“The 8th Mini-lecture Program by UTokyo Graduate Students” (17:00–19:00) was held at the Seminar Room, 3F, General Library, on Friday, January 27th, 2017.
Kengo Nagasaki and Kenji Shigeno, the instructors gave mini-lectures which were improved through two pre-workshops.
They both incorporated active learning strategies into the lectures to accomplish their learning goals effectively.
There were 15 participants. The total number of participants in the event and pre-workshops is 36.
They had a wide variety of backgrounds from undergraduates to graduates to faculty/staff members to the general public. Thank you for joining our program.
The 2nd pre-workshop of the 8th Mini-lecture Program by UTokyo Graduate Students (14:00–16:00) was held at the Seminar Room, 3F, General Library, on Friday, January 20th, 2017.
Kengo Nagasaki and Kenji Shigeno, the instructors gave mini-lectures that were improved from the previous workshop.
There were seven participants. They lively discussed what the instructors should improve for the coming Mini-lecture Program.
The program will be held at the Seminar Room, 3F, General Library, from 17:00–19:00 on Friday, January 27th, 2017.
It is open to anyone regardless of whether they are affiliated with the University of Tokyo or not.
However, there is a limited number of seats available, so registration from the following URL is recommended. https://webform.adm.u-tokyo.ac.jp/Forms/mlp8/
We invite applications for a Project Researcher on the administration of the UTokyo FFP. The new Project Researcher is scheduled to be appointed in April 2017. The application deadline is February 3rd.
We look forward to the applications from those who are eager to plan various projects and improve education by considering the post as their opportunity to “learn how to teach” by getting involved in the administration of the UTokyo FFP.
Please click here for the application guidelines and details.
The new year has started, and DAY 8, the final session of the UTokyo FFP, was held on January 6th and 12th.
Yello sticky notes are for things about the present and past, blue for the future, and red is for something especially important.Participants shared their progress frequently with their partners while creating their charts. They recognized what they should do by explaining their ideas to them.
This session is for overviewing and reflecting on the participants’ own teaching, research, and other activities, recognizing the philosophy of their activities (i.e., what they consider important in their activities), and setting objectives for their future career by creating a worksheet called “SAP Chart.”
SAP stands for “Structured Academic Portfolio” (Yoshida & Kurita, 2016a). Essentially, an academic portfolio is “a reflective, evidence-based collection of materials that documents teaching, research, and service performance” (Seldin & Miller, 2009). The feature of SAP is that “the description is structured with specific steps and points.” A SAP Chart (Yoshida & Kurita, 2016b) is positioned as a preparatory assignment for creating a SAP, but since it enables the author to reflect on his/her entire activities in a short time (though roughly) and makes it easier to overview the description, it can also be used as a single item. It is a suitable tool for graduate students to envision their career paths and gives them an opportunity to connect what they learned in the UTokyo FFP and their own teaching philosophy. This is why the creation of a SAP Chart is incorporated into the materials in the final session of the program.
Participants were given three and a half hours to create their SAP Charts. They shared their works in pairs at any time and deepened their reflection by explaining their charts and answering questions cast by their partners. They first seemed to be “awkward” in explaining their teaching philosophy and research values to another person, but they gradually got used to it and had a lively discussion with their partners; they could not stop talking even when we announced the closing of the sharing session.
We are relieved that the 8th semester of UTokyo FFP completed the entire classes with earnest participants. The amount of knowledge and skills we can share within a semester is limited, but the value of this program is whether the participants can acquire the attitude to keep thinking about education, and we hope they did.
We would like to improve the program for the next semester (the 9th UTokyo FFP), based on the result of the questionnaires filled out by those who completed the 8th semester. Thank you for taking the course.
Kayoko Kurita
Seldin, P., & Miller, J. E. (2009). The academic portfolio: a practical guide to documenting teaching, research, and service (Vol. 132). John Wiley & Sons.
Yoshida, L., & Kurita, K. (2016a). Kōzōka academic portfolio sakusei no hyōka [Evaluation of the creation of a Structured Academic Portfolio]. The 22nd Kyoto University Conference on Higher Education, 238-239, 2016.3.17-18, Kyoto University
Yoshida, L., & Kurita, K. (2016b). Evaluation of Structured Academic Portfolio Chart and Workshop for Reflection on Academic Work. Procedia Computer Science, 96, 1454-1462.
The 1st pre-workshop of the 8th Mini-lecture Program by UTokyo Graduate Students (14:00–16:00) was held at the Seminar Room, 3F, General Library, on Thursday, January 5th, 2017.
Kengo Nagasaki and Kenji Shigeno, the instructors gave ambitious mini-lectures incorporating the analysis of historical materials and pair activities.
There were 14 participants, the most ever. They lively discussed what the instructors should improve until the last minute.
The 2nd pre-workshop will be held from 14:00–16:00 on Friday, January 20th.
The Mini-lecture Program will be held from 17:00–19:00 on Friday, January 27th.
Both are held at the same venue: Seminar Room, 3F, General Library.
It is open to anyone regardless of whether they are affiliated with the University of Tokyo or not.
However, there is a limited number of seats available, so registration from the following URL is recommended. https://webform.adm.u-tokyo.ac.jp/Forms/mlp8/
We selected the participants of the event “Big Real Session: Beyond Interactive Teaching” (February 4th, 2017) by lottery since we received applications exceeding the capacity. Thank you for your application.
We notified the applicants of the result of selection via the e-mail address filled in the application form on January 5th. If you have not received our e-mail yet, please let us know at interactivet<at>tree.ep.u-tokyo.ac.jp (Nagafumi Nakamura). (Some of our e-mails have bounced back.) Please replace <at> with @ and send us an e-mail titled “IT20170204.” Thank you for your cooperation.
We have received more applications than expected for the event Big Real Session: Beyond Interactive Teaching” to be held on February 4th, 2017. Thank you very much for your interest in our event.
Therefore, we would like to advance the application deadline (set initially on Friday, January 20th) to Friday, December 28th.
For those who would like to join the event, please apply from the <Application Form>before 09:00 AM on Friday, December 28th.
As stated earlier, we will select the participants by lottery in case the number of applicants surpasses the limit.
We will notify you of the result of the selection on Wednesday, January 5th at the e-mail address you entered on the application form.
We are sorry for those who applied for the event at an earlier date, but we sincerely appreciate your patience since the schedule includes the new-year holidays.
DAY 6 (Refining Lectures for the Microteaching Session) was held on December 8th and 9th, and DAY 7 (Microteaching Session (Final)) was held on December 15th and 16th.
DAY 6 Refining Lectures for the Microteaching Session
In the previous session, participants practiced how to examine lessons for microteaching and acquired the viewpoints of good lectures. This time, they refined their respective lectures in groups of 5–6, sparing about 30 minutes each.
The following is the procedure for one participant. They repeated this cycle as many as the participants:
The lecturer-participant gives a 6-min mini-lecture.
Feedback (3 min): The lecturer-participant receives direct feedback from the group manager (the instructor or an FFP alumnus/alumna). The student-participants fill out their feedback sheets.
Examination (14 min): Participants have a group discussion on what was good about the lecture and what points needed improvement. The clerk takes the minutes.
The participant switches to the next one.
Feedback sheets and minutes were scanned before being returned to them.
Also, the lectures were filmed so that the videos would work as a tool for the improvement of lectures as well as the feedback sheets.
DAY 7 Microteaching Session (Final)
We made four groups last time, and each lecturer-participant gave a lecture using his/her own PC to a small audience.
This time, to make the situation similar to the real classroom, we made two groups instead of four and let the participants give refined lectures using a projector to a larger audience.
The following is the procedure for one participant. They repeated this cycle as many as the participants:
The lecturer-participant gives a 6-min mini-lecture.
Feedback (3 min): The lecturer-participant receives direct feedback from the group manager (the instructor or an FFP alumnus/alumna). The student-participants fill out their feedback sheets.
The participant switches to the next one.
The lectures were again filmed, and the feedback sheets, too, were returned.
Participants were given the following tasks as an assignment:
Good points about the lecture
Improvement points about the lecture
What you learned from others
Free comments (optional)
They were required to submit the above (via Google Form) and the final version of the class design sheet, lecture slides, and others.
I found many mini-lectures dramatically improved based on the feedback they received on DAY 6.
What you can acquire from this program is very limited, but I believe that experiencing the careful work of improvement is important as a core of one’s attitude in designing classes in the future.
That’s all for this year, and the next DAY 8 is the only session left. Time flies.
UTokyo FFP DAY 5 for exercise in giving feedback on lectures and summary was held on November 24th and 28th.
Exercise in Giving Feedback on Lectures
In the UTokyo FFP, every participant conducts a lecture for microteaching sessions. This time, they practiced how to examine others’ lectures to prepare for the peer-reviewing in the next session. This is because giving feedback without having appropriate viewpoints leads to nothing. It is also intended to help participants design and conduct better lectures.
Two participants, who had volunteered previously, first conducted their mini-lectures in front of everyone, and the rest of the participants examined them thoroughly.
The lecturer-participant gave a mini-lecture.
The student-participants filled out their feedback sheets respectively.
Participants had a group discussion on what was good about the lecture and what points needed improvement.
Participants had a discussion with everyone.
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.
The four mini-lectures conducted in Thursday and Friday classes were all very interesting and are likely to be improved furthermore based on a lot of feedback they received. All the participants will design their mini-lectures and examine them with each other in small groups in the next session.
Summary (Poster Tour)
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.
