Two key elements: creating a student-centred approach to the teaching-learning process and providing practical knowlege to link content knowledge to the "real world".

Two key elements: creating a student-centred approach to the teaching-learning process and providing practical knowlege to link content knowledge to the "real world".

I agree with Javier. In my experience in the teaching-learning process (nursing) I usually give relevance to: theoretical conceptions and their evolution, scientific evidence and, very importantly, illustrate with practical cases, real situations of nursing practice that mobilizes my experience of being a nurse in paediatric Oncology.

Tha fact that I also invest in research and to mobilise in the lessons seem to have a positive effect, because the students appreciate the teacher researcher who mobilizes the results of their research in lessons articulating with concrete cases.

I also agree Javier: in my domain (communication and medias studies), it is very important to provide the students with theoretical and methodological references but, at the same time, it is as well important to demonstrate theoretical references through concrete examples and case studies and to encourage students to work on concrete problems in, for instance, communication and media planning, corpora of media texts, information and cultural expertise, etc.

Hello friends, your contributions and actions are appreciated :)

Let's wait for others to respond.

Miranda,

There are a lot of literature related to the question you raise here. Javier pointed out global directions. You can look at the following books:

1) How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience, and School: Expanded Edition, Committee on Developments in the Science of Learning with additional material from the Committee on Learning Research and Educational Practice, National Research Council. Publisher: National Academies Press; 2nd edition (September 15, 2000); ISBN-10: 0309070368l; ISBN-13: 978-0309070362.

2) Understanding by Design, Expanded 2nd Edition, Grant Wiggins & Jay McTighe. Publisher: Prentice Hall; Expanded 2nd edition (July 24, 2005). ISBN-10: 0131950843, ISBN-13: 978-0131950849.

3) Pellegrino, J. W., Chudowsky, N., & Glaser, R. (2001). Knowing what students know: The science and design of educational assessment. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

4) Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for College Teachers, Thomas A. Angelo &, K. Patricia Cross. Publisher: Jossey-Bass; 2 edition (March 12, 1993), ISBN-10: 1555425003, ISBN-13: 978-1555425005.

5) Medina, J. (2008). Brain rules: 12 principles for surviving and thriving at work, home, and school. Seattle, WA, USA: Pear Press. ISBN-10: 0979777747; ISBN-13: 978-0979777745.

These books relate some aspect of cognitive theory of learning with particular instructional interventions that can distinguish you teaching for students.

Pavel, I don't have the books in the libraries in this little town. Are there internet sources?

Miranda, Just by my googling the title, a pdf showed up for Pavel's first recommendation: http://www.csun.edu/~SB4310/How%20People%20Learn.pdf

It looks excellent.

You may try searching for the others this way, too. I simply highlight the title and maybe the author, right button click with my mouse and select Search with Google. Usually something good is in the first page of results, like for even Pavel's second recommendation, etc.: http://www.grantwiggins.org/documents/UbDQuikvue1005.pdf

And third, http://coref.u-tokyo.ac.jp/nmiyake/list/material/pdf/JimPellegrino.pdf

Fourth, https://www.google.com/search?sourceid=ie7&q=Classroom+Assessment+Techniques%3A+A+Handbook+for+College+Teachers&rls=com.microsoft:en-US:IE-ContextMenu&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&rlz=1I7TSNJ_enUS451

Fifth, http://books.google.com/books/about/Brain_Rules.html?id=G_GbZ6rDUrsC

@ Cj Nev: thanks for the links. I will look them up as soon as I have time :)

Miranda, gladly, you're welcome, and best wishes for time!

If we take a biology-based approach, I would say that children learn first through practice while growing up and then will make a link with theory later in life. I would not exclude that for many aspects discussed in science, you will find some examples at home or in your garden that may have value from an education point of view......

Learning can be made an enjoyable experience by the teacher by;

* Making the topics easy to understand

* Encouraging simulation studies

* Stressing on learning everyday, what has been taught and not accumulating studies

* Encouraging discussions

* Giving unit tests on small portions and giving marks, discussing errors

* Encouraging students to make their own pathways, charts, which are easier to remember

* Make studies lighter by giving some acronyms or as Miranda suggested formulate rhymes

Preparing students for future is a great challenge.It is important that teachers put extra efforts to keep themselves updated.Posting of lectures on line help students to do better. Students should be made active in rendering service to the underprivilledged in their free time.

