TED Journal 1: "Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity"

I had seen this TED talk a few years ago, but watched it again this week in connection with a curriculum idea to use TED talks for extensive listening practice and a sort of "Listening Journal" in a course I am coordinating.

The idea will be to ask students to choose a TED talk, listen, take notes, summarize in 100 words or more, and react in 50 words or more, most likely on a weekly basis.

This blog post is part of "eating my own dog food" as software engineers at Microsoft? like to say. I'm doing a TED journal sample using the Ken Robinson talk above. So, here I go.

Process: I watched the talk and took one page of notes yesterday. As a native speaker and an education professional, I have no problem catching what he is trying to say after just one listening, but his accent and rate of speech may be hard to catch for some of our students--they may need to read the interactive transcript or refer to the subtitles, and that is fine if they need the scaffolding, as long as they also attempt to listen one or more without any assistance. His main points are not too complex, and mostly come at the end of the talk. For most of the time he is telling stories and jokes, some related to his points, and some not. I wonder how first year ICU students will react to this because humor can be frustrating when listening in another language.

 Today, I am using my notes to summarize and react. Then, I think I might watch it again to see if I have really caught the main points.

_______________________________
Summary:
In his 2006 TED talk titled "Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity," British creativity expert Sir Robinson argues that education systems must re-think how human talent and potential is developed. He believes schools kill creativity by over-emphasizing literacy and academic subjects. He calls this a hierarchy of subjects. Schools fail to develop creativity, which should be just as important as literacy, and students interested in dance, art, or music are not encouraged because they can't get a job with those skills. The example of the successful Broadway choreographer who was considered as a child to be deficient because she couldn't sit still is very powerful. Robinson argues that the education system was created by university professors in their own image for largely "industrial" purposes, and the system tries to evaluate with a bias toward academic ability (to make everyone like a professor), leaving out development of creativity. Robinson argues that we must recognize that intelligence is diverse, and create a new human ecology for developing creative capacities.


Reaction:
My own experience matches what Robinson says to some extent, and I agree that the development of creativity (defined as the ability to create original ideas of value) can and should be emphasized more in education. In my case, I was strong on academic subjects such as literature and math, and felt successful and encouraged in my education system. However, I was not as good in creative subjects such as music and art, or creative writing projects where I could do whatever I wanted. Now I wish I had been pushed to be more successful in them--given more open, creative assignments, for example. In this talk, I think the most important point is that the education system, especially teachers, should not dismiss students just because they do not conform to the academic traditions that have been created by the industrial model. Teachers should try to help all types of students find and develop their talents. However, at the same time, I wonder how much Robinson accepts that basic literacy in reading/writing/math/science is actually more useful for most students to get a good job, and therefore it is natural for parents/teachers to emphasize those over art/dance/music. Clearly, some optimal balance has to be found.


Reflection:
In terms of listening and taking notes (20 min.), writing the summary (150 words in about 15 min?) and writing the reaction (150+ words in about 15 min.), this was roughly a one hour task for me. I enjoyed it, but I wonder how students will react. _______________________________ For some students, it may take longer, but I hope students can get used to doing a good TED journal to get exposed to some powerful ideas as well as practice their listening, note-taking, and skills for writing a summary and reaction. In the future, we could also add an oral summary and reaction (1~2 minutes or audio/video)...but that will require a bit of technical logistical preparation that may be beyond the scope of spring term. We will see how it goes!

INTED 2012 Conference, Valencia, March 4-7

INTED 2012, the international conference on technology, education, and development, March 4-7 was a very productive conference.

Conference Website

The oral presentation I made was about language learning anxiety (See details). This was with two other research partners, and we got some good reactions and questions from the audience that underscored our theory that language learning anxiety is a significant, wide-spread psychological phenomenon that instructors of EFL/ESL working with many different types of students from different cultural backgrounds are struggling to deal with. Several audience members commented how they agree with the importance of understanding factors of anxiety and solutions using qualitative interview-based methodology as we did. Another interesting discussion we had was regarding the balance between positive, encouraging feedback from the instructor to the student, or among peers, and ha certain degree of strictness, authoritarianism, and constructive criticism to challenge students.

We also made a poster presentation about Japanese students' academic performance in university in relation to that in the United States (See details) and how efforts to reform university education in each country (or the lack thereof) should take into consideration an international perspective of what is effective and what may be misguided. The points in the poster led to very active discussion with attendees from several countries about their own country's student performance and reform efforts in various levels of education. There was much interest in how Japanese industry developed successfully in the 20th century in spite of a very lenient university academic culture that does not demand much engagement in terms of attendance or coursework, and how that model may or may not need to change if Japan wishes to remain competitive in the future.

Both papers have been published in the proceedings and are available for those interested.

Attending oral and poster sessions at the conference was also beneficial. I focused my attention on university language instruction-related sessions, and got some useful insights on helping students deepen their ability to conduct research while avoiding plagiarism. The Center for Academic Integrity was cited by many professors from various countries as being a very helpful resource--which may be a good addition to what we share with students at ICU. I also attended sessions on blended learning with a few good tips for using Moodle and Blackboard more effectively for research paper instruction. Another emphasis of the conference was "m-learning" or e-learning using mobile devices such as iPhones and iPads, and it was interesting to see how many institutions are introducing m-learning tools for in-class and homework assignments.

Some other things I enjoyed were:

1) Seeing a very smoothly run international conference. As a member of JACET's convention steering committee, I have participated in conference administration for the past few years, and it was instructive to see how the IATED / INTED organization enhanced the conference experience with a) highly capable room staff--I wonder if they were free volunteers or paid staff--they were very much in charge and very helpful to the presenters and facilitators, and b) a comfortable schedule for mingling and getting to know people--coffee time twice a day and an attractive lunch where I met people from many countries and learned a lot about the issues various countries and institutions are facing--possibly even more than in the presentation sessions.

2) Listening to many different varieties of English interacting with each other. As a presenter, I was asked questions in many different accents, and as an audience member watched interactions between presenters and listeners of various cultures. Some speakers were intelligible and effective communicators, while others really struggled to get through. In all cases, it was interesting to watch the communication strategies that were used, including asking others in the room for help to interpret what somebody was trying to say, and asking for repetitions, rephrasing and even just bluntly "Your question is too complex. Please ask me an easier question."

3) Being in Valencia and trying to get around in a city that is not particularly English-visitor friendly. Knowing very little Spanish, it was interesting to have to navigate subways, buses, and street signs for getting from the airport to the conference and around the city to restaurants and order food etc. You notice a lot of things about where signs should be, how they should be consistent, when English should be added, and how a country that depends on tourism for a large part of its GDP should work a bit harder on making the city easier to navigate. These are good lessons for Tokyo and other cities in Japan as well.

Finally, a few amateur photos of Valencia from my camera.

From the tower of the Cathedral overlooking the city center

The cobble-stoned city center of Valencia

A little paella and beer with my research partners to celebrate a job well done