Lecture TOYS!

8 months! I’m at my new lecturing job for eight months! I must say it has been a tough journey revamping materials for an enterprise programming course and even today, I’m still generating materials while I’m teaching.

Programming is also one of the driest topic to teach. How to make programming interesting is really an art. I thought my previous few lectures were… well… DRY! But I’m making it a point to to tell more stories and do more demos during lectures. Not forgetting, games!

You might be wondering how am I supposed to conduct games during lectures? Well, my lecture size is only 40 after all, so I do have the privilege to turn my lectures into a workshop. To help me with the interaction, I brought along several toys with me. Over here, I would like to mention someone who influenced me quite a fair bit on my lecturing style: Mark W. Zalkin!

In my previous job, I have the privilege of attending two of his workshops, one on Situational Leadership and one on Dealing with Difficult People (I think). What captivates me is his neverending energy that he brings along, oozing out of him, bringing life into his class. He brought with him this chest load of toys which he used them freely for different occasions.

Without a doubt, I wanted some toys in my lectures too! After all, why should lectures always be me speaking all the time? I was determined to keep my students on their toes, forming a love-hate relationship with them. So here are the toys I bring along with me:

Ohio State Buckeyes Football

The Ohio State Buckeyes Football is the most frequent toy I like to use. It is awfully effective in getting students to answer questions. My students know, every time I take the football out, expect the unexpected. This is because, every time I throw the football into the crowd, whoever the football touches will have to stand up, and…

(1) Choose a friend to answer a question by throwing the football at him, or,

(2) Get a friend sitting beside or behind him will have to answer the question, or

(3) Answer the question himself

Wu Kong Magic Stick cum Back Message Pounder

Mind you, three options above but the student don’t get to choose the option. I choose that for him.

Sometimes, it does take a bit too long to put the American football act altogether. That is where I have the Wu Kong Magic Stick as a substitute. I’ll just point to whoever I like to answer my question.

Never point your fingers at your students. But who can resist being called upon by the cute and adorable Wu Kong Magic Stick?

It also doubles up and a back message pounder when I feel tired.

Betty the Shrilling Chicken

Her full name is Betty the Shrilling Chicken. I saved her from being killed by KFC! Just kidding, no offense to KFC. This chicken makes a squawk when squeezed. I usually have my students do a discussion for about two minutes in the middle of the lectures. This is a chance for them to compare notes with each other and check out the lecture notes if they have not. I WILL TEST THEM after the discussion.

To mark the end of the discussion, I will give Betty a little squeeze and to catch their attention. I consider Betty a premium item. Use too much of it and it may lose its effect. On days where Betty is supposedly “not around” she is either sick or has flown away for a holiday.

By the way, I also slip in references to Betty in my lab quiz and lab examples.

Japanese Gameshow Signage

Armed with two AA-size batteries, the Japanese Gameshow Signage makes a bim-bong sound when you get the answer correct or booooo sound when you get it wrong. I usually use this toy, coupled with a game-show format. I’ll have two students right in front with me and one of them will have to answer the question. The other student will have to assess if his friend has given the correct answer and show him the correct/wrong sign.

I intend for this to be used as a premium item as well. Perhaps only once or twice throughout the whole course?

a little bit of rebel ~reprise~ (Part 2)

In my previous article, I tried to put into perspective why it is important for students to learn critical thinking. Today, I would like to talk more about the importance of innovation.

First of all, let me define innovate:

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According to the Oxford dictionary, to innovate means to make changes in something established, especially by introducing new methods, ideas, or products.

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Note the fundamental difference between being innovative and being creative.

When we talk about innovation, we are building on something which has already been established. We do so by adding something new. However, when it comes to creation, we are bringing something that did not exist before into existence.

Hence, if I were to define it, being innovative encompasses creativity. The creativity portion in an innovation is fitted into a pre-existing framework. Innovation is applied creativity.

Having said that, I would like to clarify that I am not discounting the importance of pure creativity. There must be some people out there to do pure creation in order to bring in new stimuli, an important ingredient to advance the world.

However, I feel that to empower anyone to contribute better to the society, we have to exercise a bit more creativity in the applied form.  The creation has got to connect with the people. The creation has to be workable. If the creation is also revolutionary, we may even get to make a quantum leap. And this is innovation.

Being a rebel is definitely not just about pure creativity and freedom of expression as most of us might have stereotyped them as at one point or another. If much of the creativity are applied in nature, rebels too can make a big contribution to the society. Rebels are not there to challenge for the sake of challenging. Rebels are there to make a difference, to make the world better.

Just look at Lady Gaga.

Keep the BOND TOGETHER

It was orientation day in campus just a few days ago. Universities always had a week long orientation but for my institution, it was only a single day. Students have that single day to play together. That’s also including half a day of briefing.

