Practice of Online Course Using Diamond Mandala Matrix at
A Japanese University Designed Based on ICE Approach andIts Results from Text Data Analysis
Seiichiro Aoki（The Kyoto College of Graduate Studies for Informatics）
Shinzo Kobayashi（CCC-TIES）
Abstract

We will show the practice of a course on the fundamentals of space and universe (79 students) of aJapanese university and its results of a textual analysis applied to text data input by students into
the Diamond Mandala Matrix (dDMM) in the spring semester of 2022. The course was designed
based on the ICE approach in a ﬂipped classroom for proactive and deep learning to have enoughtime for group work, presentations, and discussions in real-time online classes. Students willorganize their thoughts into a dDMM across multiple themes during the preparatory, group work,and re-view phases. In the approach, the learning process is divided into I, C, or E, which can beidentified based on verbs used in a sentence. We defined that increasing the proportion of C and E in
the students' sentences of the dDMM is an indicator of proactive and deep learning in our study.
From a chi-square test applied to sentences, input by students into dDMM, the in-crease in C wasobserved, which is a positive result in terms of the realization of proactive and deep learning. We
plan to test the effectiveness of the generative AI-added function to dDMM applications.

■ 1．Introduction

prepare for class by acquiring knowledge before
participating in class. Currently, the Ministry ofIn this paper, we will show the practice andEducation, Culture, Sports, Science andresults of its analysis of a course on fundamentals

Technology (MEXT) of Japan is promotingof space and universe (79 students) in the springproactive and deep learning in high schools, so insemester of 2022 at a Japanese university

a few years, students with that education will

designed as a ﬂipped classroom based on the ICE

enter universities. We must use in-class time forapproach [1].

In the course, students used thediscussion and group work for proactive and deep

digital Diamond Mandala Matrix (dDMM; Fig. 1)

learning. So, ﬂipped classrooms are necessary. In

application [2] and we analyzed the text data

addition, dDMM is an effective tool for organizing

input by the students in the dDMM application

thoughts [1]. Therefore, our study is important onwith KH Coder [3,4,5]. The course is officially inhigher education.

an on-demand format as instructed by theWe have been researching to develop methods

university, but real-time online classes wereand effective tools for designing courses that lead

combined for those who wished to take the class.

students to proactive and deep learning using theThe analysis was conducted on the students who

results of text analysis on student submissions onparticipated in the real-time online classes.

the ICE approach. The ICE Approach is a

Flipped classroom is an educational method

framework to proceed and trace the learning

developed mainly in primary and secondary

process. In the approach, the learning process iseducation in the United States since the latedivided as I (ideas), C (connections), and E

2000s, and refers to a format in which students(extensions), and learning proceeds according toNAIS Journal21

this learning cycle (from I to C through E).
In the course, class time is not used for
imparting knowledge, but for presentations anddiscussions to realize proactive and deeplearning, and a ﬂipped classroom format is used,
where students get knowledge from contents
prepared by the lecturer before the real-time
online classes and organized their thoughts in■ 2．Tools and course design
The following tools were used for the purposes
described in the Introduction.
1.Digital Diamond Mandala Matrix (dDMM)
applications. Details are shown below.
2.Zoom Meeting; It was used to conduct realtime online classes.

dDMM application. Students participate in the3.KH Coder; It was used for textual analysis ofclass present their own thoughts and discuss,

the students' submissions (data input intoafter that they put them together as a groupdDMM). As preliminary processing,through group work. It is expected that thetypographical errors were corrected andpercentage of C and E in the sentences input into

vocabulary was standardized.

dDMM application will increase as they learn.

We h a v e b e e n d e v e l o p i n g t h e d D M M

As the course was officially conducted in an on-

application as a tool for deploying thoughts anddemand format according to university policy, itaggregating and integrating the opinions ofwas up to the students to decide whether or not

members through cooperative learning in groupthey would participate in the real-time online

work, etc. In the classes, dDMM was used forclass as an option. However, students who did notorganizing to summarize thoughts in groups forparticipate in the real-time online class were alsopresentations and discussions. Unlike

able to view the video recording of the real-time

p r e s e n t at i o n s u s i n g ap p l i c at i o n s s u ch a s

online class so that they could grasp theMicrosoft PowerPoint, the dDMM allows

presentations and discussions.

presenters to show their whole thoughts on asingle screen, so dDMM is suitable forpresentations and discussions. The image is thatof a concept map with a vocabulary limited toeight words (the central concept is specified by
the lecturer as the theme) (dotted line box in Fig.

Theme1), with an additional column of sentences
explaining it (the subject of analysis in thispaper) (single dotted line box in Fig. 1). In pastcases, the dDMM application has been useful interms of sharing each other's thoughts andbroadening horizons [2].
We designed the course working ﬂow as follows(Fig. 2).

