Overseas FD training program 2021 debriefing session (2021/12/21)
NAIST annually holds faculty development (FD) activities to enhance faculty members' teaching, research, and management skills to maintain and improve the English-based laboratory and class environments, as well as to improve the quality of education at the university as a whole. Traditionally faculty has been sent to the University of California, Davis (UC Davis) to implement the program and participate in lab-stay in a foreign university. However, due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, a 5-day online training program was offered and six faculty members participated (Assistant Professor Taishi Sawabe (Information Science), Assistant Professor Yuichiro Fujimoto (Information Science), Assistant Professor Soufi Mazen (Information Science), Assistant Professor Songkui Cui (Bioscience), Assistant Professor Shotaro Yamasaki (Bioscience), and Professor Mikiya Fujii (Materials Science)). The program consisted of two parts: a workshop on effective teaching in English and practice of mock classes by a lecturer from ALC Education, Inc. and an on-demand lecture on dealing with diversity and syllabus design by a lecturer from UC Davis.
As part of this program, a debriefing session was held online on December 21, 2021 with approximately 30 people, including President Kazuhiro Shiozaki, the Executive Directors and faculty & staff. Program participants gave presentations on what they learned during the training, as well as suggestions for future FD training, and exchanged opinions with other participants of the debriefing session.
Participants gave positive comments such as, "It was meaningful to meet, discuss, and give feedback back and forth to participants from other divisions with various specialties," "I learned the importance of how to get students involved to make them interested," "I will try to incorporate the active learning methods that I learned during the training into my lectures," "Since the training was about how to teach in English, it was also useful for teaching in Japanese," and "I learned that it is important to prepare the design and flow of the class in order to get students interested."
At the end of the debriefing session, President Shiozaki stated that "teaching is a presentation to students, and gaining teaching experience will help you improve your research level," referring to his own teaching experience at UC Davis for 14 years. He also encouraged the participants to continue accumulating skills in both education and research, as "education and research are two wheels connected by the same axis" and concluded the session.
