2011年12月4日日曜日
Gifts That Show You Care - Instead of a present, donate on someone's behalf!
This is a nice article Kristof of the New York Times.
I ask my relatives to donate to causes rather than buy me presents.
Really, I mean, almost all of us in the US and Japan have everything we need.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/opinion/sunday/kristof-gifts-that-say-you-care.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212
Never Let Me Go (2010) Directed by Original by K. Ishiguro
Just saw this, in connection with the beginning of the bioethics unit that I am going to be teaching from tomorrow in my ICU class.
The bioethics connection is that the characters in this movie are humans who have been raised as organ donors. They will be used for organ harvesting.
This is similar to the concept of the 2005 movie, The Island.
However, the movie Never Let Me Go, which is based on the acclaimed 2005 novel of the same title by Kazuo Ishiguro, is more than a bioethics SF film.
If fact, I would argue that it does not fit the genre of SF. It is much more. The file is not really about the ethics of using humans as organ donation machines. That is the main characteristic of the lives that the characters are living, but this is just a background theme that Ishiguro uses to explore other themes of human existence and relationships.
I thought the main theme is how we accept and deal with the time limit of our own existence. As Kathy, the protagonist, ponders at the end, there isn't so much difference between us (non-donor humans), and them, who were created to live, give, and die when they have completed giving. We live, have freedom to some extent, and give ourselves to others, sometimes voluntarily, sometimes with no choice, and them we are "completed," as the donors called it when they die from their final donation operation.
What has Ishiguro said about this novel? Why did he write it? I am curious and want to read the original.
YOU: A Course of Personal Writing -- My Reflection
After autumn term, the break flew by with various conferences and family obligations. I wanted to look back at my new course for ICU 2nd year students called YOU: A Course of Personal Writing.
Here's the link to the course blog.
http://you-personal-writing.blogspot.com/
It has the various course materials and links to student blog and writings.
This was a very fun course to teach, and I learned a lot. There's a saying that "the best way to learn something is to teach it" and this was very true, once again.
Basically, I allowed students free choice of topic, genre, and deadlines, and they just had to complete 20 blogs of free personal writing, and 3 published pieces that were drafted, revised, edited, and published on our blog.
The creativity of my students was very impressive. I also wrote a few pieces for practice, but since I have done very little creative writing since...high school, it was a very new and anxious process for me. I was very honest about that with my students, that I am not a professional creative writer in any way, and I was just one of the writers in the class trying to discover what is meaningful to me in terms of themes, and trying new genres.
How can the course be better? Students made excellent suggestions in their final reflections including adding a group project, introducing more examples of good writing, and ways to evaluate more transparently, and ways to help them squeeze out their creativity a little more efficiently with deadlines of some sort--so that not everything will be done at the last moment just before the end of the class.
I'm looking forward to teaching it next year!
Here's the link to the course blog.
http://you-personal-writing.blogspot.com/
It has the various course materials and links to student blog and writings.
This was a very fun course to teach, and I learned a lot. There's a saying that "the best way to learn something is to teach it" and this was very true, once again.
Basically, I allowed students free choice of topic, genre, and deadlines, and they just had to complete 20 blogs of free personal writing, and 3 published pieces that were drafted, revised, edited, and published on our blog.
The creativity of my students was very impressive. I also wrote a few pieces for practice, but since I have done very little creative writing since...high school, it was a very new and anxious process for me. I was very honest about that with my students, that I am not a professional creative writer in any way, and I was just one of the writers in the class trying to discover what is meaningful to me in terms of themes, and trying new genres.
How can the course be better? Students made excellent suggestions in their final reflections including adding a group project, introducing more examples of good writing, and ways to evaluate more transparently, and ways to help them squeeze out their creativity a little more efficiently with deadlines of some sort--so that not everything will be done at the last moment just before the end of the class.
I'm looking forward to teaching it next year!
Using the 20x20 PechaKucha presentation format for presentation training
Here's a link to a paper I published recently with my colleague Sylvan Payne in the Language Research Bulletin. Many thanks to the editorial board for their suggestions and patience for us (especially me) to finish the final writing and editing.
http://web.icu.ac.jp/lrb/volume-26-2011.html
Enjoy! We hope this will encourage teachers to try the 20x20 method in their classes.
It is always nice to be done with a research paper. Once again I wished I had done more sooner before the final deadline, but somehow it got done.
I want to thank my partner Sylvan for introducing 20x20 to me and persuading me to try it when we were team teaching a presentation course. He also created the initial templates we used.
I also want to thank all my students for the feedback they gave on their 20x20 experiences. Hopefully they have learned more about how an effective presentation can be prepared, rehearsed and delivered!
http://web.icu.ac.jp/lrb/volume-26-2011.html
Enjoy! We hope this will encourage teachers to try the 20x20 method in their classes.
It is always nice to be done with a research paper. Once again I wished I had done more sooner before the final deadline, but somehow it got done.
I want to thank my partner Sylvan for introducing 20x20 to me and persuading me to try it when we were team teaching a presentation course. He also created the initial templates we used.
I also want to thank all my students for the feedback they gave on their 20x20 experiences. Hopefully they have learned more about how an effective presentation can be prepared, rehearsed and delivered!
How was ARW Autumn 2011?
Winter term is starting, but I hadn't had a chance to look back at Autumn yet. My Winter term ARW course (Academic Reading and Writing, 3 hours a week for 10 weeks) is going to have similar learning activities, so I want to write down my thoughts on what went well and what needs to be improved.