Figure 1 Diamond Mandala Matrix
Students enter their thoughts on the central
theme specified by the teacher in short
sentences in the eight surrounding cells(dotted line box). In the description field at
the bottom (single dotted line box), they
enter their thoughts as sentences using theshort sentences entered in the upper cells.
The contents of the sentences in these cells
are the object of analysis.

1. (1st week) As a record of the first stage ofthoughts, the students will summarize theirthoughts on the theme 'What is the universefor you?' in a dDMM.
2. (Weeks 2 to 15) Before participating in thereal-time online classes, students study thecontent prepared by the lecturer (pdf andvideo of approximately 90 minutes) andprepare themselves for the classes by

22 NAIS Journal

researching the theme by the lecturer andand the reasons for this. To support theirsummarizing their thoughts in a dDMM as

explanations as evidence, they were asked to'pre-learning'.

use the dDMM created in their 'pre-learning'

3. (Weeks 2 to 15) During the real-time online
class, students present their own thoughts

and 'post-learning'.
The themes set by the lecturer for weeks 2 toand the thoughts they have put together as a

15 were in the following order.

group for the dDMM through group work

1. What is the Sun for you?

and discuss them based on these thoughts.

2. How to live on the Moon?

4. (Weeks 2 to 15) Based on the presentations

3. How to live on Mars?

and discussions in the real-time online

4. How to select an exoplanet to live in?

classes, the students organize their thoughts

5. How to effectively utilize stellar energy?

on the same themes as those tackled in the

6. Our relationship with the Big Bang'pre-learning' into a dDMM application as

7. Our relationship with nucleosynthesis in the'post-learning'.
5. (Last week) Students organize their thoughtson the same theme as 1st week, 'What is theuniverse for you?', in a dDMM. The purposeuniverse■ 3．Results and Analysisof this is to reﬂect on students' own learning

In the ICE approach, it is assumed thatby comparing it with the dDMM of 1st week

whether a description corresponds to I, C, or E iswhen they create a Learning Portfolio.

determined by the verb. For this reason, the6.（Last week), students summarize what theysentences written in dDMM (single-dotted box inhave learned in the dDMM. This is not theFig. 1) were analyzed by KH Coder. Based on thesubject of analysis in this paper.

correspondence analysis diagram (Fig. 3) created

7. (After last week) At the end of all the course,from the results of analyzing the sentences in thethe students prepare a Portfolio as adDMM for the theme "What is the universe forsummary of their learning. They reflect onyou?" in the 1st week and the last week, thewhat they have learned, and summarize how

following descriptions were identified to I, C, E,

their thinking have changed or not changed

respectively.
1．D e s c r i p t i o n i n c l u d i n g v o c a b u l a r ycharacteristics of the 1st week
i. identified as I. 'Listen to the universe'.
ii. i d e n t i f i e d a s I . " L i s t e n i n g t o n e w
perspectives"
iii. Expanding was not identified to be C or E
due to its use in facts, e.g. 'The universe isexpanding.'
2．D e s c r i p t i o n s c o n t a i n i n g v o c a b u l a r ycharacteristics of last week.
i. Identified as I. "I got to know the principlesof the universe."
ii. Identified as I，“I also learned that theuniverse is still getting bigger."iii. Identified as C: "It also led to a wider
reminder."Figure 2 Working Flow of the Course

iv. Identified as C: "I realize that it leads to a

NAIS Journal23

better understanding of nature."v. Identified as C: "A lot of changes will happen
to us."
vi. Identified as E: "I now see space as a step
into the future."
We defined that increasing the proportion of C
and E to I in the students' sentences of thedDMM is an indicator of proactive and deeplearning in our study. Thus, the following rules
were also established for cross-tabulation (Fig. 4).
Then, we performed a chi-square test on theverbs used in sentences.
1．If 'know/hear/receive/understand/learn' isexpressed, it is considered I.
2．If 'connected' is shown, it is considered 'C'.
3．If 'change/research' is shown, consider it as E.
From the results of the chi-square test, we cansay that the verbs identified as I and C are

Figure 4 Diagram based on cross-tabulation
Size of rectangular‘□’: frequency of occurrence
Color: percentage obtained from cross-tabulation.
**: significant at 5% level of significance by chisquare test
Judgments of I and C are significantly different
between '1st week' and 'last week'.

significantly more frequent last week than after
1st week at a significance level of 5%. Inlearning. It is possible that the reason for theparticular, the increase in C is a positive result inincrease in I is due to a change in the students toterms of the realization of proactive and deep

be more specific about what they have learned,
but further analysis is needed.

