Busy weekend of grading...and a walk to Meilan Lake

Yesterday we walked to the campus for some take-away Cold Pot.  Walking home we saw a cart piled high with stuff.  We are frequently amazed at the things that people haul on their little carts or scooters.  So here is one example for you to see.

Before the sun set, we felt we needed to pull away from work and take another neighborhood walk.  This time we walked leisurely along the Ma Lu (river) and then extended a bit further to walk to Meilan Lake (near our nearest Metro station.  Our health app says we walked just over 4 miles.  It was nice, as I hope the photos can show, and the temperatures and gentle breezes were wonderful.

Whiteboard reminders and after school rewards.

Today was the 2nd Embedded Systems Technology (EST) exam.  We came into the classroom thinking we were ready, and Rod had planned a short review before splitting the class in half and having them take the exam in 2 classrooms.  But, I suddenly noticed that one student's data sheet (that Rod had handed out the day before and that they needed to use during the exam), had some extra hand-written notes on it.  A few other students had notes on theirs also!  Some students forgot to bring their data sheet to the exam.  That meant we needed to quickly print fresh, clean copies to make it fair for all students.  But alas, the office with the printer, was locked!  Fortunately there is a student class monitor.  He and his classmate offered to take one clean copy and find another printer nearby to quickly make photocopies.  While they did that, Rod proceeded to briefly review.  Copies soon arrived, and the class was split so half went with Rod to the room next door.  All the desks were cleared of notes and exams were handed out.  Whew!  Quick thinking and flexibility are essential.  :)

Before ending the class period, Rod wrote reminders on the whiteboard so the students would be prepared for classes next week, especially for a special lab on Monday and the EST final exam on Wednesday.

Well, after a "4-day" week of classes, we feel tired and in need of a walk and maybe a treat.  We enjoyed our walk very much and we also enjoyed sharing a hot fudge sundae at KFC.  Rod is getting better and better at ordering in Chinese!

Art, Flora, and Sports on the campus

When we leave the main building with classrooms, we cross a courtyard to go to the school cafeteria for lunch or to buy food or fruit or drinks or supplies in the small shops along the side of the cafeteria.  Immediately as you leave the main building, you can sometimes see displays or artwork.  On this day we saw some interesting drawings, some possibly like advertisement fliers.

There is also natural artwork, painted by God--
flowers!  Here are some blooming that I have also seen in my home state of Washington.  The pink one is an azalea.
We have also seen magnolia trees outside our hotel, which are also planted near CBU in Riverside.




And while Rod was working on an exam at his computer, I went outside for a break and walked around the school track.  Low and behold, I saw some of our students "shooting hoops".

Sharing Lilian's office

It is great to have colleagues and friends here and also to experience the culture together.  Here you see Rod and Dr. D. having a discussion.  You also see Darla and Jean.  Lilian has been so helpful to all of us, and while sharing her office with the professors, she also has students pop in for help or counseling.  Her compassion and wisdom in working with these students is so admirable!

Monday classes...sometimes more tired students...

Students sleeping in class have been a big and an ongoing problem.  Jean has tried walking around the classroom, gently tapping students on the shoulder to awaken them, but some are so very tired they just put their heads down on their desks and are pretty much "out for the count".  So, in one of the photos posted here, you can see Rod actively lecturing and writing on the whiteboard, and yet two students in the front row are asleep.

Another challenge is the varying levels of English among the students.  It is not always easy to tell just how little they are comprehending in a lecture.  Reading English is better for them but listening to native speakers or audio recordings and answering questions is very challenging.  And standing up to speak is very difficult.  One photo shows one of our students with his laptop on his desk--it has Rod's technical notes in English on one side and translated into Chinese on the other side of his screen. That helps him understand the notes but doesn't help him expand his English skills as much.

Dr. D. & Darla are now in our hotel!

Rod's dean came to teach the final 2 weeks of the Oral English class.  Dr. D. will change the focus and will be teaching how to give a technical presentation.  This is a wonderful time for him to get better acquainted with the students and observe ways to improve this "exchange" program for the future.  It also reduces Rod's focus to his embedded systems technical course for the final 2 weeks.  As we approach the end of our teaching time here, some grading has accumulated and final exams and final grades need to be completed very soon!

The day before was a very rainy day, so the blue skies in these photos are even more special plus the air is much cleaner after the rains.

Friday Adventures.

Today we tried yet another food option and also revisited our new Ma River walk.  The closest KFC is just about 15 minutes walk up the street our hotel faces on.  There is also a 2 or 3 story grocery-department store above the KFC.  Well, around the corner from KFC are 2 local food eating places.  We looked into one of them and a waitress immediately urged us to enter and be seated.  We had not yet decided to eat there and were a bit hesitant.  She handed us a menu in Chinese which we could not read. Rod told her that and she handed us a menu in English.  Even that was not self-explanatory.  But we decided to jump into a new experience and were seated.  We took casual note of what others were eating but failed to notice that all had "soup" on their table.  Fortunately, another customer seated near us, Yvonne, overheard us struggling to communicate and order with our waitress.  Yvonne, is Chinese but later told us she spent a year in Chicago.  Her English was very good, and an extra plus was that she had worked as a waitress.  So Yvonne, took pencil and menu in hand and mediated between our wishes and what was offered and we got our order placed.  The restaurant is a hotpot restaurant, which means all meals center around a hotplate (or 2) in the center of each table which has hot water boiling away with a soup base of your choice.  Then you select the meats and veggies you want to put into your boiling pot.  They also have little garnishes to choose from to sprinkle over your rice and cooked items.  We chose minced garlic, cilantro, thin rounds of red chili peppers, a peanut-flavored sauce, and green onions.  We opted for veggies in our hotpot which included potato slices, cabbage leaves, more cilantro, chunks of tofu, tomato pieces, and some onion.  As the pot boils and the veggies are soft, you select them and place them over your bowl of rice.  It was very nice and the broth in the pot only improves as it boils down.  So it was a fun food adventure...like unto what we enjoyed with Rod's colleagues years ago at SP in Singapore.

Thursday Oral English class and a surprise birthday cake for a student.

Thursday was a full day with the Oral English Exam part A first thing in the morning.  Then the rest of the class period we covered the remaining unit in our English textbook.  It was an interesting reading section about "Brat Camp" and how some teenagers headed for trouble in their personal lives, were sent to a rigorous training camp in the wilderness to develop some personal discipline and break away from some old habits.  This reading introduced some challenging English words, so you will see some English words and also Chinese words beside them, to make sure the class understood these words. Right after class, we walked to the cafeteria to have lunch.    


Over lunch, one student joined us and asked if the class could have a short, surprise birthday event at the beginning of Embedded Systems Technology class.  That was OK with us and more importantly Lilian gave permission with some qualifications.  It was a surprise and the class sang "Happy Birthday" to their classmate, then took the cake away to eat after class.  Rod then got right into his EST class.  Last class of the day and week can make for sleepy, distracted students.  This Thursday was no different.  But Rod has learned that requiring the students to take notes and turn them in for a grade, motivates them to be more engaged with the material.

After class and after we returned to our hotel room, we enjoyed taking a neighborhood walk and discovered a new, path that followed a river.  It was a delightful discovery.  We have really enjoyed our evening walks here!

New food adventures--BBQ across from the college!

Tuesday after classes, Lilian showed us some other food options right across from the college.  We could not have ordered without her help.  First was a bbq place with an impressive bbq on the edge of the sidewalk.  They also had live crayfish ready to cook!  We ordered some skewered bbq'd meat and roasted eggplant.  Then down a few more shops we found a "mom and pop" eatery where we ordered some steamed rice and a minced pork and roasted chili pepper topping.  Fun times!

Reviewing for Oral English Exam the 8th

The Oral English class will be taught the final 2 weeks by Rod's Dean of the College of Engineering, Dr. D.  So this is our final week to teach Oral English.  We felt the students needed some encouragement to review some of the grammar and especially the stories and vocabulary we have covered in 5 weeks.  Jean is shown at the whiteboard in the photos below.  We played some audio files the students had heard before, and then had students tell us what details they caught while listening--names of people, places, what they did, details about their families, etc.  As students answered, Jean wrote on the whiteboard.  We also listed grammar topics and which units discussed those.  We chose to review in this way as we have not really seen students take personal initiative to take notes in class.

 

Lab 3...Thursday morning after an Oral English test.