Thank you for this excellent question.There are two important elements:

first one is creating a student-centred approach to teaching-learning process Ssecond: providing practical knowlege to link content knowledge to the "real world".

Thanks Javier!

There are possibly as many answers to this question as there are teachers, groups of students and contexts in which they work. The following link (or go to my Research Gate page) shows how teachers in a Scottish science education context tackled this sort of question when trying to make their practice more inquiry-based. You will see that the teachers followed many of the principles that people are identifying in this thread in finding solutions for themselves. The materials that we used to support them can be found on my Research Gate page. Based on this work, the answer to Miranda's question seems to be to find conceptual tools that teachers find useful in analysing their own contexts and for finding ways themselves to move towards goals that 'are more than just providing the content knowledge.'

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/57871390/Smith%20et%20al%20ppk%20article%20published.pdf

If I remember well, Psychologists claim that not all people can efficiently work together because of incompatibilities in personality profiles. Some people might permanently exaggerate in critical judgement perceived by others as signs of intelligence, stupidity, competence or incompetence, simply depending on mental states or motivations of senders and receivers. Some people might have great difficulty handling critical remarks from colleagues having other education certificates, whereas others do not support authority or social hierarchy. Thus critical remarks formulated by personality types A, B, C or D addressed to personality types A, B, C or D might be accepted or rejected depending on which personality types are interacting. I presume this might also be the case for professor-student interactions, so as Colin states: 'there are possibly as many answers to this question as there are teachers' and students...

Dear Miranda,

I am from mathematics. So I can say something in this regard with reference to teaching mathematics only.

It is better to start every discussion with an appropriate example. If the students understand the matter through the example, the theoretical matters can then follow. I have seen that this method works very well in teaching mathematics.

Dear Miranda

Apart from books, teachers can rely on many sources to make your classroom more fun : newspaper articles , songs , role play activities , movies , crosswords and quizzes. A good way to engage students and increase their interest in the subject studied is to make the activities are interactive . Ask for suggestions to their students , talk to them and see what they would like to work .

Give them a challenge - dynamic activities that require critical thinking , such as puzzles and riddles , are great tools that combine challenge and fun . These activities can also be done in groups , which allows for greater interaction between colleagues , so that students learn through listening and speaking or even trying to teach others

.

Use your imagination - Create stories with them , allow your students to use their creativity traveling in the world of imagination and your participation will be more authentic . Einstein once said " Imagination is more important than knowledge . Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world. "

Use a little technology - digital photography , video recordings and games and quizzes on the internet that can provide practical learning experiences .

Apart from from text books, I have found live projects, games, quiz and even science jokes are also helpful to beak monotony and enhance learning.

Thanks for your responses, all of You!

@Jaya, Hatem, Lala, Colin, Marcel, Mumtaz, Abdalla, Darasingh, Patrick, Nelson, Hemanta: do you know why I have to use music mnemonics? Because they really work.

Do you know how many good and fine Biology students that we have lost? Because they just can't bear the mental stress and exhaustion of memorizing the biochemical pathways? So many. Even my previous Head of Department, a Physics man told me that he gave up learning Biology in K9 :(

THANKS for your responses. Let's wait to see the responses of our other friends.....

Just play with them. I mean to play is to enjoy. No content, no books, less talking from you (the teacher). Let them play, talk, act and interact in a fun, interactive ways. But I'm afraid we, teachers, do not have the luxury to do that. State standards and examinations will force us to open the book and feed/guide them the information.

Dear Elmer, funny advice. Some comments:

- Students are no children, who learn nearly exclusively by playing

- State standards are not invented arbitrary, but base normally on experienced rules in pedagogics

- students and children must experience rules to show the tolerable limits of living together

- children must learm mathematics, writing, language and these jobs are always performed by working.

To be not misunderstood, I plead for teaching appropriated to the learnings age.

Some adults remain children......

Elmer, Hanno, Marcel, do you realize that we still enjoyed learning, even though our teachers did not go out of the way, didn't take extra effort, to make the lesson enjoyable?

Yes, I agree, that lessons that are enjoyable facilitate constructivism...

Are students not more than human resources selected to make constructive, perhaps biased, contributions to a future society? Does education aims to form Darwinian-based individuals knowing everything needing nobody? Some decision-makers might consider education practice as a ‘hard’ selection process aimed to select the ‘best’ students not necessarily being representative for the whole human society. A potential consequence of hard selection is an increase in biology-based mismatch between professors and students potentially also increasing education inefficiency. Hard selected leaders of which decisions are not clearly understood by the human population might not be able to mentally or emotionally capture difficulties many students or citizens perceive.

