プログラム: FFP

Chapter 2-2 “We Passed the Turnaround Point of DAY 2, Filled with Essential Topics for Class Design. Here’s the Second Half!”

Let’s review Part 1 before moving on to the next topics!
We should always repeat important things, and that makes it easier for us to acquire them (as described in the last session.)

Part 1 consisted of the following topics:
(1) Reflection on making research presentations
(2) Goals and objectives / Where are we?
(3) Work: “Students don’t like statistics?” Let’s give advice to the professor.
(4) Premise
(5) A model of motivation “expectancy/value/environment”
(6) Significance of class design
(7) The ADDIE model (a model for instructional design)
(8) The first step to creating a class design sheet: work on “setting objectives”
As listed above, Part 1 was filled with information related to premises and frameworks necessary for class design, and these topics were not just conveyed by Dr. Kurita to the participants one-sidedly but were also provided through time for the participants to discuss and use them. So that’s “active learning,” which the participants already “experienced” on DAY 1 and DAY 2. This was the main topic in Part 2.

(9) Definition of active learning
Dr. Kurita started with the following question: “If you were asked what active learning is, how would you answer?” The participants answered the question via Sli.do (a highly anonymous Q&A app), and their replies were shared with everyone. (This activity is also categorized as active learning.) Receiving diverse answers from the participants, Dr. Kurita said, “In fact, many people define the term in many different ways,” and showed three definitions. (Slide 51)
[Just talking to myself] The term “Active Learning” was specified in the reform of higher education in Japan, but it rapidly became a trend after the issue of “(Consultation) What the Standards for Curriculum in Elementary and Secondary Education Should Be (November 20th, 2014)” in elementary and secondary education. The term was stated as “Active and deep learning through dialogue” in “Curriculum Guidelines (Revised in 2017/2018)” which was developed through discussion based on the Consultation.
In the definition (2012) by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, “educators and learners” is the subject of the following: (a) communicate with each other, (b) compete with each other, (c) stimulate each other, (d) develop intellectually, and (e) create a space. “Learners” is the subject of the following: (f) actively discover problems and (g) find solutions. I used to think that the subject of (b), (c), and (d) only referred to students, and (e) was for teachers, based on experiences in my job. Eventually, through trial and error, I realized that I, a teacher, was also the subject of (b), (c), and (d) along with students. If I had reexamined my classes when I first encountered this definition, I could have shortened the trial-and-error period, so I feel sorry for my students in those days.

(10) The point of active learning
“Strategies to encourage active learning are not a goal but a means.”
Aside from things in education, it often happens that the means is replaced by the goal… As described in “Part 1” and the past article in Nabetan Journal, “Goals and Objectives” are crucial, and replacing them with means may deteriorate the value of the learning activity itself.
Dr. Kurita provided the participants with the following three important perspectives (or questions):
・Do they correspond to the goals and objectives of your class?
　・Do they contribute to student learning?
　・Do they consider students’ perspectives? (motivation/academic level/relevance)
I believe these three questions are important not only in terms of active learning but also in every aspect of creating a class from design to implementation, and I think teachers should always keep them in mind.

(11) Effectiveness of active learning
The pre-post test scores of the student groups who took either two-way or one-way classes, each divided in terms of their scores (high/intermediate/low) were shown with graphs on Slide 53. Dr. Kurita asked what the graphs implied. The participants again replied to her question with Sli.do. (I really recommend this tool!)
The graphs show only the test scores, but it is remarkable that two-way classes have a huge positive impact on learners compared to one-way classes in various ways, such as a decrease in dropouts and an increase in their motivation, as shown by many other studies.

(12) Risk in active learning
While there are outcomes and effectiveness, there is also a risk in active learning. What matters is whether it realizes the points of active learning as listed in (10).
[Just talking to myself] When I was teaching as a school teacher, I had many opportunities to observe classes at various schools that they called “conducted in an active learning style.” It also applies to my own classes, but I often felt the risk of active learning in such classes.
They happened to overlook “class design” as described in Part 1. Active learning or “active and deep learning through dialogue” is just a method, and “goals and objectives” should come first. In addition, it is necessary to “analyze” the situation of learners and their learning environment. One elementary school teacher referred to it as “a problem that comes before adopting an active learning style,” and that was exactly to the point. With our knowledge of the “premise” in Part 1 and the ADDIE model, we can now verbalize what the problem is by pointing out the lack of Analysis and Design. 

(13) Active learning strategies
Based on the “premise” of active learning explained so far, the session moved on to introducing specific active learning strategies and letting the participants experience them.
There are various active learning strategies for different group sizes: minute paper, self-evaluation, peer-reviewing, brainstorming, jigsaw method, case studies, PBL, TBL, poster tour, etc. The following three were explained thoroughly in the session.
(A) Asking questions: Ask students questions.
(B) Think-Pair-Share: Let students think about the topic individually and then share their ideas in pairs.
(C) Peer Instruction: Following a brief lecture or students’ pre-class learning, the instructor poses a multiple-choice question (ConcepTest). Students discuss with their peers, and then the instructor gives an explanation.
For more details, please refer to Slides 56–66.
Dr. Kurita said that the following are the points in implementing any method, which overlap with the points listed in (10).
1- Don’t let the means become an end. Don’t set participation in activities as the goal.
2- Clarify the goals and objectives of activities.
3- Explain the merits of adopting AL. Cooperation enhances learning as demonstrated in research. (Johnson & Johnson, 2009)
4- Give specific instructions. Clarify the instructions by telling the students “what” and “how” they should do and “how long” they should get involved in the activities. It is also recommended to include “why” they should get involved in the activities.
We should always repeat important things. That’s the principle!
[Just talking to myself] I often hear at elementary and secondary schools that students who are assertive and active become the only ones to say something and the rest of the students just remain listening to them in group activities, but I think it is important to design classes in accordance with the learners. For example, adopting methods such as (A) Asking questions and (B) Think-Pair-Share in small steps will help you create a learning environment where students can express their ideas without worries.
At the same time, even in the case of an active learning style for a small number of students, teachers need to design and prepare classes carefully and flexibly change the style, especially at the beginning of a course. As the students get the feel of active learning, teachers need to decrease their support (i.e., removing the scaffold), but at first, they need to support them carefully by grasping their situation (i.e., scaffolding). And this is also advice to myself. 

(14) Creating a class design sheet
As mentioned in Part 1, participants moved on to designing “a 6-min class on a topic in your field for novice students.” The design will be applied to the microteaching sessions on DAY 6 and DAY 7. They designed a class that realizes the objectives they set in the first half of the session by using a design sheet. They were provided with plenty of information so far, but now it was time for them to actually use it. The first 15 minutes were for creating a design sheet individually, and then they shared their sheet (still unfinished) with another participant in the breakout rooms. They explained their own sheet in six minutes per person, organized their ideas, and found problems and new insights through discussion.
Finishing the class design sheet is an assignment to be submitted by May 5th, but the participants were able to share their ideas and discuss them in pairs, which makes the difference compared to just working on it alone as homework. Therefore, even if they couldn’t finish their sheet within a limited time, these 15 minutes and 12 minutes became precious time for them.

(15) Class design of DAY 2
What you learn in UTokyo FFP is expressed in the class design of the program itself, so participants can learn by doing. To recognize that, the “explanation of the class design of today’s session” is important. As described in the past article in Nabetan Journal, you can also call it the class structure. Today, the following points were explained:
・This class was conducted by using a strategy called “Flipped Class.” The assignment of DAY 1 worked as preparation for DAY 2.
・Structure: an introductory section, main section, and concluding section It also applies to DAY 2.
・Various issues and learning contents are related to the final assignment (i.e., class design sheet).
・Peer-reviewing (as an assignment): It is frequently used in online courses.
We have finished only two sessions so far, but the various topics we have learned are already related to practice.

That’s all for DAY 2. Part 2 was also filled with important topics. The participants should experience what they learned as much as they can to prepare for the following sessions. As I mentioned before, everything we learned will be connected to future topics.

And let me conclude the article with another [Just talking to myself].
Reflecting on my own teaching experience at school, I frankly think that I could have shortened the trial and error if I had known the topics of DAY 2. I regard the significance of UTokyo FFP as letting those who aim to become faculty, which doesn’t need a teaching license, learn about instructional methods, but they were not in the curriculum for obtaining a teaching license for elementary and secondary education either, at least in my generation. Many of my colleagues in the same generation and I myself learned about such findings in instructional methods through trial and error, from experiences through interacting with pupils and students. I think many of the mistakes I made shouldn’t have happened in the first place, but that was the reality. But how are the teachers today? With new Curriculum Guidelines and the need for a new type of education, I truly hope that future/present teachers can have an opportunity to learn about such findings before becoming a teacher or while working as a teacher at school. Knowledge must always be practiced, I know, but there is a tragedy that comes from the lack of knowledge in any field. When I finished DAY 2 in the last semester, I thought from the bottom of my heart that many things can be resolved by just knowing them.

See you next time!