I have not mentioned how we conduct tests here.  Forty students sitting at tables of 4 is pretty tight and too tempting to glance at your neighbor's work.  So, Rod and I divide the class into 2 groups of 20 and he takes 20 into the room next door and has them spread out with 2 empty chairs between each student.  I do the same with 20 in our regular classroom.  That has worked out well.

Well, the lab room is only available before lunch on Thursdays.  So, right after the students finished their Oral English unit test, Rod led them in a short Lab debrief and then moved all 40 students into the lab.  It is also a pretty tight room, and a rather warm room, too.  I don't think they have air conditioning in the lab--just ceiling fans and open windows.

The students really seem to come alive for lab...so much so that it is very difficult to answer all their questions as they begin to connect parts and start up their software to begin their lab.  It also seems that the students are not so accustomed to getting their own hands fully into the work.  Possibly their lab teacher helps hook things up for them, to expedite things.  But Rod urges the teams of 2 to work together, and even has the partners switch places midway so both students get directly involved placing wires, making adjustments, recording results, etc. Rod also tries to encourage them to not be discouraged if things don't immediately work perfectly.  Trouble-shooting is a key skill for any engineer or technician.  So, here are a few photos to show students in action.

The student up against the chalkboard with the white shirt is a very diligent student and is a big help setting things up and tearing them down in the lab!

Notice the square waves!

After all our classes were done for the day, we felt a relief to have our "weekend" begin, since we don't teach classes on Fridays. (We grade papers and do lesson preps on Friday, but can mostly work from our hotel room.)  

Getting ready for Lab 3.

After a holiday we found the students to be more tired than usual.  Rod felt they needed another day to be ready for his 3rd lab.  And before he could prepare the students, he needed to check out the equipment here to make sure it was working properly.  So, he hooked up the oscilloscope and connected his PSoc 1 board to see if HE could produce the square waves he wanted the students to see in lab.  Voila!  It worked.  So here he is at work in the shared office space.  Please notice the various labels in Chinese!  No, his Chinese is not that good to be able to read those. ;)

Rod also wanted to try to figure out a way to determine a basic lab that all 40 students could do and then an extra component to stretch and motivate the stronger students. This idea proved to be an improvement.  To be discussed in the next post.

Day 2 of our Trip to Hangzhou

This was our day to go visit the Xixi (pronounced sheshe) Wetlands.  This required hiring a taxi and was a 30-minute drive through Hangzhou.  This time we were to travel along the Xixi River and again we got to ride on some special boats.  The River winds in a circle with waterways through the middle going North and South and East and West.  It also had an island area where we docked and ate and saw some actual dragon boats practicing for races the next day.  We also stumbled onto some special Chinese Opera.  The wait to get onto our first boat was nearly 45 minutes.  Once again it was a very hot, muggy day.  But we thoroughly enjoyed being out on the boats.

Catching our final boat back to the entrance took longer than Lilian thought and by the time we caught a taxi back to our hotel, we hit some pretty bad traffic.  We were starting to get nervous about catching our 4pm train back to Shanghai.  The taxi driver stopped at our hotel long enough for us to pick up our trolley and Rod's guitar at the desk.  Then we hastily headed to the train station.  Although the return tickets were purchased, we did not yet have the tickets in hand.  Lilian tried to book a later train as we were cutting it really close on time, but there were no more seats on any trains from that station leaving that evening!  The taxi driver dropped us off and Lilian dashed off with our passports to collect Rod's and my tickets and Jenny took us to the security checkpoints.  The police would NOT let us go through without our tickets and passports in hand.  Lilian came running and the 4 of us dashed into security, begging to crowd ahead of others to catch our train.  We grabbed our things off the inspection belt and RAN for the train gate.  Rod thinks we ran for nearly 5 full minutes, even down stairs, and then made it to the train about 3 minutes before it departed!!! Whew!  We were so thankful to make that train and head "home" to Shanghai. Lilian booked a taxi to meet us at the Shanghai train station to drive us back to our hotel near the college campus.  What an exciting end to our Trip to Hangzhou!!!

 

I forgot to mention that another friend of Lilian's, Breanna, joined us for the day at Xixi Wetlands.  Breanna is a native of Hangzhou and was a great guide for us. Jenny and Lilian are in the front 2 seats and Breanna is sitting behind them.