Seven to 10 years to completed a doctoral in education!

Recently, I worked on the studies of non-traditional students who returned to graduate school. Precisely, the teaching professionals at one of the stat university in the Midwestern. Astonishinlgy, I discovered that over 50% of them completed the doctoral degree between 7 to 10 years! here are some of the statistics from the office of graduate Studies:

Areas of study and percentages -
Curriculum and teaching: 38.5% in 5 years; 59.6% in 7 years; 86.5% in 10 years.
Educational leadership & policy studies: 50% in 5 years; 83.3 in 7 years; 100% in 10 years.
Special education: 33.3%; 69.7 in 7 years; 90.9% in 10 years.
School psychology: 0% in 5 years; 20.0% in 7 years; 40% in 10 years.

A Mother's love

I finished this book in one day - Chang, Ying-Ying, The Woman Who Could Not Forget: Iris Chang Before and Beyond the Rape of Nanking.

Iris Chang was bright and talent writer - a journalist and a historian. She was only 36 when she died. This book is written by her mother, recapturing the young writer's life from her young age to the day she departed from the world. As I read and flip the pages, I can feel the pain and the love of her mother's heart.

Highly recommended.

I am disappointed - Book titled, A heart for freedom

This book is written by the former Chinese student movement leader in 1989 Tiananmen Square, Chai Ling.  I cannot deny that she had an extraordinary role during the Chinese student movement twenty years ago. The fact is that it is hard to ignore the fact that she is doing well and have a full life in the US while her fellow classmates paid the price. Many students were either imprisoned for years or lost legs - I read the chapter she described a fellow student who lost his legs when the military tank ran over his body during the uprising. It seems to me that the leaders were able to flee and have a relatively normal life while the majority of students who participated in the movements paid for the consequence.

My thought go to the parents of the students who participated in the uprising and lost their lives. After twenty something years to raise the kids and put them in the university, hoping they will have a full life ahead. Unfortunately, lives were suddenly cut short. I am so sorry for their lost.

I am speechless.I have an impression that she wrote this book with an aim to justify what she did twenty years ago. I also read the lawsuit between her company and Harvard, the remark she made (bloodshed) during the movement. That makes me sick in the stomach.

The philosophy of 仕方がない

I read a book review of Kimi Cunningham's Silver lake dust: One family’s story of America’s Japanese Internment a couple weeks ago and requested the book from the local library. I got the book last night. In spite of my busy schedule, I started reading it as soon as I returned from the library. I finished the book just one evening!

It is a book that you just cannot put it down. It is a memoir of the author's grandmother who lived in Heart Mountain Japanese Internment Camp during the WWII. As she promised her grandmother, the author did not unveil her grandmother's name, simply addressed her as Obaasan (grandma in Japanese). The conversation between the author, Kimi and her grandmother just keeps holding my interests.

It is a personal memoir, yet it is also a book that offers a better understanding of the Japanese shikata ga nai 仕方がない philosophy.

Grading on a curve?

The practice of grading student's progress on a curve is derived from the concept of statistical distributions of scores (bell curve). This common practice in education is a method of assigning grades designed to yield a desired distribution (K12 Academics, 2012). There are pros and cons among educators and students. Some educators consider the curve grading system a way to motivate “lagging students” (Richert, 2012), while some teachers use this method to divide students into three categories, above average, average, and below average. The frequency distribution of the number of students in these categories can be determined learning improvement and advancement. Based on a conversation with a teacher who is in favor of curve grading, the bell curve grading in fact assist him how to write recommendation letters. In general, hard-working students would not welcome bell curve grading and consider it as an unfair method or even a "punishment for overachievers." According to Miller (2009), the main problem with this style, is grading students who are between two grades.

Here are some of the examples that I think bell curve grading does not reflect students’ performance in the class.

Scenario 1: A legal studies instructor addressed his class that he uses the bell curve grading system. The top 40% of the class received an A, 50% would have a B, and the remaining 10% would get a C. At the end of the semester, Lisa had a final average of 94.5%. She had no doubt that she would get an A. However, when the grades were posted, Lisa was shocked to discover that she had received a B. She inquired about her grade, and learned that the cut off score was 97%. This revealed that 40% of her classmates scored 97% or above for their overall assignment, which places Lisa's, score of 94.5% in the 50% (B) group.

Scenario 2: In an Algebra class, 80% of the students scored 50% an exam. The highest score was 60%. With the bell curve grading system, the instructor would inevitably give the students an A even though they only scored 60%.   

Can Twitter predict political election results?

I have compared the 2010 Belgian general election, 2011 Singapore general election, and 2011 Irish general election results with Twitter messages. It appears that Twitter users and resulting tweets might in fact play a role in the political elections; although, I will argue that Twitter cannot predict political election results for the following reasons:

• ·         The number of Twitter users is only a small fraction of the voting population, according to the sampling percentages; Belgium 0.11%, Germany 0.24%, and Singapore 4.45%, this prevents an adequate representative sampling.
• ·         When using tweets to conduct scientific research, data miners need to identify the variables of the sample such as the various strata of users based on age, gender, income, political affiliation, technical knowledge, etc. The profiles of Twitter users should play a significant role in sampling research.
• ·         The validity of tweets is questionable due to the fact users can use a pseudo name; therefore, it is possible that tweets come from the same person.
• ·         Even though Twitter users post their viewpoint in favor of one political party, they do not necessarily have a negative sentiment against other parties. How can researchers distinguish or classify the negative and positive roles that tweets play on election results.
• ·         If retweets were counted as separate data for the study, this data probably would skew the analysis.
• ·         A political party might be the center of the discussion among Twitter users, thus the party largely received the number of positive and negative tweets. However, it is not necessary an indicator for the election result; such as the People's Action Party in Singapore.
• ·         We have to bear in mind that popularity is not necessary equal to prediction. The prediction of future events needs comprehensive and in-depth scientific research, not just numbers or contents of the tweets received.
• ·         This research dominantly used quantitative analysis and statistical inference methods. Utilizing combined qualitative methods for these studies might reveal different results.
•  

In my view, the study of tweets and the current events is an interesting research area. From these included studies, we can see the relevance of tweets in the political arena. One cannot draw a conclusion that tweets enable prediction of future events, such as election results; that could require detailed studies.

Misleading free download ebook

This afternoon I helped a student to locate an e-book through Internet. I noticed that event though the links say free download, the book  is absolutely NOT FREE. Readers will have to register and sign in and pay a certain amount of fees to access the e-book. If it is the general practice, why so many links say "free download"? - Misleading and ... make readers frustrated. You thought the download is free, yet as soon as you click on the link, you will be asked to registered and pay for the download. ("sigh")