Harvard Higher Education Teaching Certificate

 Received the final grade for the Harvard Higher Education Teaching Certificate course which I took in the summer. The grade was based on over 20 assignments and quizzes. This 8-week course was much more demanding than I had anticipated. A slight imperfection that I didn't get full marks for the final grade, but good enough for me to get the certificate. The biggest gain, though, is that the course has re-energised me for teaching in the new academic year. Now looking forward to receiving the physical certificate in mid-October.

Speaker at a language forum organised by HKUST's Center for Language Education

 

Becoming MIEE 2021-22

 The first e-learning badge I have earned in 2021-22.

"The 8 biggest breakthroughs in the science of learning"

 An article that includes some useful reminders: 

https://www.brainscape.com/academy/how-students-learn-science-of-learning/?utm_campaign=Academy+Drips%3A+Teachers&utm_content=Email+2%3A+8+Of+the+biggest+breakthroughs+in+learning+science&utm_medium=email_action&utm_source=customer.io

Launching into the 35th year

 快開學了。1991年進入中大教育學院任教，這暑假剛好滿30年，加上先前在羅富國教育學院的4年，這個九月，將會是我從事teacher education 的第35個年頭。

能夠這麼長期從事自己享受的工作，從中找到意義，工作性質又讓我可以不斷學習，我實在非常非常幸運。

Completing the Harvard Higher Education Teaching Certificate course

 經過九個星期努力，終於完成這Harvard 的Higher Education Teaching Certificate 課程，當然仍要等8月19日provisional grade 的公佈，才知道會否獲得證書。

回想這九個星期的課程，比我當初想像中demanding和rigorous 得多，課程的prospectus說每星期需時10小時，但事實上遠超此數。而我已經不知多久沒有在兩個月內做了那麼多篇功課。

今次整個學習過程除了內容外，给我兩個很大的體會：(1)温故知新: 作為teacher educator, 課程內容對我並不是100％陌生，但就是review 學過的知識(例如Bloom's taxonomy),仍會有新的理解和體會；(2)學如逆水行舟，不進則退。

去年暑假不能外遊，結果讀了多個e-learning 課程和考了十多個e-learning的認證。今個暑假仍然不能外遊，結果完成這如果外遊便無可能完成的Harvard課程。這罕有的人生經驗令我再記起西諺When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. 

當然我仍然希望明年暑假可以外遊!

Students may remember ...

 那天和32年前舊學生午餐敘舊，她竟然可以清楚敘述我當時其中一課的流程!

老實說，我自己也不會記得起每一課的細節，這亦提醒我們當老師的，有時候我們的一句說話，一個舉動，我們也許不以為意，但學生也許會記得很多年呢!

A good teacher vs A successful teacher

 

To me, ‘a good teacher’ is a general term. The question boils down to how ‘good’ should be defined. Some people may equate ‘good’ with ‘caring’, while others may equate it with ‘being nice’. Still there will be those who define ‘a good teacher’ as a pedagogically competent teacher.

All of us want to be looked upon as good teachers. And indeed we may receive that compliment once in a while, for example when someone says it out of social courtesy. At the end of the day, we ourselves have to contemplate in what ways we want to be ‘good’ as teachers.

To me, the description ‘a successful teacher’ takes into account those on the receiving end, i.e., the students. A successful teacher succeeds in changing the students in one way or another, whether in terms of knowledge, or skills, or attitude.

Today, within changing students in terms of attitude, I would highlight one teacher success factor: the successful teacher ignites in his/her students a curiosity, enthusiasm, and even passion, in continuing to further their investigation of the course subject matter even when the course is over. This is because we are now living in the 21^st century. With knowledge being multiplied day by day, every university course, even those at advanced levels, will only scratch the surface. For me, this disposition to lifelong learning is of paramount importance. To sum up, if I see a student continuing to explore my course subject matter even after the end of the course, that is the kind of success that I will most value.

Pecha Kucha - my quick review

 https://www.pechakucha.com/ is a web app for creating videos from pictures. You upload some pictures, voice-record every picture (slide), and then click create. The beta video creator doesn't have any other editing functions. 

Hence, it doesn't trump the more modern apps for creating videos from pictures. Pecha Kucha distinguishes itself as follows: 

1. The number of pictures you can upload is fixed (e.g., 5, or 10, or 20). The audio narration duration for each slide is equivalent to the number of slides you have uploaded. Thus, if you have uploaded 5 pictures, you have 5 seconds for narrating each picture. This is fixed. But as such, this may be good for practising presentation skills, especially with regard to timing. 

2. Pecha Kucha is primarily for people who want to share their work with the public. There is a vibrant Pecha Kucha community which organises presentations events from time to time. 

