What the Best College Teachers Do by Ken Bain (Harvard University Press, 2004)

Based on interviews and other information gathering such as observations, colleague/student comments, and course materials from 63 "excellent" college teachers in the USA, Ken Bain presents his conclusions on how the best college teachers create exceptional learning in their college courses that stimulates and challenges their students.

"Exceptional learning" (p.189) is defined in two dimensions: intellectual development and personal development. Intellectual development includes acquiring subject knowledge, learning how to learn independently, reasoning from evidence, employing abstract concepts, engaging in conversations/communication in speaking and writing about that field, asking sophisticated questions, and developing the habits of mind to continue to employ those abilities. Personal development includes 1) understanding one's self (history, emotions, dispositions, abilities, limitations prejudices, assumptions, passions, 2) understanding what it means to be human, 3) developing a sense of responsibility to one's self and others, including moral development and the ability to exercise compassion and understand and use one's emotions.

I think that list above covers what I aim for. I hadn't thought about the "personal development" side of exceptional learning very deeply before, but feel that I aim to help my students with their personal development through the liberal arts academic English courses I teach, especially when I am able to include a sufficient amount of personal choice and reflective writing in the learning curriculum so that students can explore their interests and create meaningful learning experiences for themselves.

The book can serve as a good introduction to what good college learning should be, and has much value there, especially for college professors who may have never studied recent learning theory and methods and are stuck in traditional lecture and test-giving models of college courses that fail to stimulate intellectual engagement.Unfortunately, for teachers who are already conducting teaching according to the "learning-centered" principles that the book introduces, it lacks well-developed specific examples of good practices, and primary goes on and on about abstract descriptions of what good teachers seem to do, supported only by a few rather vague quotes. When some interesting practice was mentioned, I kept wishing for more details, or at least a reference to some documentation that could shed more light on how to carry it out.

Some interesting practices that I want to explore (more) in my teaching are:

1.Writing a syllabus as an inspiring list of invitations to a learning environment and promises for discovery and personal development based on adherence to community guidelines, rather than requirements with penalties. What abilities can you learn/develop in this course? Why are those abilities important? (Who gives a damn?) How can we work together to make that happen? How will we assess whether you are being able to develop those abilities? How will we assess whether the course is optimally helping you develop those abilities?

2. Write a book like this on "What the best college English teachers in Japan do?" employing research methods similar to his. Has this already been done? Who might be interested in working with me on this?

3. Students must learn to judge their own quality of work. Best grading is to some extent based on a final reflective essay that explains what they learned or developed and how they want to improve further.

4. Create an archive of student research results that other students can see (Richardson case, 1999 Texas University). ICU really, really needs this. Students each year are doing very inspiring work, but their work is rarely ever made available to peers or the world. We need a system for publishing student work--some kind of balance between requiring all students to publish and only publishing student work that is exceptional--publishing work that student/teacher/peers have worked together to polish and engage readers should be a standard practice for this learning community, especially in the end of the first year + second year of ELP, as it should be in the major courses as well. And how about senior theses? Are those available easily online, and why not?

5. Expect personal development from students - mention this explicitly as a learning objective - compassion, find new passions, responsibility, understanding oneself, human society, and one's community.

6. Ask an inpartial third party consultant (Director? Staff member? Another student?) to come into the class around mid-term (and also at the end, possibly) to ask students their honest views of the learning in the course and any suggestions or expectations.

7. Building a convincing teaching portfolio each term - Class materials, observations, student reflections/evaluations, quality of student work. I guess my blog can act as this, but what would help organize the process more effectively?

Nice ideas to explore and experiment with in the new term. Good stuff.