For more details on UTokyo FFP, please click the following links! (Let me repeat this again and again for we should always repeat important things!)
(Official) UTokyo FFP Website
UTokyo OCW “Teaching Development in Higher Education” (UTokyo FFP AY2020)
Interactive Teaching (Video Clips)

Osami Nabeta
Research Support Staff (FFP)
Center for Research and Development of Higher Education

Chapter 2-1 “DAY 2 Is Filled with Important Topics! I Had to Divide the Long Article into Two…”
I was supposed “to shorten the length from the next article on DAY 2” as I wrote in the last post, but DAY 2 was extremely rich in content as the instructor Dr. Kurita herself said. I tried to summarize the points briefly, but “extremely rich content” literally means that there are no points to be omitted…so I decided to divide the article into two parts!

(1) Reflection on making research presentations
The class began with participants sharing their thoughts (in groups of three) on the assignment of DAY 1 (i.e., filming and submitting a 1-min video on their research presentation). This activity is to let the participants recall what they learned in the last session and helps them output their thoughts online; it must have been not so difficult to put into words their own experiences. In that sense, it worked as an icebreaker for DAY 2, but “giving a research presentation” itself is an important component that is linked to the next topic. I’d like to talk about that later on.

(2) Goals and objectives / Where are we?
These are shown in every class as the key components of the “class structure.” Please refer to the past article in “Nabetan Journal” for more details on what “class structure” is.

(3) Work: “Students don’t like statistics?” Let’s give advice to the professor.
Participants were given an assignment in the last session to advise an imaginary professor who was in trouble. They watched a video “Motivation: Expectancy-Value Theory” and thought of one or more pieces of advice from three viewpoints: expectancy, value, and environment. They wrote down their individual thoughts on sticky notes on a Google Slide shared by each group, followed by a group activity to organize the members’ ideas and see if there were any other points to be added.
This activity also worked for participants to experience a “Flipped Class,” which appeared at the end of the session. It aligned with the “class structure” that enabled learners to experience the essence of a topic first before learning about that topic in a lecture format. This activity also worked as an introduction to “motivation,” which was one of the major themes for DAY 2.

(4) Premise
The lecture slide said, “Encouraging and maintaining students’ motivation are essential to their active learning.”
[Just talking to myself] Through my involvement with the environment of education until today, I encountered a lot of situations that made me think that whether you are really taking the above sentence seriously as a premise makes all the difference in becoming a good teacher. I’d like to talk about this topic with teachers at elementary/secondary schools.

(5) A model of motivation “expectancy/value/environment”
Following the above activities and showing the “premise,” “expectancy/value/environment” was explained as one of the models of motivation. (Link 1/Link 2) The lecture was conducted in a limited time, but the participants were already knowledgeable enough to receive the information thanks to their preparation before the class. As described in the last slide of the section titled “What educators can do,” “Think of what would hold high value for students,” “Figure out some ways to enhance students’ expectancies,” and “Create a cooperative environment” are the three points based on the premise and will work as a basis for designing lectures for microteaching sessions.
There are various models of motivation, and another one is called the ARCS model. Here is a video clip you can refer to.
[Just talking to myself] I always kept the learners’ motivation in mind as a teacher, but I did not use such a specific list of items for describing motivation then, so what I did at school must have been somewhat vague. And without such a list, I had no criteria to reflect on my classes, so I think I could not work on my class reform from the perspective of motivation. If I have a chance to teach a class once again, I would like to clarify the items related to motivation. Teachers at elementary/secondary schools, how about you?

(6) Significance of class design
A class refers to every session, and a course refers to a series of classes as a whole. Speaking of this course, UTokyo FFP (with a total of eight classes) is considered a course, and DAY 1, 2… are classes.
The significance of class design was described as follows:
・It allows efficient use of limited time.　・It enables you to choose instructional methods suitable for goals and objectives.　・It makes it easier to improve your classes.　・It makes it easier to share your ideas on class design with others.　・It motivates students.
[Just talking to myself] When I discussed with the teachers at elementary/secondary schools what the significance of class design is and who it is significant for, the following four perspectives came out: 
　a- An efficient use of class time (for learners/teachers)
　b- Planned utilization of instructional methods (for learners/teachers)
　c- Sharing of knowledge and skills (among teachers)
　d- Effective identification of the target when working on class reform (among teachers)
The fact that “a” and “b” are considered to be significant for learners seems to reflect the current need for teachers “to emphasize classes as a place where learners learn rather than a place where they teach.” It simply states the obvious, but most classes I have seen before were those where the teacher only knows the class design and the learners just try to catch up with what the teacher presents, and it also applies to my own classes in the past…
Our discussion further developed, and one of the elementary school teachers proposed the following idea:
“Speaking of ‘d,’ in light of the fact that classes are a learning space for the learners, identifying the target of class reform should be done through an exchange between the learners and teachers (who designed the classes). Under the trend of emphasizing learning from each other, it also must be done among learners themselves in terms of learning how to learn.”
Therefore, I would like to revise the item “d” into the following expression:
　d- Effective identification of the target when working on class reform (among teachers, between teachers and learners, and among learners)
I regularly joined the class observation at the elementary school where the proponent belonged. When the teacher proposed the unit design to the students, I saw them expressing their ideas such as, “Why are you planning to allot three classes for that activity? Deciding from the classes so far, I think two are enough.” “Learner-centered” has now become a word that frequently appears everywhere, but I believe it is such an exchange between the teachers and learners that truly realizes the word in terms of creating the classes together through their mutual respect.

