Chunlei's BLog

The following is a visulization designed by myself. It let me think what do I expect in my life.

小学的时候曾经写过题为“假如我是校长”的作文。今天我们换一个题目：“假如我是总理”。题目有点大，也许是异想天开，不过多些这样的异想似乎并无坏处。

我本是个农村人，假如我是总理，我会这样建设新农村。

第一件要做的事就是把互联网以尽可能低的价格（甚至免费）通到农村，让农民能够上网了解这个飞速发展的世界，同时也能有更多的机会学习。

第二件事是发展基于农村的农民教育，建立农民学校，招志愿者讲课和经营管理学校，也可以借助民间力量。此外还要鼓励高校推出适合农村的职业课程。科技是第一生产力，学习是科技原动力。

第三件迫在眉睫的事情是环境保护问题。北京和上海的空气污染严重，很多省市地区的水污染也十分严重。污染容易，治理污染则需要几代人的努力。所以环境保护应该放在经济增长之前，环境治理和保护就是第一政绩。我们可以不富有，但是我们一定要确保健康。对于环境问题，要建立妥善的监督机制，甚至可以启用全民监管。对于污染严重的企业必须停产转型。

第四件事就是建立农村医院，解决农村看病难的问题。所有农村医生都需要经过正规认证，向当地人开设医学课程，提供学徒制，建立重点医院与农村医院信息通道，利用信息技术提供远程诊治服务和技术支持。此外还要普及生活保健常识。很多的疾病都与不健康的生活饮食方式有关，开设课程的成本远比医疗成本低的多。

第五件事是辅助农业和农民转型。将来农业机械化后，可定不需要现在这么多的劳动力，那么很大一部分农民肯定要转变成其他行业从事着，比如制造业或者服务业。畅通农村的物流网络，降低物流成本，让村里的产品能够运出去，让外面的商品能购进来，无疑会有助于农村制造业的发展。对农村制造业的扶植和对农民的培训则有助于农民身份的转型。从而避免失业等社会不良问题的发生。

农民之所以涌向城市，无非是因为城市打工收入会更高，医疗、卫生、教育条件更好。反过来想一想，也是因为我们的优质资源过于集中地缘故。于是大家都往北京跑，交通和环境压力总会有一天会承受不了，那么为什么不能把资源分散或者共享呢。为什么不能让农村的条件也好起来呢？新农村，农民梦……

假如你是总理，你会怎么做……

现代人群中痔疮高发，这与生活方式直接相关，如果能够养成健康的生活方式或者知道缓解的办法，可以在很大程度上避免发病和缓解症状。

痔疮的形成

在肛管的粘膜下有一层肛管血管垫，简称“肛垫”。起闭合肛管、节制排便作用。正常情况下，肛垫疏松地附着在肛管肌上，排便后借其自身的收缩作用，缩回到肛管内。当弹性回缩作用减弱后，肛垫则充血、下移形成痔。

导致痔疮的外部原因

1. 马桶使用错误
   调查显示城市痔疮发病率要比农村高，究其原因其实是马桶惹得祸。使用马桶时，如果坐姿向后，会使得肛垫受到更大的压力，从而下坠形成痔。缓解的办法是，使用马桶时身体前倾，让腿部帮助承担一定的压力，防护肛垫受力过大。

2. 久坐和超重
   现代人，特别是白领一族经常久坐在电脑前面，在加上工作压力和体重问题，都是使得痔疮的发病率增加。建议每三十分钟起身一次，适当运动一下。再或者改变坐姿，变坐为站、趟、跪等。另外要避免坐凉凳子。

3. 擦拭过重

4. 怀孕和分娩

缓解的办法

当发生痔疮时，如大便出血或者肛垫下垂。缓解的方法包括：
避免坐凉凳子，冬天使用坐垫。
每天洗热水澡。
多吃蔬菜等顺肠食物，防止便秘。
及时到医院诊断和治疗，防止恶化。

参考：
痔疮_百度百科：[http://baike.baidu.com/view/6945.htm]
Hemorrhoids.org: Hemorrhoids Cause[http://www.hemorrhoids.org/hemorrhoids-cause.html]

Today I visited a AP chemistry class in a high school. I found this class is apparently test driven. The teacher first let the students took a test for 15 minutes. And then coped with students’ individual questions and worksheet related issues. Then he began teach students the rules and tips to get right answers to the questions. Once a time, a student asked when they would do laboratory. The answer was “maybe next week”.

