The ability to "keep learning for ourselves" is one of the most desired qualities young teachers should develop. Unfortunately, many teachers in Japan have not focused on developing this ability. The ability to "keep learning for ourselves" is based not only on epistemological beliefs, but also on the capacity to be inquisitive and generate meaningful questions. In order to develop this ability in students who wish to become teachers in the future, we examined the influence of instructing students to identify their own experiences with the contents of the lecture on their epistemological beliefs and questioning in our first semester university classes. For the purpose of this study we prepared two conditions: identifying and control conditions. Results revealed that students in the identifying condition asked more questions. The amount of pleasure students felt during the lecture varied conditionally, however the scores regarding epistemology did not vary. These findings suggest that through the identification process, students notice many new things, feel pleasure in the perception, and ask more questions to confirm their accuracy. However, the students' new awareness does not go far enough to change their epistemological beliefs.

View full abstract

We developed a card game teaching material called "The irreplaceable Gift." The game was designed that makes it possible to experience the "delayed consequences of social dilemmas," which was not possible in older games, and to enhance morals. We examined the effects of the game through a comparative experiment between the "The irreplaceable Gift" and a game without the element of delay. The results suggest that "The irreplaceable Gift" enables players to consider future generation at reflection time and to enhance "morals."

View full abstract

There is no specific subject or concrete guideline for information education in the course of study for elementary school, though systematic instruction for that is required. In this article, thinking skills are focused as the target of systematic information education. Integrated and examined those skills of subject-unique which were extracted in some prior researches, nineteen subject-common thinking skills were distilled. Quantitive and qualitative analysis of the correlations and relationships between the skills led the whole diagram of the thinking skills important in information education in elementary school.

View full abstract

The development of mathematical thinking has been emphasized in math education. However, there are many knowledge persons who are of opinion that current state of student's mathematical thinking is still low. Therefore, educational materials that for enhances student's mathematical thinking ability suitable for student is needed. This study aimed to evaluate "Math-Speed" that was developed by Murakawa (2012) as educational materials for training mathematical thinking. In this study, there are three points to evaluate as follow. 1,Correlation between the score of Math-Speed and student's mathematical thinking scores. 2,Comparison of mathematical thinking scores before and after using Math-Speed. 3, Comparison of mathematical thinking scores between experimental group and control group. As a result of this study, we found that "Math-Speed" has a effect for mathematical thinking of lower level student.

View full abstract

It is widely said that "Japanese students are generally fine with the fundamentals, and that the problems exist only in applications" based on the results of assessments such as the national achievement exams. However, educational practices utilizing psychological perspectives have suggested that fundamentals acquisition among Japanese students is not sufficient. Thus, in this study, COMPASS (Ichikawa, 2009), an assessment tool developed based on findings from educational practices and psychological research, was administered to 682 8th-grade students to examine whether they had sufficiently acquired those fundamentals as well as to identify any gaps that might exist. Fifteen math teachers who were teaching the participants were also administered a questionnaire to gauge their views about what might constitute sufficient criteria for 8th-grade students. Results from analyses of the students' and teachers' responses indicate insufficiencies in students' understanding of mathematical concepts, inefficiencies in making decisions about mathematical operations, and low spontaneity in using appropriate strategies. These results suggest a need to reconsider traditional perceptions about Japanese students' mathematical competencies.

View full abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of lesson structures on growth in generic skills in undergraduate seminars for second, third, and fourth year students. In this study, we conducted a survey using two questionnaire forms. One is for teachers on the basis of five features: understanding learners' characteristics, setting educational goals, setting learning goals, performing learning activities, and teachers' instruction. The other is for students on the basis of two features: motivations for learning, and growth in generic skills. The results of multilevel covariance structure analysis indicate that the following three approaches influence growth in students' generic skills by generating motivation: (1) teachers who understand students' psychological attributes value their acquiring expertise through seminars; (2) teachers who understand students' circumstances emphasize providing seminars as a platform for interaction between them and students; and finally, (3) they actively introduce discussion and support for learning tasks.

View full abstract

The purpose of this paper is to assess the effect of positive Organization Development (OD) on teachers and staff members and to illustrate the processes by which OD can take effect in schools. Using OD, I organized a two-day seminar for elementary and junior high school teachers and staff members at a private school. We practiced Appreciative Inquiry (AI), which is the most widely used positive OD technique. After the seminar, I assessed its effect over a period of one month by interviewing participants individually and performing qualitative data analysis. The findings of this paper are the following: (1) by developing a Foundation for Pursuing School Goals (FPSG), teachers and staff members became more aware of the School Goals and undertook action to achieve them (2) by developing a Foundation for Developing Communicative Relationships between Colleagues (FDCRC) they became more communicative, and as a result, more aware of the necessity of communicating with colleagues and better able to implement the ideas that arise from their discussions.