(7) The ADDIE model (a model for instructional design)
The next point is, “What should we specifically do for designing a class?” The ADDIE model was shown as one of the models for class design.
It proceeds in the order of A (analysis), D (design), D (development), I (implementation), and E (evaluation), and as described as “CLOSE THE LOOP!”, E is linked with A again and the cycle is repeated like ADDIEADDIEA… It is sort of a growing/changing spiral model rather than a repetitive cycle. For more details, please refer to the video by clicking the above link. Another point is that this is not a one-way direction. It requires going back and forth constantly between each phase, and E (evaluation) is conducted not only at the end of a class or a course but also in each phase of ADDI as necessary. (Self-evaluations, student ratings, and external reviews were shown as examples of evaluation in the session, but we will further delve into “Evaluation” as the main topic in DAY 4.)
[Just talking to myself] I introduced this ADDIE model during the above-mentioned discussion with the teachers at elementary/secondary schools on class design, and almost everyone mentioned as follows:
“Speaking of ‘Development,’ we call it ‘Material Development’ and spare quite a long time for that, and regarding ‘Implementation,’ we call it ‘Instructional Technique” and take it up as a topic in teacher training. We realized that we already have taken good care of these two aspects, but we were not taking time to work on ‘Analysis’ and ‘Design.'”
“If ‘Analysis’ and ‘Design’ are insufficient, it is likely to end up just delivering a self-satisfied class no matter how much you take good care of ‘Development’ and ‘Implementation.'”
“‘Evaluation’ tends to focus on whether the learners’ outcome is good or bad, and in the latter case, we do review ‘Development’ and ‘Implementation,’ but that’s all. I think that’s because ‘Analysis’ and ‘Design’ are insufficient in the first place.”
They said that they would like to reflect on their own class design from the perspective of the ADDIE model, especially from ‘Analysis’ and ‘Design.’
Therefore, I am holding an informal meeting to introduce the ADDIE model to school teachers and discuss the topic with them. If you are interested, please feel free to contact me. The ADDIE model in fact has already become one of the topics for in-school training at the above-mentioned elementary school. I’m excited to hear the outcomes!

(8) The first step to creating a class design sheet: work on “setting objectives”
The next activity was “setting objectives” as the first step to designing a class for the “microteaching session” (DAY 6 and Day 7). By the way, the topic of the microteaching session is “A 6-min class on a topic in your field.” The participants must bring up the “research description” they wrote in the application document again here, after refining it through self-introduction and creating a video. According to Dr. Kurita, “six minutes for explaining one topic” is the minimum unit that includes the components of a class. There is a wide variety of microteaching styles and research on microteaching, but that amount of time and content seem to be the best option that fits the course design of UTokyo FFP (in terms of the learning environment with a limited amount of time and people).
There was a lecture on “Goals and objectives,” which are important in designing a class (and in the ADDIE model) prior to this activity. I also explained these topics in the past article in Nabetan Journal. Please also refer to Bloom’s taxonomy and Fink’s taxonomy of “significant learning” which appeared in the lecture as related topics.
Furthermore, Gagné’s nine events of instruction and systematization of knowledge through presenting a graphic syllabus and actively associating one’s knowledge were shown as tips for structuring a class. By the way, speaking of the active association of one’s knowledge, the topics in DAY 1 and 2 were linked to one another in this UTokyo FFP course, and all the topics will further develop and connect with one another in DAY 3 and following sessions. Stay tuned!

DAY 2 then moved on to the next topic “Active Learning,” but that’s all for this long article (perhaps because of too many “talking to myself”!). To be continued in Part 2.

See you next time! (I’m fully determined to post Part 2 before DAY 3!)

For more details on the course materials and AY2020 course schedule, please click the following links!
(Official) UTokyo FFP Website
UTokyo OCW “Teaching Development in Higher Education” (UTokyo FFP AY2020)
Interactive Teaching (Video Clips)

Osami Nabeta
Research Support Staff (FFP)
Center for Research and Development of Higher Education