The whole class last 90 minutes, which is twice long of class in China. There was a 5-10 minutes break during the class. There about 30 students in the classroom. The topic of this class included Ionic bond,Covalent bond, Polar and non-polar Molecular, Melting point, Atomic properties. The main objective is to learn how to judge which Molecular have higher melting point or stronger bond for the quiz questions. This class was a teacher-dominated class. Teacher used most of the time to lecture the “powerful” tips to solve these type of questions. About 20 students seemed listen carefully and 10 students enraged in the conversations by asking questions. Teacher usually addressed students questions immediately sometimes said he would addressed that question later. There were several times students want to ask questions, but the teacher went along with the important tips and principles.

To my surprise, there was a student had nothing to do and lay on the ground listen Mp3. The student said something to the teacher before class, the teacher just let him go. This will never be allowed in Chinese classroom. There are some student hard to like too in China, but mostly they will not put their feet on their desk or sleep on the ground. The teacher will never allow this happen too.

While the teacher also tried to help student understand what factors affect the strength of a bond. He wrote down the Electric force formula on white board. He also used an analogy of 10 toy between boys and girls to explain Polar and non-polar. I am very interested in this representation, it tell me something about the teacher’s stratiges to convey the concept to students, researchers name this knowledge as Pedagogical Content Knowledge. This representation do help to understand polar and non-polar, the teacher said that think about a group of boys have 5 toy and the girl group also have 5 toy, then it is equal, so in this case the bond is non-polar band. As to polar bond, the teacher let students thought about boys had 7 toy while girls only have 3 toy, this is polar bond. As to ionic bond, the boy just got all the toys while girls have no toys. I agreed this analogy could convey some important features of the concept to students. But if you think carefully, this representation also has fatal limitations and even wrong. First, Electron pair does not “belong to” each side but “shared”. Second, it is dynamic not static. Third, it is not how many electrons each side have, but how frequently it appears around. Well, teacher can use analogies as middle models to help students learn, but it is also necessary to know the limitations of every middle models and move along to the more scientific models.

On my road home, I watched a TED show Dan Pink: The puzzle of motivation. The speaker talked about higher motivation(big award) can impede or even kill creativity(e.g. developing new software). I want to say it may also be true in education, while teacher highly motivated to prepare students to get better score, they will decrease the variety of teaching methods until only lecture left. It had happened in China, US would not like to fall into the same old trap again.

2014-04-23
When we are developing an instrument to measure teachers CK, Ben gave us a good analogy of chemical reaction. It is much better than the above chemistry teacher.

The force holding bonds in place is due to the net electrostatic attraction between protons and electrons of bonding species. This is akin to the force holding two magnets together. The attraction between two magnets is stronger when they are close together (a strong “bond”) and weaker when they are farther apart (a weak “bond”). It takes energy to move magnets apart—going from a strong bond to a weak bond. When magnets are allowed to come together—moving from a relatively weak to a relatively strong attraction—kinetic energy is given off, and work can be done. Thus, magnets at a distance have more potential energy than magnets in close proximity. Weak bonds have more potential chemical energy than strong bonds.

教育目的

很多时候家长不见得重视一岁以内宝宝的教育问题，觉得这个时候谈教育太早了，但实际上家长的一言一行已经暴漏在宝宝的视野当中，只不过这种教育是无意识的教育，也是无目的的教育。不管你是否有心，宝宝时时刻刻都在成长和学习。既然这样，那么为什么不进行有目、有设计的教育呢？

这个阶段的宝宝可以接受感官、运动的训练和情商的教育。为宝宝智力、体力和情商发展打下基础。

教育活动

1. 纸箱子游戏
   给宝宝一个干净结实的纸箱子，宝宝可以在纸箱子里坐下，在纸箱子里放一些玩具，让宝宝进行探索。也可以跟宝宝玩捉迷藏。目的是让宝宝认识空间的概念。

2. 分类游戏
   可以让宝宝对各种玩具或者食物进行分类，给宝宝一堆物件，然后让宝宝挑选放到不同的盒子里。最好有不同颜色的盒子，分类的方法最好也是多种多样的。目的是让宝宝学会观察区分，同时形成类别的概念。