坂の上の雲ー植民地主義と戦争の悲惨さに怒りを感じつづけさせられる全８巻

BookOffで買い込み７月にスタートして今週やっと第八巻を読み終えました。

Amazon.co.jp

日露戦争という大きな歴史の渦に吸い込まれながら読み進めました。

この長編歴史小説は「日本がどのようにしてロシアに勝ったか」という歴史を考えるために書かれているのですが、その時代と人物への理解はかなり深まります。陸軍の秋山古好・海軍の秋山真之という実在の兄弟の伝記を中心に書いているので、明治維新初期の教育制度、留学、外交、軍事制度、庶民生活などについてイメージが持てるようになりました。特に伝統的な古典教育から西洋の技術を取り入れるための近代化教育への転換が説明されていてとても興味深かいです。日本がロシアに勝った要因は天佑も含めたくさんあったことがこの小説から見えてきますが、一つの大きな要因は日本が優先的に行った教育の近代化と専門家養成のための留学の成功だっとと言えるのではないかと思います。このあたりは今後もまた研究してみたいと思います。

フィクション的な部分もいろいろあるのでしょうが、司馬遼太郎先生は文献研究をとても丁寧に行いながら書いている印象を受けます。中国など周辺のアジア諸国が欧米列強に植民地化されていく状況の中で、明治維新後の日本が経済と軍事を必死に発展させてロシアの東アジア侵攻を食い止め戦勝国となり、世界の列強の一つとある程度認められた、という事実はその後の日本の発展に良い意味・悪い意味の両面で大きな影響を及ぼしたことは確かです。

しかし悲すぎる歴史です。日本、ロシア、そして間に挟まれた満州や朝鮮の数万人の命の犠牲があり、涙を滲ませながらしか読めません。ロシア皇帝の植民地拡大主義を阻止するために朝鮮や満州における戦争が必要だった、ということは完全に賛成できないにしても現実的に見て理解できます。知識が浅いので他の文献も読まないと言い切れませんが、その当時の欧米諸国は弱肉強食の原理で次々と世界の国の主権を奪っていましたから、日本も立ち上がるしかないと決断したのでしょう。この小説を読んで以前以上にその必要性を理解できた気はします。日本帝国としては「日本を守った」大勝利として捉える気持ちは分かります。しかし朝鮮や満州の人々は二つの外国に主権と生活を侵害されましたし、日本（死傷２０万以上）とロシア（死傷１７万以上）の兵隊たちも皇帝の欲による侵略戦争と外交手段の失敗のために犠牲にされました。悲惨すぎる歴史です。どんな戦争にも「勝利」という言葉は不適切だな、と改めて思わされました。

つい１００年ほど前の話です。二度とそのような無駄な殺し合いがないようにするにはどうしたら良いのか、学校や家庭で話し合われなければならないと思いました。小説や映画を通して戦争の事実を被害者の観点から勉強し、事実関係をただ暗記するだけではなく、そのような歴史を起こす人間の個人や組織の性質について「どうして？」と考え、今後同じ間違えを繰り返さないようにしなくてはなりません。そのための教育体制と心がけは日本や他の国々で十分にできているのでしょうか？

私は小学校の頃(長野県浅科村、今は合併で佐久市）で通っていました、担任の中原先生の熱心な反戦教育・平和教育を受ける機会がありました。同時私は何故かその反戦教育が嫌いだった記憶があります。例えば、今も忘れられない授業としては東京大空襲で死んだ１０万人という被害者の数を実感するために、模造紙の方眼を１０万枚、はさみで切りとって、色を塗って「二度と戦争をおこさない」（確か）という横断幕のモザイクを作りました。数日の授業時間を使い、私はそれが面倒で無駄に思えて嫌でした。ただでさえ、戦争の間違えを考えることよりも格好いい軍艦や戦闘機の図鑑を見る方が好き（その年齢の男には多いと思います）だったり、歴史を読む時、他を侵略して大帝国を築くアレクサンダー大王、ジンギスカン、織田信長など、他を制服する強い国や人物を尊敬する傾向がありました。でもその時に受けた平和教育は今は必要で正しいものだと思いますし、深い印象が残っているので、中原先生には感謝の気持しかありません。

戦争で被害にあったことがない我々、授業やテレビで戦争の辛さや犠牲の大きさを知っても、多くの場合は実感がなく、その悲惨さを心に留めることができないのでしょう。私が受けたような徹底した平和教育はすべての国の学校と家庭において必要なのではないでしょうか。アメリカはそれをかなり欠いているのが現実で、大きな問題だと思っています。兵力という手段は防衛の目的でも最後の最後の手であり、必要な場合は使うが、その防御が成功しても人が死んでいる場合はお祝い事ではない。そういう教育を自分の子供には徹底したいと思います。

