QEOSA: A Pedagogical Model That Harnesses Cultural Resources to Foster Creative Problem-Solving

The nature of creative thinking is complex and multifaceted, often involving cognitive processes and dispositions modulated by implicit cultural belief systems and ways of thinking. In this article, we build on existing research on the relations of creative thinking and culture, and explore how specific cultural resources can be harnessed to foster creative problem-solving in education. We first review the recent changes in our understanding of creative thinking, from an exclusive focus on cognitive processes to a more inclusive view of creative problem-solving as socially negotiated and culturally modulated, carrying important cultural functions. We then introduce a pedagogical model, QEOSA, to illustrate how cultural resources, particularly culture-specific ways of thinking about the world, can be harnessed to foster creative thinking in education, and what developmental and pedagogical considerations are involved to make it effective. We finally conclude this article by indicating the value of this line of work that integrates psychological, cultural, developmental, and educational principles in fostering the development of a creative mind-set with relevant knowledge, skills, dispositions, and values

Google Glass App for Displaying ASL Videos for Deaf Children – The Preliminary Race

Glass Vision 3D is a grant-funded project focused on the goal of developing and researching the feasibility & usability of a Google Glass app that will allow young Deaf children to look at an object in the classroom and see an augmented reality projection that displays an American Sign Language (ASL) related video. Session will show the system (Glass app) that was developed and summarize feedback gathered during focus-group testing of the prototype

Deaf Education in Early Childhood: Bilingual approaches in Mainland China from 1996-2004

This study investigates Sign Bilingual Education experimental projects introduced by Non Governmental Organizations for deaf children in their early childhood in six sites in five cities in Mainland China from 1996 to 2004. It focuses on the ways in which those involved – above all those in the NGOs – discussed and debated the principles and issues on the one hand and the practices and intended outcomes on the other. Three guiding research questions were formulated after the study of existing related literature: 1) What were the perspectives and claims of the advocators and the opponents of Chinese Sign Bilingual Education (SBE)? 2) What was the reality of the models of SBE seen through the eyes of those responsible? 3) What were the characteristics of the models? Ethnographic methods were used in all six experimental sites including interviews, classrooms observations, and archive studies, during a period from autumn 2003 to summer 2008. Data were analysed using a continuous question and comparison method to establish themes and issues which were common to the many participants and different experiments and sites in this China Case. The findings are presented in a taxonomy format on the basis of what the Sign Bilingual Education insiders perceived and presented. This taxonomy covers 1) the aims, the perspectives, the claims and the common propositions of Chinese Sign Bilingual Education organizers; 2) the characteristics of Chinese Sign Bilingual Education models; 3) the common claims of successful outcomes of the Sign Bilingual Education models; 4) the two types of Sign Bilingual Education models: Two-plus-two model for rural area and Two-plus-four model for urban area. The data suggest Sign Bilingual Education models in mainland China in the period under consideration, are rights-oriented models, developmental models, and tools for the reform of deaf education. A ‘Two-plus-four model’ has been developed which is referred to as a strong bilingual/ weak bicultural Sign Bilingual Education model

Paths to Enlightenment: Constructing Buddhist Identities in Mainland China and the United States

How do national contexts influence the construction of religious identity in faith communities? In this article, I examine the construction of Buddhist identities in two similar ethnic Chinese Mahayana Buddhist temples but in distinct national contexts, one in mainland China and the other in the United States. While both are Chinese Mahayana Buddhist temples, they have distinctive temple-level cultures: a strict culture in China and a permissive culture in the United States. Individual-level cultural frameworks also differ. In mainland China, the Buddhists learn their religion dutifully while their U.S. counterparts critically explore religion inside and outside their temples. Relying on theories in cultural sociology, I argue that national contexts influence both individual-level cultural frameworks and temple-level group styles to produce different religious identities. This article has implications for future studies that examine how community-based religious identities vary according to national context

Google Glass App for Displaying ASL Videos for Deaf Children – The Preliminary Race

Glass Vision 3D is a grant-funded project focused on the goal of developing and researching the feasibility & usability of a Google Glass app that will allow young Deaf children to look at an object in the classroom and see an augmented reality projection that displays an American Sign Language (ASL) related video. Session will show the system (Glass app) that was developed and summarize feedback gathered during focus-group testing of the prototype

Practical, appropriate, empirically-validated guidelines for designing educational games

There has recently been a great deal of interest in the potential of computer games to function as innovative educational tools. However, there is very little evidence of games fulfilling that potential. Indeed, the process of merging the disparate goals of education and games design appears problematic, and there are currently no practical guidelines for how to do so in a coherent manner. In this paper, we describe the successful, empirically validated teaching methods developed by behavioural psychologists and point out how they are uniquely suited to take advantage of the benefits that games offer to education. We conclude by proposing some practical steps for designing educational games, based on the techniques of Applied Behaviour Analysis. It is intended that this paper can both focus educational games designers on the features of games that are genuinely useful for education, and also introduce a successful form of teaching that this audience may not yet be familiar with

In Search of ‘Taiwaneseness’ – Reconsidering Taiwanese Xing-ju from a Post-colonial Perspective

Xing-ju literally means ‘New Theatre’ in mandarin and denotes the non-traditional performing style in Taiwan. Xing-ju is regarded as the product of colonisation in Taiwan. The thesis began with the first emergence of Xing-ju in the Japanese colonial era at the beginning of the twentieth century, and went on to examine the development of Xing-ju and its sub-forms within a colonial historical context. Having gone through different colonial regimes, Xing-ju has developed into the local theatre form characterizing the hybridity of Taiwanese culture. My study aims to fill a gap in Taiwanese contemporary theatre history, to look at Xing-ju and its sub-forms from a post-colonial perspective, and to provide a continuous and complete Xing-ju history within a theoretical context. In addition, how Xing-ju has exemplified ‘Taiwaneseness’ while presenting multiple cultural characteristics is also examined. This thesis also draws on primary source data, obtained via field research, to analyse the characteristics of Xing-ju performances. Finally, while addressing my research questions through theoretical analysis, I also examine them through the lens of practical work. Inspired by critical syncretism, I experiment with an alternative way to explore the nature of Taiwanese culture and theatre form. With its hybrid cultural characteristics including Japanese Shinpa-geki, Chinese Peking Opera, Ge-zai Xi and Western theatre styles, I discuss how a definition of ‘Taiwaneseness’ emerges through Xing-ju.Taiwan Ministry of Educatio

Collaborative Conversations with Parents and Caregivers of Black Gifted Students

This research study attempts to address the persistent problem of practice of inequitable identification and programming for culturally and linguistically diverse gifted learners. One of the possible root causes of this persistent problem is the lack of parent engagement from culturally and linguistically diverse parents and caregivers (Jolly & Matthews, 2012; Grantham, Frasier, Roberts & Bridges, 2005). This phenomenological study targets parent and caregiver engagement of African American or Black parents and caregivers through the collaborative development of parent education. Participants were parents or caregivers of African American or Black school age children in metro Denver who participated in four conversations. During these four conversations, the participants worked collaboratively with facilitators to design parent education relevant for other parents. This collaborative development process serves as the phenomenon for this qualitative study. Data was collected through observation, focus groups, individual interviews and product analysis. The key findings of this research study include the need for Black parent and caregivers to be supported through a conversational approach. Study participants identified talking points for parents to use when engaging other parents in conversations about giftedness

An Investigation of the Status of Piano Teacher Training in Taiwan from the Perspective of Undergraduate Piano Pedagogy Course Offerings

The purpose of this study was to determine the status of piano teacher training in Taiwan. A survey questionnaire and two groups of interviewees facilitated research to conduct the study. The information gained from survey questionnaires documents the content of undergraduate piano pedagogy courses in Taiwanese universities and colleges. The targets of the survey questionnaire were twenty-three undergraduate piano pedagogy instructors in Taiwanese universities and colleges. In addition to the survey questionnaire, two target groups were interviewed. Group one shared their perspectives on current Taiwanese piano pedagogy. It included three prominent piano pedagogues, one each from the northern, central, and southern regions of Taiwan's west coast. Group two contained four recent piano performance graduates of Taiwanese universities and colleges from northern, central, southern, and eastern regions of Taiwan. These interviews asked participants about the applicability of their undergraduate piano pedagogy courses to their current teaching situations

From Empire to Motherland: Writings and the Politics of Translation in the Literatures of Transcolonial Taiwan, 1937-1960.

“From Empire to Motherland: Writing and the Politics of Translation in the Literatures of Transcolonial Taiwan, 1937-1960” examines the literary culture of Taiwan from the end of the Japanese colonial period through the war, liberation, and the subsequent arrival of the Nationalist regime from Mainland China. Focusing on Lu Heruo (1914-1951), Zhong Lihe (1915-1960), Lin Haiyin (1918-2001), and Sakaguchi Reiko (1914-2007), the dissertation demonstrates how these four writers grappled with the enforcement of two monolingualisms during the transwar period, and how their writing reflects multilingual soundscape through an emphasis on cacophony, intertextuality, and translation. The introduction argues for a transcolonial approach to reconceptualize complex relationships between wartime and postwar periods, and to reconfigure the existent markers that separate these writers into unrelated categories. Chapter 1 reads Japanese and Chinese stories by Lu Heruo ("A Happy Family” and “Warfare in Hometown") to analyze how the rhetoric of untranslatability creates a malleable, multilingual space within the monolingual text. Chapter 2 analyzes forms of intertextuality and intersubjectivity in Zhong Lihe’s “The Fourth Day,” “Outlaws and Hill Songs,” and “Willow Shade," suggesting how translatability serves to create transnational identity. Chapter 3 reconstructs the importance of Lin Haiyin in the 1950s in bridging the knowledge gap between Japanese and Chinese materials through re-phoneticization and translation. It also repositions Lin’s signature nostalgic work Old Stories from Peking’s Southside as a transcolonial work that releases the sentiments of “double diaspora.” Chapter 4 analyzes how Japanese writer Sakaguchi Reiko translates diverse sounds into creating a Taiwanese women’s discourse that disturbs the male-dominated imperialist and Nationalist discourses in “The Zheng Family” and “The Story of Indigenous Woman Ropō.” A close reading of these writers in relation to each other demonstrates a complex multilingual legacy made visible and audible in The National Museum of Taiwan Literature, where visitors are now encouraged to hear the cacophonous literary heritage and to review the unsettling relationship between aurality and textuality. This dissertation sheds new light on the most contested literary history of Taiwan, and addresses the ambiguous linguistic territory intersected by Japanese-language literature and Sinophone literature.PHDComparative LiteratureUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/135889/1/panmei_1.pd