Report on AY 2022 Spring Term Brown Bag Lunch & Learn (April 25, May 30, and June 22, 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 BBL&L sessions held in the AY 2022 Spring Term, Service-Learning was introduced, the ways in which a hybrid-mode class was facilitated were shared, and a social gathering for faculty and staff was held outdoors. In the BBL&L session held in May, a demonstration was given of the use of a speech recognition and automatic translation service to display English subtitles in Zoom meetings, which attracted the interest of staff members.
BBL&L #16: April 25, 2022
Theme: An Invitation to Faculty-Led Service-Learning
The first BBL&L session of the academic year was facilitated by Prof. Mikiko Nishimura, Director of the Service-Learning Center. Addressing the question of what we can do to cultivate individuals who can contribute to society, which is one of the goals of a liberal arts education, she gave a talk introducing Service-Learning, which was incorporated into ICU’s curriculum in 1999. ICU offers a faculty-led course called Community Service-Learning II, in which students engage in experiential learning related to a particular major by undertaking service activities in a community in Japan under the guidance of a faculty member. The session provided an opportunity for each faculty member to think about what kind of plan or design might be possible if they were to implement Service-Learning in their respective fields. Three faculty members and one staff member attended the session, in addition to the CTL Director, the CTL Associate Director, and four staff members who manage BBL&L.
For information on Service-Learning at ICU, please see the Service-Learning Center’s website.
BBL&L #17: May 30, 2022
Theme: Limited Hybrid or Expanded Face-to-Face?
Based on his experiences in a General Education course titled Debates in International Relations, Prof. Katsuhiko Mori gave a talk on (1) the taxonomy: in-person, online, hybrid, mixed, etc.; (2) the potential and limitations of using AI technology in education; and (3) liberal arts rubric.
In this BBL&L session, a demonstration was given of Meeting Owl Pro, which is a webcam for meetings, and a service called UD Talk, which can recognize English speech and display Japanese subtitles. Meeting Owl Pro is a device incorporating a 360° camera, microphone, and speaker. It is useful for conducting small-group hybrid meetings. Prof. Mori is using this device to facilitate his classroom debates and senior thesis seminars. UD Talk is a service/application that Special Needs Support Services (SNSS) has started using. It recognizes speech and converts speech into text. It can also perform translation into multiple languages in real time and display captions on Zoom.
Three faculty members and eleven staff members attended the session, in addition to the CTL Director, the CTL Associate Director, and four staff members who manage BBL&L.
BBL&L #18: June 22, 2022
Theme: Celebrate the End of the Term with Music on the Lawn!
(Social Gathering for Faculty and Staff)
Following a suggestion by Prof. Daniel Quintero Garcia, a member of the CTL Management Committee, we met outdoors for the final BBL&L session of the Spring Term. Tables and chairs were set up with support from Rev. Paul Johnson, University Minister. Two faculty members, one trustee, and more than ten staff members gathered and interacted in a friendly atmosphere. Since the event was well received, we are planning another one for November.