|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
As always, Dr. Sung gracefully began our class with a gentle review and thoughtful enrichment of our previous topic, “the Book of Hours,” beautifully crafted prayer books created for distinguished patrons, often someone of notable prestige. She guided us through the evolution of book styles, tracing the journey from ancient scrolls to the more refined codex, and highlighting the delicate materials—parchment, papyrus, and even wood—that artisans once used. The Book of Hours, as we explored, was more than just a manuscript for prayer during the Middle Ages; it was a cherished companion, deeply intertwined with the rhythms of Christian devotion and everyday life. The world of manuscripts is vast. Beyond prayer, these handwritten treasures could be devoted to music, history, or even the mysteries of astronomy, each one reflecting the thoughtful spirit and creative energy of its time. Before delving into the layers of our discussions today, we were invited to pause and reflect once more on the Artful Thinking Palette and the accompanied thinking routines.  Dr. Sung, with her usual warmth and clarity, explained that our tasks today would be to explore the stroies woven into the painting, using the three strategies as our guide. The guiding questions were: (1) What do you see? (2) What happened in the picture? (3) Where did it happen? (Was it in the real world or imaginative world?) When did it happen? (Dawn or Dusk?) What led you to that insight? With every turn of our classmates’ thoughtful elaboration, I find myself appreciating not just the knowledge shared but the nurturing atomosphere that encourages us to reflect and connect with the artwork in a meaningful and heartfelt way. Stories in the Painting As we traced through the intricate details of this painting, narratives about the main characters in the foreground - their status, and surrounding environment began to unfold.
The garment’s hues of the four characters shifts gracefully between the earthy blue and heavenly red, symbolizing the contrast between the mortal and the divine.
After our delightful artisit journey from last session, Dr. Sung began today’s class with another enriching exploration about Egyptian art. She warmly revisited our discusssion about the beautifully balanced masterpiece, The Hunting of Nebamun. Dr. Sung suggested that the symmetry in this painting might actually reflect how the Egyptians thought about life and death, or day and night—as two sides always striving to remain in harmony. Her thought-provoking insight encourages us to look at any artwork throught a creative and historical lense, learning the people of that specific period of time. The ancient egyptians believe that chaos of the nature was inevitable, and that restoring order was essential. Much like a garden without a gardener, left untended, life could easily fall into neglect and disorder. This idea is beautifully refelcted in our painting of focus, which is filled with natural beauty—birds, plants and a sense of movement everywhere. Yet the human figures in the center seem to convey something deeper: that people had an important role in keeping everything connected and in balance. It is a soft and quiet reminder that Harmony requires care and attention, just like the world around us. Moving on to our second session, Dr. Sung gracefully wove in insights from Project Zero and Artful Thinking as she introduce of the Book of Hours. Drawing from the artful thinking palette developed by Harvard, we began with delight to observe carefully and reason deeply, searching for clues with our curious mind.  As we delve deeper into the artwork, more and more details began to unfold through our discussions. Jewelery, plants, colors, lighting and fabric textures all delicately complement one another, creating a harmony whole. Together, these elements brought the stories of the lady in the foreground and the lady in the background to life, weaving a rich tapestry that invited us to imagine their world and experience - a prayer to Lady Mary and Infant Jesus. The painter skillfully used various details to honor Lady Mary of Burgundy as a pure and holly lady.  Perhaps Mary of Burgundy in this painting was praying for a prosperous future of her Duchy as she prays along with her book of hour. Or maybe she was expressing the worries that came with her impending marriage, praying for happiness with her soon-to-be husband, Archduke Maximillian I. Either way, the artwork offers a temder glimpse of her hopes and inner world, connecting with her emotions and personal journey.