View full abstract

TSince FD became mandatory, institutions of higher education carrying out class consultation as micro-level FD have been increasing. According to the results of researches of class consultation, researches associated with the influence of target teachers or students and researches of a consultant's skills have been done. This paper is to report a practical study that focuses on the transformation of the student's realizing the interaction with student and teacher as a new method of the class consultation, "Students' Discussion-based Class Consultation (SDCC)". SDCC is a practice to carry out teaching improvement from the discussion data by the students and a questionnaire for the students, about improvement of the class, in the middle of the course. This practical study reveals that SDCC had a positive influence on students' motivation for participating class and willingness to learn out of class.

View full abstract

In order to teach third grade elementary school pupils how to play the recorder in music class, we developed teaching materials using tablet PCs, made a curricular unit using the teaching materials, and conducted a lesson. We prepared a tablet PC for each pupil. After instructing the whole class, we made each of them practice the recorder by watching video clips on their tablet PC to learn the fingering required to play the recorder. The result of the questionnaire and practical skills test we gave to the pupils suggested that though there was still difficulty with the technique required to play the recorder, the pupils were able to check their fingering and rhythm, which helped their individual practices and strengthened their eagerness to learn. Additionally, the result suggested that using a tablet PC was effective in learning the fingering required to play the recorder.

View full abstract

The process of improving teaching plans using cartoon-based teaching simulation, and the effects of the improvement process were examined. Students' activity of reviewing cartoon which they created themselves helps to seize the class lesson in the cartoon comprehensively as well as offers the opportunity to examine the conventional way of teacher-centered lesson as students' opinions begin to be accepted so that the teaching plan will be improved. On the other hand, creating a cartoon is a fundamental activity to improve the teaching plan since we hear free voices from not only teachers but more than one student. In other words, in order for student teachers to improve their educational guideline, it is necessary to conduct cartoon-based teaching simulation and review it.

View full abstract

We propose a system that allows university teachers to check the teaching behaviors in their lecture videos and to grasp teaching behaviors for improvement in the lectures. The system offers two functions: time-series graphing, which visualizes real-time changes in students' evaluation during a lecture, and teaching-behavior estimation, which shows teachers information on their own teaching behaviors estimated from the overall evaluation by students of a lecture. The system was developed and evaluation experiments of each function were conducted. The subjective evaluation of each function by teachers showed the following: (1) the time series graph function was useful to narrow down which portion of the lecture videos contained teaching behaviors for improvement and (2) the teaching behavior estimation function was useful to determine the tendency of teaching behavior in a lecture.

View full abstract

The purpose of this study is to develop the Internet addiction tendency scale for Japanese high-school students, examining its reliability and validity. High-school students (n=376(male=204, female=172), age mean=16.7, SD=1.01) answered 62 items on the Internet addiction tendency scale. Factor analysis yielded 5 factors, which are "withdrawal", "e-mail phobia", "waste of time", "delinquent way of usage", and "face-to-face communication anxiety". The reliability of Internet addiction tendency scale was examined by measures of internal consistency, which was high enough (α=.886, .822, .838, .782, .789). The construct validity of Internet addiction tendency scale was examined and correlations between Internet addiction tendency scale and other scales developed by Zheng (2007) and Young (1996) were seemed high (.875 and .918respectively). These results indicated that developed scale, the Internet addiction tendency scale was suitable for measuring Internet addiction tendency among Japanese high-school students.

View full abstract

The purpose of this study was to clarify the range about an image of media literacy that technical books convey about it through practice reports. We analyzed practice reports for the following abilities and characteristics. (1) Characteristics of unit contents at every stage of development. (2) Characteristics of the number of practice activities at every stage of development (3) The kind of subjects that are being practiced. (4) The kind of abilities being developed. (5) The characteristic of the number of the activity every ability item. As a result, we were able to clarify characteristics of media literacy with regard to the following domains: units, number of lessons, and subjects. In addition, we assigned labels of ability items and subdivided separate practice reports at the "activity" level. We examined the labels and generated a category. As a result, we extracted 11 labels and three categories. In analyzing practice examples reported in technical books, we developed a framework that helps readers to form a clear image of media literacy and its educational purposes.

View full abstract

This study investigates the status of the implementation of extension classes as a lifelong study for persons with special needs at national universities in Japan (N=86). A total of 55 universities responded to the questionnaires. Only 6 had specific admission requirements for persons with special needs who wished to attend extension classes. 19 universities accepted persons with special needs without specific admission requirements. In most cases, such applicants were persons with physical disabilities. It is important that national universities consider creating opportunities for persons with special needs who desire to attend extension classes and increasing the number of applicants, so that these institutions can become places that facilitate lifelong study that fulfill the following objectives: (a) change universities staff's consciousness and attitude toward persons with special needs, (b) realize that a diversity of people including persons with special needs desire to take classes and prepare reasonable accommodations for them, and (c) offer a unique curriculum for extension classes for persons with special needs, especially those with intellectual disabilities.

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract