The 9th semester of “The University of Tokyo Future Faculty Program” (UTokyo FFP) started on April 13th (@Hongo) and 14th (@Komaba). It will be held for two consecutive periods every other week, in principle, over S1 and S2 Terms.
The first class focused on creating a collaborative learning environment. The topics were as follows:
- ・Goals, objectives, and ground rules
- ・Icebreaker (Introducing others)
- ・Research presentation (1-min self-introduction) & peer review
- ・Present situation of higher education
- ・Summary of the UTokyo FFP
Every semester begins with almost all the participants meeting each other for the first time, so this time, again, the classes started with a tense atmosphere. We designed the class to make them feel relaxed by starting with asking easy-to-answer questions, then gradually moving on to group activities. Two consecutive periods equal three hours and 10 minutes, but they seemed to be actively involved in the classes. We believe that we were successful in setting a good environment for them.
The research presentation is positioned as part of a self-introduction when conducting a class in the future, which is for conveying the value and charms of one’s research to students within one minute. It is a wonderful session where you can come into contact with various kinds of research briefly. All the presentations are filmed, and the audience fills in a feedback sheet for every presentation. While the participants are preparing their feedback sheets, the instructor gives feedback to the lecturer directly. Their next assignment is to organize and hand in what was good about the presentation, what points need improvement, and what they learned from others.
Since the participants are mixed with graduate students, postdocs, and faculty/staff members, we believe it is important to remove the barriers between them in the first place. To create an environment where participants can learn from each other, we asked them to call each other by “(name)-san” and follow the ground rule 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).
We are glad that our new semester started successfully.
(Kurita)
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