Kuala Lumpur: HELP University Goodbye parties and last classes with students

"You have a beautiful voice. You are an angel."
How am I ever going to return to NYU students after the treatment I've gotten here?

My Child Psychopathology class of first year clinical psychology graduate students invited me, another clinical psychology professor, my friend, Wai Sheng, and Chiao Tong, a student out to celebrate my and Chiao Tong leaving. I return to the U.S. and Chiao Tong got into a US clinical psychology program!
Malaysia is all about food. And, they took me and Wai Sheng out to a great, hidden restaurant in Bangsar called "Poco." Everything there is handmade, including the clothes they sell. It seems anti-Malaysia, almost which is all about selling mass-produced clothing and objects. But, the food is always artisanal, as arty Brooklynites call their handmade food.

Me and Chiao Tong who got into the US clinical psychology program.

Jeng Mun volunteered to be one of the refugee teacher trainers in the intervention I ran.

Vijay on the left was also a refugee teacher trainer, along with CK on the right. Vijay is a pilot for Malaysia Airlines! And, CK is a children's ghost story writer in Mandarin! They do all that along with being clinical psychology students and volunteering on my research interventions. Wow.

A sweet-ish curry with an stuffed omelette. Make you Hungry?

Wai Sheng also invited me back to do a workshop with the second year clinical psychology students I taught Research Methods to last fall. I gave them a workshop on physical restraint of mentally ill children who are attacking you! Sounds heavy but we giggled our way through restraining each other. Then, the students SURPRISED ME! They brought lunch as a goodbye luncheon event for me. Gosh, too sweet! And, they served local specialties along with domino's pizza with chilis, little dried fish they love here, and more on top. It was touching.

The 1st Year Clinical Psychology Graduate Students at the last Child Psychopathology class.
I took them all into Harvest Centre, the refugee school and training center, to do depression and PTSD mental health screenings of refugee students, as sort of fieldwork in the class.
Su Chen on the right is doing therapy with one of my refugee students, along with collaborating with me and an NGO on an orphanage caretaker intervention before I leave.

My Undergraduates, in my 150 person Research Methods class.
They love taking pictures and video of all of us in class.

May 25, 2011

I was pretty overwhelmed when I came to HELP University and taught my first class of 150 students. I would wake up at 4:30 on teaching days, going over my lecture in my head. At first, I refused to use the microphone every professor uses here, with gusto. In fact, all Asians seem to love the microphone, even the most soft-spoken. By half-way through the semester, I OWNED that microphone, even singing a karaoke-like song about Correlation does not mean Causation to the tune of John Lennon's "Revolution." The students LOVE singing here. They kept on asking for an encore of my singing Correlation the rest of the semester. I asked for informal feedback partway through the semester and one student wrote: "You have a beautiful voice. You are an angel."

Yes, I have to ask myself if I can ever return to NYU students after the VIP treatment I've gotten here. It is not just a stereotype that lecturers are treated with great deference here. At the end of my first class, a group of girls came up, bowed to me, then asked if they could hug me. Then the other girls lined up for more hugs from me. In a way, it feels like there's an innocence here I don't see as much at that age from the US students. Or, at least an eagerness to respect scholars.

Not all my feedback-givers called me an angel, though. Thank GOD I'd asked for informal feedback partway during my first class because no one here tells you what they really think, in a direct manner. And, the students definitely don't tell you what they do and don't like, or even what's clear and unclear about your teaching. But, I needed to know basic things, like do I speak English too fast for all those in class who seem to have Mandarin as their first language?

The feedback told me a few things --- First, almost none of the other lecturers speak the full 3 hours of each interminably long, 3 hour-long class. Those with heavy topics like my Research Methods, often stop class after 2 hours. I had no idea! It's a well-kept secret among the faculty here. I couldn't limit it to 2 hours but it felt more humane at 2hrs, 30min or less with more breaks.

Second, some found parts of my lecture less clear than others. It wasn't apparent whether or not my clarity was due to their language difficulties, the speed with which I spoke, or my being confusing in my presentation. Most simply asked for more movies in class -- I think that's how the lecturers fill up the 3 hour official requirement for each class.

Third, they wanted the parts of the lecture that are important for the test to be highlighted. This reflects the students' mono-focus on their grade. It's too bad, since I think more theory, philosophy, critical thinking questions get left by the wayside with such solo-attention to what's on the test. I also found myself teaching to the test much more, especially since I was forced to turn in my final exam so early to the exam centre that I had to make sure the rest of the semester that I covered everything I'd previously committed to putting on the exam. I didn't enjoy that part.

My graduate students in clinical psychology also seemed to struggle with the transition from multiple-choice learning from undergrad to graduate-level critical thinking and integration concepts. They were very stressed over studying for an essay-based exam. I gave them a larger pool of essay questions beforehand then chose a subsample of questions for the exam. I warned the grad students that while they may want to work as a group to study for each question, I will know who has actually done the readings and who has only relied on others in the group to do the readings for them. Lo and behold, the Asian collectivist approach took hold and they all divided up the essays so each person wrote notes for each essay question. And, I ended up getting the exact same response, sometimes wrong, for each person's answer. 2 or 3 students wrote additional information that showed that they, as an individual, had done the readings for that question. But, that individualistic drive was rare, and suggested to me that the collectivist approach was reassuring to them. My guess at the psychology behind it is that they are used to studying facts, and facts are comforting since if you memorize the facts, then you'll get a good grade as an undergrad in Asia. But, if you have to think for yourself at a more abstract level, there are no facts to rely on, at least no facts approved by the group. So, if the group approves an essay answer, then it's safer to respond just like other members of the group than to express individual, deeper thinking.

What they did enjoy was all the lengths I went to to make the class more hands-on active, even with 150 students. I think the traditional way to teach in this part of the world is for a lecturer to only lecture, with an air of respectability. One student wrote on his feedback form, "Can't you teach more like the Dean? Instead of being so silly and doing group activities, teach with more dignity like the Dean." That was the only person who complained about the activities I lined up for them to do as individuals, pairs, or groups, in addition to role plays by them up on stage with me. I'd been warned that Asian students do not like to do role plays in public. But, once they got used to it, I had many eager volunteers.

Click HERE to see a video of my undergraduates doing a role play with their partners, acting as if one is a difficult adolescent and the other is a researcher getting research consent from the adolescent. HERE they are laughing while they do the role play with each other.

For the ethics lecture, I pretended to fall down and hurt my ankle to see whether or not students closer to me were more likely to get up and help, compared to those far off on the other side of the lecture hall. Click HERE to see a video of it shot by one of my students named Ross who has the funniest laugh ever - he videotaped a few of my classes and posted them on youtube. On youtube, Ross wrote: "(Before this video started, some of the girls had given Dr. Colleen a spicy WASABI Cracker, they meant it as a joke, LOL, because Dr. Colleen didn't know the cracker was spicy before she ate it, and Dr. Colleen certainly got them back by falling DRAMATICALLY on the floor nearby the girls, totally deceived them all!)"

For the Experimental Design lecture, I had students come up to role play Bandura's famous bobo doll experiment, with me modeling use of tools like a hammer to hit the bobo doll. Ross, the laughing student, volunteered to pretend to be the bobo doll. Listen to the students commenting on how Ross and the female volunteer look cute together and may go out together. Too funny. Click HERE to see the video taken by Ross. I had a lot of fun trying to bring research methods to life and keep the students awake -- although that didn't stop at least a couple students from falling asleep EVERY lecture.