, the third highest among 28 countries with comparable data, following Chile at 41.4 percent and South Korea at 40.4 percent.

By educational level, the proportion of private spending on college education in Japan stood at 66.7 percent of total education spending.

Will ChatBots become a main form of English conversation practice?

I am curious how natural this conversation can be, and how accurate or useful the speech recognition software is. I want to try it.

The obvious advantage is the cost, and 1500yen per month is quite affordable, so I can see it catching on.

I suppose this method has a lot of potential for routine conversations as AI develops.

However, will the program push the speaker to develop communication strategies such as asking for a repetition, paraphrasing, asking for an example etc.? If not, the speaker will not really be developing communication skills that will be useful when speaking with real humans from other cultures and language backgrounds.

The Potentials of "Flipped Learning" in EFL

I've been seeing this "Flipped Learning" movement evolve over the last year or so.

I think I blogged on the TED video about Khan Academy, which is one of the leaders in this movement to move INSTRUCTION OUTSIDE of the classroom, and move APPLICATION (like homework problems) and INTERACTION INSIDE.



I believe this change in education is positive and that this flipping trend is going to grow. It just makes sense. This should be the same in EFL.

One-size fits all lectures or monologue explanations by the teacher should be moved online in a movie or interactive form so that students can access them at their convenience, play them over and over, and watch them at their own pace while checking resources for words they don't understand. Interactive quizzes to pre-test their understanding before they come to class should be helpful as well. Lectures in class, where students are forced to come and listen in a non-interactive, not self-directed form, are going to become extinct.

A monologue in person, frankly, has no value over a video. The video is superior because it allows replay and convenient access. The video is superior because it allows annotation, subtitles, and other production techniques to develop understanding.

The value of school/class time is 1) interaction, 2) pressure/atmosphere to be challenged to apply knowledge to a higher level, and 3) opportunities for personal expression-asking questions, stating opinions, making presentations. Students should come to the physical school to interact with the teacher and classmates.

In EFL, lectures about grammar, vocabulary, how to do assignments, and other videos about how to communicate well, format essays etc., the that things that have been traditionally communicated by explanations by the teacher should basically be moved online. Students should access them outside of class at a certain schedule, or at their own pace, and come to class ready to ask questions and work in groups to apply the knowledge.

So, in my current courses, in my current English language program, where do we begin the flipping. I realize that I spend a good 10~20 minutes or so of my class time explaining skills the students may need, or explaining assignments such as how to prepare for the next discussion or how to prepare a writing assignment. Those explanations, ideally, and hopefully, can be moved to a YouTube video...right? Need to give it a try.

Teaching Students to Ask Their Own Questions (Harvard Ed. Newsletter)

http://www.hepg.org/hel/article/507#home

Teacher: Any questions?
Students: Uh....no?

The importance of students being able to generate good questions has been on my mind for a while and I was happy to see that there is a movement to emphasize this more in education.

When my students start a project for writing or reading, it is extremely important that they are generating questions actively on their own. Of course, I can give them writing prompts or reading discussion questions, but I have refrained from this more and more because I believe that always "giving" questions limits the growth of this key ability within the students. As teachers, I think we need to give the initiative to students and say "You create your writing prompt" "You create the discussion questions" "You develop the research questions to guide the project".

The link above has something called QFT, Question Formation Technique, in six steps.

1. Teachers design a focus - "Let's talk about intercultural communication"
2. Students generate/ask their questions - "Is it important? Why?" etc.
3. Students improve their questions - Change limited, closed questions to more specific, developed, or open-ended ones etc. that can help develop more understanding:  Is it important? --> Why should students know about intercultural communication? How can we use it in the future?
4. Students prioritize their questions - This is very important from my experience. In group discussions, students tend to see all questions as the same importance, but within a limited discussion or meeting time, the most significant or interesting questions have to be prioritized.
5. Students and teacher decide how to proceed with using the questions - start research, discuss them together etc.
6. Reflect on the process above. What was useful? What was difficult.

The authors Rothstein and Santana direct a microdemocracy institute that helps disadvantaged persons ask the right questions to promote advocacy on key issues. Their book Make Just one Change about how to help students ask questions seems very interesting as well.

 

My Summer Reading Reaction: The Giver by Lois Lowry

This summer, one of the books I read was The Giver by Lois Lowry. I decided to read it because one of my friends, who is a Japanese person working as an educational consultant, told me that this book was the first English novel he ever enjoyed reading, and that he started to like to read in English after he read this. To me, the novel looked like a children's novel in terms of length so I was skeptical about how good it could be.

After I read it, it became one of my favorites. The story takes place in a fascinating “perfect” human community in the future which has chosen to implement a social system of “Sameness.” The sameness policy is designed to eliminate all risk of danger or instability in human society in order to minimize pain and maximize equality and happiness. For example, there is no sex, because sexual urges lead to competition for mates and possibly violence. All reproduction is done artificially and children are born through women called “Bearers” who give birth as their job. Sexual urges are suppressed by taking pills and control of emotions and language and thought is taught to children. There are no colors either. Also, obviously, since there is no sex, there are no real families. People live in “family units” with no biological relationship that have been formed by the guidance of the Council of Elders, a group of wise persons who make all important decisions. Weak, disabled or old persons are “released” from the community so that they do not become a burden. The economy is also very stable, with jobs being also decided by the council; when children turn twelve years old, they are assigned to a work unit that is perfect for their personality and level of ability. The story focuses on the new job of a twelve year old named Jonas, who is selected to be the “Receiver of Memories.”

There is one special person in the community called the Giver of Memories, and he is the only person who has access to the memories of human history prior to the Sameness policy. In other words, he is the only one who knows of a world that includes both pleasure and pain. He is getting old, so he needs to pass on the memories to young Jonas, the Receiver of Memories.

The most meaningful theme in this novel is the dilemma that Jonas faces when he is exposed to the “real” human world that you and I live in today. He sees memories of family love, and pleasure. Then he sees memories of war. Is it better to live in a society that suppresses individual happiness for the stability of society? Or is it better to live in freedom with some risk of emotional pain by love and competition, and possibly war due to desire that grows into greed. Where is the balance and where is the position of Japanese society in this dilemma? As I read The Giver, I pondered the balance between suppression of freedom (choice) and suppression of inequality and risk. Is it better to have freedom to make mistakes? Or is it better for the “council” to make “wise decisions” for us. For example, in Japan, should elementary school teachers and principals be allowed to create their own curriculums freely, or should the central monkasho hand down their wise decisions from above??

I hope all of you will consider reading this novel and ponder some of the themes above. 
Leave me a comment!

好久没有写我中文博客。。。得努力一点

欢迎大家来评论评论！

http://blog.sina.com.cn/u/1252316131

Moodle, Google Site, or....? What's the best way to manage a course?

Sorry everyone, I'm just brainstorming here since I can't make up my mind yet even though my fall term classes start tomorrow.


Last year I used a Moodle site for my fall Academic Reading and Writing for functions such as posting documents, discussion forums for students to exchange ideas, wikis, and tutorial sign up (Google Spreadsheet). I also have an interactive Moodle quiz for the readings we do.

That worked mostly well, so I could just fall back on using my Moodle site again. That would be the easiest option.

However, what I don't like about Moodle is that there is no student ownership of the content, like students would have with a blog. I want students interacting with each other, but I also want them to list their ideas, reflections, essay drafts etc. in a portfolio fashion so that they can have a set of ideas that they can "own" and keep in the future (I'm assuming students want to do this--I need to ask them a bit more explicity). They would also own the comments they get. In the future, they can decide whether to take the blog offline, expand it, show it to friends, graduate schools etc. So, I want to do student blogs.

So...what is the solution? Can I combine Moodle with a set of student blogs? Rather than using a forum, can I just post the assignment on Moodle, and then have students write on their blogs, and then click on each other's blogs and leave comments? Hmm...so I just need a page that has links to students blogs...but how will I know when students post an article or comments. For that, I guess I'll need to set up RSS feeds on Google Reader. Each student will have to do that as well if they want to know whether their classmates have posted something. Hmm...there are pros and cons. Can I set up a feed so that their postings are automatically posted on a Class Blog? That may be one solution to help students see all of the ideas that are flying around.

Also, Moodle wikis seem to have trouble, and sometimes I'll want all students to be able to collaborate on documents, so having a Google Group is needed so that I can share documents with the whole class as editors. I tried that a few terms ago and it went mostly well, though some students had trouble becoming Google Group members.

So...Moodle + Blogs + Google Group + RSS Feeds is the solution? Isn't there an easier way to do this?

Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses (in the US and Japan)

Just finished reading this. It is a quite detailed and ambitious research report trying to establish that US university students are NOT learning what they need to learn, namely the ability to read, think, and write critically and analytically at an advanced level. 

This claim is based on a standardized test called the CLA, or Collegiate Learning Assessment, which has questions like this (click). According to results of the CLA, many college students don't improve in those key abilities from their 1st year to their 2nd or 4th year.

The open ended writing prompts like these seem to assess very practical abilities, and I am happy to see that these are quite similar to the liberal arts core learning that we emphasize in the ELP at ICU where I work.



The following sample question is from this paper on the CLA "Facts and Fantasies" 
 

Figure 3: Example of a 30-Minute Break-An-Argument Prompt
The University of Claria is generally considered one of the best universities in the
world because of its instructors’ reputation, which is based primarily on the
extensive research and publishing record of certain faculty members. In addition,
several faculty members are internationally renowned as leaders in their fields. For
example, many of the English Department’s faculty members are regularly invited
to teach at universities in other countries. Furthermore, two recent graduates of the physics department have gone on to become candidates for the Nobel Prize in
Physics. And 75 percent of the students are able to find employment after
graduating. Therefore, because of the reputation of its faculty, the University of
Claria should be the obvious choice for anyone seeking a quality education.

Hopefully, my ICU students will be able to take this argument apart and critique it successfully in an organized English paragraph that points out the main weaknesses of the claim "obvious choice".

Basically, the book Academically Adrift is a call to universities to boost the quality of their undergraduate programs, especially in terms of challenging students to read, think, and write critically. Professors and professors in training need to learn how to challenge students to engage in rigorous learning, and need to be given support and evaluation systems that encourage them to facilitate learning in an effective way.

I support this. I remember how my University of Washington undergraduate program (and graduate program, actually) rarely ever included any requirement for revising and improving a research paper. I rarely ever got more than a grade and a one line comment such as "Nicely researched but argument needs development. B+"  Being forced to write papers is good, but formative feedback is most likely critical to any substantial improvement in writing skills.  I had one professor, a young guy teaching me applied linguistics, who tore up a paper I wrote and asked me to revise it prior to a second deadline. I really enjoyed that process and learned a lot.

US universities will benefit from having more curriculum design with tasks that force the young writer to re-think and re-articulate the argument, and the same goes for Japanese universities, where the "academically adrift" situation is actually much, much worse.

The FOOOOOOOSBall TABLE: A family project

It was a rainy Saturday and we had nothing to do for a few hours.

My son picked up a broken toy wood xylophone that we were planning to throw away and said,

"Let's make something with this."

"What do you want to make?"

"A soccer game. See Dad, these wood things are the guys."

"OK...and we can use that empty clothing case..."

That got our brain gears turning on what turned out to be a two day project.

Drawing the characters was the easy part. To start off, Mom, Dad, Michael and Mei (with help) each drew one.

But how are we going to connect the guys to the poles?

Off to J-Mart, our local DIY store. We got a bunch of 90mm x 20mm stainless steel plates with 3mm holes (45yen each) to bend around the poles and screw onto the wood players. And we needed green felt for soccer turf...and a 20mm diameter drill bit for the holes...and a pack of 3mm x 10mm screws...and a few more 15mm diameter x 600mm poles and we were in business. About 3000yen altogether.

And 500yen to rent an industrial impact drill with enough torque to open 20mm holes through the plastic box. I tried my own old B&D 12V home use drill and it started spewing black smoke! The motor fried. Oh well, it was almost ten years old and I I needed a new one anyway.

At this point, Megumi kindly pointed out that it may be cheaper to just buy a Foosball Table on Amazon. Yes, this is true, my love, but we are making a special one-of-a-kind foosball table. And J-Mart loves our business. 



Michael did a great job on taping the lines and with decorating the players as well as sawing the board and poles, hammering in nails, drilling the holes, screwing on the metal strips. Mei and Megumi helped by drawing the characters. We have some good nadeshiko members on the field.

The player pieces made from xylophone keys are all different sizes, so the poles can't be spun like real foosball, but it works well enough.

As final touches, we need some nets for the goals and some handles and stoppers on the poles...and a scoreboard. We'll work on those.

















All done! Time for some family foosball!