Bias in education or educator profiles might be lowered with ‘soft’ learning processes. Nature’s complexity is such that each individual living being has a unique biology-based background influencing biology-based skills. Some students are faster than others. Students evidently also differ in personality profiles perhaps requiring different education approaches to remain efficient. Soft education practice might allow students to learn with trial and error also taking biology-based developmental processes or other individual biology characteristics into account. Efficient education gives a maximum number of students a chance to develop skills ultimately to make constructive contributions to the human society. Individuals that do not master all knowledge need education support ultimately favoring collaboration and social integration.

Give people the time to learn, as in real life!

@Marcel, you are right about giving students time. Actually I did the pre university studies in 2 years. But in this college, they must finish in 1 year. Sometimes, I think that the 2 years gave me time to be more mature before I got into varsity. We do have a 2 year program, but it's not popular. The students think that it's better to finish studying, and get a job.

But I have about 20 % students who are likely to be life long learners.

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Dear Miranda, the time shortening causes left in- right out. You must apply your new knowledges, must sleep a night, ask again, repeat etc. You know all these techniques. But they need time and a little bit patience. So convince your students not to hurry to much.

Students should be encouraged to think more and more

And therefore should not blindly copy what professors tell them....

Course content should be according to market requirement

There is a dire need to develop analytic approach of the students by assigning them review and comparative literature reading

Student should be

engaged in experiments and practical according to requirement

If possible teachers should provide relevant material to students for reading

Equal importance should be given to all students

If teacher have experience of any foreign training or tour exposure,must share with students to develop their interest and curiosity

As a media teacher,i always try to encourage students and share my production ,coverage and shooting experience in twice visit in Malaysia

Teachers should show material for screening purposes

@ Marcel, I support the "soft" part of teaching. Even reading your explanation here. I think that is how we handle our clients (students), less pressure, allowing more time for them. If you can, then push them hard but sometimes education should and can wait.

@ Hanno, yes I agree to give to our clients(students) what is appropriate to them.

@Hanno, Hatem, Marcel, Mian: Yes, students shouldn't hurry (Hanno), 'think' more (Hatem), and don't just 'blindly copy' (Marcel); and 'develop their interest and curiosity' (Mian). Thanks for these ideas. I will remind my students and myself about all the advice that you have all provided.

@Mian, so you have visited my country twice! How do you like it?

Friends, this year is the Visit Msia Year', if you can spare the time to visit...

We might want them tp be slow and thoughtful but if the external drivers, cost, assessment etc send them the opposite message then that is what they will believe and do. Since assessment and politics often drives the way our students see their education, we must do what we can to 'value' thoughtfulness and creativity in our assessment. It is one reason why I avoid tests since they are too often limited to short response superficial answers. Give the students 'tasks' that they can collaborate on the 'do the best possible job of' and define the best job as the most thoughtful, and make it evident in the success criteria.

Dear Mark, and your "tasks" need the time I´m pleading for.

Dear Hanno, grab the time you need, don't wait for managers or politicians to give permission to do so in the absence of official 'laws' or 'rules'. As Grace Hopper, one of the few female top-class computer experts on the world, once said: "I just did it, afterwards I apologized for any inconvenience." Nobody will thank you afterwards for complying with any 'laws' or 'rules' ...

Thanks Paul for your encouraging. I personally have the time, the students need it, if they want!

Teach them how to teach, and then allow them to practice teaching. I don't mean "create little _______ teachers" who love your subject as much as you do (i.e. "I want them to have a love of reading, etc.) No, I mean, ask yourself: what is it that gives you the spark and a jolt at the prospect of "teaching students'? If you are not conscious of this, now is the time learn about yourself, and to pass this on -- but you can't "tell" them -- the trick is, you have to show them. One might start with modeling a passion for "curiosity", or "listening". Structuring a leaning experience around something essential like this is worth more than a mountain of content.

@Mark, Hanno, Paul: thanks for your answers.

Paul, this is interesting: 'I just did it, afterwards I apologized for any inconvenience." Nobody will thank you afterwards for complying with any 'laws' or 'rules' ...'

