monitor tour to Kagoshima

I didn't write last week because I was on a 'monitor tour' to Kagoshima, Japan ka.

The first time I heard about it, I was wondering what it was and was in fact so excited to learn. Besides, the price was really inexpensive for a 4 days and 3 nights' stay ka.

This was a trip to promote a new route for tourists/ travelers. We were the first tour group to be there and so it was even more special.

How special chai mai ka?

• Greeted at the airport with some little souvenirs.
• Briefed by key people at each of the places we visited.
• Got special offers like having sashimi right from the cutting board plus super special price for fresh tuna sashimi ka.....the huge portion made me able to eat a bit more of my breakfast (and admittedly, despite the delicious taste, I don't think I'd have sashimi for several months from now ka 5555!)
• Accessed some places tour agencies don't normally take us to, like tram control station, fish market to see how auctions were handles and wholesalers prepared their fresh products ka.
• Had on-hands experiences learning how to make sushi from the restaurant's chefs and enjoyed eating our own food!

What I've learned ka:

• Across-sector cooperation was outstanding and will make this new route work smoothly and sustainably.
• Welcoming tourists Japanese style is as always, so touching.
• Little cultural things mean so much to my heart ka....at a shabu restaurant, most of us enjoyed its special sauce so some decided to take the leftover back home. The chef came back with a bottle for each of us, saying that the Japanese tradition wants to offer only the best/the new stuff to their guests ka! So we weren't allowed to bring the leftover ones na ka.
• Monitor tour was inexpensive because it was also a trial for the tour agency to see which places/activities would be most attractive. We had to upload at least one of our pictures on social media every day, permit them to record our views on vdo, and answer their questionnaire daily....something I could really follow very easily ka.

What I was most impressed:

• Loved all the hands-on experiences especially making sushi ka....tea ceremony was great for beginners but I had an exclusive one from my Japanese friend before, so this one was very basic with only a little touch of the philosophy behind the overall ceremony.
• Learned more about the Japanese culture, especially people from the countryside and in another prefecture where not many have visited yet.

Would definitely look for more monitor tours to go in the future ka!

grant/essay writing

Hello everyone ka!

Another activity I did last week was to moderate a session for Fulbright Thailand on 'grant/essay writing', in which about 50 International Relations Officers (IROs)/Ajarns attended.

I had two guests with me, one from OHEC, and the other is Former Senior Education Specialist from the World Bank ka. Both have had extensive direct experiences in reviewing grants and personally having been through essay writing for scholarships.

I've drawn the following from the sessions ka:

Grant proposals

1. Have passion to start with so we can work on it attentively.

2. Know what the funding agencies look for and what our own universities need so both have the common focuses to match.

3. Write in simple and concise/to-the-point language.

4. Since  IROs aren't able to know the technical issues as much as ajarns/faculties, a working group is useful for IROs to help coordinate and gain valuable inputs to complete a good grant proposal. Peer review can also be useful as outsiders' perspectives to improve the proposals.

At the World Bank, she led by having a working group to make sure all relevant issues from different departments (procurement, finance, etc.) were discussed and well-thought out to the extent that she herself would be able to defend the proposal for funding from her bosses.

At the OHEC level when it had cooperation with the EU, OHEC representatives sat down to discuss with the EU side to ensure that the project reflected what OHEC wanted to stress and what mutual benefits would be seen.

I liked it when our WB guest emphasized that IROs must take pride in their proposals, knowing that their work would be contributive to their universities.

Essay Writing for Scholarship

In fact, the basic principles about passion and use of concise language are the same.

It is important that the substance must stand out to reflect one's intention to get a scholarship. Even so, he/she should review carefully not to make many grammatical errors or typos.

The participants were able to have some hands-on experiences discussing proposals Fulbright wrote and received.

It sounded that what was shared was quite simple but many said they weren't that aware and a few said they wished to change the university culture on grant writing and to share these principles with their faculty and students.

Two observations ka:

1. IROs could tend to get stuck with formats  and timeline over the objectives and creativity of the project so this could be another dimension Fulbright may think of future activities to help lessen such a practice.

2. IROs have more important roles than they themselves and their universities realize....if efficient, they are the best bridge for the universities to gain more and stronger partnerships as well as networking to be responsive to the university missions and visions. They also have loads of tacit knowledge to offer, when managed properly and systematically!

Continuous training and capacity building for this group can't be overlooked, nor should they be treated like general facilities 'running errands' like passport and visa or general correspondence.

I didn't stay on for the last workshop but heard that it went well when all got to actually learn to write and get more aware of etiquette and discuss among themselves how to improve it.

Have a nice week ka.

more than just presentations

Hello all kaa!

After my retirement, one thing I've been doing quite a bit is to capture my own learning from my work experience. This week I offered my last session to BICS team (OHEC's Bureau of International Cooperation Strategies) as they need to brief foreign visitors and discuss further cooperation.

For many Thais, giving presentations in English means English language proficiency and my 4 sessions have proved that proficiency with content is the best though we tend to suffer from the former or latter still.

To share what we've done in case some of you may find it helpful for your organizations na ka.

We decided to train the whole team from the most senior to the junior staff, all in the same sessions, to make sure that the younger ones would start early in their careers.

Each session, there were 4-5 presenters and one facilitator. Since BICS is the first door to higher education in Thailand, each group was assigned to give presentations on specific topics they all need to know, from Thailand 4.0, National and Higher Education Plans, to quality assurance and internationalization (IZN).

I only gave a little introduction about presentation tips and discussed more extensively after all the presentations were given. I also stressed for non-presenters to pose at least one question to keep them alert and practice how to ask good questions.

For the last session, I managed to get 6 outsiders to be with us, 4 who know IZN well and 2 who're totally outside the higher education fields.

What did we get out of these 4 sessions?

1. Generations

- More senior ones are experienced with rich content to offer. Yet, several could feel a bit unsure about their English.

- Younger members have high English proficiency with full confidence. While it's an excellent signal , I did emphasize a few times for them to be more aware and more eager to focus on content and the requirements of visitors, from their levels to our own strategies and directions for cooperation ka.

- The cross-generation management must be high on the agenda to ensure one great teamwork ka.

2. Hands-on experience

- Learning by doing is the best for them to draw from their practices.

It was the group members who came up with full steps of what to stress and how to deliver fine presentations that are responsive to both the host and the guests ka.

They also brainstormed to identify topics for training and got to think of how to move forward.

It's them to reflect if and how they've changed at all after the 4 sessions. Some didn't quite get it yet but many others expressed how their attitude and their views were influenced by the training.

The results were beautifully made by them!

3. Volunteerism

Guests who joined in the sessions were present to contribute their comments on their sole volunteer spirit. I couldn't be happier to get such great cooperation and to learn from their perspectives ka.

I told the Fulbright team yesterday that I feel grateful to Fulbright for nurturing increased spirit of volunteerism in me too ka!

Happy weekend na ka.

Visakhabucha and caring

Happy Visakhabucha Day!  

What I was thinking of sharing fits well with today ka.

Recently, as my niece was trying on her brand new car’s “auto parking” function, the auto wasn’t smart enough and it hit a parked car ka.

She was about to go to see a movie and her junior friends told her not to do anything as the driver wouldn’t know who did it. She didn’t listen to them (to my delight!) and wrote a note to post on that car for the driver to call her once he/she came out. My niece came out of the movie theater to meet her and managed the insurance settlement.

When she told us about it, I said I was very proud of her to do so! In fact, she could be a good model for her junior friends too but I didn’t get to tell her.

I also shared what I did several days earlier. At a building escalator, I was walking behind an elderly lady who carried heavy bags and had to sort of balance herself. Since we had to walk past a door to enter the building, I walked a bit faster to open the door and wait for her. It made me feel real good to do so (and I have to thank an American lady who showed this kind gesture to me when I was in New York years ago too….when I was still young carrying very few stuff ka!)

Then, my sister-in-law said what she did early that day could count too. She was sitting on a sofa with an overweight lady. When the lady was about to get out of the seat, my sister-in-law who is a very small lady got up first to offer her arm to that lady. Both laughed and the lady took the offer ka.

After we shared the stories, I said ‘We are in บ้านความดี (House of Virtue)!

We shared not to boast what we’ve done, but we shared to feel good about what should be done and it further boosts our desire to do more ka!

May we all have increased inner peace and joy to offer namjai (caring) to others whenever we can na ka!

STEM Ed

I attended an international congress on education, organized by SEAMEO and our Ministry of Education yesterday and learned quite a bit from the afternoon sessions ka.

A session on inclusiveness saw Unesco promote equity over equality to reduce education gaps and its focus on flexible, personalized, and tailor-made education responding to the contexts.

I was quite impressed with Vietnam ka. Efforts have been made for elementary school children to have an exciting first day at school with balloons for them and their parent(s) present.

They are quite proud of the PISA results that were better than OECD members and several countries, Thailand included, also mentioned the importance of PISA. We can more or less use it as a benchmark but may need to review the big picture, which is much more important for us to develop further.

For VN's curriculum innovation, they emphasize on key values like work hard, learn hard, love people and country, honesty, and responsibility. Immediately I thought of our own country ka. Somehow I'm not sure if we've stressed enough the working hard and love people part ka. The sabai culture is far too strong and the nepotism is held tight.

VN views the open labor market in ASEAN as a two-way street for their graduates and people to go out or stay in so the English language is priority. 

On STEM Education, Dr. Masami Isoda from Tsukuba University and Math Professor pointed out the historical development of Math in 4 waves, i.e. Geometrical mechanism, algebraic language, Internet/IOT, and Singularity (AI, stats and probability). The following talks were aligned with this one to conclude that 'STEM Literacy is important for the 21st century.'

Dr. Bundit Thipakorn gave a short yet inspiring talk, relating it to Thailand 4.0 to connect the Thais with the current trend. He stated that there was a need for a new ecosystem to make STEM Education work. IOT must mean, Internet of EVERYthing'. Life long learning must be an integral part as well.

For Thailand, Deputy Director of Institute for the Promotion of Teaching Science and Technology (IPST) shared with the meeting its efforts to cascade actions at all levels from the national policies formulated. I liked the public and private partnership, which has yet to be strengthened to ensure sustainability of the projects.

The last speaker was from SEAMEO Regional Language Center, talking about its cooperation with Thailand to train science teachers how to teach the subjects in English plus teaching methodologies for effective communication. It's very helpful to maximize the regional resources and to promote to use of English as part of our ASEAN integration.  

Still think of an article I shared earlier how liberal arts students/graduates will be more needed in 5-10 years' time, not now. Think of the soft side with the touch of hearts and our capability to be creative and innovate! Think of living a life with a meaningful purpose!

Challenges are being tackled and all need to be linked and connected as one same picture to ensure favorable learning outcomes of our students and for them to be self-motivated for life-long learning! Whose responsibilities and how to put all the jigsaw puzzles together ka?