At the end of the day, when the rest of the students left the auditorium for their well-deserved rest along with their new found friends, Class No. 10 stayed behind. They sat in a far corner quietly, refusing to leave.

From a far, I saw them took pictures together. After a while more, two students started crying. My course coordinator walked toward Class No. 10 at the far corner of the auditorium as I stayed with the student volunteers at the other. We watched her as she spoke to them. We couldn’t hear her from where we were, except for the words “Keep the bond together”.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

The student volunteers explained the circumstances to me:

Unlike the rest of the classes, Class No. 10 never existed. The truth is, only one student is truly from Class No. 10. The other 11 were slot in from another course, joining the orientation organised specially for this particular course. You can view it as a rag tag class formed solely for the purpose of the orientation. They were meant to be split up right from the start.

It was a happy and frustrating moment for me. It was happy for me because I knew that the orientation had achieved its objectives, that is to bond the students. It was frustrating for me because I couldn’t understand why could such planning have taken place, splitting a class up after we gel them so well together.

For that single student, he would probably be assigned to another class. He will be starting from square one to get to know the rest of the class again except this time it would be harder for him. This class will be one that have begun swimming together like a school of fish owing to the success of the orientation programme.

It was also an enlightening moment for me:

I’ve attended many one-day workshops where the participants were put through difficult challenges together but at the end of the day, we adjourned and we go our separate ways.

I’ve never seen a strong bond building up in such a short time frame before.

It left me to rethink how I can bond with my class together better the next time I meet them for a two-hour lesson.

Class No. 10 showed me that it could be done.

a little bit of rebel ~reprise~ (Part 1)

I wrote a Japanese journal entitled “a little bit of rebel” (Literal translation: “The Importance of the Rebel”) back on 28 Mar 2010 on Lang8. The translated version of it goes something like this:

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In school, we are taught to write our essays from the top to bottom.

In school, we are taught Mathematics, but we were not told how we can use them.

In school, we studied hard for our examinations, memorising endless number of formulas, remembering to write our answers the way our teachers expected us to.

There is no lee-way for creativity.

After that, we grew up to become lawyers, politicians, engineers, managers, researchers, doctors, teachers and soldiers to fit into the machinery known as a country. We continue to work hard but most of us without an aim. After all, money is needed to survive and who cares about the rest anyway.

However, let’s look at the those who have made it big. Bill Gates never completed his school. Thomas Edison can’t study at all. They are also the rebels of society.

This society frowns on the rebels who disrupt their usual way of life. These rebels are the same people who exhibited their bravery to overcome the norm of the society in innovative and creative ways to improve the society as a whole.

This makes me wonder if the education system of Singapore who have been so successful in creating scholars, has also created people who are too indulge in their own lives. I don’t even feel a simple thing such as patriotism in most of them.

This makes me worry about our future. Have we created a society of uncaring obedient people?

How about a little bit of rebel in everyone?

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I reflected once again on what I have written three years ago. What were the qualities that a modern rebel possess that the school doesn’t seem to be teaching and is important for our next generation?

Now that I am a lecturer teaching 16 to 19 year-olds, I felt that there were three qualities that stands out more than any other: critical thinking, innovation and collaboration. In other words, we are talking about the left brain, the right brain and the brain that belongs to someone else other than you.

Wikipedia defines Critical Thinking as reflective reasoning about beliefs and actions, and, a way of deciding whether a claim is always true, sometimes true, partly true, or false.

I often challenge my students:

• Why such a design?
• Was it inspired from a famous design?
• Who inspired your design?
• Who is this person?
• Did you get this design from a credible person or credible source?

On the surface, critical thinking seems like a life skill where logical reasoning are used to justify for doing what you did, a survival tool in the strict Singapore society. However, I think there are more far reaching implications to this. I feel that we need to challenge students to think about everything that they are learning, listening and reading.

• Are your teachers teaching you the right stuff?
• Is the media telling me everything I need to know about a certain situation?
• Is the Wikipedia article I’m reading now telling me the right stuff? (I know it’s an irony to choose the Wikipedia definition for Critical Thinking but this is done on purpose)

In order to empower the next generation to do lifelong learning, I feel that these are difficult questions that students must learn to ask and try to answer as they approach adulthood. As the knowledge landscape we are in continues to be shaped by the flood of information coming through the media and the Internet, critical thinking will be the filtration pump and the flood gate that keeps the knowledge reservoir fresh. Unlearning and relearning becomes a non-negotiable process of effective lifelong learning.

Being a rebel means we question the norm in a meaningful manner. Please do not scold or ostracise a person if he is asking questions that challenges the norm because he wants to make sense of things. Instead, just analyse and answer, and ask more questions from his point of view so that everyone gets to learn together.

