Ryota Yamamoto

The purpose of this study is to understand the details of how teachers give feedback to learners using cloud applications in Project Based Learning and to discuss specific strategies based on the results. As a result of analyzing the feedback and intentions of the teachers who implemented the Project Based Learning using Google Sheets, we found that the teacher efficiently monitored and provided feedback to the entire classroom by using strategies that took advantage of the high synchronicity of the cloud application, such as “immediate feedback to all students by coloring” in the cells filled in by students and “promotion of cross-referencing among students”. In addition, the teacher improvised feedback strategies that he had not designed before implementing Project Based Learning and provided more in-depth feedback. This indicates that it is important for teachers to utilize the high synchronicity of the cloud and to explore what appropriate feedback through interaction with students is and implement feedback with the characteristics of the cloud.

This study aims to examine a learning support by an expert feedback in the validation phase of project-based learning. The feedback from experts in the validation phase requires to prevent misalignment with the structure of the task that the learners are working on and embed factors that promote validation as a learning support. Therefore, we explore a learning support that integrates these points of view through a case study for 10th graders in the senior high school. As a result, we found that it is important to support learning activity by embedding factors that promote validation and to pay attention to other learning opportunities that help to form students' attitude for inquiry-based learning. In addition, the importance of incorporating the design to prevent misalignment of feedback, such as agreement before the practice with experts and the use of structured worksheets is inferred.

There is a growing interest in the historical thinking skill of analyzing historical causation from various educational perspectives in high school. However, there is no lesson plan that flexibly fosters the historical thinking skill at middle level high school, where students' historical thinking skills in history are varied. In this study, we developed an a la carte style flipped classroom to foster the historical thinking skill of analyzing historical causation in an era that can be studied from various perspectives. This enables middle level high school students to learn about important topics from that era individually. Various online movies were prepared based on students' interests in the era, and they were then combined with a group-based analysis of historical causation in class. The evaluation of this teaching method revealed that students were able to significantly improve their historical thinking skills after the lesson practice (p < .01) with a middle range effect size. Moreover, although a wide range in students' historical thinking skills from low to high levels were apparent at the pre-lesson test, 25 out of 26 students had acquired more than middle level historical thinking skill by the post-lesson test. In addition to addressing the diversity of interest of the students, the evaluation results also indicated that their interests in the history of the era increased significantly (p < .01) with a low to middle effect size.

<p>The forms of organization relate to learning outcomes in nonformal learning activities This paper aims to answer the question, "What kinds of challenges do students who have structured a student group for nonformal learning activity face, and how can we support them to overcome these challenges to acquire the learning outcome?" The authors analyzed the activities of a nonformal learning group that was formed by first-year students for approximately two years. The results show some challenges, such as "abstractly defined activities," "duality of the group," and "frustration due to the differences in commitment burden." Therefore, we suggest three principles of learning support: (1) providing an opportunity to have a connection with an outsider of the college to make the activity concrete, (2) introducing model cases or studies by experts to make the activity concrete, and (3) providing an opportunity to have a connection with a college outsider to make the participants of the informal learning group active.</p>

<p>This paper identifies what design factors have been embedded into the class for making a transformation of students' learning behavior in order to show the point of attention and the way of concrete class design regarding the designing flipped classroom for high school at the initial phase. In order to achieve this research objective, we interviewed to Teacher A who had provided flipped classroom session in X High School, and analyzed. As a result, we found that the student had formed tendencies such as [learning passively] and [unfamiliar with group work] from [teacher-initiated class]. From this result, we showed "considering the tendency of students that formed from past lessons, and embedding the elements regarding the tendency into the flipped classroom for encouraging gradual change" as a point of attention, and 1) to clearly indicate the learning procedure, 2) to set the difficulty level according to the learning method and contents so far, 3) to make corrections to give a sense of security, 4) to organize the group which the students can actively talk, as ways of designing lesson.</p>

© ISLS. Learning statistics is challenging for non-major students. Prior research suggests engaging students in some preparatory activity for them to explore statistical problems with a video game and tangible simulation before providing formal learning resources leads to larger learning gains than the other order. The present study extends this line of theoretical discussion by demonstrating adventure game as another suited format for such preparatory activity as part of a learning cycle combined with collaborative formal practice.

<p>The purpose of this article is to identify trends in qualitative research published in the journal of the Japan Society for Educational Technology (JSET) and discuss the value and issues concerning and outlook for qualitative educational technology research. We analyzed articles featured in the JSET journal between 2006 and 2017 (issues 30:1 to 41:1), arranged these articles into four categories："primary, secondary, and reschool education," "higher education," "adult education," and "other" and identified the trends in these categories. Studies that used qualitative methods accounted for 13% of the articles over the past 10 years. Despite this small percentage, these studies have helped extend the focus of educational technology research to the socio-historical aspects of learning and the subjective reflections of participants, that prior educational technology research have not addressed adequately. However, there are challenges for qualitative research in educational technology in terms of the consistency of its epistemologies and research methodology for capturing the dynamics of learning. The purpose and process of qualitative research vary depending on the approaches the authors adopt when analyzing qualitative data. Therefore, educational technologists who adopt qualitative approaches should clarify their epistemological stance as well the procedures and analytical methods deployed in their research.</p><p></p>

<p>This paper aims to clarify how the students participate to informal learning activity at the learning commons. We interviewed to 13 college students who joined informal learning activity which called project at a case university. As a result, the authors arrived at three conclusions: 1) participating the project linking with the learning environment in the learning commons, 2) encouraging participation with deep commitment through the activity, and 3) perceiving anxieties through the activity. We cannot generalize these conclusions to learning commons, because they were arrived from alternative case. However they will be an important knowledge in order to construct learning environment to push students' active learning activities at learning commons in the future.</p>

In this information technology era, the teachers who are in special needs education school are offered to utilize Assistive Technologies and ICT. The presence of others affects to the teacher's action regarding new technology use. Thus, the authors aim to reveal how the outside personnel such as researchers and school volunteers encourage the teachers when they install technologies into their educational practices. The authors collected interview data from a teacher who utilized OriHime, a tele-presence robot in her lessons with outside personnel. As a result, we found a boundary that a teacher can individually act, and it can be expanded by cooperation with outside personnel and other teachers who are belonging to the school. Outside personnel such as researcher and school volunteer can help the teacher through active participation to the educational practice.