What you have suggested may be good advice. I will take it up and see MUCH faster how things move :)

@Jonathan: thanks for this idea, 'Structuring a leaning experience around something essential like this is worth more than a mountain of content.'

Friends, The good ideas you suggested are to be tried out in practice...will get back, when I've tried out these ideas...

I allowed PhD students to guide Master students. With practice they can ultimately teach better without taking too much risk because there is at least one experienced person that can adjust if necessary.... It also improves Research Director - PhD student relationships, because the PhD students are confronted with the same situation, that is they are directly confronted with a teacher - student relationship..

@Marcel and Patrick, good idea, nothing like putting the PhD student into the shoes of the Supervisor :))

@Patrick, my sympathies. In general, ladies are perhaps more sensitive to workload than men.

By the way (@Marcel), I have yet to come across a French man who is so proficient at English! Most of the Europeans are bilingual, and so English is a second language, right? It's the Americans who usually speak English, just that? But then I can't generalize.

Now, with Mr Google, we are all multi-lingual, and if we make mistakes; it's Google that did it?

@Patrick, how many languages do you speak?

Hierarchical guidance from" top to bottom" at each position is my personal and very well accepted experience too.

OK, from more experience to less experience, but then again this is scale dependent.

It can happen that a student has more experience with a given topic A than a professor.... The professor should then be able to accept this and listen to the student.

Some more arguments:

1) Individuals practicing philosophy or science are thus confronted with bias in individual perception and reasoning related to biology-based constraints and the rising tide of the information (data, methods, literature) deluge in a continuously changing world. Individuals might therefore be perceived by others as ‘expert’, ‘generalist’, ‘competent’ or ‘incompetent’ for at least one human-defined scale of analysis.

2) Why are highly qualified decision-makers criticized when exposed to a human population representing different education backgrounds? Perhaps the homogenized local education environment from the past does not take into account the highly spatio-temporal dynamics of the environment at the time of decision-making and career development.

Diversity in schools of thinking: are professors always right?

If a school of thinking is considered to be important, why does it represent only a tiny fraction of the thoughts produced at the science community level? If there is only one correct answer to explain a phenomenon, why do different schools of thinking not always promote the same explanation for the same phenomenon? Different schools also do not always promote the same methods to solve the same science problems. Professors and students from school ‘A’ might think problem ‘A’ can be solved using approach ‘A’, whereas professors and students from school ‘B’ might be convinced that approach ‘B’ is more appropriate to solve problem ‘A’. Perhaps this might be the case when scales of analysis or perception are changed, but then it would imply that different scales of analysis were not always clearly defined at the time the schools were founded.

It´s a little bit easier in natural sciences, we have no "schools" with the fundamentals, schools arrive only in the higher states.

But 'schools' might perhaps also be translated by 'science disciplines'.

Let's try following translation:

Why do different science disciplines not always promote the same explanation for the same phenomenon? Different science disciplines also do not always promote the same methods to solve the same science problems. Professors and students from discipline ‘A’ might think problem ‘A’ can be solved using approach ‘A’, whereas professors and students from discipline ‘B’ might be convinced that approach ‘B’ is more appropriate to solve problem ‘A’. Perhaps this might be the case when scales of analysis or perception are changed, but then it would imply that different scales of analysis were not always clearly defined at the time the science disciplines were founded......

And to take an example I used before (school = science discipline):

A single phenomenon may be influenced by a chain reaction that involves numerous factors that determine its final expression. Specialists from different research domains may identify different causes for the same phenomenon depending on what aspect of the chain reaction is studied. A conspecific song 'S' at spot 'A' may attract a bird 'B' to spot 'A'. Song 'S' causes bird movement towards spot 'A'. A specialist in Neurobiology may think that it is the perception of the song that caused the bird to move. A specialist in Anatomy could propose that the bird moved because it has functional wings or legs. A specialist in Psychology might propose that it is the feeling caused by the perception of the song that caused the bird to move towards spot ‘A’. A specialist in Geography might think that it is the position of the song at spot ‘A’ that caused the direction of bird movement, etc. Thus, a phenomenon might result from a cocktail of causal factors or processes that evidently occurred at different moments and places in the past, accessible or not accessible to human observers. All these aspects can be studied from a ‘proximate’, ‘evolutionary’, ‘ontogenetic’ or ‘historical’ point of view, so ‘cause’ (and ‘consequence’) might also be defined at different scales of analysis!

