Active learning is attracting attention as a form of learning that is well suited to today’s rapid societal changes. This paper summarizes the history of active learning, defines related terminology, and then considers relevant educational methods and the process of their acceptance in Japan. It also reviews trends in research on active learning submitted to the proceedings of the Japan Society for Educational Technology over the past 10 years and shows that such research has been conducted across the four domains of courses, evaluation, environments, and support. It discusses future prospects for active learning based on the issues with such existing research.

As the situation surrounding higher education changes, the concept of active learning is drawing a lot of attention. Active learning is a concept that involves a very wide range of educational activities, so there are practical issues such as ambiguity in purpose and difficulty in evaluation. In this paper, we investigate practical research on active learning in higher education from among Papers on Educational Practice Research included in JSET. Further, we examine these papers from ability and knowledge sought to be fostered in research, instructional design, evaluation, and connection of these three elements. Finally, we present the prospects for future practical research on active learning in higher education which emerged through this study.

In active learning, various learners' activities require learning with others beyond time and space restrictions, such as inside / outside face to face class, inside / outside classrooms, and so on. In order to efficiently support learners in classes with such characteristics, it is indispensable to utilize ICT to enable information to be accumulated and shared. In this paper, we aim to seek future research trends after classifying the functions of ICT in active learning. Specifically, the research purpose is roughly divided into three types: development of devices, development of software, and research using devices and software. Then, study activities to encourage internalization and externalization, or processes for deepening learning in active learning, are discussed from the viewpoint of what the ICT supports. The view point consists of knowledge acquisition, collaborative activities, expressive activities and reflection.

A survey was conducted for high school students to identify the ways in which instructional design and classroom management could make active learning more effective. Active learning and gamification were employed to design study lessons for high school students. We examined the effects of the lessons on the students by analyzing their responses before and after the class. The students who attended the class confirmed that they enjoyed the class as well as trusted their classmates. In addition, examination of findings from a simultaneous multi-population approach using the cross-lagged effects model yielded different outcomes depending on the course of study. In a general course of study, it was observed that "class gamification" has a positive influence on students' "trust in their classmates." On the other hand, a special education course indicated that "trust in classmates" has a positive effect on students' ability to "enjoy class." From these findings, it was suggested that if instructional design and classroom management were determined by the course type, implementation of 'active learning' classes at senior high schools can be effective.

The purpose of this study is to identify the difficulties in facilitation experienced by practitioners (beginners and adept) conducting workshops in various fields. As a result of a questionnaire survey targeting 152 persons and an interview survey targeting 16 individuals, the main difficulties in facilitation of workshops could be classified into, (1) motivation and creating the atmosphere of the place, (2) appropriate explanation and instructions, (3) communication support, (4) understanding situation of participants, (5) responding to unforeseen circumstances, and (6) adjusting the program. Further, the trends in difficulties varied depending on the differences in the practical area of the workshop, and with expertise the difficulties reduced, but it became clear that new difficulties which could not be perceived at the beginners to intermediate stage were recognized.

Project-Based Learning (PBL) is often implemented based on the experience and know-how of instructors. This paper has considered a method of continuous class improvement of PBL to acquire the fundamental competencies for working persons. In this method, one has to structure the success factors and the learning outcomes of PBL class. Class improvement plans are made from relationships visualized by multiple regression analysis. This research verified an effectiveness of the method by applying it a PBL class at Faculty of Business Administration and Information, Tokyo University of Science, Suwa. In order to improve the learning outcomes, two class improvement were planned, and the change of the success factors and the learning outcomes were investigated in two years. As a result, the degrees of satisfaction of the success factors changed with implementation of improvement measures, and the acquisition level of the learning outcomes changed accordingly. It was proved that continuous class improvement by improvement of the success factors of PBL is effective.

In this study we surveyed the practice of flipped classroom for Japanese students using global MOOC course over two years. We analyzed class design of “The Organic Chemistry of Life” course by participative observation and through interview surveys with the class instructor. Then we made a hypothesis based on interview surveys with students and conducted questionnaire surveys to identify individual differences of students’ attitudes in the flipped classroom. We found that students didn’t use online communication tools spontaneously, i.e. unless instructed by the teacher. Furthermore, negative attitude to English was not correlated with the grades achieved within the class or the MOOC course. There were differences between students’ utilization of the MOOC course and students who skipped MOOC content that they considered familiar underperformed in the class.

The present study describes the development and evaluation of a groupware which aims to support group works in a large class. Students use the groupware on their smartphone. The groupware enables instructors to form student groups by using attendance information, as well as to gather each group’s outcome to share with students in the whole class. Instructors can also form groups with complex constraint conditions that are difficult in general classroom practices. The evaluations were conducted in four classes in several universities, showing that the groupware was useful at practical level, while the students highly evaluated the usefulness of the system.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the features of teacher’s monitoring and supporting during small-group learning. A male teacher who taught social studies and 36 fifth grade students (18 boys and 18 girls) participated in this study. I conducted classroom observation and post-interview for the teacher while watching the video filmed from the viewpoint of himself. The findings were as follows: in the first half of the unit, he monitored from a higher perspective to grasp the degree of children’s participation and the image of them. Monitoring of the content is based on a tool called "Progress Table", and supporting was also made through it. In addition, because of the desire to make a good progress, he provided numerous or long-time support. In the rest of the unit, he monitored with consciousness on resource allocation to try to capture the differences between groups. Because he became to feel it was working well, he monitored with supporting other groups.