{"id":12962,"date":"2023-11-08T10:11:15","date_gmt":"2023-11-08T17:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lbccviking.com\/?p=12962"},"modified":"2023-11-08T10:11:16","modified_gmt":"2023-11-08T17:11:16","slug":"tattoos-and-teaching-techniques-new-psychology-department-professor-had-students-create-a-design-for-his-most-recent-ink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbccviking.com\/?p=12962","title":{"rendered":"Tattoos and teaching techniques: new psychology department professor had students create a design for his most recent ink"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When designing a tattoo, people put their trust in a skilled artist or trusted friend. Not everyone would put their trust in a group of first year college students.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is exactly what assistant psychology professor Edward Chen did during his first year as a professor, collaborating with his students to create a piece of art that will forever be memorialized in skin and ink.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was my first semester as an adjunct professor at (Orange Coast College), and one girl in my class came up to me on the first day and asked \u2018hey, can you be the adviser for our club?\u2019\u201d Chen said when beginning his story behind the tattoo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The club was for those with an interest in developing user interface and user experience (shortened to UI\/UX) aspects of websites and applications and interested in learning about design outside of a UX design class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was surprised they wanted me to be their adviser, but I said yes obviously. So I became their adviser while I was co-advising another club for honors psychology students,\u201d Chen said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ann Tran, the club president during the 2022 fall and 2023 spring semesters, was the one to ask Chen to be their new adviser.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI had emailed all the computer science professors to be our adviser, but they either were too busy or already advising another club. So I asked all my professors and the first one to say yes was professor Chen,\u201d Tran said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tran and another club member, Andrea Santos, began work on a project for their college\u2019s annual student project and research symposium with Chen as their project adviser. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe helped us a lot. We were also in his research class so we got the chance to practice our presentation before the actual symposium,\u201d Tran said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Combining their knowledge of user interface and design as well as Tran\u2019s experience as a psychology student and Santos\u2019 interest in graphic design, the pair designed an app meant to help students regulate and maintain a study schedule that works best for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project was a proposal for the design and layout of the application called StudySesh, using methods they learned in their club activities as well as psychology and population research methods encouraged by Chen.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur project was based on helping students manage their studying habits and I guess just like the psychology of learning, he was a very hands-on adviser, we would meet every two weeks and talk about what we needed for the project and he helped us with our research\u201d Santos said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI also enjoyed his class because he would take the time to go over special topics that weren\u2019t covered in the textbook, like ADHD, which I really appreciated since I have ADHD,\u201d Santos said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the pair presented their project at the 2023 symposium in April, they received second place in the oral presentation category and a $200 check. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Proud of his students\u2019 work, Chen asked Tran, Santos, and some members of the club board if they would like to design a tattoo to commemorate his time with them at OCC, knowing he would be leaving for his new job at LBCC come the 2023 fall semester.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was really surprised that he wanted to get a tattoo to remember us. It was really sweet when he asked,\u201d Santos \u2013 who designed the final version of the tattoo Chen would get, said. \u201cWe all got together to brainstorm ideas for his tattoo, we were all hanging out one day after a club meeting at this STEM center event they had on campus.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chen and his students eventually decided on a tattoo of Snoopy, a character from the <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeanuts\u201d comic and show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe has this catchphrase he said at the end of every class that was \u2018do good science, be good people\u2019 and I thought it would be a good idea to incorporate that in the tattoo design. I thought of my best friend too, who designs really sick tattoos and has done a bunch of Snoopy and Charlie Brown tattoos for people before,\u201d Santos said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Santos\u2019 friend, Alex Purcer (cruncheycore on Instagram), was the one who ultimately tattooed Santos\u2019 design on Chen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI love Snoopy and I think he\u2019s super cute, so I thought it would be a really cute idea to have Snoopy with a bunch of books and glass to represent (Chen),with him saying \u2018do good science, be good people\u2019 in a little bubble,\u201d Santos said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Professor Edward Chen in costume for Halloween. Here he is flexing his arm while showing off the tattoo that got designed by his students (Zuri Minor)<\/sub><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The final design of the tattoo was tweaked from the speech bubble design to have the phrase written under a bespectacled Snoopy reading a book, with a pile of three more books next to him.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I tell students to \u2018do good science\u2019 and \u2018be good people\u2019 I just want to remind them to care about ethics and science and people,\u201d Chen said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTo make sure they\u2019re treating their subjects with respect and kindness. I want them to do (research) correctly, because that research could be done in a fashion that does not accurately assess the issue and can lead to misinformation,\u201d said Chen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chen was unsure of why his students all agreed to the design, but was happy to have found a design both he and his students thought was representative of his time as their professor and adviser. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it was because I always wore this one Snoopy hoodie, with the words \u2018majored in cool\u2019 underneath it and it was something that stuck with them as something that was me,\u201d Chen said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMaybe because I liked to read and they said, ‘I’m a huge nerd,\u2019 it fit,\u201d Chen said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The books are also intentionally colored to represent the UI\/UX club Chen advised and OCC, a blue and orange book to match the college\u2019s spirit colors, purple to match the club\u2019s logo and a green book in the same shade as the green used for Tran and Santos\u2019 project logo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the beginning of his graduate program, Chen already knew he wanted to be a teacher. His only issue was he hadn\u2019t decided what education level he wanted to teach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 It was only during his time in his graduate program at UCI, where he taught some classes to undergraduate students, that he realized he wanted to become a college professor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs social scientists, our goal is to improve the human condition. We want to help people, and teaching was how I realized I could help people,\u201d Chen said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prior to starting as an adjunct professor at Orange Coast College, Chen already had three tattoos, both of which he got to commemorate milestones in his life, and wanted to include his students in this tradition by having them design a tattoo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI’ve actually been thinking of continuing the tradition now that I\u2019m (at LBCC). But I might have to reserve it to just one semester per year, otherwise I\u2019d have a lot of tattoos,\u201d Chen said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chen\u2019s passion for teaching stems outside of just wanting his students to learn and succeed. He stressed the importance of getting his students to think critically about the material they learn and challenging their own preconceptions of the sciences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen it comes to social science, (research findings) can be a little more murky. Whenever I tell students about scientific findings I tell them that it\u2019s \u201cas far as we know,\u201d because it could turn out to be disproven or become outdated. Even the textbooks we use at times can be outdated,\u201d Chen said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In particular, Chen was passionate about the inconclusive evidence behind the ideas of learning styles and its application in educational settings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is a lot of talk about learning styles and teaching different styles to optimize student learning. But the research behind it is mostly anecdotal, it lacks the empirical evidence to prove that different learning styles exist or that students succeed by studying using techniques meant for their learning style,\u201d Chen said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLearning styles imply there’s only one method that each student learns best through. Which isn\u2019t the case. A lot of the time it depends on the content and sometimes students have different interpretations of their learning style than others.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThink of it like this. How would you teach someone a dance? It would probably be visual, because even if someone is an auditory learner, listening to someone explain a dance is more difficult than watching them perform it,\u201d said Chen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chen has talked at length to his students about the questionable research behind learning styles, but noted that some of his students have continued to apply the language of learning styles to themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt can be hard teaching nuance to people who are just starting out as scientists. If you believe something wholeheartedly, then it\u2019s difficult to change your mind, even when faced with opposing evidence,\u201d Chen said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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