Word of the Day: Unique

Unique adjective

/juːˈniːk/

Oxford dictionary:

• being the only one of its kind; unlike anything else:
  • Everyone has a unique set of fingerprints
  • This situation was unique in the British economy
• (unique to) belonging or connected to (one particular person, place, or thing):
  • a style of architecture that is unique to Portugal
    

Other forms:

uniquely adverb
uniqueness noun

First of all, I would like to thank Tiarel Toastmasters Club for giving me the opportunity to do a language evaluation at their club on 26 January 2013. It is always an honour to do language evaluation. The best part is that I get to learn more about a word. I tried to replicate what I did in a previous language evaluation, introducing a word that has a similar meaning to another in the English language. From there, I’ll point out the differences between the words.

Unique vs Special

If we were to refer to the Oxford dictionary, Special has the following meanings:

• better, greater or otherwise, different from what is usual
• belonging specifically to a particular person or place

The difference between unique and special is in the number of items which are similar to the one being described. When you describe something as special, it is possible that another object in question may possess the same qualities as the one you were describing. However, when you describe something as unique, that object is the one and only of such in the world.

Non-Gradable Adjective

If we look at the adjective, ‘cold’, we can describe different levels of “coldness” by coupling it with another adverb such as ‘very cold’, ‘fairly cold’, and ‘slightly cold’.

Unique, on the other hand, is a non-gradable adjective. It reflects a state something is in. We are unable to describe how unique something is as that object is the one and only. However, we can to use certain non-grading adverbs to describe unique such as ‘absolutely unique’ (to emphasise a point), ‘nearly unique’ (and therefore it’s not unique) or ‘in some aspects unique’.

Can we use the term “very unique”?

With that being said, can we describe something as ‘very unique’? My take is that it’s a no and yes.

In formal situations, ‘unique’ should retained its unique meaning. By describing something as ‘very unique’ is a wrong usage of the word and in my opinion, should not be encouraged.

However, I do personally feel that colloquialism (at least in the South-East Asia region) has made allowance for someone to use the word ‘unique’ as a sensing or feeling. As with many words of feelings, they come in different colours and flavours. ‘Very unique’ could have been used to give more punch versus the description, ‘very special’. It don’t really matter in this case as what matters more is whether you have put your point across to the person you are talking to.

We Only Read the Headlines: News on Population White Paper spreads to Japan and China

An article titled “China immigrants are the greatest enemy; Demonstration held against new immigration policy – Singapore” on the Population White Paper found its way onto Yahoo! JP.

Articles of similar titles are also found on many China websites (for example: here).

If you have only read the headlines:

1. What do you think this immigration policy is about?

2. What will you think of Singaporeans?

3. What will you think of China immigrants?

Frankly speaking, I don’t think these headlines are reflective of the situation. To me, it sounded as though the new immigration policy seeks to give an advantage to Chinese immigrants. And I can’t help but feel afraid to see the reactions of the global community to this piece of news.

Only if you read till the end, the article then explains itself that it was the protest organiser, Gilbert Goh, whom deleted his comments about the new Chinese immigrants which he publicly admitted it as dangerous before the protest was held. But even so, the impression the headlines made coloured my perceptions of what I thought this article was really about.

On a separate note, what do you think of the headlines mentioned in the following song?

Word of the Day: Courage

cour·age noun

Br ˈkʌrɪdʒ      Am ˈkᴈːrɪdʒ

 

Macmillan Dictionary

the ability to do something that you know is right or good, even though it is dangerous, frightening, or very difficult

Cambridge International Dictionary of English

the ability to control fear and to deal with danger, pain, uncertainty, etc…

Other forms:

courageous adjective

courageously adverb

Highly inspired by Brené Brown‘s work on vulnerability, I introduced the word Courage at my maiden language evaluation at Bishan Toastmasters Club on 24 Nov 2012. Of course, Brené Brown had her own definition on courage, I took mine from the dictionary.

Bravery vs Courage

We often use these two words interchangeably but there is actually a great difference between the two. It is this difference why we often say “pluck up your courage” rather than “pluck up your bravery“. It is probably this difference Brené Brown uses the word courage rather than bravery to explain vulnerability.

In bravery, we are fearless about what we do. We often show no fear in protecting what we love and what we feel is correct. Hence, we use the word brave to describe this quality of fearlessness.

Courage, on the other hand, has an element of fear. If you refer to the dictionary definitions given above, notice that fear is present in the situation and it is something that needs to be managed or overcome.

The difference between bravery and courage is the element of fear.

With that, I’ll leave you with this video from TED to ponder on: