The purpose of this article was to investigate how students developed by participating in CoP (Communities of Practice) and learning bridging (linking out-of-class study to in-class study). I classified 431 undergraduate students (participants in WAVOC survey 2010) into 4 groups. The result showed that students who studied through out-of-class CoP and bridged it to in-class study engaged in well-balanced activities in their campus lives and scored significantly higher than other three groups on self-report about their learning and acquisition of knowledge and skills. I concluded that participating in CoP and learning bridging was important for students learning.

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We developed a card game teaching material named "Connect the World 2". It aims at improving psychological factors that facilitate cooperative behaviors in social dilemmas, which increasingly become one of serious issues in modern society. The teaching material has a feature that offers participants two roles at both individual and group levels by adding a "group" role to previous social dilemma games which has been widely-used and targeting only at individual level. We investigated the effects through a comparative experiment between the "Connect the World 2" and the previous version of the game with only "individual role". As a result, the "Connect the World 2" showed more effects on enhancement of "Trust" that believes others' cooperation in social dilemmas. Furthermore, our results suggested possibility of improvement on "Ascribed responsibility" that is assumed to lead acquisition of moral obligations.

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We describe the VISCO which visualize the correspondence between the scene on the movie and comments of the discussion and support collaborative lesson improvement in the dispersion environment. In this paper, we report on the consideration about the influence of VISCO upon collaborative lesson improvement by using system log and interview. This experiment showed that the discussion was activated and utilized lesson improvement results in the point of the problem part and clearing of the relative scene by using VISCO.

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The aim of this study was to clarify the characteristics of the classes that introduce "quotation" into discussions. To achieve this goal, the study analyzed the discourse of fourth graders in their Japanese-language classes, where they were required to read literary works. The results were as follows. First, introducing "quotation" produced "links" among the remarks of the children. More specifically, their remarks were "connected" to each other, creating a successive flow of remarks. Also, the children referred to each other's remarks, which clarified the points that were common to or different from each other. Second, not only were their remarks connected to each other but also mutual relationships were established among the children.

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The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationships between university students' (Faculty of Education) recollections of their elementary school teachers (particularly in relation to trust due to their teachers' support of elementary school students) and the university students' ideas about the teaching profession. In this paper, special attention is paid to the difference between first-year university students, who have not experienced any practice teaching in schools, and third-year students, who have experienced practice teaching. In total, 207 students participated in a questionnaire. Major findings were as follows: (a) Both first-year and third-year students recollect firm trust in teachers, but there is some difference in recognition of their teachers' support between the two groups; (b) Both first-year and third-year students think that their "trust in teachers at elementary school" has brought about their positive images of teachers. Third-year students' responses showed a wider variance regarding the relationships between their "trust in teachers" or "teachers' support for pupils" and their "images of teachers" than first-year students' responses; (c) For first-year students, teachers' "student guidance" and students' "trust in teachers" influence their "teacher efficacy" and "sustainable volition for learning." The influence of recollections of their elementary school teachers on their conception of the teaching profession and also the possibility of this fading due to practice teaching are examined and discussed.

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Two images of the high definition television (HDTV) and the normal television (TV) were transversely displayed to kindergarteners, and their behaviors were observed from the perspective that they approached to HDTV image or TV image. Then the Children's Kindergarten teacher asked them which display image they prefer. Their moving distances toward images were analyzed and it was found that they significantly approached to the HDTV image compared with TV image. Note that their verbal answers regarding preference of display image and the reasons were significantly deferent as age of kindergartener increases.

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The purpose of this research is to clarify 1) factors determine that English Learning Motivation, 2) differences (of English learning motivation) between Japan and Korea, 3) the influence that English Learning Motivation has on lesson evaluation and 4) the different results of covariance structure analysis in Japan and Korea. The results of a study involving 414 Japanese and 470 Korean grade five and six pupils showed that English Learning Motivation is composed of 4 factors and that Korean pupils were at a significantly higher level than Japanese pupils in 3 factors. And covariance structure analysis demonstrated that pupil's efforts and understanding was affected by usefulness, intrinsic and exchange desire motivation. Intrinsic motivation effects pupil's efforts and understanding in accordance with positive impression of and degree of satisfaction with lessons. Furthermore, by multi-population simultaneous analysis, it was also determined that intrinsic motivation directly influences pupil's efforts and understanding in Japan; however, no influence was detected in Korea.

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Basic Act on Food Education (Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology2005) was implemented. As a result, the nutrition education to children was changed, so that the teacher might be more motivated to positively promote nutrition education to the children. However, there are many problems of nutrition education, and when it comes to eating between meals there is little research concerning teaching. Then, the purpose of the research is to develop an educational system of eating efficiently, individual support between meals, and to evaluate the educative effect of the system. Through this system, it becomes possible to investigate the difference of the nutrition situation of the countries and the regions between meals, because it can analyze the result of data. First of all, eating between meals is input for one week by using the system, and information is preserved in the data base. Next, the average per a day intake nutritive value is calculated from the data according to the kind of food, the frequency of eating between meals, and the amount one eats cycle. And, advice is presented to those who input it by the comparison with the standard amount. Moreover, this system displayed graphically so that a person without expertise could use it easily. When the case that used the system and the case that did not use the system were compared, it is evaluated with the operation method. As a result, the improvement of the willingness to learn nutrition education was seen by using the system. In addition, the nutritional situation in various countries and the regions between meals was clarified.

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This research discusses a development in building a new virtual reality (VR) system that makes five users able to share one virtual space. In order to develop the VR software for operating the system, the problem-based learning exercise was designed and assigned to the students. We constructed a new environment 'Virtual Reality Atelier' (VRA), and implemented the development support model (DSM) to develop the VR software smoothly on VRA. DSM was hierarchized to 7 layers based on the structural difficulty of the VR software. Students can develop the VR software by sequentially studying each layer one by one. In this paper, we report effectiveness of VRA and DSM on the exercise that ware conducted in FY2010.

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This research aims to propose the framework to support beginning teachers in higher education to deal with their problems at their workplace. We developed the online environment "Aloha!", utilizing the dialogue rule proposed by Kato (2009) referred to narrative-approach. "Aloha!" enables to have a dialogue and discuss their problems using video conferencing on the web. From the practice participated 8 beginning teachers using "Aloha!", it revealed that this practice contributed to solve their problems and change their perspectives on their problems. It suggested that the functions of "Aloha!" encouraged their dialogue, and the equal footing of beginning teachers influenced the senses of their security to talk with their own problems.

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In this paper, the author applied the R-PDCA cycle whose purpose is enhance the ability to make the autonomous lifestyle by e-safety education in terms of reducing internet addiction, one of the "e-crises" (TANAKA 2009a). In order to achieve this educational goal, the author constructed a learning unit of e-safety education on internet addiction, based on active participation of the R-PDCA cycle showed by TANAKA (2009b), and implemented the teaching practice for students at K high school within 8 hours from July to September in 2009. As a result of the questionnaire for students, most of the students had affirmative recognition about the importance of the rule in using cell phone and personal computer, and the number of students who personally recognize the varieties of using cell phone and personal computer. It is concluded that the R-PDCA cycle was effective in the instruction of internet addiction.

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This research analyzed installation situation of kindergarten websites, and is based on a complete enumeration of 12,804 kindergartens in Japan. With 669 randomly extracted websites, the research analyzed its contents such as service for parents, information disclosure, and utilization of websites for kindergarten affairs. Results were as follow: (1) a difference in the rate of website installation was found in settings of kindergartens (between urban and suburban) and also in a way kindergartens are managed (between public and private); and (2) contents analysis revealed diversification of website contents and characteristics of kindergartens with rich website contents (such as management of two-way communication like blogs and e-mail form and frequency of website updates). The research concludes by pointing out future challenges in utilizing ICT in kindergartens: establishing websites, providing trainings to kindergarten teachers in using ICT, and disseminating advantages of utilizing ICT in kindergarten affairs.

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