This Autumn ARW was the first time that I had students write one longer essay and also do a presentation based on it. It was also the first time that I used blogging as the main reading reaction method in Autumn term.
One longer essay: Usually ARW starts the one longer essay in winter term, but I felt that students would benefit from focusing on just one topic, and really going into the process deeply and carefully. I think I was right. Most Program B students are ready to write 1500 word essays on a topic, and impressively, we did it in exactly 30 days, from topic selection to outline to draft to final paper. After the final deadline, we had a few days for me to give final feedback and require students to do English/format/citation editing as well.
The main drawback of this method was that a few students got stuck and had difficulty with developing the topic that they chose into a thesis and supporting paragraphs. For some students, perhaps 5 or 6 out of the 40 I taught, it is true that two shorter essays may have been better because they could have "reset" their topic and tried something that would be easier to research or write for them. However, this happens for any longer paper, so I still think one longer, or at least one medium length paper is better than two essays. For quality writing, an intensive approach seems to be better than an extensive, write-a-long, write-many-essays approach.
Perhaps the ideal flow of autumn is to start off with a very simple, short 500 word fixed topic essay that uses three or four required sources. That essay could be drafted and polished in two weeks. Then we could spend the rest of the term focusing on one essay.
Presenting Essay Ideas: Each student did a 20x20 Pecha-Kucha format presentation on their essay content, and these were very well done in almost all cases. A 20x20 is 400seconds long, with 20 slides shown 20 seconds each. I rushed the process, and only a few students did the optional full rehearsal with me, but even students who did not do the rehearsal presented their ideas visually in a concise way with good rhythm. The challenge of doing this is to fit it into the busy terms we have at ICU. The 20x20s took 3 periods, or 10% of the class time we have. However, I think it was worth it.
I strongly believe that, for their future development as international professionals, being able to orally explain ideas is just as important as being able to explain them in writing. The research essay 20x20 is a good platform for developing presentation skills, and students get to learn from the research that their classmates have done. We may want to build in a requirement for this in all ARW classes from next year. It may not need to be a 20x20 presented in front of the whole class; perhaps it could be...a P&D that uses visuals?
Using a Blog for Reading Reactions: This continues to be experimental, and I still want to ask my student what they felt about doing it. The good thing about the learning blog is that students can see their own thoughts in an organized way, and they own their own learning. Classmates can leave comments as well.
The drawback of the blog method is that it does not force students to read before class...the worksheet method is better for that. Most students write their blog after the discussion, which is more natural, so maybe it is fine.
Two ways to improve the blog homework are 1) make evaluation criteria clearer from the start by defining what a good reading reaction is, and 2) make commenting groups so that all students will receive peer comments on their blog entries.
I hope the students will enjoy these activities and find them more meaningful when I do them in future classes!
This Autumn ARW was the first time that I had students write one longer essay and also do a presentation based on it. It was also the first time that I used blogging as the main reading reaction method in Autumn term.
One longer essay: Usually ARW starts the one longer essay in winter term, but I felt that students would benefit from focusing on just one topic, and really going into the process deeply and carefully. I think I was right. Most Program B students are ready to write 1500 word essays on a topic, and impressively, we did it in exactly 30 days, from topic selection to outline to draft to final paper. After the final deadline, we had a few days for me to give final feedback and require students to do English/format/citation editing as well.
The main drawback of this method was that a few students got stuck and had difficulty with developing the topic that they chose into a thesis and supporting paragraphs. For some students, perhaps 5 or 6 out of the 40 I taught, it is true that two shorter essays may have been better because they could have "reset" their topic and tried something that would be easier to research or write for them. However, this happens for any longer paper, so I still think one longer, or at least one medium length paper is better than two essays. For quality writing, an intensive approach seems to be better than an extensive, write-a-long, write-many-essays approach.
Perhaps the ideal flow of autumn is to start off with a very simple, short 500 word fixed topic essay that uses three or four required sources. That essay could be drafted and polished in two weeks. Then we could spend the rest of the term focusing on one essay.
Presenting Essay Ideas: Each student did a 20x20 Pecha-Kucha format presentation on their essay content, and these were very well done in almost all cases. A 20x20 is 400seconds long, with 20 slides shown 20 seconds each. I rushed the process, and only a few students did the optional full rehearsal with me, but even students who did not do the rehearsal presented their ideas visually in a concise way with good rhythm. The challenge of doing this is to fit it into the busy terms we have at ICU. The 20x20s took 3 periods, or 10% of the class time we have. However, I think it was worth it.
I strongly believe that, for their future development as international professionals, being able to orally explain ideas is just as important as being able to explain them in writing. The research essay 20x20 is a good platform for developing presentation skills, and students get to learn from the research that their classmates have done. We may want to build in a requirement for this in all ARW classes from next year. It may not need to be a 20x20 presented in front of the whole class; perhaps it could be...a P&D that uses visuals?
Using a Blog for Reading Reactions: This continues to be experimental, and I still want to ask my student what they felt about doing it. The good thing about the learning blog is that students can see their own thoughts in an organized way, and they own their own learning. Classmates can leave comments as well.
The drawback of the blog method is that it does not force students to read before class...the worksheet method is better for that. Most students write their blog after the discussion, which is more natural, so maybe it is fine.
Two ways to improve the blog homework are 1) make evaluation criteria clearer from the start by defining what a good reading reaction is, and 2) make commenting groups so that all students will receive peer comments on their blog entries.
I hope the students will enjoy these activities and find them more meaningful when I do them in future classes!
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