This is one of the lesson series organized by Cosmic Light, with Dr. Sung Pei. Dr. Sung commenced the speech with a brief but thought-provoking introduction of the book “Artful Thinking,” - a pedagogical framework derived from Project Zero at Harvard. These strategies aim to foster reflective, curious, and open-minded thinking through the lens of art. Throughout the entire speech, Dr. Sung skillfully applied this approach by guiding us to explore our own reasoning, consider divergent perspectives, and revisit our ideas from a broader and more inclusive point of view - all by simply observing a single image.  In the first task, we were asked to observe and share what we noticed from a small part of a painting called Nebamun. While seemingly straightforward, the task proved unexpectedly demanding to me. Having shaped by the traditional Asian educational paradigm - one that prioritizes accuracy, I felt hesitant to voice my own interpretation. The ingrained fear of error of social embarrasssment loomed large. After the discussion, Dr. Sung provided more details about this imagery, starting with the geographical background of the river Nile and where the painting was found. The reiver Nile and the flooded area symbolized life and death for the Egyptians and where the order of life was resotred. The tomb, where the painting was discovered, was naturally located on the west side of the river - the direction of the setting sun, symbolizing the end of life and the beginning of the soul's journey after death.   As we engaged deeper with the artwork, we noticed how our thoughts sometimes aligned with, and sometimes differed from, the philosophical lens of ancient Egyptian culture. The entire process feels like a dialogue between us and the those ancient fellows dwelling along River Nile. By making the conversation personal, we were brought closer to each other and the exchange of worldviews more intimate.
Found great resources for teachers - engage students with nonfiction texts. These ideas work for different levels and ages of children. I have tried some of them, sometimes not so skillful. It takes practice. Just to take a note for myself.  很令人感動的一本書，覺得可以和班級共讀。
家裡有孩子或是和孩子ㄧ同工作的大人們都應該有這本書，隨時拿起來翻翻，提醒自己，也警惕自己。 小雪，是個高敏，但聰明有主見的孩子。雖然被棄養在育幼院，但有個疼愛他的阿姨。阿姨在餐廳內幫工，是個樸實的女性。在小雪的眼中，她不聰明也行事笨拙，兩人縱然有生活上的摩擦，但她也能容忍與接受。然而小雪的心中其實嚮往著一個幸福的家庭…或許自己的親生爸爸就像巷口總是微笑著、關心、擁抱小雪的醫生以及掛在牆上那張甜蜜的全家福。直到她發現了全家福相片中的現實。 現實重擊了小雪對幸福的想像。 作爲醫生，他可以溫暖包容；但作爲一個父親他卻獨裁、冷漠，和母親ㄧ同在面對升學的壓力時，試圖給予孩子自己認爲正確的幸福，漠視孩子在舞蹈的喜愛與天賦。親子間的衝突讓孩子在學校雖是意見領袖，卻行爲乖張，帶頭罷凌小雪。 這本書從一個中學生的視角出發，引導孩子看見父母親或是直接照護者背後的恐懼，也帶領孩子們去關察屬於愛的行爲。 這個社會裡，小雪是幸運的，因爲這樣生來聰明的人設很討喜，可以靠自己的努力，改變命運。若她沒有那麼聰明， 是不是世界要暗黑到底了？ 讀書會裡有位明德國小的孩子，說這本書他看了十三遍，我笑了。覺得孩子真是可愛，這樣著迷的程度，真的是活靈活現的呈現了愛不釋手。孩子說，他下課看，找到空擋就看。大概所有的心思都在角色的悲歡離合裡了。
看了前幾頁的人物介紹以及地圖，老實說這些並沒有特別吸引我。等著書一開始，拾參和他夥伴們的語言生動的呈現了北地曠野孩子的生活與氣慨，我開始佩服作者的功力。等到相關人物一個個登場，我開始感受到這個故事在時間軸上鋪陳三位一體的禪學抑或是道學。 最後一章，真的讓我淚流不止。一個十三歲的孩子，竟得領悟這樣的人生道理，做出那樣的選擇，實在令人心碎。父母輩的業，為什麼要孩子來承擔？累世的業又要何時才會停止？什麼是開悟？何時又是個頭？ 面對人性之惡，拾參與雅庫最後的一句「生生世世不再為人」，很是令人震撼。這樣對人的鄙視與反叛，讓西遊記裡的老孫，更加迷人了！ Monica Burns in her new episode 10 tools for creating quizzes
(classstechtips.com) curated 10 tools for teachers. Not only in creating quizzes, they could be use in different part of the teaching or prepping process. Some AI tools that I have been using heavily with my class are Edpuzzle: Multiple questions are great to check the students’ understanding of visual input. Videos provide better context with just a few pictures. I also love how it allows open ended questions with written or oral responses. It is even workable for middle/lower graders. Chatgpt and Claude: It is amazing when I start to test their limits. During the prepping process, I can basically discuss/test different teaching ideas with these two bots. It is efficient in the brainstorming stage and it is powerful to generate ideas. Burns’ suggestions regarding how to more effectively use them with prompts are very useful. I might include information like,
