Practical Project Design
> Unit 2 > Practice section
Join Song
Qin, Li Yue, or Wen Jing
Are you with Li Yue? Yes? Start from here now.
Li Yue's problem is: I dislike teaching oral lessons to
a large class.
Li Yue would like to start with the Analytic Method.
Do you agree with her? Which method would you like to start
with?
I'd like to start with
.
Li Yue's analytic method is fragmented and incomplete. It's
your turn to make it complete.
Li Yue's use of the Analytic Method
Reminder
The analytic method is a close examination of the way
the problem is stated. With such a method, you can explore
the consequences and implications of the problem.
The "I" makes me think of this --
Are there any teachers
?
If there are,
?
On the other hand,
If my colleague teaches the same class, and he/she enjoys
doing so, while I dislike it, then it seems that the problem
Li Yue is getting into the heart of the matter now. She decides
to apply another method to her problem, viz. Socratic Dialogue.
Socratic Dialogue
Reminder
By making a Socratic dialogue, you ask yourself a series
of intelligent questions and try to answer them at the
same time. You often draw analogies to see if there
are fatal contradictions or inconsistencies in your
thinking or to see if you can learn anything from analogies.
Here is Li Yue's pursuit of Socratic Dialogue. She is
talking to herself. Join her and add your ideas to it.
Why
do I say "I dislike teaching a large class?"
Because
.
?
Because there are too many students.
Are there many vehicles on the streets?
.
Are they out of control?
.
?
Because there are traffic police there.
Why do police control traffic properly?
.
So facing a large class, I have at least two roles to play:
teach and at the same time maintain the order of class.
Li Yue realizes at this point that there are two ways to
manage a large size class: teacher-controlled vs. student-led.
Her problem perhaps lies in too little teacher control.
To make sure that the root of her problem is her poor classroom
management, she continues to use Cause Analysis.
Cause Analysis
Reminder
Cause analysis, as its name tells you, is to look for
the factors that you think cause the problem. When you
do cause analysis, we keep asking why-questions (why
…?) and because-questions (Is it because ...?)
From Li Yue's side, viz. the teacher's side:
The teacher's
voice is not loud enough for the students at the back to hear. Some of
the tasks are not appropriate for a large class.
From the students' side:
.
The classroom: The room
is too small for a large class.
Note that when Li Yue did her cause analysis, she tried to
dig out all possible causes. But they are seen by Li Yue as
causes. It does not mean that students also think in the same
way. To find out what students think of the problem, she designed
a questionnaire. She followed these stages:
Li Yue's Questionnaire
Reminder: How to Use a Questionnaire
1. Choose the informants.
2. Work out a list of things that call for students'
opinion.
3. Design a draft questionnaire.
4. Try the draft questionnaire out with a few students.
5. Revise and finalize the questionnaire.
6. Distribute the questionnaires.
7. Collect the questionnaires.
8. Process the questionnaires.
9. Evaluate the findings.
It is your turn to materialize these 9 steps.
Now go to Working Section to do Stage
2 of your own project. If you have chosen Li Yue's project
as your own, you can either copy those parts you did with
Song Qin that you find useful as part of your own project,
or do your own project in your own way.
Are you with Li Yue? Yes? Start from here now. 
Why
do I say "I dislike teaching a large class?"
The teacher's
voice is not loud enough for the students at the back to hear.
Some of
the tasks are not appropriate for a large class.