Downside

3. Too rigid in terms of the number of pictures one can upload, and the duration for narrating each picture. 

4. The download video option is a paid function. 

5. There isn't an unlisted sharing option. (Default: public)

Is Active Learning possible in large lecture halls?

One major challenge in employing active learning strategies in teaching university classes for some courses (especially, the more ‘general’ ones)  is certainly large class size. Students are seated in large lecture theatres, and in rows. The setting itself already encourages chalk and talk by the instructor. Even setting up group discussions is not that easy. Then, the large class size makes it difficult to administer and manage active learning activities. For example, it is difficult for the instructor to provide help to individual groups. There will never be enough time for individual to report their work to the whole class.

The lecturing to large classes may save costs, but it is a very 20^th century teaching activity. Of course, this is not to say that all large-class lecturing should be dispensed with. But first, such lectures should be shortened and condensed (especially given today’s shortened attention span of EVERYBODY), and instead, should be complemented with other modes of learning.

Fortunately (for me), today even with large classes, there are still e-learning strategies which can facilitate some forms of active learning, even if students are seated in rows in a large lecture theatre. For example, there are now many useful polling and quiz apps for tapping into students’ views, previous knowledge, answers to quick questions, etc. (e.g., AnswerGarden, PollEverywhere, QuestionPro, Quizizz, Socrative). There are also apps for students to easily share their ideas (e.g., Padlet, Google Jamboard). There are also apps for creating short interactive tasks, which may be administered at intervals during a lecture (e.g., Wordwall; LearningApps.org).

  

Motivating students to engage actively in a lesson

To me, one way to motivate students to engage actively and participate in a lesson is when they see the purpose of the class session, and how it contributes to their future endeavours. However, sometimes this is easier said than done. If a course, or a class session, is closely related to what students HAVE TO complete soon, then this actual need will easily spice up the students, even if this is only extrinsic motivation. One example is the class session on Lesson Planning, which is usually conducted towards the end of my 17-session Subject Curriculum and Teaching (English) course on the Postgraduate Diploma in Education programme. The students, who are either preservice or inservice ESL teachers, will be supervised for teaching practicum soon after the Subject Curriculum and Teaching course. During the lesson observations, they will be assessed on, inter alia,  their lesson planning skills. In this scenario, it is not difficult to motivate students to engage activity, as they will have a chance to, and in fact need to, apply the lesson planning ideas soon in their own teaching.

It is less easy, however, when the course, or the class session, has no immediate application value to the students, especially if the course is more theoretical in nature. For a four-year undergraduate programme, students may not ‘feel’ the future importance of a course if it is offered in the first or second year of study. Sometimes, even the whole programme may not be one that is ‘practical’ or career-oriented.

It is under such circumstances that the task for course instructions to motivate students to engage them actively becomes even more challenging. The course instructor may then have to strive to (a) show the intrinsic value of,  and stimulate intrinsic interest in, the course content itself, and (b) make the class sessions themselves more interesting and rewarding, utilising a variety of teaching techniques (e.g., ‘small teaching’ strategies (Lang, 2016)) .

 

Lang, J. M. (2016). Small teaching : everyday lessons from the science of learning. Jossey-Bass & Pfeiffer.

The 'Collections' function in Microsoft Edge

 My default browser is Chrome. But recently, while following the Harvard course, I discovered, by chance, a useful function in Microsoft Edge which is very useful for note-taking. It's called 'Collections'. After I click on the Collections icon in the top right corner, a vertical pane will pop up on the right-hand edge of the web page. Then if I see a key phrase or an important sentence on the web page I'm reading which I want to note down, all I need to do is highlight it, and then drag it into the right-hand Collection pane. I can even drag a diagram into the pane. I can also use the sticky note function inside the pane to type my own notes. 

After I have finished reading a module section, to get a copy of the notes that I have collected in the pane, all I need to do is to export that collection as a Word file. Later, when I start a new module section, I simply start a new Collection. 

Of course, this note-taking can be done by doing copy-and-paste into a Word document, but then you have to open and keep switching between 2 windows, and the Edge 'drag into collection' action is much quicker and simpler, and fun!

