初修外国語教育と「教養的要素」

内容の要約広島大学(Hiroshima University)博士(教育学)Doctor of Philosophy in Educationdoctora

How were Foreign Language Courses Excluded from General Education Curriculum in Post-war Reforms: A Study on the Transition of the Discourses inside JUAA

This study focuses on the sudden exclusion of foreign languages from the General Education curriculum that occurred in 1950, according to the wishes of the Japan University Assurance Association (JUAA). The study seeks to investigate the cause of this change, and clarify its background: a change in attitudes towards foreign language courses and the general education curriculum. For this purpose, a historical approach is applied to the discourses prevalent inside JUAA from 1947 to 1951. Analyzing who takes part in the discussion, the transition of discourses inside JUAA can be divided into three periods: the first, before Oct. of 1947, when there was still only the Committee for University standards inside JUAA; the second, from Oct. of 1947 to Feb. of 1948, when all matters about curricula were separately discussed by committees for each major subject; and the third, after Feb. of 1948, when the Committee for General Education was established and came to take charge of all discussions on General Education. Through this division, I find that there was a strong relationship between the results of a discussion and the objective of the discussion. Thus, the establishment of the Committee for General Education can begin to explain why Foreign Language courses were excluded so suddenly. Moreover, by analyzing the discourse of the Committee for General Education, it is obvious that foreign language courses were excluded in order to ensure the structure of general education curriculum be precisely balanced between “Nature Science,” “Social Science,” and “Humanity.

MOOCs as an Alternative for Teacher Professional Development. Examining Learner Persistence in One Chinese MOOC

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have developed into a significant international movement, showing great promise in addressing equity, quality, and efficiency issues in global education. To date, many MOOCs have been developed specifically for teacher professional development (TPD). In this regard, an important empirical question remains to be addressed: How and to what extent can MOOCs support equity, quality, and efficiency in teacher professional development? To help fill this knowledge gap, this study, conducted from 2014 to 2016, focused on persistent teacher-learners in a TPD MOOC that was offered for seven consecutive rounds by the X-Learning Center of Peking University. The study found that more than 15% of the 105,383 teachers who enrolled in this MOOC were persistent teacher-learners, defined as learners who enrolled in multiple rounds. Data analysis showed that these persistent Keywords: MOOC, teacher professional development, persistent teacher-learners, self-regulated learning teacher-learners had diverse motivations for re-enrollment, including refreshing conceptual understanding, achieving higher scores, earning course certification, and discussing practical problems. The study also found that the persistent teacher learners developed self-regulated learning skills in the course of multiple rounds of the MOOC and showed significantly higher learning achievement than one-time enrollees. Qualitative and quantitative analysis of both clicklog data and interview data revealed additional insights into the persistent teacherlearners’ learning within the MOOC and their real-world teaching practice beyond the MOOC. Overall, this study contributes to an improved understanding of the potential of MOOCs as an alternative TPD delivery mode in developing countries and sheds light on the future design of effective TPD through MOOCs.This work was created with financial support from the UK Government’s Department for International Development and the International Development Research Centre, Canada. The views expressed in this work are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the UK Government’s Department for International Development; the International Development Research Centre, Canada or its Board of Governors; or the Foundation for Information Technology Education and Developmen