(Kurita)Hello, everyone. (Students)Hello. (Kurita)This is “Interactive Teaching” WEEK 1. This week’s topic is “Let’s learn about Active Learning”. In this session, we are going to tackle the issue “What is Active Learning?” First, I’d like to show you the goal of this week: “Promote a better understanding of Active Learning”. This is the overall goal for this week. There are three specific objectives, and “be able to explain what Active Learning is”, as shown above, is the objective for today. Here is the table of contents. Today is the first session and it consists of two parts: “What is Active Learning?” and the wrap-up. Please raise your hand if you have heard of the term “Active Learning”. Everyone. Thank you. You all have taken my classes, so you must have experienced one using Active Learning or have heard of it. Then, please raise your hand if you have actually taken a class that applied Active Learning, except for my class, when you were an undergraduate. A little fewer. Thank you. Then, starting from Teramoto-san, could you tell us your field, and then describe briefly what kind of classes you’ve had and the methods used? (Student)My field is nursing, and in one class, we did role-playing. We were assigned a role, as either a nurse or a patient, in particular scenarios, and then did things like measuring blood pressure. (Kurita)That’s important for clinical application, isn’t it? (Student)Right. (Kurita)How about you, Mizukoshi-san? (Student)My field is also nursing. We formed groups and developed a health program for older adults, and then we delivered a presentation on that. (Kurita)Thank you. How about you? (Student)My field is clinical psychology. I took a class in the liberal arts that approached a problem of education. We investigated it and delivered presentations in groups. That’s a full-scale class. (Kurita)How about you? (Student)I was an undergraduate at an engineering faculty. There was a class in the teacher-training course on tutoring methods for ethics. As it was a subject for the teacher-training course, the instructor wanted us to experience various kinds of Active Learning. We discussed in pairs and in groups. I was able to go through many kinds of Active Learning in that class. (Kurita)Thank you. It seems all of you have gone through a wide variety of Active Learning already. If you were asked what Active Learning is by a person who has no idea of what it is, how would you answer? How would you explain to him/her? I’ll give you a few seconds to think of it. What would you do? For example, if you were asked by your mother or by a child in your neighborhood, how would you expound? Can anyone explain? Everyone always looks down in this kind of situation. (laughing) We are not being “active". How about you, Yoshida-san? (Student)Yes. Active Learning is when students think and learn actively. (Kurita)Yes, the keyword is “active”. That’s an important word. Let’s look at how Active Learning is viewed in Japan today, and after that, let’s go on to the definition of the term. In Japan, today, consecutively from 2012 to 2014, Active Learning has been taken up for discussion in many cases. First, in 2012, “Active Learning” appeared in this report on a course of action for education issued by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). Promotion of Active Learning was also included in the “Basic Plan for the Promotion of Education”. There is an “Acceleration Program for University Education Rebuilding” to provide a budget for those who promote Active Learning. Yoshida-san said that you can describe Active Learning with the keyword “active”. Now, we would like to take a closer look at the definition. This is the definition given by these people (Bonwell & Eison, 1991). According to them, Active Learning is defined as “instructional activities involving students in doing things and thinking about what they are doing". Let’s look at the next one (Felder & Brent, 2009). Here, Active Learning is defined as “anything course-related that all students in a class session are called upon to do other than watching, listening and taking notes”. Now the next one: “a general term for teaching/learning methods adopting an active participation of learners, which is different from the education carried out through unilateral lectures by educators”. This is the definition found in the glossary of the report issued by the MEXT in 2012, which I mentioned just now. Now we have seen three definitions, and they are also provided in the handouts. Take a look at them and think of what they have in common. Find a word that emerges from these three definitions. If you have come up with an idea, would you lift your head? OK, let’s start with you, Nakamura-san. Could you tell us what they have in common? (Student)Yes. You could say that from the students’ point of view, they are not simply listening, and from the educators’ point of view, they are not simply talking. All three include terms such as “general term” or “anything”, so I think they all use inclusive words. (Kurita)You have summarized them perfectly. Thank you. What the three definitions of Active Learning have in common are that Active Learning shows the situation of students and educators doing something not unilaterally but interactively, and that it is a general term for the Active Learning of students, as Yoshida-san said a while ago. I would like you to remember that it is a very broad concept. Now let’s wrap up. To reiterate, Active Learning is a general term for learning actively. It is a general term for the learning style not of students doing something passively or educators speaking one-sidedly but for the style of students learning on their own initiative. As such, Active Learning is a very broad concept. That’s the point for today. That’s all for this session.