3. 堆高楼
   让宝宝把玩具堆在一起，可以是积木，也可以是其他的东西。可能开始的时候宝宝只会搞破坏，把堆好的高楼弄倒，这也是探索重力的过程，后面一点一点的他就学会做不同的动作。比如把一个高楼上东西放到另外一个高楼上。

4. 找玩具
   当着宝宝的面把玩具藏在被子里面，让宝宝找出来。锻炼宝宝空间记忆的能力。

5. 玩水
   让宝宝用小勺子把水从一个容器转移到另外一个容器里。理解“空”和“满”的概念。也可以玩“沉”和”浮”。（必须小心看护，防止危险发生）

6. 情商教育
   宝宝的正常需求是需要及时关照和满足的，比如饿了，尿了，困了等。但是有的时候，比如宝宝特别想要某个玩具，或者明明已经吃饱了还要吃的，这个时候可以延迟满足或者不满足他。延迟满足就是要等宝宝不闹了的时候，再给他想要的，让他知道忍耐和等待，而且并不是一哭就能得到自己想要的东西。

【安全问题】
必须有大人看护。
防止宝宝吞咽、跌倒、异物进入鼻子，保护好眼睛。

更多游戏：

模仿动物叫；涂鸦（用有颜色的食物）；和宝宝一来一往（球，爬行，模仿）

资源参考

亲子游戏大全：0-1岁亲子游戏|宝宝中心
和一岁宝宝做互动游戏_小精灵儿童网站

Nowardays people spend a lot of time in front of their computer. Most of the time they have to use their eyes whether they are typing or sufing on the internet.

But when you are using computer too much you will find your eyes hurt. Lots of students get short-sighted. A idea come to me, why not close my eye to type in front of a computer. Is it possible, may be ti is possible. So I try to find a sofware to help me to do this job. I find a one, and it works. Now I can sit in front of my computer and keep my eyes closed and typing wha I want to say. Isn’t it amazing. This software will also help blind peaple to type, because it can sound the key so they can hear what they are typiing.

For me, it just helps to rest my eyes and concentrate on what I am writing.

This is not a new idea, but if is an intersting idea.

The above paragraph is written by me blindly.

Another idea interesting is using your left hand to control the mouse and use your right hand to click. This will help you to coordinate your left brain and right brain.

Now I am using the sound of pinyin to help myslef to type this paragraph. The pinyin sound help to pronounce a word when you are typing. It may not sound very right but it can do give a similar sound of the the word.

Is not it amazing.

(the following wrote by 2014/06/13)
I write of course with my eye open and without any sound. I confront the same problem again. I am wonderring what i can do with the mouse, computer interaction, becuase my fingers hurts when using mouse click too many times, I just wonder how this problem can be solved. I try to use both hands to use mouse, and now both my Forefinger hurts. Maybe I use computer too much. I admit that but there are also some problem with the design, the mouse design, or the user-computer interaction design. There are several ways to solve this problem:
1 redesign the mouse
2 redesign how computer react to the mouse
3 use keyboard instead of the mouse
4 forget the computer and use paper and pencil instead

The first two solutions are engineers and designers job.
The third is my job(the user habits)
The last one is not a solution for this problem but a solution for stopping the pain

continued on(2014/06/15)
I find out another solution already provided–but I did not discover before, using the touch pad of the computer. It is a solution,may be not perfect, because the user experience and the coceptural model is not what I want. It is also interesting that the user sometime ignore what had been provided.

Topic: Cell structure/Biology
Designer: Chunlei Zhang
Student: High school students
Notes: This is just an imaginary teaching learning scenario sequences.

Imagine a house in your mind(or you can draw it), maybe your family house, maybe not. What does it look like from outside? What about the look of inside? What is the house composed of? What is the function of each part? Can you ask more questions about house?( who made them? which style? what is it made of? how to make a house?) cool!

Today we are going to study cell,similar with house, you can imagine cell as a house for a new strange life. You can ask any questions you want? (list students questions)

Some of your questions, scientists have answered? some question still need further inquiry.