Marcel, I agree with your redifinition of "schools" and the examples and consequences. To solve this real problem you have to build cooperative scientific groups with a scientific coordinator. We have a question here in RG.

If I am understanding correctly, I believe you are asking me to consider enjoyment along a continuum from mild, I could speculate, to more intense enjoyment. Well, dependent on student temperament, maturity, respect for the content knowledge, and the relationship with the instructor, experiences of enjoyment may vary widely among students. I believe that my genuine interest and enjoyment of learning typically has a positive effect on the majority of my students. However, enjoyment can be reduced significantly depending on the student's ability to manage stress (again relates back to temperament and maturity). Further, I primarily teach graduate students who by virtue of having chosen to extend their formal education demonstrate some degree of joy about learning that generally exceeds the average-level of enjoyment reported by my undergraduate students. In terms of design, I rely heavily on sharing what I am enthused about learning and ask the students to do the same with me by sharing their interests. I also use cooperative-learning groups.

@Hanno, Marcel, Patrick and Nola: thanks for your responses.

Nola: Thanks. You say, 'dependent on student temperament, maturity, respect for the content knowledge, and the relationship with the instructor, experiences of enjoyment may vary widely among students. I believe that my genuine interest and enjoyment of learning typically has a positive effect on the majority of my students. However, enjoyment can be reduced significantly depending on the student's ability to manage stress'

Thanks all of you and sorry for late reply. I believe that we are now concerned about the affective component in learning, at least in my college. My present research in motivation reflects this. Nola, do tell me about how your CL classes are doing, ok? Thanks :)

Miranda: I appreciate your reply. The cooperative learning groups are going quite well. After I do an informal assessment by having the students participate in a general group discussion, I use several approaches to grouping students so that they interact with different people in the class and not just the group in which they tend to cluster. Guidance varies from: "Here is a topic, as a group you decide how to approach it and consider alternatives." -to- "Here is a question, here is background information. In your group, share your response to the question and how you approached answering it." For the more structured group, the discussion might occur in class with a limited amount of time, following an introductory lecture, reading or video. I have also used role-play because I teach clinical classes in speech-language pathology and students need to know how to interview parents and children.

Thanks Nola. This whole semester, I also carried out CL, paying close attention to the 5 elements of the Johnsons, the proponents of CL. It's working well, as it did last year :)

Article Facilitating Cooperative Learning Among Matriculation Biology Students

Yes, I have a copy of your paper and am reviewing it. I downloaded it from your page. It looks very interesting. We will see if our terminology is similar. My intro came from PET (Preparing Effective Teachers)--a training that occurred many years ago; Teacher-Scholar-Researcher workshop for teaching in Higher Education at another institution, and, more recently GIFTS (Global Inquiry Faculty Teaching).

Teaching is always more successful (satisfying to all concerned) if the students want to 'be there'. they need to be technically capable of reading and writing well as well as possessing the courage to ask questions (not just good questions). It seems that many arrive at the 'teacher's door' being asked to 'run' before they are able to 'walk'....a great deal of prior learning, preparation, has not been accomplished. This means that young people are frequently asked to do what they can not.. but, we've talked about this all before. So how do we fix that?

I guess the best fix for "underprepared students" is to teach and teach well. Beyond this, students have a responsibility to the learning community, starting first with themselves.

The best fix would be if the teachers in primary and secondary schools were more able to inspire their students more with lessons and content that addressed the acquisition of those skills necessary for learning. .reading and writing, history, music, science, art, math, geography etc...in a way that was enjoyable and meaningful preparation for the future. That said, perhaps, students would arrive at tertiary level actually prepared. and it does help if the process was thoroughly a two-way process...not just teachers handing out doses of curricula. Students do have a responsibility to the learning community and to themselves and their community.

Thanks for your views.

@Nola and Jean: I agree concerning. 'Students do have a responsibility to the learning community and to themselves and their community.' They have to be in class with the right frame of mind for constructivism of new learning. But only the good ones come prepared; they have read up before the class.

Nola, you say 'the best fix for "underprepared students" is to teach and teach well'. But these under prepared students don't perform well. They seem to think they can just study passively, by memorizing, before exams. They didn't get engaged with the lesson, or internalize the critical thinking skills. Can we ever get the under prepared students to begin preparing?

@ Miranda : "Can we ever get the under prepared students to begin preparing?" Interesting follow-up question to initial question. My (hypothetical) answer: "No, not generally." Let me explain in detail.