坂の上の雲の最終巻最終章、ロシアのバルチック艦隊を日本海海戦で全滅させ圧倒的勝利をおさめた時、秋山真之に喜びはない：

「秋山真之がそういう調子であるため、他の幕僚たちは大声をあげてはしゃぐわけにもいかず、ぜんたいの空気は病院の手術室のようにしずかだった(p.271)。」

損害　（from Wikipedia)
日本側 戦没88,429人， うち戦死戦傷死は55,655人[1] 病死27,192人 負傷者153,584人[2]	ロシア側 戦死25,331人 病死11,170人 戦傷死6,127人 負傷146,032人 [3]

My first flat, changing inner tube - Nice YouTube video!

When to a bike shop and got a flat repair kit and a new tube. The hole was very small, so I just did a patch. The only troubles I had were a temporary failure to get the whole tube back into the tire without pinching it, which ended up in a strange bulge in the tire when I tried to inflate it and having to deflate and adjust the tube, and also a bit of time spent on figuring out how to re-connect the brake wire I had to take off when removing the tire.

Took about 30 minutes? Next time it should be much, much faster.

My 2nd pair of ASICS Nimbus

I did quite well with these over the last two years, so I decided to get a new pair at Jock'n Jill again. After reading Born to Run and hearing about the possible long-term problems with cushioned shoes, I was a little leery to go with gel, but they feel great and I haven't had any foot or leg problems over the past 5 years with cushioned shoes. Hopefully they will get me through the next few marathons!

http://www.asicsamerica.com/products/product.aspx?STYLE_NUMBER=T142N&TITLE_CATEGORY_ID=250001543&PARENT_CATEGORY_ID=250001538

Running in Seattle over the past two weeks has been fabulous. Cool, dry, sunny. Just love Seattle in the summer. Running the trails in Hamlin Park in Shoreline was especially fun.

10 Skills Every Student Should Learn

I read through this article this morning, and wondered what I myself would list and how I would rank them by priority.

http://www.eschoolnews.com/2011/08/11/ten-skills-every-student-should-learn/

The list/order (which may not be a ranking) in the article was as follows. Some items seem to overlap, but it is a good list that includes many of the skills and concepts I try to prioritize in my college liberal arts courses:

Every Student Should Develop the Ability to...
1. read, enjoy reading
2. type quickly - 40 words per minute and use electronic media fluently to get/send ideas
3. write (meaningfully, persuasively in an organized, engaging way)
4. communicate effectively and respectfully (especially in situations of conflict, high pressure)
5. ask questions / analyze the quality of answers- Could you explain this again? What does this mean? Why is it significant? etc.
6. be resourceful - find what you need proactively, creatively
7. be accountable - be responsible/get things done
8. know how to learn - get needed info/ideas/help
9. think critically - evidence based thinking like a scientist, make decisions and solve problems creatively
10. be happy - have/get necessities + positive outlook on life

Also mentioned = Find one's passion for something, have global empathy, prioritize, put others before oneself, be persistent

I agree that all of the above are important, though "typing quickly" seems a bit too micro compared to the others. I would just include that under the ability to write or communicate.

I would probably put "The ability to learn actively and autonomously" (as opposed to passively/dependently) as the main skill students need to learn. Of course, that skill would include many of the other skills because effective autonomous learning requires the ability to find something one is passionate about, set priorites/schedules, ask questions, get needed resources, read, understand and evaluate the materials critically and communicate what is learned in order to get feedback/reactions from others.

John Grisham's "The Confession": Great read for a flight

Frankly, An Innocent Man which was Grisham's best-seller NON-fiction about the near wrongful execution of Ron Williamson was better. This was good, but couldn't beat the real thing.

Nevertheless, Grisham weaves a powerful narrative of how a young black suspect was forced to confess in an illegal police interrogation and how he was put on death row in a biased, unethical court (where the prosecutor was having an affair with the judge. A little melodramatic in parts, but a valuable analysis of what could potentially go wrong in America's justice system and how to fight against it more effectively.

