2016 Annual Report on Faculty Development Programs at Tokushima University

全学FD 推進プログラムは2002 年度から開始され，FD の体系化，組織化，日常化等を推進してきた。2016 年度は，例年開催している，「授業設計ワークショップ」，「授業参観・授業研究会」，「大学教育カンファレンスin 徳島」，「ティーチング・ポートフォリオ作成ワークショップ」の他に，各学部等におけるFD の実態を把握し，成果や課題を明らかにした上で，ニーズの明確化，今後の学部等FD と総合教育センターの支援の在り方について検討するために，「質保証のための分野別ワークショップ」を開催した。また，大学教育再生加速プログラムに関連するSIH 道場FD・説明会の実施や学内でアクティブ・ラーニングを推進するためにLED カフェ等を実施した。各プログラムについて概要を記載し，アンケート結果等から成果と今後の課題について考察する。Tokushima University's FD promotion programs started in 2000. They promote the systemization, organization and routinization of faculty development activities. In 2016, in addition to the regular faculty development programs, which include a Course Design Workshop, Classroom Observation and Discussion Meeting, the University Education Conference and a Teaching Portfolio Workshop, we conducted a Quality Assurance Disciplinary Workshop to ascertain the FD needs of the departments and to foster alignment between the department faculty development and the campus-wide faculty development provided by the Center of University Education. As a program for the implementation of the Ministry of Education's Acceleration Program for University Education Rebuilding (AP), we conducted a seminar to explain SIH Dojo: Introduction to Active Learning for first year students. To promote active learning, we also conducted another seminar called the Learning, Education, Development (LED) Cafe. We provide outlines of respective programs and discuss the issues raised in the responses to the questionnaire

Deep sequencing reveals as-yet-undiscovered small RNAs in Escherichia coli

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In <it>Escherichia coli</it>, approximately 100 regulatory small RNAs (sRNAs) have been identified experimentally and many more have been predicted by various methods. To provide a comprehensive overview of sRNAs, we analysed the low-molecular-weight RNAs (< 200 nt) of <it>E. coli </it>with deep sequencing, because the regulatory RNAs in bacteria are usually 50-200 nt in length.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We discovered 229 novel candidate sRNAs (≥ 50 nt) with computational or experimental evidence of transcription initiation. Among them, the expression of seven intergenic sRNAs and three <it>cis</it>-antisense sRNAs was detected by northern blot analysis. Interestingly, five novel sRNAs are expressed from prophage regions and we note that these sRNAs have several specific characteristics. Furthermore, we conducted an evolutionary conservation analysis of the candidate sRNAs and summarised the data among closely related bacterial strains.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>This comprehensive screen for <it>E. coli </it>sRNAs using a deep sequencing approach has shown that many as-yet-undiscovered sRNAs are potentially encoded in the <it>E. coli </it>genome. We constructed the <it>Escherichia coli </it>Small RNA Browser (ECSBrowser; <url>http://rna.iab.keio.ac.jp/</url>), which integrates the data for previously identified sRNAs and the novel sRNAs found in this study.</p

Exploring Links Between Aural Lexical Knowledge and L2 Listening in Arabic and Japanese Speakers: A Close Replication of Cheng, Matthews, Lange and McLean (2022)

Aural lexical knowledge (ALK) is crucial for second language (L2) listening. Despite its importance, there is scant research that has validly explored the relationship between ALK and L2 listening across different English as a Foreign Language (EFL) contexts. In an effort to broaden this research base, the current study closely replicates a previous study, Cheng et al. (2022), which measured single-word ALK, phrasal verb ALK and L2 listening comprehension among participants with Chinese as a first language (L1). The current study administered the same instruments but did so among 147 Japanese and 131 Arabic-speaking English language learners. Results indicated that the capacity of ALK to predict variance in L2 listening for the Japanese group (R2 = .38) was similar to that observed in the original study (R2 = .42). However, the results for the Arabic-speaking group were very different to that of the original study and showed an unexpectedly strong relationship between ALK and L2 listening (R2 = .92). Future research directions and pedagogical implications are discussed