Dialogue and Flexibility

When designing the instructive strategy for the TED Talk workshop, time limit was the primary problem for me. There were a lot of pints I would like to address, and it would not take me too long to address them. But if taking discussion, dialogue and debriefing into consideration, everything would be in a rush.

 In China, real discussion or dialogue is hardly seen in class. Even if we have a discussion, it won’t last more than five minutes. Students are reluctant to talk and share, since the teacher will eventually provide the right answer. Therefore, when design this workshop, I felt quite insecure to plan a relatively long time for discussion and sharing. I was afraid that no one wanted to say anything and I had to fill the awkwardness. So I decided to plan 5 minutes at most for each discussion, and fill the rest of the workshop with lecture, video and hand-on practice.

The First time when I led the workshop, I was surprised by the dialogue we had. The two girl were much more talkative than I expected. When we talk about the application of CER model, they had an “A-Ha” moment and brought their own writing experience into the discussion. Our conversation lasted much longer than I planned, so that we didn’t have enough time for another learning task. But I think it is OK. The point is not teaching, not covering all the agenda I planned, but learning. The learning tasks are designed to facilitate learning. As long as learning is transferred and the goal is reached, it is fine to change the instructional strategy according to the situation.

Another example was the fourth workshop I led, where I met with two students who were very interested in how technology had changed our way of thinking. In my original design, we were supposed to use critical thinking skills to talk about the Google’s driverless car for 5 minutes. However, they got very highly engaged when one of them led the topic to Facebook. Instead of gearing the topic back, I chose to follow their interest and incorporate critical thinking skills into the discussion of that they were passionate about. It was a not a novel topic and they had already got a lot of ideas about it. But when using critical thinking to reconsider the assumptions, evidence and argument they had before, they were brought to a new way to understand the subject.  I could tell that they were very excited about the innovative ideas resulted from critical thinking. The learning result could be much more impressive when students are highly engaged. By giving up the content I planned and following what students wanted to learn more about, we had a wonderful conversation, during which learning took place naturally.

There is also a learning happened to me in these two experiences, which is that students are smart enough to figure things out with time and a little guidance, and they are very excited about the knowledge they discovered. Dialogue is a way to show the confidence in students’ ability and provide a safe platform for them to construct knowledge. I am sharing my experience of self-directed learning and dialogue education with my professors in China, and hope that they can find a way to introduce these way of learning to more Chinese students.

Consulting Skills in Family Communication

(Continued)

In resent years, since I leave home for my college, the dynamic between my parents and me has changed little by little. Now, when I am in the USA and they cannot just come to see me whenever they are, our relationship is reversed in someway compared to what it was like when I was young and at home. Years ago, my parents was in the domination of our relationship, and I was under their command. It was like the traditional relationship of consultant and client. My parents were the experts, while I was a lost client. However, our position is exchanged. More often, my parents have difficulties catching up with the new trend of technology and other aspects of social culture. Sometimes they will turn to me for help. Therefore, I become the consultant.

One typical example is my parents learning to use mobile device to have online talk with me. They were confused by the new jargons, concepts and devices, and asked me to set everything ready to use before I left. I thought there was no use to explain the procedures of setting and even if I did, they would not understand, so that I set up the all the devices and told them how to turn on the app to call me. In the process I played a role of expert, taking all the responsibility and doing all the jobs for my clients. It seemed to be quite easy and timesaving for me as well as for my parents, and they were pretty satisfied when the problem was quickly solved.

However, it was not the end of the story, and I have to admit that the quick fix is not the best solution since it bears potential problem. About one month after my leaving, my mom called me by phone and told me that the Ipad couldn’t pick up wifi signal at home after the maintenance of the home Internet.  The similar thing had happened before, and I know it just take a few step to set it right. If I had shown my mom how to set the device, she would know how to deal with this situation, or at least less lost when it happened. I was thinking about saving trouble in the beginning, which led to more trouble later. I had to explain the process to them on phone and give oral instruction to help them with the setting, which was much more labored than showing them in person. Although there were several times when I wanted to give up, after a long time of effort, the pad finally picked up wifi signal again. Honestly, I was surprised that although not easy, they got it in the end.

There are mainly two points I learned from this experience. First, focus on long-term effect instead of the short-term one.  For a consultant, immediate solution is usually quite alluring, since it demands less effort and show one’s personal capability. But after the short period, problems underneath the surface will show up again, and the clients will be as lost as they were last time. Second, really try to understand the clients and trust their capability. In my example, I did what I thought would be the best for my parents, and didn’t believe in their ability to deal with technology. However, my perspective was not accurate about how they felt. When I took time to understand their perspectives, I saw much more possibilities within them, which led to the real learning eventually.