You may have some success in getting one or two completely unprepared students to start preparing, or to motivate some halfheartedly preparing students to increase their efforts. But generally speaking, there is no silver bullit here. How could it be? Students, courses, families and other contextual features - all of them are too diverse (to expect, a single approach or mind-set would get all students well-prepared). You can only make here statistical predictions about the relative effectiveness or success of particular strategies of intervention: if it doesn't work with this student or class, it may have nothing to do with the intrinsic potential of this method, you may just have bad luck with the actual sample of students you are teaching now. What will work here and now you can only find out by trial and error.

Also, there are so much distractions, contingencies, you - as a teacher - doesn't know of, unless you would kindly ask and get an honest answer (or not, because you may be intruding in the personal sphere of the student, and he or she doesn't like to share the actual reasons with you). Also, generally, you wouldn't have the time to engage so personally with each and every student, unless you have only one class at a time and this class is really small (< 10).

Furthermore, think of the many competing (educational) challenges on students: from up to 8 courses they have to follow in a semester, they really like maybe just a single course, and they will be motivated and prepared for this course only. For instance, I remember clearly, that I wasn't fond of learning by rote the very long list (spread over some 80 pages if my memory is not fooling me) of irregular verbs in Classical Greek (even though I had chosen that type of secondary school). It took a while before I acknowledged that without that knowledge I would stay on a rather low level of performance. Only then I gave myself a kick and start ... preparing, several weeks on a row. And I succeeded. But it wasn't the teacher who motivated me (he just punished me by giving bad marks). His compliment came ... afterwards, when the work was already done.

Conversely, there may even be one or two courses which according to this student isn't really something he or she has to know to become a good . For example, many students of psychology come to university with a completely false conception of what psychology is or what psychologists can do. Then, of course, they are fully flabbergasted, when they have to follow one or two courses on applied statistics right at the beginning of their study.

Talking about psychology and statistics is a good moment to point at the following methodical dilemma of applied psychology (including educational practice), also relevant here. Psychologists have long ago given up to explain or predict the attitudes, competencies and skills of individual subjects with certainty and without error (which would be some sort of determinism). It is an impossible, dangerous and arrogant claim, to pretend otherwise. Yes, of course, there is such a thing as psychometrics, i.e. psychological measurement, e.g. by so-called testing, but the results will always (!) have a statistical character including measurement errors, degrees of reliability and validity, and all that stuff. All the models in psychology I am aware of have this character of generalized statements, applicable on the level of certain sub-populations with certain characteristics. That's the deep reason why asking for fool-proof teaching or learning methods is IMHO meaningless and pointless.

Hello Paul,

I fully agree with your opinion. Therefore, recent teaching approaches allow students to select their own course packages reflecting what they would really like to follow. This would also imply that university certificates become individual-specific, some receiving a certificate for one course/discipline, perhaps with an outstanding score (e.g. specialist strategy) versus others receiving a certificate for 10 courses/disciplines, perhaps with averages scores (e.g. generalist strategy).

Anyway, the content of what is learned today might be perceived as old fashioned 20 years later when people are still active in professional life.

Paul, you are Amazing!!! You know my students inside out!

But this weekend, my students who failed the mid semester test have to study at my cubicle on Saturday morning. Call it whatever we like, detention, etc, they have to be here...for the sake of their conscience and mine.

Hello Marcel, Yes, I have heard/read of it, I think this is an excellent idea, but it is completely against the main stream of educational policy and politics. Isn't that remarkable?

Hi Miranda, I wish you, and your students, good luck on Saturday,. they will afore you for having got this chance ... after some more years ;-)

Yes Paul, Marcel, et al.,

I do seem to bump into previous students at the bank, supermarket, wet market, jogging track; waterfall area, picnic area and all kinds of places :)

Thanks all of you for being on this thread, for support and encouragement; for expanding my ideas. I can't do it without YOU ALL :)))

:>)

Jean,

please translate in words to reduce inter-individual variation in interpretation!

Cheers

ha ha. Wonderful puns...It is a smile...Miranda is always cheerful. I think that sometimes she is carefully giving us a tutorial..a very good person.

:>)))

Dear Jean and friends, I think at times it's the sorrowful events especially in my childhood that taught me to be more humble and caring. Truth and love must go together. Still learning every day from all of YOU.

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