Abstract
There has been a marked decline in students' motivation in liberal arts courses at Japanese universities. Therefore, research and experimental classes focused on active learning are being conducted as a countermeasure. However, a majority of the practical teaching techniques imitate active learning methods used in the U.S., a country with advanced active learning whose citizens have high communication skills; moreover, there are several problems in adapting these techniques directly to universities in Japan, which are insular and whose students are characterized by low communication skills. The authors introduced pair work to basic information education classes in universities and have determined that even for the passive Japanese, pair learning increases motivation and improves communication skills and the ability to think; further, it has a high learning effect. In view of these results and existing problems in liberal arts education, the authors considered that using pair work in classes would enhance educational effects in liberal arts courses. Further, as the rate of smartphone ownership in this university has reached approximately 100%,it was predicted that students would actively participate in classes by using smartphones.Therefore, the authors attempted to conduct practical classes with pair work using smartphones in liberal arts education classes. As a result, even though there were variations as a result of different combinations of pairs and the individual characteristics of the students, it was revealed that students participated more actively than in usual classes, and the motivation to learn and levels of satisfaction increased.
Author Information
Yoshihiko Oya, Nagoya University of Foreign Studies, Japan
Kimiko Uchida, Nagoya University of Arts and Sciences, Japan
Paper Information
Conference: ACE2017
Stream: Learning Experiences, Student Learning & Learner Diversity
This paper is part of the ACE2017 Conference Proceedings (View)
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