(Kurita) Hello, everyone. (Students) Hello. (Kurita) Welcome to “Interactive Teaching” WEEK 7. This week’s topic is “Let’s think about career paths PART 1: Reflection as a professor. In this session, we are going to learn about what faculty members should be. Before starting the main topic, let me clarify that this week’s goals are to “comprehend what is required of faculty members today, and "be able to think about what they should be." Today’s objective is the second one: “Be able to list and explain four types of duties assigned to faculty members." Here is the table of contents: the faculty member’s job, and the wrap-up. Let’s think about what the faculty member’s job is. Please list the types of duties, responsibilities, or activities you think are undertaken by faculty members. What kind of activities are the faculty members around you engaged in? What do your mentors or instructors you are familiar with do daily? List as many as the tags as you have on hand. I will give you about two minutes. You may begin. I would like you to paste the tags on here, later on, so please write in neat and large letters. Could you please stop writing and raise your head? Please listen as you look at the tags you wrote. There are four types of faculty duties or responsibilities. The first is education. It is easy to imagine an instructor taking charge of a particular course and delivering classes. The second is, of course, research. It is an important job for the faculty, and they conduct research in a wide range of fields. The next two are likely to attract less attention. The third is administration. They are jobs related to the academic administration, and I saw some of you listing activities related to this type of duty. Some examples would be serving as a dean of a department, belonging to some kind of committee, and being engaged in the administration of the university. In regard to colleges of technology mentioned in the last session, they also run dormitories, so serving as a manager of a dormitory or as an advisor of students and club activities can also be categorized into this type of duty. Some administration duties are categorized as education, for example, the class teacher system adopted by many universities today, so serving as a class teacher can be categorized into both education and administration. The fourth type of duty is social contribution. Education and research are of course considered to be important duties, but faculty these days are increasingly required to make a direct contribution to society. For example, delivering an open lecture, namely lectures open to the public outside universities, and, while it does overlap with research, operating academic conferences can also be categorized as a social contribution. To sum up, there are four types of faculty duties: education, research, administration, and social contribution. Could you categorize the tags you made into these four types of duties? Are you ready? Then, I would like you to share the tags as an example of a specific duty. Please come over here and paste your tags. Yoshida-san, could you coordinate this work? Let’s get ready. You may now begin. Please return to your seats except for Yoshida-san. Yoshida-san, could you tell us how you categorized the tags in order? (Student) May I begin now? (Kurita) Sure, go ahead. (Student) We had a discussion and categorized everyone’s tags into roughly four categories: education, research, administration, and social contribution. Firstly, regarding education, the first thing we came up with was delivering a class or the direct education of students. Another idea, which overlaps with research, is that an instructor owns his/her laboratory, so, serving as an academic advisor for his/her students can also be categorized into education. Holding a seminar is related to both education and research, so a seminar could be placed between research and education. There was an idea from a nurse and a clinical psychologist that engaging in practical training as an advisor could also be categorized into education. Secondly, regarding research, almost all of us came up with the idea of writing papers. Another idea is getting Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research. Most faculties are involved in that activity in order to run their laboratories. Another idea is serving as a referee, and this duty includes a contribution to society, particularly to academic society, so that is why we placed this tag on the lower part, close to social contribution. Let’s now discuss the third aspect: social contribution. Considering the context of research and social contribution, writing books or a paperback edition of one’s own research, and serving as an advisor for corporations and local governments based on one’s experience could be categorized here. Regarding social contribution, specifically working as a commentator on TV would mean contributing to society by making good use of one’s knowledge. Giving lectures for the general public and opening one’s laboratory to the public regularly could also be considered as a social contribution. And what I thought interesting was considering making laws as a social contribution. Let me move on to the fourth aspect: administration. Running a university would be categorized into this category. Operating an academic conference would be placed among education, research, management, and also, social contribution. This is how we made up this diagram. (Kurita) Thank you. Let me add some points. For example, senior instructors serving as mentors for new instructors would be placed between administration and education because there is an educational relationship between instructors. An idea that came out in the discussions, but not on the tags, was delivering a lecture for high school students. These are lectures for individuals who are expected to enter universities, so it is positioned between social contribution and education. In regard to opening laboratories, the categorization would be more
complicated, although these kinds of things are more likely to happen nowadays. There are many ideas here, and I think you are all carefully observing the instructors around you. The diagram here shows four circles of equal size, but actually, the size of each circle varies according to the institution, field, career stage, age, or position. For example, look at the bottom of this slide. The research circle is the largest. This instructor is mainly engaged in research. If the university he/she belongs to places emphasis on research and he/she is a younger member of the faculty and does not have to take charge of classes, the balance of the types of duties would appear like this. If, on the other hand, the institution places a greater emphasis on education, the education circle would become the largest. Or if the instructor is the dean of a department, the administration circle would become the largest and the other circles would account for a small proportion. As you can see, there are various types of balances. Therefore, it is not that everyone has to carry out all the duties, but the balance differs from person to person. In the past, it was believed that faculty members at universities should primarily be engaged in research, and the faculty considered itself to be scholar oriented. However, as the last session elucidated, faculty members must change according to the demands and qualitative changes that become evident at universities. In other words, qualification and quality assurance are indispensable for university faculty members. Research is an important aspect for faculty, but there is a growing demand for qualification as educators. This course is titled“Interactive Teaching,” and although we are learning about Active Learning, instructors are now commonly asked to continue being active learners themselves. Therefore, instructors should not deliver identical classes every year, but rather improve their teaching skills by adopting more and varied instructional methods each time they face new students in order to enhance their learning. There is a system supporting instructors, called faculty development, and the system is obligated by law to carry out faculty development. The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) is recommending universities to evaluate the faculty in various ways. The next point is directly related to you the most. There has been a considerable change in the methods and materials used for employment. While academic achievement was the only material for employing instructors in the past, now, competence for teaching is evaluated through syllabuses and mock lectures. I would like all of you who are willing to become a faculty member to keep this in mind. At the same time, think about what you would like to do in the future considering the balance of the four types of duties. Now, let’s wrap up. There are four types of faculty duties: education, research, administration, and social contribution. The balance among the four types changes according to the faculty member’s specific situation. Instructors are now required to be active learners, as mentioned in the previous slide since what is now asked of instructors has been changing compared to the faculty member’s duties of the past. You must go beyond having present instructors around you as role models and rather make yourself be a life-long learner. That’s all for this session.
