Reports on AY2021 Winter Term Brown Bag Lunch & Learn (December 2021, January and February 2022)
In addition to facilitating the proactive sharing of skills and specialist knowledge among faculty, Brown Bag Lunch & Learn (BBL&L) seeks to enable faculty members to learn from one another’s classroom experiences, including both things that went well and not so well, and meet colleagues from outside their own programs and departments. Furthermore, BBL&L aims to provide opportunities for faculty members to share information with one another as well as with staff members.
In the three BBL&L sessions held in the AY 2021 Winter Term, approaches that were tried in classes were introduced, and participants shared information and engaged in discussion about the situation that students unable to travel to Japan are in. BBL&L will be continued in AY 2022.
BBL&L #13: December 22, 2021
Theme: Case Studies of Online, Mixed, and In-Person Classes during the Pandemic
Facilitator: Prof. Taeko Yamamoto, Department of History
Prof. Yamamoto gave a presentation sharing examples from her experience teaching online and mixed mode classes (hybrid and in-person classes) and discussed students’ responses. In her classes, Prof. Yamamoto used strategies to facilitate interaction, and, as a result, she felt that she achieved a measure of success and that online students also were able to participate actively. As for students’ responses, some students felt that being online was comfortable, and others felt anxious about infection prevention, etiquette, and their health in in-person classes.
More than 10 faculty and staff members attended the session and reflected on the modes of teaching that had been adopted so far, sharing their own experiences and how students are doing.
BBL&L #14: January 24, 2022
Theme: Simply Read: An Experience with Perusall
Facilitator: Prof. Christian Collet, Department of Politics and International Studies
Prof. Collet gave a talk on Perusall (perusall.com), a platform that he is using for his classes. Students working on reading assignments in a non-native language (English) vary in their ability to comprehend text and in their motivation. Prof. Collet is making use of the social annotation feature* in Perusall to encourage students to read and explore the assigned readings in depth and engage in discussion based on the readings they have done, his ultimate aim being to enhance the liberal arts education offered to students.
After learning how Perusall is being utilized in the Autumn Term course IRL231, America and the World, the participants asked a flurry of questions about specific features of Perusall.
* A feature that allows classmates to add questions and comments to shared PDFs of reading assignments
BBL&L #15: February 24, 2022
Theme: The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on ICU’s International Students
Facilitator: Ms. Kyoko Fujimoto, Japanese Language Programs
The final session of the term was facilitated by Ms. Kyoko Fujimoto from Japanese Language Programs (JLP). Due to the spread of COVID-19, since the 2020 Spring Term, ICU has held classes online and in “mixed mode” combining online and in-person teaching.
Ms. Fujimoto explained that the percentage of students enrolled in JLP courses who reside abroad ranged around 30–45% over the period from the AY 2020 Spring Term to the AY 2021 Winter Term. She described how JLP has been supporting students and has proactively increased opportunities to connect with students both in and out of the classroom through engaging in dialogue with students one-on-one in weekly tutorials and encouraging students to connect with one another on SNSs, among other initiatives.
A participant shared a case of a student who gave up on coming to Japan to study, and another participant talked about an event for ICU students living abroad to meet one another. The event was co-hosted by ICU and the ICU Alumni Association.