There are some great AI tools that I tend to use less in the class such as Kahoot!: it’s very exciting with the competition and multiple choice questions. I found, though, in my class, the students tend to bash in short-term excitement and lose the focus for deep thinking and discussion. Perhaps I need to try a different way to moderate the process. Tools that I wish to try in the next semester: Diffit: Supposedly, it creates supplemental resources for indicated grade levels. I am not sure yet about its data pool. I hope it will also work for our students outside of the US. Briskteaching: It is another quizzical generating tool with chord extension. (It feels to me the class time is filled with quizzes for the students…) I have also read other teachers’ positive comments of such tool. When I tested it, it seems more useful for more mature students with complex contents. Socrative: Like Mentimeter and Peardeck, their interactive features allow teachers to monitor students’ real time progress. It could work perfectly in a discussion class. MagicSchool: Like Twee, it’s a platform containing lots of tools such image/voice generator, speech-to-text, video script… for teachers. They don’t come free. For teachers who mostly create their own teaching contents without textbooks, it is wonderful and time saving. This book was first introduced in a class of my Fulbright exchanging period. I was deeply moved by pedagogy introduced in the book and also puzzled by how it could come to life, Inspired by the American “everything is possible” culture, I wrote to the author. Surprisingly, I got invitation to stay for a night with her and observe her class…
The book starts with an illustration of how discussion was fostered in the classroom- making connections through events that children encounter in the class, taking care of each other’s feeling aligning two simple and concrete classroom rules - be kind and work hard (because we want to flourish as a whole).
資深AI 應用人程世嘉以麻瓜也可以懂的語言爲一般民眾提供了許多破解AI的迷思與實際的應對策略。這兩個月他也頻繁的進行宣傳，跟幾位知名的主持人進行了很精彩的對談。（有這些不同領域的對談真的很拓展思維）
書裡面兩個我認為最關鍵的核心思想是：
這些思維是對未知恐懼的解放，對於進入未來有個堅實的立足點。 感覺振奮人心 ！ References:
Starting from week 9, we introduced space competition to the third graders, echoing our moon festival and also the launching of the Artemis Program. My partner continued with festivals around the globe, and I stuck with space competition and someone delved into social and gender injustice. Conclusion first: this unit continued for almost an entire semester because I only have one session with the children. For the third graders, some aspects of social segregation and gender discrimination are very difficult and abstract due to their insufficiency of world knowledge. So I came to a debate of how to really introduce cultures to them: should I go for the broader topics or stick with one but go deep. Am still trying. Week 9-13, 5 periods, 200 minutes, we watched parts of the movie Hidden Figures. We talked about how black people and women were treated in NASA back in the 1960s. With some explanation of historical background, I would say visual images are perfect to portrait that injustice. Kids could tell from the facial expressions, words and actions of the characters. They nailed it with a lot of why questions.  Week 15 and 16, I continued the time line to the Artemis program. There is obviously a progress of inclusion, when we see the gender ration, Victor Clover and Johnny Kim. I hope they can see that the change will happen in progress if people try. Still working on it.
Week 17, I am hoping to introduce some other injustice in the world and then circle back to the idea that change will happen when we try. |
Winnie ChiuAn enthusiastic ELT/CLIL teacher, passionate educator, researcher, teacher trainer, Apple Teacher. Seesaw ambassador and curriculum developer. Archives
June 2025
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed