Author: 大城明緒

DAY 5 for exercise in giving feedback on lectures and summary was held on May 24th and 25th.

Exercise in Giving Feedback on Lectures

In the UTokyo FFP, every participant conducts a 6-min lecture for microteaching sessions. They conduct the lectures not only once; they follow the schedule as shown below:

1. 1. Exercise in giving feedback on the two sample mini-lectures (DAY 5)
2. 2. Conducting the mini-lecture in small groups of 5–6 and exchanging feedback by taking plenty of time (DAY 6)
3. 3. Conducting the mini-lecture once more in groups of 12–13 (DAY 7)

This time, the participants worked on 1. (exercise in giving feedback). This is because it is no use giving feedback without having the viewpoints necessary for feedback. It was also intended to enhance the quality of their mini-lectures. Two participants first conducted their mini-lectures in front of everyone, and the rest of the participants examined them thoroughly.

Preceding the examination of mini-lectures, we conveyed the value of conducting a lecture for the microteaching session (e.g., “There are few opportunities like this.”), the ground rules of 3Ks: be respectful (敬意 Keii) to others, speak without reserve (忌憚なく Kitan naku), and be constructive (建設的 Kensetsuteki), and why they had to acquire viewpoints to design their mini-lectures.

• ・The lecturer-participant gave a mini-lecture. (6 min)
• ・The student-participants filled out their feedback sheets. The lecturer-participant received feedback from the instructor. (3 min)
• ・Participants had a group discussion on what was good about the lecture and what points needed improvement. (12 min)
• ・Participants shared their ideas and had a discussion with everyone. (12 min)

(Sharing ideas took more time than had been scheduled.)

Following the two mini-lectures, participants discussed how to redefine points that were good or needed improvement into metacognitive ones and shared their ideas. This process was intended for acquiring viewpoints on designing their mini-lectures and future classes.

Summary (using the Poster Tour method)

Participants reviewed what they had learned so far by using a method called “Poster Tour.” The objectives of the activity were to experience the “Poster Tour,” one of the active learning strategies, as well as review the whole learning materials.

Participants of both Thursday and Friday classes had already been prepared to work on an assignment together regardless of the combination of group members. Every group created a poster on a given topic in an efficient manner, and every member was able to explain the topic.

The assignment for reflection included examining the advantages and disadvantages of the method compared to the “Gallery Walk,” which they had experienced in the previous class.

The classes made me realize again that you can boost the learning effects of these active learning strategies by letting the learners experience them. It does not necessarily mean that they come to be able to use those strategies immediately, but at least it helps them get the feel of them and use their imagination.

(Kurita)

DAY 4 of the UTokyo FFP on evaluation was held on May 11th and 12th. The main topics were as follows:

• ・Significance of evaluation
• ・Methods and targets of evaluation
• ・Formative evaluation and summative evaluation
• ・Reliability, validity, and efficiency of evaluation
• ・Measures to take after evaluation
• ・Rubrics

In the UTokyo FFP, participants work on exercises in creating rubrics during the session on evaluation, every semester. “Knowing” rubrics and “Being able to create” rubrics are completely different. The exercises are intended to help participants consider the values and limits of rubrics in their own contexts by actually creating one.

It is very difficult to create a rubric from scratch. One of the effective ways to make it easier is to find a rubric with similar learning goals to yours and customize it. As for rubric samples, please refer to the following website:

AAC&U VALUE Rubric (English)
American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) offers what they call “VALUE rubrics.” They are templates of rubrics for various tasks, which you can use and customize. You have to go through the “shopping cart,” but they are available for free download.

Participants created rubrics in groups. And they shared their rubrics with a method called “Gallery Walk,” where they examined others’ rubrics freely. One of the group members remained to explain the rubric they made, and the rest looked around to see the other groups’ rubrics. Another sharing method called “Poster Tour” will be used in the next session, so we would like the participants to contrast it with “Gallery Walk.”

By the way, we are sparing more time for Q&A sessions than in previous semesters. And since participants reflect on what they learned after each session by filling in an online form, and we reply to their questions via documents, we are receiving more questions than before. I’m very happy to receive good questions one after another as the instructor of this course.

The class design is, therefore, modified every class in response to the above interaction, and so we sometimes have to shorten the time for sharing activities in groups by changing them into pair activities, but I believe it is important to keep the class design flexible.

(Kurita)

DAY 3 sessions for the 9th UTokyo FFP were held on April 27th and 28th. The topics were as follows:

• ・The roles of a syllabus
• ・Setting goals and objectives of a syllabus
• ・Course design (creating a graphic syllabus)
• ・Improving a syllabus into one that promotes learning

This book was completed thanks to the cooperation of the alumni of “The University of Tokyo Future Faculty Program” (UTokyo FFP)!

What kind of career path can you envision after entering university, proceeding to graduate school, and completing the doctoral program?

What lies beyond completing the doctoral program is highly uncertain for doctoral students themselves as well as the general public.

This book answers the question through interviews with people in various academic fields. The first half of the book organizes the information on the basic procedure to obtain academic degrees at university and what you should do to prepare for building a career as you wish, while the latter half is a collection of interviews with those who completed their doctoral programs ranging as many as 15 academic fields.

It took nearly two years from the very beginning to complete the book thanks to the UTokyo FFP alumni working hard on the basic arrangement of chapters and conducting interviews. It is the diverse backgrounds of UTokyo FFP alumni that realized conducting interviews with people from such a wide variety of fields.

The book collected what those who are working actively in various fields had in their mind and tried to do while they were in the middle of building their careers.

It is strongly recommended not only for undergraduates and graduate students but also for working adults and high school students.

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