I didn't know how to teach until I met you

 In the 'Make a difference' movie,  Teddy Stallard, MD, at his wedding, thanked his elementary school teacher Ms Thompson: "Thank you for believing in me. Thank you so much for making me feel important, and showing me that I could make a difference. (Teddy was once an at-risk student in elementary school, but Ms Thompson turned his life around.).  It's Ms Thompson's reply that has resonated with me ever since: "Teddy, you've got it all wrong. You're the one who taught me that I could make a difference. I didn't know how to teach until I met you."  This reply resonates with me because it reminds me that it's the students whom I have had that have served as the stimulus to my becoming a good teacher (and perhaps, even a better human being). Without them, I won't know the true meaning of teaching, and how to be a good teacher: "I didn't know how to teach until I met you."

https://makeadifferencemovie.com/index.php

Kapwing for creating videos

 Out of the blue, Kapwing, a video editor, has become very popular among teachers in Hong Kong. I had a go, and created the video below. So far, the two biggest pluses to me are (a) inserting Gifs, and (b) adding background music. Overall, it's a very easy to use video editor. 

https://www.kapwing.com/videos/60eaae18a9816100b9117f9f

Doodling function in Powtoon for free

 Glad that Powtoon has added the doodling function for free. Now I don't have to purchase Doodling apps like Doodle Maker or Doodly. Check out the one I've just created below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grGSzgr09vU

Phase 2 of MIEE self-nomination passed

 今年(2021~22)的Microsoft Innovative Educator Expert的self~nomination 和去年有點不同，去年其中主要部分是製作一視頻，去自我介绍如何推進e-learning，今年這部分主要用文字描述，但增加了測驗性質的Phase 2,以考驗申請者對Microsoft tools 的熟悉程度。剛收到可以進入最後階段Phase 3的通知，不用重做Phase 2。

The Design Idea function in PPT

 我真是愛死PowerPoint 的Design Idea功能了!我平日不大願意花時間美化PowerPoint 或edit video for effects, 都是以簡單直接為主。但PowerPoint 讓我不做任何editing, 也可以製作不太單調的presentation deck。像下面的一個，我先在Word 以outline 模式記下要點，然後開PPT, import這Outline, 已經有整個成形的presentation deck, 最後為每一張slide 從右邊自動generate 出來的design idea選一個，乾手淨腳。create PPT這部分，不用十分鐘。

而且隨着PPT 背後的AI 愈來愈聪明, generate 出來的visuals 一定會愈來愈貼切和有趣。

Attending the graduation ceremony of Baptist Lui Ming Choi Primary School

 收穫滿滿的早上。以主禮嘉賓身份出席浸信會呂明才小學的畢業禮，感受了一個程序充滿温馨，每一成員都充滿歸屬感的畢業禮。和PGDE舊學員，現任校長 Wong Fai Mei ,現任英語教師 Katie Sham 敘舊。認識了校監曾啟文先生，上任校長黃潔蓮校長，和一眾卓有成就的校董。還獲贈一份很特別的紀念品呢!

這早上，讓我再一次看到教育工作的重要和意義。

++++++++++

今早坐在台下欣賞同學的分享，無論是他們合唱的三首歌，傳燈儀色，或四段分班的視頻，有幾刻我觸動得幾乎忍不住眼淚，因為令我想起背後一眾老師的心血，和呂小對他們成長辦演了的角色。我的分享主旨在提醒同學要感恩，而他們在四段視頻中正正就是這樣做!整個典禮，令我親身感受到我們作為educator, 如何任重道遠，如何以生命影響生命。

Sunsetting of Google Tour Creator and Google Tour Builder

 I'm a little dismayed that Google is sunsetting Google Tour Creator tomorrow, forever. It was Janet  Law who first introduced to me this app for creating 360 VR trips, and I fell in love with it immediately. 

Compared with Google Tour Builder, Google Tour Creator is much easier to use (of course the two serve different functions). It has good potentials for English language teaching because teachers can set a topic (e.g., Chinese temples in Hong Kong), have students put together a 360 VR tour that consists of the destinations that they have found on Google Earth, and make an audio recording introducing each place on the trip. (The built-in audio recorder is easy to use.) The whole process can be a very educational project experience because students have to do online research, make decisions about what to include, and decide how best to introduce each place. The best part is that Google Tour Creator is technically easy for students to grasp. 

Unfortunately, after tomorrow, it will be gone forever. 

(Google Tour Builder will also sunset on July 15. Does anyone know after that, what apps can be used to create 360 VR trips?)

My game literacy

 A former student alerted me to Blooket, an app for creating and conducting teacher-paced or self-paced quizzes. In a way, it's like Kahoot and Quizizz, but it has an additional gamification element, in that students have to use the points that they have gained during the quiz process to carry out another task. There are 5 such game modes. 

What is interesting is that while I was checking out the game modes, I found the instructions so difficult to follow. But I'm sure that school children can pick up the game procedures in no time. 

I simply have poor 'game literacy', if I may coin such a term. This is because I seldom play games in my life, thinking that they're a waste of time. This also reminds me of the 'affective filter hypothesis' proposed by Steven Krashen in the early 80's under his Comprehensible Input Hypothesis: we will acquire a language naturally if we're exposed to language input that we understand, but this process won't work if you have negative emotions about the input language. 

And I think that's why game manuals are always so difficult for me to follow.