Do you know why scientists study cell?(R or NR) They want to know more about life, an essential question is “What is life is made of?” They finally found the answer through a special equipment – microscope. Their finding suggest that most organism are made of cell. There is a story of discovery of cell.(telling the story)

Cell are usually very very small, and invisible to the naked eye. Do you have any experience of bleeding? What is the color of blood? If you take out of the blood cells, then it looks like this.[picture] What can you infer from this picture? If you look at blood through microscope, then you can see this. These are blood cells. If you look at the blood vessel, you will see this.(video) Not only blood, every parts of your body is made of cells.(student can also draw this conclusion by observing the picture of different tissue are made of different types cells)

Can you guess what is inside of a cell?(Predicted answers: empty, just water or solution, there must be some structures inside)

If we use electron microscope, then we can see the inside structure of the cell. Here is some pictures, try to build a cell structure model as a group. You can number different structures.

When the structures were first discovered by scientist, they also found it hard to communicate, so they name them. Sometime they name them by their characteristics, sometimes using the scientist’s name. (give the names of different structure) Can you distinguish the different structures inside a cell? Have a try in your group.

Group assessment, show Simulation and let students guess what is the structure and its possible function.

How the different structures relate with each other? We don’t know. What do you suggest, if you are going to study this research question.

Scientists got these pictures, when they study how proteins are made and transported outside of cells.[three pictures]

What can you see in these pictures? What can you infer? Can you guess or infer the functions of different structures? How do they function together in this process?

Home work: Make a cell structure model that can represent all your group knowledge about cell. We will share and discuss our models in next lesson.

Today I participated the method class by Dr. Luft and responsed to her question “How students learn best? by rehearing something, learning the vocabulary, or by doing science”.

My response was: the answer was obvious doing science will let student learn most, but if we take out of the word “best”, all approaches can help student learn in special situations.

I know it is a little misleading and I am afraid that some students in the classroom might misunderstood me. Well, by saying that, I don’t mean we should really repeat our explanations to students again and again or let students master only vocabularies or terms. But I do want say we should not put ‘lecture’ on the opposite side of ‘inquiry’. I also want to point out that we should be very careful to use these two words to label teaching practices, especially those of student teachers.

Well, lecture, You can lecture; Some teacher is only able to lecture. But if you decide to use lecture, try to do it good. Because lecture can be totally different styles and outcomings.

It is interesting – we did not teach student teachers how to lecture, although this conception exist in their mind, and they are very likely to use this approach in the beginning of their carriers – isn’t it.

Ok, let’s do lecture.(really?)
There are different levels of lectures.

1. Some teacher just stands there and say something, whether related or not. Student are very easily lost interests and get boring and then sleeping. Sometime they appear awake, but their mind are sleep.
2. Some teacher stand there say something interesting, student are engaged and listen carefully, some can even retell the interesting stories to others. It is better, right.
3. Some stand there say something putting students on uncomfortable positions, let students think critically about the dilemma or issues and discuss with each other, which may have a profound impact on what students believe and act in the future.

Some lecturer also do some performance or something tricky or funny; Some lecture even let audience participate, here is a example of TED lecture: the art of misdirection. Whether lecture or inquiry, they are just labels. Label itself can not guarantee your teaching quality and students’ learning outcomes. We should keep this in mind.

In fact, what teachers can do and only do is create learning opportunity by engaging student in learning activities. Student learn new knowledge through their learning experience. But, different learning experience have different consequences. The following is the learning pyriod.

You can see from the picture above, student can sit and listen, learn by listening and reading. This process just get information into their short term memory not long term memory. So they may just listen and forget, rarely transfer the new knowledge into new situations.

They can also study by doing science,trying to figure out questions such as what can I do with this stuff ? How to relate all these stuff? What data to collect? How to collect? What is happening? What is going to happen? Why it happen? Why it doesn’t happen? and so on. This approach not only work on the working memory, but also interact with the long term memory – their prior ideas and conceptual frameworks. They have to recall what they had learned and experienced in order to solve all these problems.

In the learning pyramid, the most effective way is learning by teaching,just as what the student teacher are doing now. Usually we suppose student teachers already have enough content knowledge for teaching the topic, but it is not true. Many studies showed that beginning teachers’ content knowledge are usually Fragmented and less connected, it was also structured for doing test not teaching.1 Maybe it is enough for exam but not enough for teaching.

Inquiry research showed that good inquiry are significantly better than lecture, but it has a precondition – the teacher have good knowledge ground.2 Carlsen (1991) reported that when teaching self-identified high knowledge topics, teacher were more likely to ask more high level questions than teaching low knowledge topics.3 But student teachers usually lack of this ground, they are struggling with integrating inquiry into their lessons. It is not an easy thing achieved overnight, but a step by step continuing process.

Recently, I read a book review Learning,or not Learning,in school. The author of the book argued teacher can not give a model or demonstration, and then let student follow the model to do on their own(the mistake I also made in my teaching). There should be some middle stages, such as discussing or doing together or let students do it collaborative, before let them do it by their own. The big idea is Gradually ownership shifting, or gradual release of responsibility. It is not a new idea, but I like it.

This picture is from: Learning,or not Learning,in school

As you can see in the picture, the middles stages Guided Instruction(we do it) and Collaborative(you do it together) sometimes is missing our teaching. This may explain why students can’t do it well as teacher expected, because the learning process is too sharp.

Why I want to highlight the point that DO NOT put lecture in the opposite position of Inquiry, I have other concerns. Try to think:
What happen if student teacher believe in inquiry but can not do it well?
==>They drop out. Because they tend to believe themselves not suitable for teaching.

Another extreme concern is:
What happen if teacher only believe lecture and only one direction approach?
==>They refuse to change and can’t do a good job,finally they may drop out.

Usually, student teacher know they should do inquiry or make their class more interactive, but they are just not able to do it or feel too hard to do it. Why this happen? What to do with this? If this doesn’t change, they will form a belief that inquiry doesn’t suit them or their teaching. It is a hot potato. Well one possible approach to this problem is “we do it together”.

We were taught to not label students, right? We also should avoid to label teachers. Abused labels can cause problems even disasters, for example, students who labeled themselves as visual learner would say, I can’t learn very well because the teacher used very little pictures, simulations. Really? In fact, the label just limit students’ learning approaches instead of expand their ways of learning. Good learner should use every possible way to learn and develop skills respectively.

Who should take the responsibility for learning? Teacher? Students? Or both? Or the responsibility gradually shift from teacher to students?

What strategies or methods are suitable for this shifting?

These are the questions that are worth to think over.

References:
[1] Hauslein, P. L., Good, R. G., & Cummins, C. L. (1992). Biology content cognitive structure: From science student to science teacher. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 29(9), 939-964.
[2] Blanchard, M. R., Southerland, S. A., Osborne, J. W., Sampson, V. D., Annetta, L. A., & Granger, E. M. (2010). Is inquiry possible in light of accountability?: A quantitative comparison of the relative effectiveness of guided inquiry and verification laboratory instruction. Science Education, 94(4), 577-616.
[3] Carlsen, W. S. (1991). Effects of new biology teachers’ subject‐matter knowledge on curricular planning. Science Education, 75(6), 631-647.

Today I went to a the seminar Teaching and Assessing so Your Students Learn More: Maximizing Learning-Centered Pedagogy by Dr. Phyllis Blumberg.

We did some interactive activities,such as drawing a picture of learning-centered teaching, think and discuss, group disscussion of a special topic and report. I attended the discussion of how to use assessment to promote students’ learning with 6 people.

Although most participants are college faculties, but when assigned to group work, some tend to speak more than the others, unaware of someone not speaking a word. I want to rearrange the process by divided into two small groups, but I feel hard to interupt and unsure which way will work better. Athough we do discussed sometimes one student dominates the group work and coversation, some people are too shy to say anything. You see, sometimes people say it but not do it and even unaware of this inconsistence.

There are various assessments that can be used for different purposes.
Before class you can give students questiong to guide their reading and explore their prior ideas.
multiple choice question
guiding questions
open questions
Dilemma
Senario
judgement
In class, you can give student short quiz to know if students get the point of if they are able to apply them.
Clicker
Online analysis
Open questions and discussion
short quiz
Drawing
After class, assignments can help students review, exercise and enhance what they learned.
Online assessment
observation
hand-on
Reading
Design
Problem soving
exercise
learning activities judgement and improvement
Final exam can report students’ acheivement.
interview(when there are only several students, this would be a good choice)
project(which let student really take the ownership)
write a paper/story
design
make vedio/prezi
oral presentation/defence
Fair or competition
Paper exam

He was a UGA professor. He died today, of a Severe disease. His wife is also a UGA professor in Pysics Department. She said his husband only left two sentences to his friends and students in UGA.

First, he just say GOODBYE.

Second, he said must guarantee every student have access to his collection, because it is really his passion–lifelong passion.