■ 4．Future work
The function of the generative AI (Chat GPT,BARD) was implemented as a function of Digital
Mandala. This aims to utilize other viewpoints
generated by the generative AI as reference
information. In the future, this function will beused in classes to verify its effectiveness. In
addition, as the classes analyzed in this paper
have returned to a face-to-face format from spring
2023, we plan to com-pare the practical results in
those classes with the results presented in thispaper.
Figure 3 Correspondence analysis chart of verbs inthe sentence description field of dDMM
The verbs that appeared four or more times werecompiled for each sentence. The verbs on the sideof '1st week' from the center (verbs in the blue areain the bottom left) indicate those with a higher
proportion of occurrences in '1st week' than in 'last
week'. The verbs in the orange-colored area on theupper right-side show, conversely, the verbs thathave a higher proportion of occurrences in the 'last
week' than in the '1st week'.

24 NAIS Journal■ 5．Summary
This paper presents the results of a textual
analysis of the Diamond Mandala Matrix(dDMM) input by the students in a course of thefundamentals of space and universe (79 students)
combining the on-demand format of a Japaneseuniversity with a free participation real-timeonline format, offered in the spring semester of2022. The course was designed based on the ICE
approach in a ﬂipped classroom for proactive anddeep learning by increasing the proportion of Cand E in the students' sentences of the dDMM, sothat the real-time online classes were used forgroup work, discussion, and presentations.
dDMM was used for students to organize theirown thoughts: pre-learning by studying pdfs andvideos prepared by the teacher, group work andpresentations in the real-time online class, andpost-learning by students as a review. An analysis

Transactions on Information Science & Applications
4(2), pp. 280-287 (2007).
[4] Aoki, S.: "Millennium Trail of Astronomy in Kyoto"
Outreach Activity: an Astronomical Walking Tourwith Historical Features and Lectures. book ofProceedings Communicating Astronomy with thePublic Conference, 2018, p. 220-221.
[5] Aoki, S., Sakka, K., Emi, K., Kobayashi, S. andOkamoto, T.: Text Data Analysis on Answers Writtenin Japanese to Free Text Questions obtained atAstronomy Lectures. In: Brinda T., Passey D., KeaneT. (eds). Empowering Teaching for Digital Equity andAgency. OCCE 2020. IFIP Advances in Informationand Communication Technology, Springer, Cham.
2020, vol. 595, p. 139-143

of sentences of the dDMM, in which students
wrote about the theme 'What is the universe foryou?' in weeks 1 and 15, showed that the numberof students who used verbs that corresponded to I
and C increased significantly last week, based on
the ap-plication of a chi-square test. The increase
in C, in particular, is a positive result in terms of
the realization of proactive and deep learning.
In the future, we will test the effectiveness ofthe generative AI (Chat GPT, BARD) as a newfunction added to dDMM application and compare
the practical results of the face-to-face classes
from Spring 2023 with the results shown in thispaper.
Acknowledgment

We would like to thank Dr.

Gary H. Tsuchimochi for suggesting taking theICE approach to course design and tracing thelearning process by verbs.

This work was

supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers◆著者紹介

青木成一郎

Seiichiro Aoki

京都情報大学院大学准教授
関西大学非常勤講師
大阪経済大学非常勤講師
京都大学大学院理学研究科附属天文台天文普及プロジェク
ト室室長
東京大学大学院理学系研究科博士課程修了（博士（理学））平成 25 年度 文部科学大臣表彰 科学技術賞 受賞

小林信三

Shinzo Kobayashi

青山学院大学大学院ビジネススクール 非常勤講師
NPO 法人 CCC-TIES 附置研究所 非常勤研究員
一般社団法人俯瞰工学研究所 主任研究員
一般社団法人グリーンカラー・プラネット CTO
ニューヨーク市立大学経営大学院 マーケティング・マネー
ジメント修了（M.B.A.）ニューヨーク市立大学経営大学院
マーケティング・マネージメント修了（M.B.A.）

16H03087, 19H01724, 21K02672.
References[1] Young, S.F., Wilson, R.J.: Assessment & Learning theIce Approach, 2000, Portage & Main Press[2] Aoki, S. Kobayashi, T. Naraki, T. Okamoto.: Analysisof Practical Examples of a Real-Time Online Class on
Agriculture in Space, Using the Collaborative
Learning Tool "Digital Diamond Mandala Matrix".
Springer, Cham, 2022, vol. 642, pp. 215-221[3] Higuchi, K., Komoda, N., Tamura, S., Ikkai, Y.: AS u p p o r t To o l f o r C o m p o s i n g S o c i a l S u r v e yQuestionnaires by Automatically Summarizing
Questionnaires Stored in Data Archives. WSEAS

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