Data on a level of scholastic attainment measured through a self-evaluation made by students taking a class of fundamental physics have been analyzed by using principal-component analysis. The first principal component of the data is interpreted as a comprehensive attainment level. Multiple-regression analysis has shown that the comprehensive attainment level has a large correlation with the second principal component of data on students′ evaluation of teaching, which is interpreted as scholastic ability of students, and that it has a significant correlation with exam scores. Covariance structure analysis has revealed that, while both scholastic ability and feeling of attainment are correlated highly with each other, both cause exam scores, and that an effect of the scholastic ability on scores in short exams is somewhat larger than that of the feeling of attainment, whereas the opposite holds for scores in the end-of-term exam. It has also shown that an effect of the feeling of attainment on the degree to which the students look with favor on physics is very large, though that of the scholastic ability is negligible.

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Manufacturing needs a lot of engineers. But, scholastic attainments of the graduate of the university and the graduate school have decreased. As a result, it is necessary to reeducate new employees in manufacturing. These decreased scholastic attainments seem causes a science class time decrease by the course of study revision. Under the above-mentioned background, Mitsubishi Electric Corporation began the science education support intended for elementary schools, junior high schools and high schools to secure top-class personnel to manufacturing in fiscal year 2009. This thesis explains the outline of the science education support, introduces the content about “Heat Transfer Mechanisms” that is the typical class theme, and analyze a part of the impression and the questionnaire of the student, and consider the educative effect.

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This paper shows a simple technique for present movie material in engineering experiments. In our system, a teacher wearing goggles equipped with a camera performs an engineering experiment in the usual manner. Next, the obtained sequential movie is segmented by detecting changes in the movie scenes. Finally, the teacher selects the resultant segmented movie as a teaching material. Furthermore, we visualize and inspect the obtained sequential movie using of the teacher and student in engineering experimentation.

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Engineering experiment is one of the most important components in the mechanical engineering education because it is possible to make students acquire the basis of engineering, the use of devices and the writing skill of reports. Engineering experiment also has an advantage that many experimental data can be obtained during the school hours. This report introduces a trial of the industry-academia collaboration using the advantages of the engineering experiment in Mechanical System Engineering of the Okinawa National College of Technology. As a result of the trial, it is cleared that the useful data comparable to those in graduation research are obtained thorough engineering experiment. In addition, this trial has a highly educative effect improving the motivation and the concentration of students on the experiment by explaining the purpose of the experiment.

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Practice lessons were given in basic lectures on mechanical engineering, where manufacturing of a model aircraft was introduced. The structure of the model aircraft was based on those of real aircraft, where its aerofoil and the airframe were designed based on theoretical grounds. Moreover, the model has a flying performance of a satisfactory level, good enough to explain theories of Fluid Mechanics and/or Aerodynamics. During the development of the model aircraft for practicing this educational method, decisions on restrictions of manufacturing time and of difficulty level were found to be important. Mutual interactions between manufacturing the model aircraft and the basic theories on mechanical engineering resulted in a good demonstration of educational effects.

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In the early 1990s Finland created the dual education system in which the universities of applied sciences (formerly known as polytechnics) are side by side with the existing universities in response to diverse demands in the higher education. Universities of applied sciences have been rapidly developed and successfully dedicated to the practically oriented higher education. The Japanese technical colleges have been also developed successfully as remarked by OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) since their establishment aimed at practical engineering education in the early 1960s. This paper discusses the Finnish dual education system comparing with the Japanese technical colleges, on the basis of a two-month field survey in Finland. The authors suggest that the Finnish dual education system deserves to be studied for providing the Japanese higher education much diversity.

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The heritage of skills to the youth is becoming still more important with the aging and lack of the advanced experienced technicians. However, the effective measures for skill tradition are not made in a lot of enterprises. This study thought that teaching method of the advanced experienced technicians is a cause the skill tradition not advanced. And, new skill education using the visual was devised to improve this problem. The young technician understood the point by showing a knack of work with the visual. As a result, the working hours shortened. In addition, machining accuracy stabilized, and the lack of the machining accuracy lowered. Therefore, it found that the visual education could improve young technician′s skill than the conventional education. Effective skill tradition can be promoted by the visual education.

