The State and Future Prospects of Global Education in Japan: A Perspective from the Special Course for Global Human Resource Development at Okayama University

In this paper, I aim to portray the state and future prospects of global education in Japan from the perspective I have gained from my engagement in the operation of the Special Program for Global Human Resource Development at Okayama University. While doing so, I hope I can bring some clarity to such hot but amibiguous concepts or activities as globalization, global education, global human resources development, etc. Also, I will offer some suggestions thoughtful considerations of which I believe will lead to richer rewards from the joint endeavors of hardworking people at Okayama University

Teaching and Learning in the Time of Covid-19: Lived Experiences

Since the outbreak of the Covid-19 a year ago, we have been living a drastically changed life—a new “normal.” One area in which this new normal is conspicuous is teaching and learning. Amid the rage of the spreading pandemic, schools and universities around the world had no choice but to switch to an online mode of teaching as the only viable option to deliver education. The sudden change to the online mode of teaching caused much confusion among teachers as they bore the brunt of the Covid-19’s assault on their established patterns of teaching. They often experienced intense feelings of anxiety in getting the new technology to work and crafting classes online to be as meaningful as possible. The story of this baffling experience of teaching needs to be told. Also, the students’ responses to new modes of learning need to be recorded

Some Thoughts on Designing a Global Studies Curriculum for a Japanese University

This paper sketches an undergraduate global studies program for a Japanese university. It first examines the context of the developing notions of global education and its current status. It then examines the appropriateness of the curriculum for global human resources development at Japanese universities, which passes widely as global education in Japan. It then shows why a new global studies program may be necessary by exposing the contradictions inherent in the programs of global human resources development taken as global education. The paper concludes by proposing a global studies curriculum to implement on the lower division level of a Japanese university

Enhancing Japanese Student Engagement: The Voice of Experience

Okayama University has seen recently an upsurge in the number of courses taught in English. While students generally like the English-medium courses for the abundance and novelty of information available in them, they tend to show hesitance to participate, which sometimes leads to dissatisfaction with the courses. International faculty members also feel something is amiss because they do not understand why students fail to be responsive. Clearly, enhancement of student participation and mitigation of the alienating teaching experience of international faculty are challenges to effective administration of global studies. To that end, the quiet cultivation of optimal demographics for Englishmedium courses is currently the most effective strategy

Structures and lower bounds for binary covering arrays

A $q$-ary $t$-covering array is an $m \times n$ matrix with entries from $\{0, 1, ..., q-1\}$ with the property that for any $t$ column positions, all $q^t$ possible vectors of length $t$ occur at least once. One wishes to minimize $m$ for given $t$ and $n$, or maximize $n$ for given $t$ and $m$. For $t = 2$ and $q = 2$, it is completely solved by R\'enyi, Katona, and Kleitman and Spencer. They also show that maximal binary 2-covering arrays are uniquely determined. Roux found the lower bound of $m$ for a general $t, n$, and $q$. In this article, we show that $m \times n$ binary 2-covering arrays under some constraints on $m$ and $n$ come from the maximal covering arrays. We also improve the lower bound of Roux for $t = 3$ and $q = 2$, and show that some binary 3 or 4-covering arrays are uniquely determined.Comment: 16 page

Genome-wide functional analysis using the barcode sequence alignment and statistical analysis (Barcas) tool

Pipelines of pooled library screen analysis. Table S1. Public library sets of shRNA, sgRNA and deletion mutant strains. Figure S2. A list of wrong barcodes from 1,230 shRNAs of TRC library. Table S2. Sequences of 25 barcodes with abnormally increased mapping counts by imperfect matching. Table S3. A list of the used options for each tool. Table S4. Comparison of mapping results and speed by three tools. (PDF 7691 kb

The “Post-Coronial” University, Corporatization and Sustainability

Japan's National Universities are now subject to "corporate" structures that, by recognizing the universities as legal persons and not simply parts of the state apparatus, aim to more closely follow models in many Western countries. The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted their development of more proactive institutional plans and indeed institutional identities. This study traces and explains vocabulary associated with current challenges for universities around the world, and argues that the broad concept of sustainability is a central theme around which a university may build and sustain an enduring self-image