Obviously, the most effective way to avoid wrongful executions like this fictional one, and Ron Williamson's actual case, is to abolish the death penalty altogether. How many mistakes or near misses will it take for Texas, Japan, China and other states to realize that any human system of justice is always going to fallible and death as a penalty should be abolished.

To all students of the legal system, in both Japan and the US, this a very effective introduction to how skewed and unjust justice can be.

The first ICU Global Leadership Studies' "Leadership English Module"

Today was the last day of the first ever GLS program at ICU and I finished my job as instructor/coordinator of the month-long Leadership English component with a strong sense of fulfillment thanks to the dedicated efforts of the director Dr. Pogosyan, his staff, and my fellow instructors and coaches, and the "fellows" (participants) themselves. The fellows were 24 mid-career professionals from leading corporations in Japan such as Sony, IBM and Honda and two non-Japanese graduate students studying at ICU. It was a great pleasure working in this program and I am glad that I signed up to do it even though it kept me busy for a month of our summer term. I hope I will have a chance to do it again next year.

For details of the program as a whole, see: http://subsite.icu.ac.jp/gls/index.html

The Leadership English component was designed to help the students activate the English that they already know and use their voice, body, and vocabulary with impact, professionalism, and persuasiveness in discussions, debates, negotiations, and presentations. We were glad to hear that the English component was well-received based on the evaluations that were collected by the GLS office. Although most of the participants were using English fairly regularly in their work, many had never had a chance to practice or receive formal training/feedback in how to lead discussions/debates, exchange opinions critically but politely, or make presentations with effective visuals, use of voice/body and phrases such as those for facilitating Q&A.

For next year, I have several ideas for improving the program further. These include:

1) Making a "Learning Record" for each participant that records key information such as the student's goals, the instructors' assessment of English level etc., performance on key assignments such as presentations, individual coaching records, and feedback comments from peers and instructors for future improvement. This year a number of documents and channels were used to keep track of the above information, but ideally all information about one participant should be consolidated in an organized way. For example, English instructors were taking notes on presentation rehearsals and giving advice to participants orally based our notes, but that often left no record for the participant to refer to later except in their memory or quick shorthand notes that they took. To make this work, I envision all instructors and coaches having access to one online file (a shared Google Document, for example) or profile for each participant, and inputting information electronically on the spot in the class as we watch a presentation or observe a negotiation or debate.

2) Teaching and demanding evidence based arguments with focus, organization, and documentation in their final presentations. The presentations this year were full of creative ideas, and the presentation skills of the participants improved a good measure each week, but the content of the final assignment, the proposals for how to kick start Japan, failed to be persuasive and would not be acceptable as a proposal in business, as Mr. Kitashiro, current chairman of board of trustees of ICU and former president and board chair of IBM Japan, aptly pointed out in his final comments. His words have the most weight as an extremely experienced global business leader, and I'm glad he said this openly and frankly because it was what most of the audience members (and possibly the presenters themselves) were thinking, and I know I felt it. Next year, I hope there will be more coordination among the program planners, instructors and coaches to design a process of building final presentations that will be much more persuasive. We need to treat the final presentation just like a college assignment, give written criteria, give library research time, give feedback along the milestones of outline, draft, rehearsal, and design a schedule that can allow the teams to meet with English instructors or coaches or professors to get necessary feedback.

I think those two changes are the highest priorities and will have the biggest impact in terms of the satisfaction of the participants.

Some other small ones may include: 1) Setting a minimum TOEIC score to exclude students who may not have enough basic English ability to benefit from the program, 2) requiring the Learning Summary from all students as a completion requirement (and making a system that allows comments on the postings), 3) putting more learning materials for English such as handouts and recordings online so that the participants can preview and review the materials, and 4) attracting more non-Japanese participants--Thi and Nathalie were invaluable additions to the program. I'm sure more ideas will come out when we have the program evaluation meeting to look back at what we did and the comments that the participants gave us.

Also, I hope there will be an official series of events for GLS graduates and their colleagues to have regular follow-up training sessions on key skills that they want to keep improving such as debate, presentations, negotiations, reading/discussing business ideas and case studies etc. Perhaps something can be done in a downtown location once a month for those who are interested?
Looking forward to it.