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The present paper describes a student evaluation of Inter-Departmental core curriculum “Problem-Based Learning (PBL) ” in the Faculty of Engineering at Utsunomiya University. The PBL is implemented to the first-grade students as an introductory engineering education, where student teams of four or five people assigned inter-departmentally attempt to solve the given problems. In order to verify effectiveness of the curriculum, some questionnaire surveys have been carried out for eight years to the students, and the results were statistically analyzed using a cluster analysis. As a result, 50-60% students evaluated the curriculum as “Good” . Effectiveness of the curriculum are confirmed as a creativity education.

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The present paper analyzes relation between implementation and effectiveness of PBL (Project Based Learning) . PBL has many variation on both process and team configuration, according to what to be learned. But essentially PBL gives good solution clearing the gap between ‘can’ and ‘know’ for novices. Novices easily make failures and these are important because ‘every failure is a stepping stone to success’ . To clear the gap using PBL and to get know-how applicable to an actual development, it is important recognizing and fixing failure in the process, and retrospecting them in a postmortem process. A PBL instructor should not prevent learners to make slight failures, and should guide them to make a small feedback loop for the failure in the process. The retrospection process is also required for the learners to organize their experiences into abstract know-how.

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The purpose of our study was to examine the effectiveness of learning assessments with rubric in architectural and machizukuri educations. Analysis of validation of the learning assessments with rubric in class management and educational effects were made using analysis of the result of self-diagnos, questionnaires, and interview. As a result, the original method with Learning Assessments was found to have the function to make things more available for Learning Support to each Student in Group Learning. Our study revealed that there educational effects which developed students′ understanding in community welfare plan, leads effective self-reflection.

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In this research, I showed the trial that I conducted in the classes of 3 subjects in Chiba Institute of Technology for promoting the interest in society, and analyzed the short tests of basic knowledge and the questionnaires of the class evaluation and the interest in society. As a result, it is revealed that the trial has positive effect in promoting the basic knowledge necessary for working people and the interest in society. In addition, it is revealed that the trial is effective in strengthening the linkage among the items of the class evaluation and the interest in society.

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An educational practice entitled “Breaking Away from Shallow Learning Habits” of the Faculty of Engineering, Niigata University is adopted as “Good Practice (GP) of Education” by The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. This practice consists of a new introductory educational program for freshmen entitled “Introduction to Engineering Literacy” , as well as improvement of other lectures/experimentations/exercises for design education. “Introduction to Engineering Literacy” of The Department of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, is programmed to let the students make “failure” (discrepancy from the knowledge obtained from the textbooks) in experiments, let them propose improvement, and let them conduct the same experiment again after the improvement, so that the freshmen can experience a PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Action) cycle.

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Recently, many trials and errors have been carried out to improve the communication skills for science and engineering students in higher education. This paper introduces the education programme at Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) , especially the planning and management of the Science Café and the analysis of its effectiveness. Tokyo Tech values the development of communication design ability, which may be cultivated through interaction with others while being self-aware of “internationalism” and “career” . In addition to the conventional Science Café, more diverse participants and communication were achieved by the introduction of a new series of Creative Café, which features themes such as science, technology, art, and design. The cultivated internationalism and communication design ability, particularly framing ability and mode adjustment ability, in Creative Café are discussed.

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This paper reports the education for software testing engineers through a consortium collaborative research on embedded real-time operating system for multiprocessor systems. This is long-term and practical educational program through the project of research and testing for open-source software that have been used in real industrial world. Unlike the usual collaborative research, young engineers who don′t have sufficient skill to operate high-level research and development can participate in our consortium actively. Eight practitioners from five industries got the education in 2009, and six practitioners from three industries got it in 2010. Effects of the program have been confirmed by observation of the result of research achievements and questionnaire.

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