Juha Kontio, Meiju Keinänen,Tarja Åberg & Elina Asukas (eds.)

ISATE – International
Symposium on Advancesin Technology Education
Conference proceedings
August 17th–20th, Turku, Finland – part 2

Juha Kontio, Meiju Keinänen, Tarja Åberg & Elina Asukas (eds.)
ISATE – International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
Conference proceedings
August 17th–20 th, Turku, Finland – part 1
ISBN 978-952-216-794-1
Juha Kontio, Meiju Keinänen, Tarja Åberg & Elina Asukas (eds.)
ISATE – International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
Conference proceedings
August 17th–20th, Turku, Finland – part 2ISBN 978-952-216-795-8
Juha Kontio, Meiju Keinänen, Tarja Åberg & Elina Asukas (eds.)
ISATE – International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
Conference proceedings
August 17th–20 th, Turku, Finland – part 3
ISBN 978-952-216-796-5

Research Reports from Turku University of Applied Sciences 51
Turku University of Applied Sciences
Turku 2021
ISBN 978-952-216-795-8 (pdf)
ISSN 1796-9964 (electronic)
http://julkaisut.turkuamk.fi/isbn9789522167941.pdf
Turku UAS’ publications: turkuamk.fi/julkaisut

Table of Contents
Collaboration between Educational Institutions and Industry
Fostering Collaborative Learning with Hackathon
Linda William
Regional Collaborative Education Fosters Future-Minded Engineers
Takuo FUJITA, Motoki SATOH, Fuyuko EGUCHI, Shihoko ONAGA, Maiko MATSUURA, Harunori FUJITA, Kiyoshi
ISE, Shigenori AKAMATSU
Toward the Next Generation Education Which Contributes to Regional Revitalization With “KOSEN4.0”
Initiative Project
Shigehiro Toyama, Shin-ichi Akazawa, Yoshihiro Tawara, Fujio Ikeda, Yuki Murakami
Evaluating the Effectiveness of Student Internships in Educating Future Innovators
Brandon Siow
Report of the 2nd International Hackathon
Naruki Shirahama, Tatsuki Fukuda
Collaboration of Educational Institutions and Industry in Kita-Kinki Region
Yasuo UTSUMI, Takuya UENO, Kazuya TAMADA, Yoshinori KATO, Masanori TAKAHASHI, Kozo TOSHIHIRO
Collaboration programs to train international cadets for maritime English education on board
Jongdoc Park, Osami Yanagisawa, Jeric E. Bacasdoon, Koji Masuda
REGIONAL COLLABORATIVE EDUCATION FOSTERS FUTURE-MINDED ENGINEER
Takuo FUJITA, Motoki SATOH, Fuyuko EGUCHI, Shinoki ONAGA, Maiko MATSUURA, Harunori FUJITA, Kiyoshi
ISE, Shigenori AKAMATSU
On the Road of Industrial Collaborative Project-Based Learning at THEi: A Successful Pilot Case
K. L. Pun, Simon H. F. Wong, Roger T. H. Ng
Workplace Learning and Assessment in Applied Education in Hong Kong
KA YAN CANDY LIU, KAM FAT JONATHAN LEE, CHUN SING RAYMOND MAN
Consideration of the Special Course for Assistive Technology Engineer Development in collaboration withmedical institutions
Mitsuhiro TANIWAKI, Takashi YOSHIKAWA, Mikio DEGUCHI, Yoshikazu MINAMOTO, Masafumi IMAI
Narrowing Digital Gap in Children with Female College Students
Kaori Tsukazaki, Takeshi Shintoku, Takaaki Fukuzoe
Sharing of the Hong Kong IVE Engineering Solar Car Project “SOPHIE” on Project-based Learning Outcome
Loi Wah Mike SUN, Siu Pun Simon SHUM, Sek Man Jimmy TANG
Jobitti – Collaboration Between Higher Education Institutes and Industry within Biosciences
Anne Norström, Taina Hovinen, Sanna Soini
Design and evaluate a online-based training program to enhance advice-giving practice of Community
Pharmacy assistants
WAI KEI MAK

Continuous Improvement and Quality Enhancement
Development of Graduation Research in Food Texture Estimation
Shigeru Kato, Tomomichi Kagawa, Naoki Wada, Takanori Hino, Hajime Nobuhara
Follow-Up Report: A Classroom Study of TOEIC E-Learning at NIT, Hakodate College
Mariko Okuzaki
Visualization of Students’ Generic Skills Growththrough Overseas Internships
Kuniaki YAJIMA, Koji KAWASAKI, Yoshikatsu KUBOTA, Takashi SHIRANE, Hiroshi FUKUMURA
Career Education Programs in National Institute of Technology, Toyota College
Toshhihiro Shimizu, Akihiro Kaneshige
A Continuous Survey of Students’ Generic Skills From Pre-Admisson to Postgraduation
Koji Kawasaki, Yoshikatsu Kubota, Kuniaki Yajima
Using English Instructions for Specialized Subjects in a Second Language: Teacher Training and Trial
Implementation
Yoko Nakajima, Hirotoshi Honma
Nanotech Platform Established for Average Technical Education Science Laboratories
Shiro Nagaoka, Masashi Yamamoto, Takuto Tsuji, Tomokazu Shikama, Tomo Shimizu, Robert Johnston,Kazunori Matsuda, Fusao Shimokawa, Hideo Horibe
Assignment Chatbot
Percy Wong
The Nature of Science and Its Impact on the Improvement of Scientific Education
Juan Antonio Sanchez Marquez
Enhancing Lecturer Teaching Competence in Cdio via Workplace Learning
Sin Moh CHEAH
Effectiveness and Improvement of Home Based learning
Choo Heang Lim
Effectiveness of Bite-Size Assessments on Students’ Performance
Cheng Sheau Chin, Shella Tong
The Role of Quality Enhancement and Stakeholders’ Engagement in Facilitating Student Mobility
Sin Tung Kwok, Cheuk Fai Yuen
Learning path for immigrant engineers
Anita Hartikainen, Matti Kivimäki, Pauliina Paukkala, Mari Tauriainen, Tiina Hirard, Heli KamppariSustainable Development in Education
Initiatives in Maritime Education Class for the Purpose of Improving Motivation to Learn General Subjects
Keisuke Yamada
Open Classroom Approach Encouraging Interest in Engineering Inspired by the Japanese Traditional River
Traffic ”Takasebune”
Kazunori Hosotani, Junichi Morimoto
Educational Program to Develop Global Engineers based on Nagaoka CO-CORE Vision
Yasuko TSUCHIDA, Yoshihiro OMINATO, Shigehiro TOYAMA, Naritoshi AOYAGI, Susumu NAKAMURA, Hideaki
ARAKI, Akihiro Suzuki
Practical Education of Biological Diversity and Sustainable Management of Environment Using Small
Wetland on Campus
Shunichi Miyakoshi, Hiroshi Sakuraoka, Naoki Miyazato, Hisako Ooka, Takayuki Sato, Akihiro Horio, Kyoko
Owada, Toru Aoi
An International Graduate-School-Level Collaborative Program in NIT Akashi on Cutting Edge Research andProject Developments
Hiroshi Nakanishi, Susan Aspera, Ryan Arevalo, Hideaki Kasai
Human Resource Development of the IoT Engineers Based on the Remote Island Engineering
Hidetsugu Fukuda, Tomonari Masuzaki, Takeshi Ito, Tomonori Tabusa, Mitsuo Tada, Koichi Kuzume
Efforts at Education and Student Guidance With a Focus on Comprehensibility and Diligently in KOSEN
Mitsuhiro Saito
Development of a Problem-Based-Learning Program in English to Foster Students’ Thinking Ability andCooperative Skills
Yoshihiro OMINATO, Yasuko TSUCHIDA, Michiaki OMORI, Noboru FUKUDA, Shozo URABE, Katsumi
ICHIMURA, Namita MAHARJAN
Accelerating STEM Education through Virtual Exchange in the Digital Era
Eva L.Y. Mak, Jonathan K.F. Lee, Jimmy S.M. Tang, Johnny N.F. Kwong
New Challenges from Teachers’ Perspectives in Vocational and Professional Education and Training (VPET)
during Pandemic
Kit Man, Gloria CHUNG
The Impact of KOSEN Volunteers on Children’s STEM Education
Kaori Tsukazaki, Takeshi Shintoku, Takaaki Fukuzoe
Development and operation of Chinese language teaching materials for science students
Manabu Hatamura
Development of wildlife survey system by industry, academia, government and residents
Yasuyuki Hirose

Collaboration
between
Educational
Institutions
and Industry

REGIONAL COLLABORATIVE EDUCATION FOSTERS FUTURE-MINDEDENGINEERS
Takuo FUJITA*, Motoki SATOH, Fuyuko EGUCHI, Shihoko ONAGA, Maiko MATSUURA,
Harunori FUJITA, Kiyoshi ISE and Shigenori AKAMATSU
National Institute of Technology, Kochi College, Nankoku, Kochi, Japan*tfujita@kochi-ct.ac.jp
Abstract

and come up with ideas for solutions. Each team not
only had showed ideas of solution, but also have been
making the ideas realized by concrete system design,
manufacturing and so on. Some of issues they havebeen addressing have included farming house issues,
forestry issues, information security education forjunior high school students, and cultural preservation.
They have improved their skills as engineers bysolving social issues, the ability to think while
discussing as a team member, various communication
skills through discussion with local people.
This regional collaborative education fosters
future-minded engineers.

Career education is conducted to develop theability and willingness to solve social issues. We
explain active learning for career education of
National Institute of Technology, Kochi College. We
have made a special program which is named regional
collaborative education.
The goal of the program is that students solve
social issues together with people of the local area.
This program proceeded as follows.
(1) Teachers gave the broad social issues tostudents of the first grade and the second grade.
(2) They made teams which consist of five or six
students.
(3) They tried to find the local concrete problem
by themselves.
(4) Each team discussed and proposed ideas tosolve problems.
(5) Finally, each team showed ideas to teachers
and local people.
The Teams which came up with good ideas werecommended in our college presentation contest.
Students of the third grade have been making theabove ideas realized. One example is as follows. Kochi
Prefecture produces the largest amount of ginger inJapan, but or therefore it is often discarded. As theway of its reuse, students thought of making paper
from discarded ginger. Kochi Prefecture is also one ofcenters of Japanese paper production and has many
craftsmen of Japanese paper. Japanese paper isusually made from tree bark. Students came up withideas of using discarded ginger instead of it. They
learned from craftsman how to make Japanese paper
made ginger paper only from discarded ginger. The
papers have smelled ginger faintly. Craftsmen
rejoiced it, and they say they feel like making ginger
paper a specialty.
Furthermore, we have been designing advanced
regional collaborative exercise program for the fourth
grade students. In the exercises, teachers haveprovided the broad social issues to the students. They
have to look for them by themselves. They have madeteams which consist of five or six students withdifferent specialties. They have discussed the issues

Keywords: Regional collaboration, Social issues,
Active learning, improving skills, curriculum design
Introduction
Kochi National College of Technology has provided
several active learning educations (e.g., Motoki Sato &Shihoko Onaga, 2018; Junko Nagahara，Shihoko Onaga& Motoki Sato 2018; David J. Grant 2017). Now we havedeveloped a special program called regional cooperation
education to combine and fuse a wide range ofknowledge and technologies, and to develop hybrid
human resources who can quickly respond to society’s
demands which technology and information are rapidly
diversifying and changing. As a part of this, we have held
an idea presentation contest, "Unazuku Presentation". In
Japanese, Unazuku means nodding especially in order toshow understanding, agreement or consensus. One of theacademic achievement of students is to makepresentation on the contest which aims to cultivate thefoundation of engineers who can discover regional
problems through cross-disciplinary learning andcontribute to their solution. Furthermore, in the regional
collaborative exercise for 4th grade students, we aim toacquire a multifaceted perspective that is not biased only
to one's own specialty by working on solving regional
problems with a team structure with diverse expertise.
Significance of activities and research

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
18-21 August 2020, Turku, Finland7Fig. 2 Presentation of the 1st grade teamis the most salient characteristic of the contest, and it isalso important that it is an opportunity for students to stepout of the college / region by developing after the contest.
In the " Unazuku Presentation " is expected that thefollowing basic skills of working people will be acquired,(1) the ability to understand the sentences theoreticallyand convey the results of thinking to others in an easy-tounderstand manner, (2) the ability to discuss based on theopinions of others through discussions within the team,and (3) the ability to consider various issues by using
statistical data in consideration of regional characteristics
and relationships with daily life, and the comprehensive
presentation skills will be consequently improved. In
addition, it becomes possible to clarify the required
knowledge and skills of the specialized subjects to bestudied at the college of technology, and to develop the
habit of active learning in the 1st and 2nd graders, and towork with the community to solve problems. Theseability and skills are able to solve social issues together
with people of the local area on the regional collaborative
seminar in 4th grade. In the five-year curriculum of acollege of technology, which must develop not only thetechnical skills that have been required for modern
engineers, but the ability and skills required of futureengineers who are rooted in each region and work
together to challenge problems Efforts play a large role.

Fig. 1 Presentation practice in first grade class

In the activity of "Unazuku Presentation", all students(including majors) who are enrolled in our college aretargeted, and the fresh ideas based on a student’s free
conception are combined with the specialty (engineering
field) learning in technical colleges. This is an effort topresent ideas that will lead to the solution of social
problems such as aging and population decline, andproblems in the primary industry, which is the mainindustry in Kochi prefecture. Students try to solve theproblem with a team of 2 to 5 people, and 5 teams thathave undergone the primary screening (A4 slides of 20
or less) hold the presentation in the final contest. In the
final selection, persons involved in Kochi Prefecture andlocal companies and experts with a deep knowledge ofthe theme are invited from outside the college as judges.
In addition, all students in the 1st and 2nd grade are
required to participate, and we will prepare for the contest
in conjunction with the active learning type lessons ofJapanese and social studies. By practical learning, thestudents learn methods for finding problems, raisingproblems, based on the survey and using presentation
tools for creating materials, and tips on presentation skills.
Third grade students and above can participate freely,
grow significantly in not only the amount of knowledge,
but also the presentation skills based on logical thinking
and/or logical reasoning increased with advancing grade.
Although this activity is one of event on campus, theresults of the contest are provided to the local society. It(1) Holding of "Unazuku Presentation "“ The 4th Kochi National College of Technology
Unazuku Presentation” was held at the Kochi National
College of Technology Festival on Saturday, November
9, 2019.
In 2019, the theme was "Tourism x Engineering", anda method to solve the problems of Kochi Prefecture by "Tourism " was presented, and ideas to cover various
problems such as human resource shortages by"Engineering" were proposed. We competed (80 teams
entered).
The second-grade student team that announced"Automatic marketing creates Kochi!" was awarded thehighest award. In addition, a multilingual system thatuses AR technology to present sign explanations
corresponding to inbound tourism, and tourism content

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
18-21 August 2020, Turku, Finland8Force [N]Elongation [mm]Fig. 4 Example of ginger paper tensile test
Fig. 3 Presentation of the Grand Prize Teamthat enhances childcare and education as part of a
migration promotion plan to stop population decline wereannounced as ideas. “Unazuku Presentation” would be
the 4th time by 2019, and it would be seen by many onand off-campus spectators increased in increasing time.
The judges of the contest highly appreciate the efforts
made by “Unazuku Presentation”.
In addition to improving students' problem-finding
and/or -solving abilities and comprehensive presentation
skills, there are many examples of advancing researches
from the ideas, as in the “Ginger Paper” introduced below.
The various results of the researches were awarded in offcampus contests and in conference presentations.

Fig. 5 Waste ginger powder(2) Ginger Paper
By the activities of the students themselves, theyobtained free materials from the major ginger wholesalecompanies in our prefecture and have been promoting
product development based on the “Tosa Washi” (brandname of Japanese traditional handmade paper)
manufacturing method. Regarding the manufacturingmethod of “Tosa Washi”, we held training camp andpractical training at a craftsman of “Tosa Washi”(Harunori FUJITA et al 2019). We analyzed the strengthof the obtained "Ginger Paper" using a thickness gauge
and a small tensile tester (Fig. 4).
It became clear that Ginger Paper is classified as weak
paper. However, it has been difficult to quantify thedevelopment of the color, scent, touch feeling andappearance of Ginger Paper before this, but this time, forthe first time, we are able to make them realize that they
were "Quantifying what they have developed andevaluating it".
The results have been announced on November 17,
2019 at the 2019 Chemical Society of Japan ChugokuShikoku Branch Scientific Education Research
Conference (Momoi ARITA et al 2019). The students
involved in the research even in 3rd grade had valuable
experiences and experiencing the conference
presentation.
In addition, on January 12, 2020, we have visited ahandmade workshop in our prefecture to learn about the
Tosa Washi manufacturing method and held a meeting to

Fig. 6 Sample of ginger paper

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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9

further promote it in the future. As a result of the
discussions, Ginger-based paper has been developed byour students incorporating Tosa Washi technology, while
a method for absorption ingredients of ginger into the
Washi paper on the basis of ordinary Washi paper making
method has been developed by the workshop. The ginger
component for absorption have been used by drying theginger and making it into a powder form, the powder has
been made by the students of our college. After the
meeting, we proceeded with the production of powder ofwaste ginger using a dry food maker (Fig. 5).
Through this activity, we are able to make the students
involved realize how to proceed, the importance of theconference minutes, and the importance of the deadline
when working with companies. The first step is to createa business card. We have been able to create the businesscard in cooperate with the handmade workshop by the
improved method of making paper (Fig. 6) ．

(i) Conduct in groups that do not have barriers for eachcourse.
(ii) Propose a solution suitable for the situation of the
field to be surveyed.
(iii) Studies for base and preliminary knowledge ofeach field are conducted for each field.
(iv) Research theme setting and quest for problem
solving are conducted for each course group(v) Share progress and results through plans, weekly
reports, interim reports, final reports, etc.
Through the above, we aim to educate students about
the importance of combining knowledge and technology
from multiple specialized fields to face one issue, and toacquire the ideal attitude as a hybrid human resource
through practical exercises.
Specifically, based on the "implementation plan"
presented by the faculty members, each team sets its own
theme, and the teams share learning and inquiry. Report,
contact, and consult about activities by submitting the“summary of results” and so on. At the end of the firstsemester, an interim report meeting of the results is held,
and at the end of the second semester, the issue providers
are invited for "poster presentations".
From May 24th to June 11th, 2019, the participating
students had visited a field. In the problem-solving field,
a team of 5 or 6 students with different specialized fields
was divided into 18 teams to tackle 18 problems in 6
types of fields, and, we conducted on-site inspections of
EKINGURA (AKAOKA Town), NANKOKU Style Co.,
Ltd. (NANKOKU City), MASHIMA Farm (NOICHI
Town), Forestry Technology Center (Kami City),
URADO Elementary School (Kochi City) and
SAKAWA Town government (team SAWAKA, 2016).
Through site visits, we deepened our understanding of
on-site issues and repeatedly considered ideas for solving
regional issues. At MASHIMA Farm, students and one
teacher from a group received a general explanation fromthe representative regarding the operations of livestock
farmers. Participating students actively asked questions
about the calving situation of dairy cows and deepened
their understanding of the specific issues facing livestock
farmers. (Fig. 7)
Some of the issues they have addressed include
farmer issues, forestry issues, information security
education for junior high school students, and culturalprotection in the region. They discussed the problems,and each came up with a solution idea. At the interim
report meeting had held on Wednesday, August 7, 2019,
comments were submitted by all participating students tothe ideas of each team, which were summarized and fed
back to each team.
On February 22, 2020, the seminar for regional
collaboration exercises had been held by our 4th gradestudents at our college. The results of 18 teams and 78
students who found problems, presented solutions, anddesigned and manufactured solution systems wereannounced for each business site. At the presentation,
people in charge from each business unit participated andlively questions and answers were held with the students.
Each team not only showed the idea of the solution, but(3) Regional collaboration exercise (4th grade)
The purpose of the regional collaboration exercisesfor 4th grade students is to understand the current
situation in Kochi Prefecture and to cultivate practicalproblem-finding and -solving ability through actual sites
and how to tackle the issues themselves. It is to cultivate
the independence and acquire responsible behavior bycarrying out group work while considering whether or
not they can do it.
The goals of this exercises are set as follows.
(I) After gathering and arranging information on
regional issues, they can discuss and discuss theirown ideas and propose solutions.
(II) Being aware of the role of a team member
regarding regional issues, be able to act
responsibly and engage in collaborative work
independently.
(III) To be able to work on the design of system /components suitable for the site and situation.
(IV) To be able to devise solutions to regional
problems by combining expertise from multiple
fields.
The method of class and the content and method ofclass are as follows.

Fig. 7 Field visit (livestock farmer)

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
18-21 August 2020, Turku, Finland
10

- The ideas developed in these activities will beconcretely systemized in the regional collaborative
exercises incorporated in the educational curriculum.
Students from different fields of expertise make use of
the group work techniques already learned to form teams
and work together. The strength of our college is thatstudents develop practical hybrid type human resources
by focusing on local issues and technical issues andexperiencing regional contributions.
This regional collaborative education fosters the
future-mind engineers
References
David J. Grant (2017). Extensive Reading: A Foundation
for Active Learning. Bulletin of National Institute ofTechnology, Kochi College, 63, 73-78
Harunori FUJITA, Hidenori YOSHIMATSU, Moe
TANIWAKI, Shiori SHIMADU, Haduki YAMAMOTO,
Yuma HORIIKE & Motoki SATO (2019). Developmentof a Paper used Disposal Ginger, “Shoga Paper”. Bulletinof National Institute of Tecchnology, Kochi College, 64,
37-44
Junko Nagahara，Shihoko Onaga & Motoki Sato (2018).
Bibliobattle:
A Reading Competition
Game.
International Simulation and Gaming Association 49th
Conference.

Fig. 8 presentation seminar

Momoi Arita, Yui Sueuchi, Hina Shimomoto, Reina
Nonami, Motoki Sato & Harunori Fujita (2019).
Development of ginger paper "Shoga Paper" using
traditional Tosa Washi papermaking technology. CSJ
West Japan Chemistry Forum 2019 in Tokushima, 2P098

also actively demonstrated the question and answer bydevising an easy-to-understand explanation such as
demonstrating the prototype manufactured. (Fig. 8)
According to a questionnaire from students, "Ilearned from the internship that the plans and process
charts created in the class were actually used at company
progress meetings." I realized that it could be done in away. ''It was suggested that this class was regarded as a
graduation study and a dry run of work, and that heworked with motivation. By solving social problems,
students improved their skills as engineers, the ability tothink while discussing as team members, and various
communication skills through discussions with local
people.

Motoki Sato & Shihoko Onaga (2018). Attempts onregional learning through Japanese language education
for science and engineering students. The 12th
International Symposium on Japanese Language
Education and Japanese Studies.
team SAKAWA (2016). Comprehensive plan to maketogether - Kochi Prefecture Sagawa style social design-. Japan, ISBN978-4-7615-2621-4

Conclusions- In the lower grades, the national language and social
studies will work together to engage in liberal arts
education and use active learning techniques to cultivate
a local perspective using statistical data. And we aim toacquire the ability to discover and solve problems bythemselves and to transmit them.
- By making students practice it through “Unazuku
Presentation” and challenge the Regional Revitalization
Idea Contest, they have broad perspective and experiencelevel.
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
18-21 August 2020, Turku, Finland
11

EVALUATING THE EFFECTIVENESS OF STUDENT INTERNSHIPS IN EDUCATING
FUTURE INNOVATORS

Brandon Siow
Aviation Management, School of Engineering, Temasek Polytechnic, Singapore
Brandon_SIOW@tp.edu.sg
Abstract

Introduction

Internships are a collaboration between
educational institutions and industry that is acommonly accepted form of experiential learning(Nicholas, 2016). The internship experience is widely
deemed to be useful in nurturing interest andfacilitating entry into the workforce, including the airtransport sector in Singapore (SkillsFuture, 2020;
CAAS, 2019). But while internships can train students
for work, they do not necessarily train innovative
workers. John Dewey cautioned that vocational
training might create the mindset that work “to bechosen for adult life is made once and for all at someparticular date (Dewey, 2010).” The irony is thatsuccessful internships risk creating specialists who
are too ingrained to innovate. This is damaging, andpyrrhic, in today’s knowledge economy where
technology makes products- and professionsredundant at an increasing rate, and workers need tore-skill to remain employable. To avoid this,internships should also train innovation, which would
better prepare them for the knowledge economy and“whichever path they choose (Sweitzer, 2009).” Theobjective of this paper is to determine the extent towhich today’s internships support innovation
pedagogy by referring to the case of 50 polytechnicinterns in various airline and airport operations roles
over the course of 20 weeks. The method used is torefer to the interns’ weekly learning journals forevidence of innovation. Learning journals are written
by interns about their work experience and provide
insight into the interns’ reflective learning (Tang,
2002). This paper will identify instances of innovation
learning in the journals using the framework made by
the Turku University of Applied Sciences working
group (Kettunen, 2013). Evidence from the journals
will show that, while air transport internships provide
workplace training, not all of them educate future
innovators. This paper will determine thecharacteristics of those that do and discuss reasons forthis. Finally, this paper will suggest how innovation
pedagogy can be incorporated into all internships.

Internships have their roots in the apprenticeshipsystem of the guilds of medieval Europe, which trained
apprentices in skills for lifetime employment in specificindustries. Internships, like apprenticeships, provide
workplace training but internships- which are part offormal education- also provide personal development.
Schools and industry tend to focus on workplace training
to increase the chances of the intern securing immediate
employment within the same company or industry. To
illustrate, the University of Oxford (2019) states that its
internships help the transition “from education to work.”
Goldman Sachs (2020)’s internships immerse
participants in the “day-to-day” work. There is also muchresearch on the effectiveness of internships in leading toemployment, such as the 2018 study by the International
Labour Organisation (O’Higgins, 2018).
However, an emphasis on equipping interns withspecific workplace training might harm theiremployability in the knowledge economy where jobs
disappear due to automation and skills become
redundant. The National Endowment for Science,
Technology and Arts (NESTA) estimates that 6 million
people in the UK hold jobs that are likely to change ordisappear by 2030 and seeks to motivate people to learn
new skills (Nesta, 2020).” There is a need for workers
who are creative, adaptable and capable of risk-taking,problem-solving and lifelong-learning (PICA, 2020;
WSG, 2020). This can only be achieved if internships
support innovation pedagogy so as to educate future
innovators. Otherwise, interns will have the mistaken
impression that “growth ends or is wholly circumscribedby that chosen field (Dewey, 2010),” to the detriment of
their future employability.
Educating Future Innovators
The need to educate future innovators is alreadyapparent in the substantial research on new classroom
pedagogy. The Brookings Institute offers 6 pedagogicalapproaches to move teaching towards “21st Century skills(Instance, 2019).” The OECD recently did a 339-page
study that measures innovation in the classroom(Vincent-Lancrin, 2019). In contrast, there is lessresearch into innovation pedagogy for internships. One

Keywords: internship, learning journal, reflection,
innovation, aviation.
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland
12

of the few is Sweitzer (2009) that emphasizes theimportance of training personal development ininternships to impart life skills that are necessary forinnovation and “whichever path (interns) choose.”
Kettunen (2013) sees internships as a form of Networked
Learning, where interns learn innovation skills from theirenvironment and the interaction “itself might result increating new innovations.”
This paper added to the existing research by detailingthe precise innovation skills that were learnt during
internships. It went a step further to evaluate the extent towhich internships incorporate innovation pedagogy and,hence, their effectiveness in educating future innovators.
This was measured with an evidence-based approach ofa case study of 50 Temasek Polytechnic interns in
Singapore’s aviation sector from the 2019 academic year.

In examining the final reflection reports, this paper
considered the evidence presented in the students’reflective writings in the sections of the report titled,
Generic Life Skills Acquired and Reflections on
Technical Knowledge and Skills Acquired. It is widely
accepted that students’ reflective writings are useful inrevealing the learnings because they require students “tothink back on the learning activities, to explicitly andpurposely identify what they have learned (Tang, 2002).”
This would particularly be true in aviation internships
where students know that they are graded on the qualityof reflection. Sweitzer (2009) further made the link
between reflections and internships in that the former
helped turn the latter “experience into a learning
experience.” The only limitation found by this paper wasthat students with poorer writing did not describe theirlearnings clearly and there was a need to review thecontext of the entire passage carefully to identify theunderlying innovation skill. For instance, 1 intern wrote
about how she independently made decisions on her
vacationing supervisor’s behalf but did not explicitly
describe her actions as showcasing independence.
From the reflection reports, this paper identified
evidence of skills that future innovators would widely be
expected to have (eg. OECD, 2001; PICA, 2020;
NESTA, 2020; WSG, 2020), by referring to theinnovation competency framework by Kettunen (2013)
in Table 2, which was based on the work of the TUAS
innovation pedagogy group.

Context of the Case Study
Each year, Temasek Polytechnic’s Diploma in
Aviation Management assigns students to internships invarious airline, airport or aviation ancillary organisations.
Internships in Singapore’s aviation sector also focus on
training for employment. For instance, the Civil Aviation
Authority of Singapore (CAAS, 2019), which regulates
the aviation sector in Singapore, advertised its internships
as suited “for those who are looking for a fulfilling careerin Singapore’s aviation industry.” This emphasis is
supported by the internship programme itself, which haslearning outcomes that are geared towards obtaining
skills needed for full-time employment and mentoring
sessions on career opportunities.
This internship is part of the students’ curriculum andis worth 12 credit units. Passing the internship is arequirement for graduation. As part of the internship,aviation interns are required to maintain weekly learningjournals to record their experiences and learnings. At theend of the internship, the interns consolidate their journal
entries into a final learning reflection report. Interns are
graded on the quality and depth of their reflection in the
final report and, hence, take the report writing seriously.

Table 2: Innovation Pedagogy Framework
1. Individual Scale Innovation Competencies
a. independent thinking and decision-making
b. target-oriented and tenacious actions
c. creative problem-solving and development of working
methods
d. self-assessment and development of own skills andlearning methods
2. Communal Scale Innovation Competencies
e. ability to co-operate in a diversified team or workcommunity
f. ability to take the initiative and to work responsibly
according to the targets of the community; ability towork in research and development projects byapplying and combining knowledge and methods ofdifferent fields
g. ability to work along the principles of ethics andsocial responsibility
h. ability to work in interactive communication situations
3. Network Scale Innovation Competencies
i. ability to create and maintain working connections
j. ability to work in networks
k. ability to co-operate in a multidisciplinary andmulticultural environmentl. ability to communicate and interact in an international
environment

Method of Evaluation
This paper’s method of evaluation had two parts.
First, the paper examined the final reflection reports of
the 50 aviation interns to identify the innovation skills
learnt. The interns were assigned to the following
aviation organisations in Singapore, listed in Table 1.
Table 1: Interns’ Aviation Organisations in 2019
Airlines
AFKLM, Qatar
Airways, Cathay
Pacific, Singapore
Airlines, Scoot,
Jetstar, SilkAir

AirportChangi Airport
Group, Changi
Airports
Internatinoal,
SATS, dnata,

Ancillary
CAAS,
Immigration &Checkpoints
Authority

The second part of the paper measured the extent towhich the aviation sector internships imparted examples(a-l) of the 3 competency scales in Table 2. For
confidentiality, this paper avoided listing organisation

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland
13

“Although I was nervous… this task allowed me tostep out of my comfort zone and get used to speaking infront of a crowd. A useful skill for me for my futureespecially when giving presentations.”
21 interns displayed abilities to co-operate in teams.
It must be noted that the non-reporting of teamwork skills
should not necessarily be deemed a flaw as many interns’
job scope required them to work alone. For instance, 1intern’s primary role was to process air traffic
controllers’ training performance data, which was asolitary effort. Still, other interns who did learn teamwork
skills had interesting insights that showed improvement:“I had to quickly get to know the different working
styles of my colleagues and the work environment within
the department in order to get started on work… I had toquickly adapt to their working styles in order to assist.”
Some interns even took on leadership roles with theirteams. 1 such intern was entrusted to oversee the securityof food catering operations at the airport and reflected on
his leadership learnings in his report:“I believe that leaderships is a relationship between aleader and his followers and that is built on respect andtrust for on another.”
The ability to work towards targets was evident for all
interns who generally performed their jobs well. But,
some interns did require more time and guidance:“I was still adapting to my job scope and I forgot tocreate the flight bid for one of the months. My supervisor
was kind enough to remind me.”Ethics and social responsibility abilities were rarely
discussed. Only 1 intern, attached to the airport
immigration and customs office, reflected on this:“It would definitely be a contradiction and travesty if
public servants like myself do not possess integrity
considering that we are the individuals that enforce thelaws and are tasked to protect our borders after all.”names when citing examples. According to Kettunen(2013), individual scale competencies were a starting
point and communal and network competencies would
also be needed to “assure that working life expectations
are met.” The paper found that, while all internships
imparted innovation skills, they did so in varying
degrees. The paper explained the reasons for this. The
findings were summarised in a frequency distributiontable. Finally, suggestions were offered to makeinternships more effective in educating future innovatorsand identified the types of internships that did so.
Individual Scale Innovation Competencies
All interns displayed target-oriented actions. This wasdue to the nature of the aviation sector internships, whereinterns were not merely ‘photocopying’ but had clearly
defined responsibilities with strict deadlines, as an internat the airside control centre reflected in her report:“Each of us is required to perform several tasks
throughout our shift… ensure that all the tasks are done
within 12 hours before handing over to the next team.”
Office-based interns also had to meet work targets:“Furthermore, as there were deadlines to meet, I haveslowly cultivated the habit of completing all outstanding
tasks quickly… before heading home.”
Creative problem-solving was less apparent- at 23 outof 50- because many roles had standard procedures that
required operational ability rather than creative flair.
Still, an intern who did display creative problem-solving
in handling a passenger’s torn passport reflected:“It has also taught me that flexibility is essential inthis job; there isn’t one fixed solution to any situation.”
The number of interns that showed independent
thinking and decision-making was even fewer, at 19.
These interns were typically deployed at the frontline
where operational decisions had to be made on the spot:“It is sometimes expected of us to go solo and handle
the flight… I felt these occurrences allowed me tobecome more independent and more confident in thedecisions that I make.”
However, not all organisations delegated decisionmaking to the interns. Hence, the lack of this ability
might be due to the lack of opportunity.
Self-assessment and development was widely
observed in terms of computer skills- Microsoft Officeand Data Management. 32 such interns did not havesignificant prior knowledge and taught themselves.
“It was my first time using the software and there
were no given guidelines regarding its functions. To
proceed on, I took the initiative to learn the features andfunctions by myself using the web, without … help.”

Network Scale Innovation Competencies
Internships are “typical examples” of Networked
Learning (Kettunen, 2013). As such, it was not surprisingthat all the aviation interns developed networkcompetencies, differing only in the extent.
All interns made working connections- even those
who worked alone- as each intern had an industry
supervisor who kept in close contact. Some interns went
further and even managed to forge connections withvendors, like an intern in the airport safety department:“At first, I had troubles when interacting with thevendors as I was new to this project. However, after
several meetings… I have forged good connections withthem and it is a pleasure to work with them.”
However, only 16 interns displayed the ability towork in networks. This was because many interns took
on entry-level work that did not require coordination withother aviation stakeholders. 1 of the interns who did workin networks was based at a corporate aviation company:“The daily work… involved liaising with various
parties such as ground handling agents, clients and hotel
reservations agents.”

Communal Scale Innovation Competencies
All but 1 of the 50 interns reported developing
communication skills. This should not be surprising as
most of the interns interacted with customers andcontractors in their daily work. An intern’s regular duties
was to brief new airline cabin crew staff. He wrote:
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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14

Table 3: Evidence of Innovation Competencies

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13

●
●

●

●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●

14

●

●

●
●
●

●

15

●

16

●
●

●

●

19
20

●
●

●

●

●

10
7
6
9
9
9
8
8
7
6
10
8
7

●

9

●
●

6

●

11

●

●

7

●
●

●
●

●
●

6
11

●
●
●
●

●

●
●

●

18

●
●
●

●

●

●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●

●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●

●
●
●
●
●

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

●
●

●
●

●

●

●

●

●

5

●

●

●

●

●

●

6

22

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

7

23

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

10

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

9

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

7
8

●

●

●

●

6

●

●

●

●

7

●

●

●

●

7

●

●

●

●

●

7

●

●

●

●

●

●

7

●

●

●

●

●

8

●

●

●

8

●

●

26

●

●

27

●

●

28

●

●

25

●

●

●

30

●

●

31

●

29

●

●
●
●

●

●

●

33

●

●

●

●

34

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

7

●

●

●

●

6

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

7
6

●

●

●

●

6

●

●

●

●

6

●

●

●

●

8

●

8

●

36

●

●

●

●

●

37

●

●

38
39

●

●

32

35

15

●
●
●

●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●

●

●

●

24

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland

●
●

l

●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●

●

●

●

●

40

●

●

●

41

●

●

●

●

●

●

42

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

7

43

●

●

●

●

●

●

7

44

●

●

●

●

●

●

7

45

●

●

●

●

●

●

6

46

●

●

●

●

●

●

6

47

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

7

48

●

●

●

●

●

●

●

7

49

●

●

●

●

●

●

6

50

●

●

●

●

●

6

50
100%

50
100%

8

21
42%

16

32
64%

16%

23
46%

32%

50
100%

50

19
38%

100%

Sum
%

●

●

1

●

●

49

●

2%

Table 3 summarised the paper’s findings for eachintern (Int) numbered from 1-50. The letters a-lcorrespond to each ability and skill listed in Table 2,
grouped under their respective innovation competencies.
The first way to analyse the results would be in termsof the competencies that are most prevalent in theinternship pedagogy. Encouragingly, all 50 of theaviation interns developed innovation competencies ofbeing target-oriented (b), working towards targets set by
the work community (f), making work connections (i)and interacting in international environments (l). The
ability to work in interactive communication situations(h) was also widespread with only 1 exception.
Unfortunately, the pedagogy of aviation internships
was found ineffective as follows. Only 42% of interns
had the opportunity to co-operate in teams (e). Recallingthat internships- unlike apprenticeships- have a personal
development aspect, schools could address this byrequesting that internship organisations craft projects forinterns that require team work, even if it was outside theprimary job scope. Other shortcomings- only 38%
showed independent decision-making (a), 32% worked
in networks (j) and 16% in multicultural settings (k) would admittedly be more challenging to address. The
former because organisations might not trust raw interns
with making substantive decisions or dealing withexternal parties and the latter because not allorganisations have multicultural workplaces orcustomers. To address these, schools would have to seek
new internship partners, or consider overseas internships,
where practicable. The last competency on ethics andsocial responsibility (g) was severely lacking with only 1intern. A possible solution would be to request for interns
to be part of corporate community projects.

●
●

●
●

●

21

Results and Discussion

●
●
●
●
●
●
●
●

●

17

●

Innovation Competencies
Communal
Networkd e f
g h i j k

Count

Int

Individual
a b c

98%

As the aviation industry is international in scope, all
the interns could communicate and interact in aninternational environment, be it with passengers,
colleagues, airlines or dealing with international
regulations from organisations like IATA. There weresome interesting occurrences like a passenger services
intern, who wrote about language barriers:“This can be challenging with passengers who havedifficulties conversing. This is when I have to use Google
Translate on my phone …and basic sign language.”An example of international interaction at an informal
level came from an intern in a ground handling company:“I usually like talking to the foreign workers here,
especially the Indian and Burmese, as I often find thatthey have really interesting life stories.”
Only 8 interns worked in a multicultural environment,such as an intern who organised training programmes forparticipants from China and a cabin crew intern who
worked with colleagues of various nationalities in flight.
There were no instances of multidisciplinaryinternships. This was because the internships were meant
to orientate interns to work-life in their chosen disciplineof study and job scopes narrowly tailored accordingly.

The second approach to analysing the results would
be from the perspective of individual students. Plotting afrequency distribution in Table 4 revealed the following.

Instance, D. (2019). Approaches to pedagocial
innovation and why they matter. Retrieved fromhttps://www.brookings.edu/blog/education-plusdevelopment/2019/01/23/approaches-to-pedagogicalinnovation-and-why-they-matter.

Table 4: Frequency Count of Innovation Competencies
Number of Interns
2 (4%)
8 (16%)
25 (50%)15 (30%)Kettunen J, Konst T and Kairisto L (2013). Innovation
Pedagogy and Desired Learning Outcomes in Higher
Education in On the Horizon. Retrieved fromhttps://www.researchgate.net/publication/262938322_In
novation_pedagogy_and_desired_learning_outcomes_in_higher_education

Count of Innovation Competencies
11-12
9-10
7-8
5-6

All interns had examples of individual, communal
and network scale competences. While the majority
developed 7 or more innovation skills, a sizeable numberof 15 (30%) interns ‘barely passed’ with only 5-6 out of
12 innovation skills. Out of these 15, 1 intern only
achieved 5 skills. He did solitary routine reporting in anairline back office. Schools might want to reconsider
such assignments in future or request that theorganisation amends the job scope. At the other end, theinterns that developed the most competencies of 9-12 had
frontline operational responsibilities in airline ground
operations, ground handling, airside operations andairport security. Where practicable, schools could
consider assigning interns to more of such roles in future.

Nesta (2020). Nesta and Department for Education
support innovations to pave the way for future
employment in a changing workforce. Retrieved fromhttps://www.nesta.org.uk/news/nesta-and-departmenteducation-support-innovations-pave-way-futureemployment-changing-workforce.
Nicholas, A. (2016). Internships: Experiential Learning,
Academic Connection and Assessment. Retrieved fromhttps://digitalcommons.salve.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1061&context=fac_staff_pub.
OECD (2001). Competencies for the Knowledge
Economy. Retrieved fromhttp://www.oecd.org/innovation/research/1842070.pdf.

Conclusion
This case study showed that internships in
Singapore’s aviation sector provided both workplace andinnovation skills training. However, the effectiveness ofinternships’ innovation pedagogy- and, hence, the degree
to which future innovators were educated- varied
according to the organisation and roles of the interns. The
pedagogy was not very effective for 30% of interns andmore systematic studies should be done to determine
whether the fault lay with the intern, internship job scopeor organisation. This case study also identified thespecific innovation competencies, like social and ethicalresponsibility, which were missing from the internshippedagogy. Finally, this paper inferred the characteristics
of internship roles that better educate innovation, namely,
frontline, customer-facing and operations. Schools could
expand the job scope of internships to include such roles,
as these experiences better support the innovation
pedagogy to train future innovators in all sectors.

O'Higgins, N. & Pinedo, L. (2018). Interns andoutcomes: Just how effective are internships as a bridgetostableemployment?
Retrievedfromhttps://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/--ed_emp/documents/publication/wcms_637362.pdf.
PICA (2020). Growing Future Innovators. Retrieved
from https://pica.org.au/learn/growing-future-innovators
Skillsfuture (2020). Enhanced Internships. Retrieved
from https://www.skillsfuture.sg/enhancedinternships.
Sweitzer, H.F. & King, M.A. (2009). The Successful
Internship: Personal, Professional and Civic
Development. Belmont: Brooks/Cole, Cengage Learning.

References

Tang, C. (2002). Reflective diaries as a means offacilitating and assessing reflection. Retrieved fromhttps://nursing-midwifery.tcd.ie/assets/director-staffedu-dev/pdf/ReflectiveDiaries-CatherineTang.pdf.

CAAS (2019). CAAS' Internship Programmes. Retrieved
from https://www.caas.gov.sg/who-we-are/internships.

University of Oxford (2019). Retrieved fromhttps://www.careers.ox.ac.uk/internship-best-practice.

Dewey, J. (2010). Democcracy and Education. USA:
Feather Trail Press.

Vincent-Lancrin, S., et. al (2019), Measuring
Innovation in Education 2019: What has Changed in theClassroom? Educational Research and Innovation,
OECD Publishing, Paris.

Goldman Sachs (2020). Summer Analyst Internship.
Retrieved fromhttps://www.goldmansachs.com/careers/students/progra
ms/asia-pacific/summer-analyst.html.

WSG (2020). Adapt and Grow. Retrieved fromhttps://www.wsg.gov.sg/adapt-and-grow.html.

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland
16

COLLABORATION PROGRAMS TO TRAIN INTERNATIONAL CADETS FORMARITIME ENGLISH EDUCATION ON BOARD
Jongdoc Park *,a, Osami Yanagisawa b, Jeric E. Bacasdoon c and Koji Masuda daShipping Technology Department, National Institute of Technology (KOSEN), Oshima College,
Yamaguchi, Japanb
Maritime Technology Department, National Institute of Technology (KOSEN), Yuge College,
Yamaguchi, Japanc
Maritime Academy of Asia and the Pacific (MAAP), Bataan, PhilippinesdMarine HR Team, Human Resources Group, NYK (Nippon Yusen Kaisya) Line, Tokyo, Japan* park@oshima-k.ac.jp
Keywords: Collaboration, Maritime English, Maritime
Department, STCW, KOSEN

Abstract
The collaboration to train international cadets andto develop a global internship program has been
implemented by Japanese maritime KOSEN. This
paper reports the programs prepared incollaboration with five maritime KOSENs, Philippine
maritime academies and Japanese internationalorganizations of shipping.
Firstly, Maritime Academy of Asia and the Pacific(MAAP) in the Philippines collaborated with K Line
Maritime Academy Philippines have developed theglobal educational programs since 2012. We havedone lots of international activities using the
programs. It has been a good educational effect on
Japanese students so far. Recently, MAAP has
launched a new training ship, M/V KGO (Kapitan
Gregorio Oca. In September 2019, MAAP’s students
visited Japan on their training ship supported byInternational Mariners Management Association ofJapan and other organizations of shipping. Here, we
introduce the short cross-cultural onboard training
and its educational effects in detail.
Secondly, since 2015, the English study andtraining
programhave
been
performed
at NYK (Nippon
Yusen
Kaisha) TDG(Transnational Diversified Group) Maritime
Academy (NTMA) in the Philippines. We have been
joining the program with Japanese students andinstructors every year. In October 2019, NTMA
members
visitedNIT(KOSEN)
Oshimacollege. We conducted the maritime educational
program in English based on STCW (Standards ofTraining, Certification and Watchkeeping for
seafarers). A survey questionnaire was conductedwhen the program was over amongst the students.
This paper reviewed how the collaboration
programs work for training international cadets formaritime English education on board.

Introduction
As for international maritime officers, a deep
knowledge of theory, operating skill and maintenance forthe ship are a very important requirement for them. Asidefrom that, they need keen English communication skills
for internal or external communication between ship toship or ship to shore. Most of Japanese international
shipping company hires many foreigners as a ship crew.
It is necessary for international maritime officer to have
daily communication with each other who have different
nationalities. They need to communicate with SMCP
(Standard Marine Communication Phrases) based on
STCW (Standards of Training, Certification andWatchkeeping for seafarers).
Five maritime departments under the National
Institute of Technology (KOSEN) in Japan namely
Toyama, Toba, Hiroshima, Yuge and Oshima College
have been working together to nurture the maritime
officers and to enhance the professional English
communication ability without any trouble (2013). “Allmaritime college study method improvement project” in2006 - 2011, “Maritime Human Resources Development
project” in 2012 – 2017 and “2nd phase of Maritime
Human Resources Development project” in 2017 – 2019supported by Japanese government have been carried out
to achieve this goal.
Maritime Academy of Asia and the Pacific (MAAP)
which was founded in 1998, is designed to be a worldclass maritime academy equipped with the STCW in thePhilippines. It has an enrollment of over 2000 students
and have EOP which means English of policy. MAAP incollaboration with K Line Maritime Academy havedeveloped the global educational programs through"Maritime human resources developing project" since2012. During the project, we have done the maritime

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland
17English training program implemented by the invited
English instructors from MAAP for several years.
Recently, MAAP has launched a new training ship, M/V
KGO (Kapitan Gregorio Oca) which was donated by theInternational Mariners Management Association ofJapan (IMMAJ) and All Japan Seaman's Union (JSU). In
September 2019, 49 students at MAAP's JSU-IMMAJ
campus visited Japan on their training ship. On thisoccasion, we conducted joint on-board training such as
voyage drills and lectures during ocean going navigation
between Hiroshima and Nagoya port in Japan. Here, we
introduce the short cross-cultural onboard training indetail that they will lead the future of the Japanesemerchant fleet.
On the other hand, the English study and training
program has been performed at NYK (Nippon Yusen
Kaisha which is Japanese international shipping corp.) TDG (Transnational Diversified Group of Philippines)
Maritime Academy (NTMA) in the Philippines and has
been referred to as the “NYK-MIRAI project” since 2015.
The purpose on “NYK MIRAI project” is to experience
the importance of English by living with Filipino studentsof the same age who are strongly aiming to be a maritime
seafarer. We have been joining the project with Japanese
students and instructors. In the beginning of this, theglobal educational programs have been carried out
successfully with Singapore Maritime Academy in
Singapore, Kauai Community College in Hawaii andother community colleges in the Philippines. In October
2019, NTMA members visited NIT (KOSEN) Oshima
college. We have conducted the maritime educational
program in English based on STCW. We accepted the
buddy system that makes a pair between Japanese andFilipino students. All students were staying in the
training ship, Oshima MARU and have experienced the
shipboard training. A questionnaire was conducted when
the program was over amongst the students.
This paper reviewed how the collaboration programs
work for training international cadets for maritime

English education on board. It will help to measure on
how the students could enhance their English
competency, communication skills and cross-cultural
onboard training using a global approach on fivemaritime KOSENs in Japan.
International internships and maritime English
programs of five maritime KOSENs
Table 1 (2016-2019) shows the various international
internships and maritime English programs of fivemaritime KOSENs since 2014. The MAAP for maritime
English seminar and collaboration to shipboard training
costs 0 because it is an inbound program which took
place in Japan and all expenses were paid by IMMAJ.
MAAP’s English seminars gave a chance to many
Japanese students to study English without any extra
personal cost. Kauai Community College for three weeks
and Singapore Maritime Academy for two weeks cost
expensive price as compared to others. These areoutbound programs. NTMA in the Philippines,
conducting 11 days, costs 700 USD. It is an affordable
price for them so that Japanese participants are increasing
gradually. Outbound program at NTMA have a best cost
performance among these programs. NTMA program
includes outbound and inbound activities. As we
mentioned, NTMA students and instructors have visited
five maritime KOSENs every year since 2015. In 2019,
Oshima college was the host. We will see details later.
Maritime English seminar from MAAP in the past
MAAP collaborated with K Line (Japaneseinternational shipping corp.) Maritime Academy
Philippines had developed a new international internshipprogram. The five maritime KOSENs could invite
English instructors from MAAP by using the program
and requested them to conduct the "Maritime English
Instructor's Training Course", "Student’s onboard ship

Table 1. International internships and maritime English programs of five maritime KOSENs

Schools and places

Number of Japanese participants

Period Price
Programs
Days USD

14

15

16

17

18

19

Maritime English Seminar
Collaboration to shipboard training

840 630

-

-

-

29

MAAP (Maritime
Academy of Asia andthe Pacific)

Japan

14

Kauai Community
College

Hawaii

21 5000

English seminar
Canoeing, Camp activity

10

16

12

11 elled elled

Singapore Maritime
AcademySingap-ore

14 3000

English Seminar
Maritime experiential learning camp

16

13

8

16 elled elled

Emilio Aguinaldo
College

Philip-pines16 1200 English Seminar

8

10

16

15

26

22

NTMA (NYK-TDG
Maritime Academy)

Philip-pines

11

-

4

9

10

23

16

0

700

Special English seminar
Attend regular classes, Field Trip

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland
18

canc canc

canc cancPhoto 3 Shipboard training view of the engine cadets(Japanese and Filipino) on training ship M/V KGO

Photo 1 Seminar view conducting active learning for3rd year students at Oshima Collegeengineering course students. The maritime KOSEN
students were given the chances to experience an active
learning of ship handling with Filipino cadets in practice.
Photo 2 shows the navigation chart used by the deck
cadets (Japanese and Filipino) in the bridge. It is used bythem to solve the distance or direction from the ship toland/islands. This is very important to be able to checkthe right directions how to navigate the ship. This tool isessential for the deck cadets to be able to communicate
in the bridge.
As for the watchkeeping in an engine side, there are
two engine cadets in the Photo 3. They are brainstorming
what they have learned in the classes. They have to checkthe temperature, pressure, and operating condition etc. ofthe main engine. This is necessary for the engine cadets
to have communication each other.
All cadets are having their safety training as shown in
the Photo 4. They are now trying to evacuate to the lifeboats. They will abandon the ship since the ship is inunder critical situation.
In 2020, this collaboration program is scheduled totake place in MAAP. We believe that Japanese students
will be able to further improve their English proficiency
by conducting shipboard training in the Philippines.

training in English", and “Daily English conversation
educational program” for maritime colleges in Japan.
New teaching style, discussion learning, role play active
learning, U shape seat arrangement, among others werefirst introduced to Japanese instructors and then appliedin the classes (see Photo 1). The content of program has
already been edited and published into the textbook
entitled "Let's Enjoy Maritime English". Then it has been
introduced and adapted into the common curriculum infive maritime KOSENs.
Short cross-cultural onboard training
Now, we introduce the short cross-cultural onboard
training which is initiated by MAAP, IMMAJ, JSU and
JMETS (Japan Agency of Maritime Education andTraining for Seafarers) last year. MAAP have launched
the new training ship M/V KGO donated by IMMAJ and
JSU. MAAP’s 49 students and their crew members cameto Hiroshima port in order for the cross-cultural onboard
training with Japanese cadets. For the Japanese cadets,
onboard training must be a very effective way to be
exposed maritime English. Especially, watchkeeping of
departure and arrival port for nautical science course, andwatchkeeping of main diesel engine for marine

Photo 4 Safety drill (ship abandonment training) viewon training ship M/V KGO

Photo 2 Navigation chart used by the deck cadets(Japanese and Filipino) on training ship M/V KGO
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland
19Fig. 1 Findings for the maritime KOSEN students
about their buddies on training ship M/V KGO

Fig. 3. Total results for the five maritime KOSENs toall questions on training ship M/V KGO

Findings to the questionnaire survey on shipboard
training

Q3.2 Did you enhance your motivation tocommunicate with foreigner?
Q3.3 Did you enhance your motivation to study the
Maritime English?
Q3.4 Did you enhance your motivation to be aninternational ship officer and a ship manager at sea?
For the feedback, we asked the students to select one
number from a scale of one to five (see below) for eachquestion:
1 = very disagreeable
2 = disagreeable
3 = neither disagreeable nor agreeable
4 = agreeable
5 = very agreeable.
Firstly, the KOSEN students give high scores on thewhole when it comes to their buddies as shown in the Fig.
1. Japanese students could communicate with their
Filipino buddies even though they struggled speaking
English as the Q1.1 got a low average. In Q1.5, for thequestion “what kind of topic was easy to communicate”,
they chose “Hobby or Culture”. In Q1.6, for the question“what kind of topic was difficult to communicate”,
majority answered “Social System”. The results imply
the Japanese students’ thought about English.
About classes such as lecture, safety drill, and watch
keeping, KOSEN students have difficulty in English,
during the classes. As for the bar graph in the Fig. 2, we
could understand that the deck students’ satisfaction forthe classes is higher than engine students’ one.
Figure 3 shows the total results for the five maritime
KOSENs to all questions on training ship M/V KGO. As
for Q1, the buddy system works well to have a lot ofEnglish conversation and understanding each other. In
Q2 about the classes, the Japanese students have little
opportunity to expose themselves to technical subjects in
English, so that they respond very low value. Q3
indicating the educational effects obtains the higher value
as compared to others. Most of students believe that they
could enhance their motivation to be a seafarer throughthe international shipboard training.

Here, you can see the findings to the questionnaire
survey on shipboard training. The question lists are as
follows:
Q1. About buddies
Q1.1 Did you understand your buddy's English?
Q1.2 Did you ask a question to your buddy in English?
Q1.3 Did you perform program in harmony with yourbuddy?
Q1.4 Did you enhance your understanding for yourbuddy (personally)?
Q1.5 What kind of topic was easy to communicate?
1: Hobby 2:Daily dormitory routine 3:Maritime
subject 4:General subject 5:Social system 6:Culture
Q1.6 What kind of topic was difficult to communicate?
1: Hobby 2:Daily dormitory routine 3:Maritime
subject 4:General subject 5:Social system 6:Culture
Q2. About classes (lecture, safety drill, watch keeping)Q2.1 Did you understand teacher's instruction in
English?
Q2.2 Did you like the class proceeding style?
Q2.3 Did you join the classes proactively?
Q3. About educational effects for the training
Q3.1 Did you enhance your understanding for
Filipino through the training?

Fig. 2 Findings for the maritime KOSEN students
about their satisfaction to the classes on board
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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20

MIRAI project. We have conducted the maritime
educational program in English based on STCW.
Photo 6 shows the shipboard training view of the deck
cadets (Japanese and Filipino) on training ship Oshima
MARU in Japan. It is on roll-call in the bridge. The Chief
Officer is giving instructions to the cadets before doing
the training. They will learn how to use the navigational
techniques based on the collaboration between Filipino
and Japanese cadets.
Figure 4 shows the findings about the educational
effects to the collaboration program. All sectors show
remarkable motivation enhancement. It could motivate tocommunicate with foreigner and to be international
officers in the future. Japanese students show the higheducational effects. It had a good impact on Filipino
students as well because Japanese students could support
them during the training on board.

Photo 5 Safety drill (boat handling training) view on
NTMA campus in the Philippines
Collaboration programs between NTMA and Oshima
college
The English study and training program has been
performed at NYK - TDG Maritime Academy (NTMA)in the Philippines and has been referred to as the “NYKMIRAI project” since 2015. NTMA promotes thestandards in maritime education through a competencybased and maritime industry-driven curriculum that
employs a variety of teaching methods delivered byhighly qualified faculty members. We decided to bring
the Japanese students to NTMA for a short-term English
training. Photo 5 shows the safety drill which is the boat
handling training that they have to use to it as a seafarer.
They can learn how to handle the boat movements andthey can learn about the team-works. It is very important
for them to learn how to use the navigational techniques.
They can have the first-hand experience on how to handle
boat movements: rolling and pitching etc.

NTMA student's comments for the Oshima program in
Japan
Here are NTMA student’s comments for thecollaboration program in Japan.
 It was a very successful event/project. We are verysatisfied in.
 We hope is that NTMA cadets to participate will be
more next time.
 We hope the program will continue to inspire more.
 We may have additional time or longer stay in the
future.
 It would be great to explore more about the culture,living and technical knowledge of the participants.
 I wish we would more opportunities not only
technical skills but also decision making skills.
 We communicated a lot with our Japanese buddies
and instructors.
 My experience in Japan will be exceeded better.
 It will make much better if you could add moreinteraction of all Japanese students.
 NYK MIRAI project is a great program because it
allow us to actualized our theoretical knowledge inthe training ship Oshima MARU.

Findings to the questionnaire survey on collaboration
program
In October 2019, NTMA members visited NIT(KOSEN) Oshima college supported by the NYK-

Photo 6 Shipboard training view of the deck cadets(Japanese and Filipino) on training ship Oshima
MARU in Japan

Fig. 4 Findings for the maritime KOSEN students
about educational effects to collaboration program

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland21

Proceedings of Education forum for all colleges in Japan,
AP4 3 2.

Conclusions
The MAAP’s maritime English seminar conducted by
the instructors from Maritime Academy of Asia and thePacific has already been edited and published into the
textbook. Then it has been introduced and adapted into
the common curriculum in five maritime KOSENs (2016,2017). The international internship program in thePhilippines will be encouraging that the maritime
KOSEN students can put in practice the English training
from now on.
The cross-cultural onboard training between
Japanese and Filipino students was very affordable forevery student in maritime colleges. The maritime
KOSEN students were given the chances to experiencean active learning of ship handling, watchkeeping andsafety drill with Filipino students in practice. In addition,
the students could have a lot of English conversation andunderstanding each other through buddy system on board.
Using English in the conversation flexibly with
NTMA students who are speaking English as a secondary
language, has become a place of good practice for
improving the communication skills for Japanese
students. Hosting NTMA gave a chance to many Japanese
students to study English without any extra personal cost. It isvery important to learn maritime English and also to understandinter-cultural background to be able to communicate withinternational colleagues in future work on ships.
The questionnaire for the program were reported to
improve their comprehension about maritime English. We
concluded that the collaboration programs to train international
cadets for maritime English education was successful toenhance Japanese students’ motivation and professional
English communication ability for the future seafarer.

C, Chirea Ungureanu. (2014), "Intercultural education, a
response to contemporary multilingual societies and a
new challenge for Maritime Education and Training(MET) Institutions", Procedia, 116, 4260–4263.
Ding Zi-hua, (2015), "The Existing Situation andTraining about Maritime English Teachers in China",
Journal of Shipping and Ocean Engineering 5, 266-270.
Ahmad Fauzia, Patta Bundua, and Suradi Tahmira,(2016), "The Development of Maritime English Learning
Model Using Authentic Assessment Based Bridge
Simulator in Merchant Marine Polytechnic, Makassar",International Journal of Environmental & Science
Education, 11, 10, 3231-3240.
Jongdoc Park and et al., (2016), “Educational Programfor Maritime English with MAAP instructors adopted in
Five NIT Maritime Colleges of Japan”, International
Symposium on Marine Engineering and Technology(ISMT) 2016, Busan Korea.
Jongdoc Park and et al., (2017), “International Maritime
Education and Training in Collaboration with Philippines
Maritime Academy”, Proceedings of the International
Symposium on Marine Engineering (ISME), Tokyo,
Japan, D20-201, pp 507-510.
Hiroshi Ohyama and et al., (2018), “Development ofEssential Personalities for Future Maritime Professionals-International Internships Programs Developing Global
Adaptability-”, NAVIGATION, 203, pp 20-13.

Acknowledgements
Osami Yanagisawa and et al., (2018), “Implementationof an International Maritime English Educational
program at Maritime Technology departments in five
NIT in Japan”, 30th International Maritime English
Conference (IMEC30), Manila, Philippine, pp 1-13.

This program is sponsored by IMMAJ (International
Mariners Management Association of Japan) and NYK(Nippon Yusen Kaisya) corporation. The authors would
like to express gratitude to instructors and staffs of
MAAP and NTMA to perform this program.

Jongdoc Park and et al., (2019), “Enhanced English
Competency of Teachers Using Global Approach for
Maritime Colleges in Japan”, Transactions of ISATE (ebook with ISBN: 978-4-9911159-0-5), the 13th
International Symposium on Advances in Technology
Education (ISATE2019), Paper No. 3012464, pp1-5.

References
Kanki Iwasaki. (2013). “Development of humanresources training system with corporation between
college and industry in maritime area - Overview ofMaritime human resources developing project”.
Proceedings of Education forum for all colleges in Japan.
AP4 3 1.
Kyoko Ikeda and et al., (2013), Surfing English Maritime college series, 1st edition, Kaibunndou
Publishing Co..
Makoto Endo, (2013), “An approach to study method
easy to understand and to fix in maritime department - allmaritime college study method improvement project”,
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland
22

REGIONAL COLLABORATIVE EDUCATION FOSTERS FUTURE-MINDEDENGINEERS
Takuo FUJITA, Motoki SATOH, Fuyuko EGUCHI, Shihoko ONAGA, Maiko MATSUURA,
Harunori FUJITA, Kiyoshi ISE and Shigenori AKAMATSU
National Institute of Technology, Kochi College, Nankoku, Kochi, Japan*tfujita@kochi-ct.ac.jp
Abstract

and come up with ideas for solutions. Each team not
only had showed ideas of solution, but also have been
making the ideas realized by concrete system design,
manufacturing and so on. Some of issues they havebeen addressing have included farming house issues,
forestry issues, information security education forjunior high school students, and cultural preservation.
They have improved their skills as engineers bysolving social issues, the ability to think while
discussing as a team member, various communication
skills through discussion with local people.
This regional collaborative education fosters
future-minded engineers.

Career education is conducted to develop theability and willingness to solve social issues. We
explain active learning for career education of
National Institute of Technology, Kochi College. We
have made a special program which is named regional
collaborative education.
The goal of the program is that students solve
social issues together with people of the local area.
This program proceeded as follows.
(1) Teachers gave the broad social issues tostudents of the first grade and the second grade.
(2) They made teams which consist of five or six
students.
(3) They tried to find the local concrete problem
by themselves.
(4) Each team discussed and proposed ideas tosolve problems.
(5) Finally, each team showed ideas to teachers
and local people.
The Teams which came up with good ideas werecommended in our college presentation contest.
Students of the third grade have been making theabove ideas realized. One example is as follows. Kochi
Prefecture produces the largest amount of ginger inJapan, but or therefore it is often discarded. As theway of its reuse, students thought of making paper
from discarded ginger. Kochi Prefecture is also one ofcenters of Japanese paper production and has many
craftsmen of Japanese paper. Japanese paper isusually made from tree bark. Students came up withideas of using discarded ginger instead of it. They
learned from craftsman how to make Japanese paper
made ginger paper only from discarded ginger. The
papers have smelled ginger faintly. Craftsmen
rejoiced it, and they say they feel like making ginger
paper a specialty.
Furthermore, we have been designing advanced
regional collaborative exercise program for the fourth
grade students. In the exercises, teachers haveprovided the broad social issues to the students. They
have to look for them by themselves. They have madeteams which consist of five or six students withdifferent specialties. They have discussed the issues

Keywords: Regional collaboration, Social issues,
Active learning, improving skills, curriculum design
Introduction
Kochi National College of Technology has provided
several active learning educations (e.g., Motoki Sato &Shihoko Onaga, 2018; Junko Nagahara，Shihoko Onaga& Motoki Sato 2018; David J. Grant 2018). Now we havedeveloped a special program called regional cooperation
education to combine and fuse a wide range ofknowledge and technologies, and to develop hybrid
human resources who can quickly respond to society’s
demands which technology and information are rapidly
diversifying and changing. As a part of this, we have held
an idea presentation contest, "Unazuku Presentation". In
Japanese, Unazuku means nodding especially in order toshow understanding, agreement or consensus. One of theacademic achievement of students is to makepresentation on the contest which aims to cultivate thefoundation of engineers who can discover regional
problems through cross-disciplinary learning andcontribute to their solution. Furthermore, in the regional
collaborative exercise for 4th grade students, we aim toacquire a multifaceted perspective that is not biased only
to one's own specialty by working on solving regional
problems with a team structure with diverse expertise.
Significance of activities and research

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland23Fig. 2 Presentation of the 1st grade teamis the most salient characteristic of the contest, and it isalso important that it is an opportunity for students to stepout of the college / region by developing after the contest.
In the " Unazuku Presentation " is expected that thefollowing basic skills of working people will be acquired,(1) the ability to understand the sentences theoreticallyand convey the results of thinking to others in an easy-tounderstand manner, (2) the ability to discuss based on theopinions of others through discussions within the team,and (3) the ability to consider various issues by using
statistical data in consideration of regional characteristics
and relationships with daily life, and the comprehensive
presentation skills will be consequently improved. In
addition, it becomes possible to clarify the required
knowledge and skills of the specialized subjects to bestudied at the college of technology, and to develop the
habit of active learning in the 1st and 2nd graders, and towork with the community to solve problems. Theseability and skills are able to solve social issues together
with people of the local area on the regional collaborative
seminar in 4th grade. In the five-year curriculum of acollege of technology, which must develop not only thetechnical skills that have been required for modern
engineers, but the ability and skills required of futureengineers who are rooted in each region and work
together to challenge problems Efforts play a large role.

Fig. 1 Presentation practice in first grade class

In the activity of "Unazuku Presentation", all students(including majors) who are enrolled in our college aretargeted, and the fresh ideas based on a student’s free
conception are combined with the specialty (engineering
field) learning in technical colleges. This is an effort topresent ideas that will lead to the solution of social
problems such as aging and population decline, andproblems in the primary industry, which is the mainindustry in Kochi prefecture. Students try to solve theproblem with a team of 2 to 5 people, and 5 teams thathave undergone the primary screening (A4 slides of 20
or less) hold the presentation in the final contest. In the
final selection, persons involved in Kochi Prefecture andlocal companies and experts with a deep knowledge ofthe theme are invited from outside the college as judges.
In addition, all students in the 1st and 2nd grade are
required to participate, and we will prepare for the contest
in conjunction with the active learning type lessons ofJapanese and social studies. By practical learning, thestudents learn methods for finding problems, raisingproblems, based on the survey and using presentation
tools for creating materials, and tips on presentation skills.
Third grade students and above can participate freely,
grow significantly in not only the amount of knowledge,
but also the presentation skills based on logical thinking
and/or logical reasoning increased with advancing grade.
Although this activity is one of event on campus, theresults of the contest are provided to the local society. It(1) Holding of "Unazuku Presentation "“The 4th Kochi National College of Technology
Unazuku Presentation” was held at the Kochi National
College of Technology Festival on Saturday, November
9, 2019.
In 2019, the theme was "Tourism x Engineering", anda method to solve the problems of Kochi Prefecture by "Tourism " was presented, and ideas to cover various
problems such as human resource shortages by"Engineering" were proposed. We competed (80 teams
entered).
The second-grade student team that announced"Automatic marketing creates Kochi!" was awarded thehighest award. In addition, a multilingual system thatuses AR technology to present sign explanations
corresponding to inbound tourism, and tourism content

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland24Force [N]Elongation [mm]Fig. 4 Example of ginger paper tensile test
Fig. 3 Presentation of the Grand Prize Teamthat enhances childcare and education as part of a
migration promotion plan to stop population decline wereannounced as ideas. “Unazuku Presentation” would be
the 4th time by 2019, and it would be seen by many onand off-campus spectators increased in increasing time.
The judges of the contest highly appreciate the efforts
made by “Unazuku Presentation”.
In addition to improving students' problem-finding
and/or -solving abilities and comprehensive presentation
skills, there are many examples of advancing researches
from the ideas, as in the “Ginger Paper” introduced below.
The various results of the researches were awarded in offcampus contests and in conference presentations.

Fig. 5 Waste ginger powder(2) Ginger Paper
By the activities of the students themselves, theyobtained free materials from the major ginger wholesalecompanies in our prefecture and have been promoting
product development based on the “Tosa Washi” (brandname of Japanese traditional handmade paper)
manufacturing method. Regarding the manufacturingmethod of “Tosa Washi”, we held training camp andpractical training at a craftsman of “Tosa Washi”(Harunori FUJITA et al. 2019). We analyzed the strengthof the obtained "Ginger Paper" using a thickness gauge
and a small tensile tester (Fig. 4).
It became clear that Ginger Paper is classified as weak
paper. However, it has been difficult to quantify thedevelopment of the color, scent, touch feeling andappearance of Ginger Paper before this, but this time, forthe first time, we are able to make them realize that they
were "Quantifying what they have developed andevaluating it".
The results have been announced on November 17,
2019 at the 2019 Chemical Society of Japan ChugokuShikoku Branch Scientific Education Research
Conference (Momoi ARITA et al. 2019). The students
involved in the research even in 3rd grade had valuable
experiences and experiencing the conference
presentation.
In addition, on January 12, 2020, we have visited ahandmade workshop in our prefecture to learn about the
Tosa Washi manufacturing method and held a meeting to

Fig. 6 Sample of ginger paper

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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25

further promote it in the future. As a result of the
discussions, Ginger-based paper has been developed byour students incorporating Tosa Washi technology, while
a method for absorption ingredients of ginger into the
Washi paper on the basis of ordinary Washi paper making
method has been developed by the workshop. The ginger
component for absorption have been used by drying theginger and making it into a powder form, the powder has
been made by the students of our college. After the
meeting, we proceeded with the production of powder ofwaste ginger using a dry food maker (Fig. 5).
Through this activity, we are able to make the students
involved realize how to proceed, the importance of theconference minutes, and the importance of the deadline
when working with companies. The first step is to createa business card. We have been able to create the businesscard in cooperate with the handmade workshop by the
improved method of making paper (Fig. 6) ．

(i) Conduct in groups that do not have barriers for eachcourse.
(ii) Propose a solution suitable for the situation of the
field to be surveyed.
(iii) Studies for base and preliminary knowledge ofeach field are conducted for each field.
(iv) Research theme setting and quest for problem
solving are conducted for each course group(v) Share progress and results through plans, weekly
reports, interim reports, final reports, etc.
Through the above, we aim to educate students about
the importance of combining knowledge and technology
from multiple specialized fields to face one issue, and toacquire the ideal attitude as a hybrid human resource
through practical exercises.
Specifically, based on the "implementation plan"
presented by the faculty members, each team sets its own
theme, and the teams share learning and inquiry. Report,
contact, and consult about activities by submitting the“summary of results” and so on. At the end of the firstsemester, an interim report meeting of the results is held,
and at the end of the second semester, the issue providers
are invited for "poster presentations".
From May 24th to June 11th, 2019, the participating
students had visited a field. In the problem-solving field,
a team of 5 or 6 students with different specialized fields
was divided into 18 teams to tackle 18 problems in 6
types of fields, and, we conducted on-site inspections of
EKINGURA (AKAOKA Town), NANKOKU Style Co.,
Ltd. (NANKOKU City), MASHIMA Farm (NOICHI
Town), Forestry Technology Center (Kami City),
URADO Elementary School (Kochi City) and
SAKAWA Town government (team SAWAKA, 2016).
Through site visits, we deepened our understanding of
on-site issues and repeatedly considered ideas for solving
regional issues. At MASHIMA Farm, students and one
teacher from a group received a general explanation fromthe representative regarding the operations of livestock
farmers. Participating students actively asked questions
about the calving situation of dairy cows and deepened
their understanding of the specific issues facing livestock
farmers. (Fig. 7)
Some of the issues they have addressed include
farmer issues, forestry issues, information security
education for junior high school students, and culturalprotection in the region. They discussed the problems,and each came up with a solution idea. At the interim
report meeting had held on Wednesday, August 7, 2019,
comments were submitted by all participating students tothe ideas of each team, which were summarized and fed
back to each team.
On February 22, 2020, the seminar for regional
collaboration exercises had been held by our 4th gradestudents at our college. The results of 18 teams and 78
students who found problems, presented solutions, anddesigned and manufactured solution systems wereannounced for each business site. At the presentation,
people in charge from each business unit participated andlively questions and answers were held with the students.
Each team not only showed the idea of the solution, but(3) Regional collaboration exercise (4th grade)
The purpose of the regional collaboration exercisesfor 4th grade students is to understand the current
situation in Kochi Prefecture and to cultivate practicalproblem-finding and -solving ability through actual sites
and how to tackle the issues themselves. It is to cultivate
the independence and acquire responsible behavior bycarrying out group work while considering whether or
not they can do it.
The goals of this exercises are set as follows.
(I) After gathering and arranging information on
regional issues, they can discuss and discuss theirown ideas and propose solutions.
(II) Being aware of the role of a team member
regarding regional issues, be able to act
responsibly and engage in collaborative work
independently.
(III) To be able to work on the design of system /components suitable for the site and situation.
(IV) To be able to devise solutions to regional
problems by combining expertise from multiple
fields.
The method of class and the content and method ofclass are as follows.

Fig. 7 Field visit (livestock farmer)

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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Fig. 9 graduation research presentationeach other and solve problems, so I would like to act withthese in mind so that I can make use of them in the
future." As mentioned above, they said they noticed theirnarrow field of vision. They also said that they realizedthat their communication skills had improved through ayear of team activities. In addition, they say that they
have more contact with people outside the college, andthey can work on it while paying attention to the wording,so it is effective in preparing for job hunting.
Students who completed the regional collaboration
exercise in the 4th grade took advantage of theirexperience to engage in graduation research, job hunting,and higher education activities in the 5th grade.
For example, a student who developed a mobile
tourism application in the regional collaboration exercise
conducted a UX (user experience) evaluation study ofthis application in a graduation research. Focusing on the
difference between using it as a resident or as a tourist,
he evaluated usability, improved the application, andpresented his research results at his graduation researchpresentation on January 22, 2021. (Fig. 9)
In addition, some students have been working on
solving regional issues as their graduation research theme,
such as "Research on digital signage systems aimed at
improving operational efficiency through content sharing
between industry, academia, government, and the private
sector."
These activities have elements such as collaboration
with external institutions, combination of students withdifferent specialties, and practice of project management,
so students can experience how to work in a company
before employment. Students use this experience for theirgraduation research, job hunting, and higher education
activities.

Fig. 8 presentation seminaralso actively demonstrated the question and answer bydevising an easy-to-understand explanation such as
demonstrating the prototype manufactured. (Fig. 8)
According to a questionnaire from students, "Ilearned from the internship that the plans and process
charts created in the class were actually used at company
progress meetings." I realized that it could be done in away. ''It was suggested that this class was regarded as a
graduation study and a dry run of work, and that heworked with motivation. By solving social problems,
students improved their skills as engineers, the ability tothink while discussing as team members, and various
communication skills through discussions with local
people.
Since the regional collaboration exercises consist ofteams of students from different specialties, their grade
evaluation includes self-evaluation and mutual
evaluation by students. Some of the comments in theirself-evaluation were as follows:"In the process of solving the problem, I realized thatthe range that can be solved only by my specialty islimited, so from now on, I will accumulate knowledge ina wide range of fields and connect it with my specialty.”,"I realized the importance of working on my own andincorporating the opinions of various people in order tosolve what I don't understand. I learned that it isimportant for people with different specialties to help

Conclusions
In the lower grades, the national language and social
studies will work together to engage in liberal arts
education and use active learning techniques to cultivate
a local perspective using statistical data. And we aim toacquire the ability to discover and solve problems bythemselves and to transmit them.

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland27

By making students practice it through “Unazuku
Presentation” and challenge the Regional Revitalization
Idea Contest, they have broad perspective and experiencelevel.
The ideas developed in these activities will beconcretely systemized in the regional collaborative
exercises incorporated in the educational curriculum.
Students from different fields of expertise make use of
the group work techniques already learned to form teams
and work together. The strength of our college is thatstudents develop practical hybrid type human resources
by focusing on local issues and technical issues andexperiencing regional contributions.

This regional collaborative education fosters the
future-mind engineers
Acknowledgement
This work was supported by a research grant from the
Chuden Foundation for Education.
References
David J. Grant (2018). Extensive Reading: A Foundation
for Active Learning. Bulletin of National Institute ofTechnology, Kochi College, 63, 73-78“Unazuku Presentation", which was launched in 2016,
initially had many teams including students in the third
grade and above. Since the start of the regional
collaboration exercise in 2019, students have beenlearning regional collaboration as follows: 1st and 2nd
graders through "Unazuku Presentation", 4th graders
through regional collaboration exercises, and 5th grade
through graduation research. In the 4th grade regional
collaboration exercise, the theme of "Unazuku
Presentation" can be continued, and this year, 3 teams areworking on the realization of the idea of "Unazuku
Presentation". Several teams in the second grade haveembodied the idea of "Unazuku Presentation" in the third
grade and are challenging the off-campus contest, but not
all the third graders are working on it.
The current issue is that there is no curriculum onregional collaboration in the third grade and students'
motivation for solving regional problems is not
maintained. To stay motivated, we are considering acurriculum to learn local issues in the third grade.
Through this curriculum, third graders can join the fourth
grade team of regional collaboration exercises from thesecond semester.
In addition, until now, "Unazuku Presentation" wasconducted as part of the Japanese language and social
classes for first and second graders, but it was difficult tohold events in the classes and the burden on the teachers
in charge was heavy.
In the future, "Unazuku
Presentation" will be separated from the lessons and will
be held as a school event by the Career Support Officeand the Regional Cooperation Center. We intend to invite
local businesses and local governments to the event sothat the event is truly a collaborative project incollaboration with the community.

Harunori FUJITA, Hidenori YOSHIMATSU, Moe
TANIWAKI, Shiori SHIMADU, Haduki YAMAMOTO,
Yuma HORIIKE & Motoki SATO (2019). Developmentof a Paper used Disposal Ginger, “Shoga Paper”. Bulletinof National Institute of Tecchnology, Kochi College, 64,
37-44
Junko Nagahara，Shihoko Onaga & Motoki Sato (2018).
Bibliobattle: A Reading Competition Game.
International Simulation and Gaming Association 49th
Conference.
Momoi Arita, Yui Sueuchi, Hina Shimomoto, Reina
Nonami, Motoki Sato & Harunori Fujita (2019).
Development of ginger paper "Shoga Paper" using
traditional Tosa Washi papermaking technology. CSJ
West Japan Chemistry Forum 2019 in Tokushima, 2P098
Motoki Sato & Shihoko Onaga (2018). Attempts onregional learning through Japanese language education
for science and engineering students. The 12th
International Symposium on Japanese Language
Education and Japanese Studies.
team SAKAWA (2016). Comprehensive plan to maketogether - Kochi Prefecture Sagawa style social design-. Japan, ISBN978-4-7615-2621-4

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland
28

WORKPLACE LEARNING AND ASSESSMENT IN APPLIED EDUCATIONIN HONG KONG
Candy K.Y. Liu*, Jonathan K.F. Lee and Raymond C.S. Man
Vocational Training Council, Hong Kong, China*candyliu@vtc.edu.hk
Abstract

industry-recognisedcompetencies,
therebycontributing to sustain a well-trained and qualified
workforce for our society. This paper focuses on the
aforementioned features of the VTC’s WLA system,
particularly the collaboration with employers in
WLA development and implementation.

Workplace Learning and Assessment (WLA) is a
structured pedagogical approach newly initiated by
the Vocational Training Council (VTC) in Hong Kong.
It aims to nurture skilled talent capable of performing
up to occupational and industry standards leading tovocational qualifications, by integrating the schoolbased and work-based learning components inprogrammes. By launching this initiative, closer
collaboration between the VTC and the employers forsustainable manpower development can be achieved.
The Government is also strongly supporting thisinitiative by introducing the Pilot Incentive Scheme to
Employers to encourage employers to join hands with
the VTC to develop and implement structured WLA
activities.
Referencing the best practice of the German andSwiss dual-track vocational and education systems
which have been internationally recognized, and thewell-established WLA model adopted in New Zealand,
the VTC has developed its own WLA system to suitthe local applied education environment. In
accomplishing this, the VTC has cooperated with
employers in developing unit standards andassessment tasks for assessing trainees’ competence
against the employers’ requirements. A tripartite
platform is therefore also established to enable
competence-based learning and assessment with theparticipation from the VTC, employers and trainees.
Not least is the programme curricula enhancement
which can be attained by incorporating the latest
skills, knowledge and technologies required by theindustry.
In order to conduct WLA in a systematic andcredible manner, the VTC has established a robust
quality assurance mechanism to govern WLA
implementation, including the assessment workflow
and the accreditation of workplace trainers, verifiers
and assessors. Meanwhile, a web-based assessment
system has been devised to facilitate trainees andemployers in conducting WLA. With the system, thelearning progress of trainees can also be tracked at all
times.
WLA approach enables trainees to learn andsharpen their skills in the workplace, and acquire

Keywords: Workplace Learning and Assessment,
Applied Education, Vocational and Professional
Education and Training
Introduction
In the VTC, “Workplace Learning and Assessment”
is a structured pedagogical practice where education is
integrated into the work setting, and trainees’
competence is assessed in an authentic workplace. WLA
enables the integration of the school-based and workbased learning components in academic programmes,and becomes part of the curriculum requirement toenhance trainee learning motivation. Academic
programmes can therefore keep abreast of the latest
industry developments. Through the structured
workplace assessment activities, employers can have aclear picture of the trainees’ performance. The training
activities can be fine-tuned based on the trainees’
assessment results to enhance their competence.
To launch the WLA initiative in the Vocational andProfessional Education and Training (VPET) in the firstquarter of 2020 in Hong Kong, the VTC has madereference to the international best practice of the dualtrack systems and the WLA model. Trainees study parttime at the VTC while they receive apprenticeshiptraining at the companies they work for at the same time.
The VTC collaborated with the employers to develop
WLA activities that are widely practicable in the industry.
The Government is also strongly supporting thisinitiative by introducing the Pilot Incentive Scheme to
Employers to encourage employers to join hands with the
VTC to develop and implement structured WLA
activities for particular industries. Participating
employers will receive a subsidy in conducting WLA.
This paper elaborates on the VTC WLA system, therelated quality assurance (QA) mechanism, theengagement of employers, the web-based assessment
system, and the feedback from employers and trainees.

29International Practices of Workplace Learning andAssessment

school-based and work-based learning. In this connection,assessment will be arranged in the polytechnic and/or
workplace (Vaughan and Cameron, 2009). The
structured provision of WLA in New Zealand is arranged
and managed by the Industry Training Organizations(ITOs) that are recognised by the Associate Minister of
Education (Tertiary Education) (New Zealand
Qualifications Authority, 2021). ITOs work withindustries to develop assessment materials, including theunit standards. A unit standard describes what a trainee
who has achieved the standard knows and can do. Eachstandard has a defined credit value, which reflects thelevel of complexity of the skills and knowledge that arerecognized by the standard. To gain credits for a unit
standard, trainees have to demonstrate that they arecompetent. Workplace assessors play a key role insupporting learners throughout the training andassessment processes. There is a systematic registration
system of assessors in New Zealand.

To develop a WLA system to suit the local applied
education environment, the VTC has made reference tothe internationally recognized practices over the world,
for example, the dual-track vocational education andtraining (VET) systems in Germany and Switzerland, andthe workplace learning and assessment system in New
Zealand.
The dual-track VET system in Germany is asystematic integration of the merits of training in acompany and education in a vocational school. It aims tostrongly facilitate a successful transition of young people
from school to work and to guarantee a skilled workforce
underpinning a successful economy (Fürstenau, Pilz andGonon, 2014). Over the course of two to four years,
trainees spend a couple of days a week, or even blocks ofseveral weeks at a time, at a vocational school where theyacquire theoretical knowledge. At the same time, theygain practical knowledge and hands-on experience in acompany or public sector institution (Hockenos, 2018).
Trainees’ competence is assessed both in the school andthe workplace. Employers and industry practitioners playa critical part in the delivery of workplace training andassessment design (Hoeckel and Schwartz, 2010). The
graduates are qualified as skilled workers after passing
the examination and this qualification is recognizedthroughout the country. Each year about two-thirds ofthem manage to secure full-time employment from thesame training firms upon graduation. The graduates canalso articulate with bachelor or even master degrees inuniversities of applied sciences or other post-secondary
institutes (Legislative Council Secretariat Research
Office, 2015).
In Switzerland, the dual-track VET system is also
predominant. The majority of the young peoplecommence vocational education and training after the
lower-secondary level. Trainees will have practicaltraining (apprenticeship) on three to four days at a
training company, and the training is supplemented bytheoretical classes on one to two days at a vocational
school (FOC, 2021). Similar to the German dual VET
system, workplace is one of the settings where trainees’
competence is assessed through on-the-job assessment(Hoeckel, Field and Grubb, 2009). Trainees canconcentrate on their profession after graduation. They
can also reach successive higher levels of education
through extra training. The federal vocational
baccalaureate allows trainees to study for a bachelor’s
degree at applied universities (SWI swissinfo.ch, 2020).
Not only do European countries, such as Germany
and Switzerland place emphases on the workplace invocational training and education, New Zealand has alsoestablished a well-structured WLA system. The WLA
model in New Zealand is also characterised by the
mixture of on-the-job training and off-the-job training,where the former takes place in a company and the latteris conducted at a polytechnic or a technical college, so as
to maximise the benefits of the complementarity between

VTC Workplace Learning and Assessment
To nurture a highly skilled workforce, the VTC hastaken a leap forward to develop its own WLA system bymaking reference to the international best practice. The
VTC has cooperated with employers in developing unit
standards and assessment tasks for assessing trainees’
competence against the employers’ requirements. A
tripartite platform is therefore established to enable
competency-based learning and assessment with theparticipation of the VTC, employers, and trainees. The
Engineering Discipline of the Hong Kong Institute of
Vocational Education (IVE) of the VTC has developed
WLA elements for its Higher Diploma (HD) programmes
and Diploma of Foundation Studies (DFS) programmes(Table 1). The programme curricula are enriched byincorporating the latest skills, knowledge, andtechnologies required by the industry.
Table 1: IVE programmes with WLA
Programmes
HD in Automotive Engineering
HD in Building Studies
HD in Building Services Engineering
HD in Civil Engineering
HD in Computer Engineering
HD in Computer and Electronic Engineering
HD in Electrical Engineering
HD in Mechanical Engineering
HD in Surveying
DFS (Aviation)
DFS (Engineering)
Development of Workplace Learning and Assessment
In the VTC, workplace assessment is the process ofassessing the professional skills, knowledge, andattributes of a trainee in an authentic workplace. It

30

involves the collection and recording of real-time,authentic, reliable and valid evidence demonstrating a
trainee’s competence in each unit standard to prove thetrainee knows about and/or can do the tasks in a
repeatable and consistent way. The development of
workplace assessment reinforces the learning outcomesand provides a foundation to ensure that all stakeholders(trainees, employers, VTC) share the same teaching andlearning emphases and are working towards the samelearning objectives.
At the beginning of the WLA development, attempts
were made to identify the feasible WLA elements fromthe programme curricula that were practically oriented,
common and core in the industry (Step 1 in Figure 1) in
consideration of the apprenticeship training plans of bothlarge corporations, as well as small and medium
enterprises (SMEs). Those companies were also
consulted on the practicality of the WLA elements (Step
2 in Figure 1) so as to make sure the WLA tasks werepracticable across different employers in the industry.
After the WLA tasks were identified, reference was madeto the local (e.g. the Specification of Competency
Standards (SCS) in Hong Kong) and international
standards (e.g. unit standards in New Zealand). After that,
unit standards and other assessment materials, including
trainee assessment records and assessor guides weredrafted. Unit standards reflect the competency
requirements of particular tasks and the expected
outcomes trainees have to demonstrate. Trainee
assessment records contain all the assessment tasks thattrainees are required to perform to meet the required
outcomes of the unit standards. These records also
provide instructions on what and how the evidence is tobe collected and presented, and the assessment
requirements and conditions to be met. Trainee
assessment records also serve as evidence records todocument the progress, results and the verifier/assessor’s
feedback on the assessment tasks/activities. Assessor
guides provide the assessor with the structure of theassessment, the type of evidence required and how it
should be collected and judged.
After the assessment materials were drafted, further
consultations with employers were conducted to solicit
their opinions on the feasibility of implementation,
coverageofrequirements/tools/methods,
and
implementation schedule. The WLA materials were
adjusted and finalized based on their feedback (Step 3 inFigure 1).

As employers play a critical part in the delivery of
workplace training and assessment, they will take up theroles of trainers, verifiers and assessors in WLA.
Workplace trainers and verifiers are experienced
trade practitioners who shall work closely with thetrainee in the workplace. Often they are the supervisor of
the trainee. Workplace trainers, who are the experts intheir fields and have proven technical skills andknowledge, provide training, coaching and feedback tohelp the trainees in meeting the standards. On the other
hand, verifiers confirm that a trainee can consistently
perform specified tasks in the workplace. They record
their observations on trainees’ performance on the trainee
assessment records, provide feedback to trainees, andpass on the verifications to the assessors. Assessors, whoare experienced trade practitioners in the capacity ofsupervisory level or above, have the key role to judge thetrainees’ competencies at the workplace. They must
make objective and evidence-based decisions about thetrainees’ competencies and have overall responsibility
for the assessment process. Depending on the nature of
the companies and the deployment of WLA staff of thecompanies, workplace assessors can cover the role ofverifiers to verify trainees’ assessment work andperformance.
Quality Assurance Mechanism of VTC Workplace
Learning and Assessment
In order to conduct WLA systematically and credibly,
VTC has established a robust quality assurance (QA)
mechanism to govern WLA development andimplementation. The QA measures ensure the validity of
the assessment materials, tools, processes, and judgments
made to the trainees’ performance. It is also a supportive
mechanism for continuous improvement of the contents
and standards of WLA and the design of the assessment
methods and materials. The unit standards developed are
required to be reviewed and endorsed by the VTC
programme boards before application (Step 4 in Figure1). Pre-assessment moderation has to be conducted toensure the WLA materials are fit for purpose andappropriate to the level of credit value of the unit standard.
In order to assure the appropriateness of assessment
decisions, post-assessment moderation has also to becompleted. It aims to verify whether assessment
decisions are made according to the performance criteria,
and using evidence that is current, valid, accurate,authentic and sufficient. It is also a strategy to provide
feedback to the assessors and assessment developers on
good practices, and/or make recommendations forcontinuous improvement.
To ensure the right people to implement WLA, theeligibility of workplace trainers, verifiers, and assessors
are required to be accredited by the VTC programmeboards. They are nominated by their employers and haveto fulfil the requirements relevant to the unit standards.
They are required to be holders of the relevant recognized
degrees or professional qualifications with relevant
experience in the industry. Furthermore, it is necessary

Figure 1: Major steps in WLA development

31

for the nominated workplace verifiers and assessors tocomplete a training workshop offered by the VTC
Quality Enhancement and Accreditation Office (QEAO)
to equip them with the knowledge and practical skills indelivering WLA.
To enable workplace trainers, verifiers and assessors
to conduct assessments in the workplace more effectively
within the QA framework, the QEAO has provided
handbooks for them.

On the web-based assessment system, the trainee,
verifier and assessor can perform a series of action tocomplete the WLA tasks. The trainee can complete theassessment tasks online and upload the assessment
evidence, such as written reports, photos and videos
which have recorded the competence that the trainee has
demonstrated. The verifier will then verify theassessment evidence and provide the feedback online forthe trainee. Based on the verification, the assessor canmake judgement about the trainee’s performance andalso give feedback to the trainee on the system. The WLA
tasks submission/verification/assessment status is clearly
displayed on the platform. After each step is completed,
the trainee/verifier/assessor will be notified of the status
via email. VTC teachers can also view thesubmission/verification/assessment status at all times.
With this web-based assessment system, WLA can be
conducted without the constraints of place and time. The
system also replaces the traditional paper and pen
approach to conduct assessment so as to enable a goodelectronic record of the trainee’s learning progress andperformance, thereby contributing to effectively build up
a learning portfolio for the trainee. In this regard, theareas of improvement of the trainees could be more easily
identified which would help analyse the training needs.
Moreover, this digital platform can save time frompassing the documents among the parties concerned and
it is convenient to search for the information required andassessment results.

Engagement of Employers in VTC Workplace
Learning and Assessment
Employers are the key stakeholders in WLA. Withoutthem, it is almost impossible to implement WLA. A
series of ongoing promotion activities are conducted toencourage employer participation in WLA. For instance,
promotional materials and videos were produced topromote WLA highlighting its advantages and the rolesof employers in its implementation. Promotion visits torelevant trade associations, training boards andindividual companies were also arranged to introduce
WLA and encourage employers to nominate their staff tobe trainers, verifiers and assessors. Besides, large-scale
briefing sessions to employers were held to provide aninteractive platform for them to know more about WLA.
Web-based Assessment System for
Learning and Assessment

Workplace

The VTC has pioneered a web-based assessment
system to facilitate the implementation of WLA among
trainees, employers and the VTC. The assessment tasks
are constructed on the system with the unit standard andthe assessment progress displayed on the interface(Figure 2).

Example of WLA Development and Implementation
One of the WLA tasks of the HD in Computer andElectronic Engineering programme is taken as an
example in this paper to elaborate on the development
and implementation of WLA. After reviewing thesyllabus of the programme and the apprenticeshiptraining plans of employers, the learning content onelectronic circuit assembling and testing was identified
as the WLA task. Employers, including large
corporations and SMEs were then consulted on thepracticality of this WLA task. As this WLA task was
fundamental and more common in the industry, theemployers agreed to adopt it. After the WLA task was
confirmed, the programme team drafted the unit standard
and other assessment materials with reference made to
the international standard. The employers were invited tocomment on those assessment materials again before theWLA materials were enriched and finalized.
Before the commencement of WLA, pre-assessment
moderation was conducted as explained in the earlier
section about the QA mechanism. Besides, preassessment meetings were held with the trainee,
workplace verifier and assessor to ensure they
understood the assessment task, the unit standard and theperformance criteria thoroughly before the task was
carried out. While the employers were undertaking the
WLA task, VTC provided continuous support to themwherever it deemed appropriate. After the assessment,
post-assessment moderation was organised to check the

Figure 2: Web-based assessment system for WLA

32

consistency of assessment decisions according to theassessment materials and performance criteria, and using
evidence that was current, valid, accurate, authentic andsufficient.

Table 2: Feedback from the employers on WLA
implementation

Feedback from the Employers

Sufficient time was given to conduct WLA.
Sufficient WLA tasks were given to trainees.
WLA was helpful to organize the workplace
training.
The assessment materials facilitated thedelivery of workplace assessments.
The performance criteria facilitatedjudgement on assessment evidence.
Sufficient support was provided by the VTC.
Overall satisfaction

Statement

After the employers had completed the WLA
activities with the trainees in the first year of the
programmes, questionnaire surveys were conducted tocollect the feedback from all the 30 employers in the HD
and DFS programmes on the implementation of WLA
and the web-based assessment system.
In the survey, the employers were invited to rate
different aspects related to the implementation of WLA
and the web-based assesssment system on a 5-point
Likert scale. Rating of '1' denotes that the respondent
strongly disagrees with the given statement whereas arating of '5' denotes that the respondent strongly agrees
with the given statement.
Regarding the survey results of the implementation of
WLA, 24 out of 30 (80%) employers returned thequestionnaires. Positive feedback was generally given by
the respondents with an average rating of 4.0 in theoverall satisfaction on the WLA implementation. As
shown in Table 2, the average rating given by the
respondents on each dimension was close to 4 or evenhigher than 4. In the survey, qualitative data were alsocollected to study the employers' views. According to theemployers' feedback, they commented that the unit
standards with the concise performance criteria were
helpful in making assessment judgements. They also
appreciated that WLA could facilitate trainees to achieve
the skill standards required by the industry and obtain
practical work experience before graduation. From theemployers' perspective, WLA could help identify thestrengths and weaknesses of the trainees, as well as theareas for improvement, such that the employers could
improve and adjust the workplace training. The
employers also stated that WLA had improved thecommunication among trainees, employers and the VTC.
Another questionnaire survey was also conducted tocollect the feedback from employers on the WLA webbased assessment system. 23 out of 30 (76.7%)
employers returned the questionnaires. In general,
employers rated the system positively with an averagerating of 4.0 in the overall satisfaction on the WLA webbased assessment system. As presented in Table 3, theaverage rating given by the employers on each dimension
was around 4. As reflected from the qualitative survey
results, the employers claimed that the paperless system
could help protect the environment and improve theeffectiveness in conducting assessments. The employers
also remarked that the system was easy to use and it wasconvenient for them to check the assessment records oftrainees.

Averagerating
3.9
3.9
3.9
3.9
4.0
4.3
4.0

Table 3: Feedback from the employers on the WLA webbased assessment system
Statement
The system was user-friendly.
The interface of the system was clear.
The system functioned smoothly.
It was convenient to use the system
anytime and anywhere.
The system facilitated the delivery of
workplace assessments.
The system enabled me to keep a goodrecord of the trainees' performance.
Adequate training materials andguidance were provided by the VTC.
Overall satisfaction

Averagerating
4.0
4.0
4.0
3.9
4.1
4.0
4.0
4.0

Feedback from the Trainees
Similarly, questionnaire surveys were arranged tocollect trainees’ feedback on the WLA implementationand the web-based assessment system. Questionnaires
were sent to all the 104 trainees who participated in WLA
in the HD programmes and the DFS programmes.
All of the trainees had completed the WLA activities
in the first year of the programmes. 66 out of 104 (63.5%)
trainees responded to the questionnaire on the WLA
implementation. As reflected in Table 4, the feedback
given by trainees was generally positive with an averagerating of 3.8 in the overall satisfaction with the WLA
implementation. The average ratings given by thetrainees on the other dimensions were around 3.7, except
for the aspect of the sufficiency of WLA tasks, which had
a rating of 4.5. The trainees commented that WLA had
facilitated the enhancement of their practical skills andbetter understanding of the employers' requirements. For
the survey on the WLA web-based assessment system,
85 out of 104 (81.7%) trainees returned thequestionnaires. An average rating of 4.0 was obtained in
the overall satisfaction with the WLA web-based
assessment system. As revealed in Table 5, the averagerating given by the trainees on each dimension was

33around 4. The trainees expressed that the system hadenabled them to access the feedback from the verifiers
and the assessors more conveniently which was helpful
for them to reflect on their performance. The trainees also
thought that the system was easy to use.

generic skills, trainees’ competence could be assessed ina more all-round manner to meet the industry
requirements.

Table 4: Feedback from the trainees on WLA
implementation

Federal Office of Culture (FOC) (2021). Swiss education:
Vocational education and training. Retrieved fromhttps://swisseducation.educa.ch/en/vocationaleducation-and-training-0.

Statement
Sufficient time was given to complete WLA.
Sufficient WLA tasks were given to me.
WLA enabled me to understand myemployer’s requirements.
WLA enabled me to identify the areas for
improvement.
Sufficient support was provided by the VTC.
Employer's feedback was helpful.
Overall satisfaction

References

Averagerating
3.7
4.5
3.7

Fürstenau, B., Pilz, M. & Gonon, P. (2014). The Dual
System of Vocational Education and Training inGermany – What Can Be Learnt About Education for(Other) Professions. In Billett, S. et al. (Eds.).
International Handbook of Research in Professional andPractice-based Learning (pp. 427-460). Dordrecht:
Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.

3.7
3.8
3.7
3.8

Hockenos, P. (2018). How Germany’s Vocational
Education and Training system works. Retrieved fromhttps://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/howgermanys-vocational-education-and-training-systemworks.

Table 5: Feedback from the trainees on the WLA webbased assessment system
Statement
The system was user-friendly.
The interface of the system was clear.
The system functioned smoothly.
It was convenient to use the system anytime
and anywhere.
Thesystemfacilitatedassessment
submissions.
The system enabled me to keep a goodrecord of assessment results and theemployers' feedback.
Adequate training materials and guidancewere provided by the VTC.
Overall satisfaction

Averagerating
4.0
3.9
4.0
4.0

Hoeckel, K., Field, S. & Grubb, W. N. (2009). Learning
for Jobs: OECD Reviews of Vocational Education andtraining – Switzerland. Paris: OECD.
Hoeckel, K. & Schwartz, R. (2010). Learning for Jobs:
OECD Reviews of Vocational Education and training –Germany. Paris: OECD.

4.0
4.1

Legislative Council Secretariat Research Office (2015).
Information Note: Vocational education and training inGermany. Hong Kong: Legislative Council Secretariat
Research Office.

3.9
4.0

New Zealand Qualifications Authority (2021).
Accredited Industry Training Organisations. Retrieved
from https://www.nzqa.govt.nz/for-business/ito.do.

Conclusions and the Way Forward
This paper presents the VTC WLA model with theelaboration of the collaboration between the VTC and theindustry in the development and implementation of WLA.
After the first-year implementation of WLA, both theemployers and the trainees generally appreciated theWLA practice.
Grounded in the successful launch of WLA in
different engineering HD and DFS programmes and thevaluable experience gained, the VTC has planned to
expand the WLA approach to more engineering
programmes so as to benefit more trainees and industries.
Meanwhile, the VTC is exploring different ways topromote WLA to encourage employer participation.
In the near future, generic and soft skills, such as
language skills, communication skills, and interpersonal
skills could incorporate the WLA approach as these typesof competence could also be learnt and assessed in theworkplace. With the WLA of both the trade-specific and

SWI swissinfo.ch (2020). Why Switzerland’s dual-track
education system is unique. Retrieved fromhttps://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/business/school-andwork_why-switzerland-s-dual-track-education-systemis-unique/45512392.
Vaughan, K. & Cameron, M. (2009). Assessment of
Learning in the workplace: A Background Paper.
Wellington: Industry Training Federation.

34

NARROWING DIGITAL GAP IN CHILDREN WITH FEMALE COLLEGE STUDENTS
Kaori Tsukazaki*a, Takeshi Shintokub and Takaaki Fukuzoe caNational Institute of Technology, KOSEN, Academic Affairs Section, Tokyo, Japan
National Institute of Technology (KOSEN), Kagoshima College, Department of Information
Technology, Kagoshima, Japanc
National Institute of Technology (KOSEN), Kagoshima College, Department of Electric Control
Engineering, Kagoshima, Japanb*tsukazaki@kosen-k.go.jp
Abstract

Introduction

Only 15% of the number of students who major inEngineering in higher education in Japan are female.
Judging from the fact that this figure was 0.9% in
1975, a gender balance in this field has not been
attained in the intervening decades. In 2017, female
students attending a National College of Technology(KOSEN) in a local city in Japan initiated a chapter
of a student-run international volunteer organisation
to teach ICT skills to children. Their major goals areto foster interest in STEM in younger generations andto introduce them to female role models. They believethat this will lead to gender parity in Engineering in
the future. In addition to the gender gap in STEM,
another educational issue is most notable. The
educational situation in rural parts of Japan is very
different from that in Tokyo and its surrounding
areas. This is what we call the ‘urban-rural divide’ in
education (e.g., Amini & Nivorozhkin 2015; Warf2019). Moreover, when it comes to STEM education,
children in rural areas have less opportunities to get
involved in pleasurable STEM workshops or meet key
role models in the related fields. The purposes of thispaper are i) to focus our attention on the digital gap
between children in rural areas and urban areas inJapan and ii) to discuss the possibility of a project tonarrow this gap. With the help of the local Board of
Education and industry who appreciated the projectto teach digital skills to children in local cities for the
purpose of increasing the number of female students
in STEM in the future, the college student volunteers
held four workshops within a two-month period in
2019. Results from the post-workshop questionnaires
indicate that the workshop was successful inmotivating most of the participants and increased
their interest in more advanced computing androbotics.

According to The White Paper on Gender Equality
2019 published by the Gender Equality Bureau Cabinet
Office in Japan, the number of female students who
major in Engineering in higher education is only at 15%.
Judging from the fact that this figure was 0.9% in 1975,
a gender balance in this field has not been attained in theintervening decades (The White Paper on Gender
Equality 2019).
In 2017, female students in a National College ofTechnology (KOSEN) initiated a chapter of a student-run
international volunteer organisation to teach ICT skills tochildren. Their goal is to foster interest in STEM andintroduce children to female role models. They believethat this will lead to gender parity in Engineering in the
future (see Tsukazaki, Shintoku & Fukuzoe 2019).
The purpose of this paper is to discuss a project
carried out by female college students to bridge theurban-rural divide in STEM education in Japan from two
perspectives. First, children who live in a local city far
away from Tokyo need to be provided with the same
opportunities to learn STEM. Children who live in urban
areas seem to have more opportunities to attend events
such as a STEM workshop and meet female role models
such as the ‘STEM Girls Ambassadors’ coordinated by
the Gender Equality Bureau Cabinet Office of theJapanese government. In contrast, children who live in a
local city are much less likely to meet those ‘super’ rolemodels in STEM and they have fewer opportunities toattend a STEM workshop in rural areas. For thesereasons, the female college students established thevolunteer organisation in a local city in Japan for the
purpose of providing children with STEM workshops.
Second, children who live in a geographically remotearea also need to be provided the same opportunities. The
word ‘remote’ in this paper is defined as a place where it
takes hours to get from the central part of a local city by
public transportation such as bus, train, ferry, or plane. If
there is no public transportation, it is necessary to have a
car and a driver to get there.

Keywords: digital gap, STEM education, programming
robots, industry, the Board of Education
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland35

After two years of hosting workshops to teach ICT
skills to children through this project, we found thatchildren who lived in remote areas had significant
difficulties in attending the workshops for themselves
and they needed their parents or teachers’ support to join
us. This situation emerged as an example of an urbanrural divide in STEM education in Japan. We realisedthat just visiting schools close to KOSEN to haveprogramming workshops was not sufficient to reach all
children, or those already suffering from a lack ofopportunity. It follows from this experience that visiting
elementary and junior high schools in remote areas isessential.

Results
First, Table 1 shows the number of participants in theworkshops. Workshops A and B were held for fifth andsixth graders (11 years and 12 years) at elementary
schools. Workshop C was held locally. Representatives
from elementary and junior high schools in the area madea presentation on their scientific study in summer
holidays. Workshop D was held in a junior high school.
The number of ‘adults’ in Table 1 includes people who
observed the workshops such as Principal, Vice Principal
and teachers of the schools, leaders in the local Boards ofEducation, and so on. As for workshop C, the number of‘adults’ includes children’s parents and grandparents.

A Project with the Board of Education in a Local
Government

Table 1. Number of Participants in Workshops(September and October in 2019)

The following section outlines how we organised
workshops in remote areas. Since the Ministry of
Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology(MEXT) in Japan decided to teach computing skills at
elementary schools in 2020 and junior high schools in
2021 (see Tsukazaki, Shintoku & Fukuzoe 2019), we hada request from the local Boards of Education for ourstudents to become mentors for children to engage withthem in the computer classroom and particularly at theweekend. Therefore, in order to have access to schools inremote areas and analyse their needs in a STEM
workshop, we decided to cooperate with the local Boardsof Education.
In addition, a leader in the Engineering industry
appreciated the college students’ efforts to increase thenumber of female students in Engineering in Japan. As aresult, we had the opportunity to introduce some of thelatest Japanese technologies in the workshops: a gamewith the facial recognition system and two robots whotalk as programmed. A team of engineers who supported
the student volunteers was sent to the venue every time
we had a workshop. In this way, we had four workshops
for children in remote areas in September and October in
2019: three workshops on an island where it takes twohours by plane to get and another workshop in a local citywhich takes two hours by car to reach from the central
part. Figure 1 shows one of the workshops on the island.

Boys

Girls

Adults

Total

Workshop A

10

8

9

27

Workshop B

4

17

9

30

Workshop C

5

13

45

63

Workshop D

22

17

14

53

Total

41

55

77

173

In order to understand participants’ background, we
asked the participants in workshop D about theirexperience of using computers. Table 2 shows that 38 outof 39 ninth-grade junior high school students (97%) had
used a computer before. 26 students (67%) used a
computer both at home and at school, whereas four
students (10%) only used a computer at home and eightstudents (20%) only used a computer at school.
Table 2. Participants’ Experience of Using a Computer(Workshop D)
Home
SchoolHome and School
No experience
Total

4
8
26
1
39

Furthermore, Figure 2 shows their purpose of using acomputer whether it was at home or at school. 17 students
searched for information on the Internet. 13 students
played games. 12 students used a computer for
programming. 11 students used a computer to do theirassignments. Six students used a computer to watch
videos on websites. Two students made a CD and a New
Year’s card via a computer. One student read an e-book.
Another student searched for particular sounds on theInternet.

Figure 1. A STEM Workshop for Pupils
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland
36

the workshop motivated some students to learn about
advanced computing and possibilities of robots in the
future. Others wanted to study Science and Mathematics
with college student volunteers in addition to ICT skills.
They were also interested in their academic life in aCollege of Technology (KOSEN). One of the junior highschool students said that it was so enjoyable that time
passed very quickly in the workshop.
On the contrary to the positive feedback, we also
received negative feedback. It should be noted that only
one student who said that the workshop was not fun had
not experienced using a computer before (see Table 2).
The workshop might well be demanding for the studentwith the lack of basic skills in using a computer. Warf(2019) defines ‘the inequality’ of having regular accessto the Internet or technical skills as ‘digital divides’. He
also points out that ‘Internet access’ is ‘increasingly
necessary for a successful or convenient life’. It follows
that we need to pay attention to children with a different
level of ICT skills as well as to provide them with
opportunities to use a computer.
In order to reach a greater number of children andmotivate their interest in STEM and choose a study or
career path in a STEM-related area, the local Board of
Education can play an important role. In this study, thelocal Board of Education helped us understand theeducational needs of local schools. Without this, it would
have been difficult for us to find out which school needed
our support to teach ICT skills to their pupils. However,
the total number of pupils who attended was modest in
both workshops A and B in Table 1. This number reflects
the typical size of an elementary or junior high school ina remote area. Due to small numbers of children, morethan two grades are sometimes taught together in thesame classroom, or an elementary school and a juniorhigh school are combined to be one.
Visiting remote areas often can be challenging.
Therefore, it may be more effective to join a local eventin order to impact the maximum number of children evenon a short visit to rural areas. It should be borne in mind
that student volunteers are normally occupied withstudying at their college and it is expensive to visit
remote areas by public transportation, especially byplane. Furthermore, it is sometimes pointed out that
impacting children’s parents as well as teachers isimportant because they affect the children’s academic
path greatly. For these reasons, workshop C was a
successful model in that we reached as many as 63
participants at a time. In a similar study, National
Institute of Technology (KOSEN), Sasebo College asked
participants’ parents to complete a questionnaire to better
understand their needs and satisfaction with the activity(Tsukazaki & Ohshima 2020). In our future study, theparental questionnaire on the workshop also needs to beconsidered.

Figure 2. Participants’ Purpose of Using the Computer
The results of the feedback on workshop D areprovided below [see Figures 3(a) and 3(b)]. Figure 3(a)shows that 38 participants out of 39 said that theworkshop was fun (97 %), and Figure 3(b) shows that 92% said that they were able to control the robot well.
In other words, only one student said that it was not
fun [Figure 3(a)] and three students out of 39 said thatthey could not control the robot [Figure 3(b)].

Figure 3(a). Feedback on Workshop D

Figure 3(b). Feedback on Workshop D
Discussion
Judging from the percentage of junior high school
students who said the workshop was fun (97%) and weresatisfied with their own skill in controlling the robot(92%), workshop D seemed to be successful [see Figures
3(a) and 3(b)]. According to the questionnaire, mostparticipants in workshop D became interested inprogramming the computer and assembling a robot andwere motivated to learn more. It was a great pleasure that
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland
37

Finally, there is a possibility that college student
volunteers may be more involved in teaching ICT skills
to elementary school pupils and junior high school
students. This is because the ‘GIGA School Program’was launched by the Ministry of Education, Culture,
Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) during apandemic in 2020. In our study, Tables 2 and 3 showedthat the junior high school students were not familiar withusing computers in their everyday lives. However, theGIGA School Program enabled each pupil or student tohave a device with a high-speed network at school by theend of March in 2021. In order to promote ‘optimized andcreative learning’ with the use of the device, pupils andstudents as well as teachers need to learn how to use acomputer. This raises the possibility of the college
volunteers’ contribution.

Gender Equality Bureau Cabinet Office (2019). The
White Paper on Gender Equality 2019.
Online:http://www.gender.go.jp/english_contents/about_danjo/
whitepaper/pdf/ewp2019.pdf
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science andTechnology (2020). GIGA School Program.
Online: https://www.mext.go.jp/en/content/20200716mxt_kokusai-000005414_04.pdf
Philip, L., Cottrill, C., Farrington, J., Williams, F., &Ashmore, F. (2017). The digital divide: Patterns, policy
and scenarios for connecting the ‘final few’ in ruralcommunities across Great Britain. Journal of Rural
Studies 54, 386 – 398.
Online: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrurstud.2016.12.002

Conclusions
Tsukazaki, K. & Ohshima, T. (2020). Empowering
Women in STEM: College Students and School Pupils.
The 13th International Symposium on Advances inTechnology Education, 91 – 94.
Online: https://www.kosen-k.go.jp/Portals/0/kokusai/
ISATE/Proceeding(all)/Transactions_of_ISATE_2019.pdf

It can be concluded that female college volunteers’
project of teaching ICT skills to children satisfied
educational needs of some rural schools to some extent.
A wide range of support from the local government,
media, industry, and their own college realised thisproject and made it meaningful and pleasurable forchildren. It is extremely important to keep working forchildren in rural areas so that they will not be left behindin the modern society where Big Data, IoT, AI, androbots are getting even more crucial in their lives.

Tsukazaki, K., Shintoku, T., & Fukuzoe, T. (2019).
Teaching ICT Skills to Children and the Empowerment
of Female College Students in STEM in Japan, IOP Conf.
Series: Materials Science and Engineering 551 (2019)012036
DOI :10.1088/1757-899X/551/1/012036
Online: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1757899X/551/1/012036/pdf

Acknowledgements
We would like to express our deepest gratitude to
NEC Corporation and Kagoshima Prefectural Board of
Education for supporting Robogals Kagoshima. Without
their great support, we would not have been able to reach
local schools and provide them with our workshops inlocal cities. We would also like to thank Dr Aisling
O’Boyle of Queen’s University Belfast in the United
Kingdom who is always such an inspiration to us bymaking us think about new perspectives.

Warf, B. (2019). Teaching Digital Divides. Journal of
Geography 118 :2, 77-87.
Online: https://doi.org/10.1080/00221341.2018.1518990

References
Amini, C. & Nivorozhkin, E. (2015). The urban-rural
divide in educational outcomes: Evidence from Russia.
International Journal of Education Development 44, 118– 133.
Online: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2015.07.006
Gender Equality Bureau Cabinet Office (n. d.). STEM
Girls Ambassador.
Online:http://www.gender.go.jp/STEM_Girls_Ambassadors/in
dex.html [In Japanese]

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland
38

Sharing of the Hong Kong IVE Engineering Solar Car Project “SOPHIE” on Project-based
Learning Outcome
Mike L.W. Sun*,a, Simon S. P. Shum a and S. M. Tang aaDepartment of Engineering, Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education (Tsing Yi), Hong Kong
SAR
* lsun@vtc.edu.hk

Abstract
Being one of the flagship projects of the IVE
Engineering, Vocational Training Council, Hong
Kong, the solar car project “SOPHIE” achieved
several awards in the international competitions over
the years. By sharing the success of the project, thispaper not only emphasizes the benefits that SOPHIE
bought to the Higher Diploma students throughproject-based learning pedagogy, but also explains
how SOPHIE project facilitate academia-industry
collaboration in the areas of innovative research byintegrating inter-disciplinary knowledge. Since 2009,
IVE Engineering staff and students have beenworking on a solar power vehicle project to support
the initiatives of green transportation. From a small
beginning, SOPHIE has evolved to seventh
generations running 3000 km in Australia in therenowned WSC. The project is a good demonstrationof how project-based learning and industry
cooperation adds valuable elements to the curriculumand stimulate students’ learning experience.

Fig. 1. SOPHIE and IVE Engineering Solar Car Team

Introduction
I.

Background and History

Since 2009, the engineering discipline of the Hong Kong
Institute of Vocational Education (IVE) under the
Vocational Training Council (VTC) has initiated thesolar car SOPHIE project and established the IVE
engineering solar car team, which is also short form as
SOPHIE team. The SOPHIE team, including IVE
Engineering staff, students and graduates, has beenworking on a solar power vehicle project to support theinitiatives of green transportation (VTC, 2019). Figure 1
shows the SOPHIE team with the SOPHIE solar car. Ten
years later, the project has grown from a small scale to aself-developed solar car in Hong Kong. The worldrenowned solar car race – Australia’s World Solar
Challenge (WSC) attracted 47 teams from 23 regions,
including Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, Germany,
Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Singapore, South Korea,
Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and theUnited States (WSC, 2019). The SOPHIE team is the
only representative in Hong Kong to participate in WSC
2019. Their engineering passion to perfect the design, thecomprehensive planning and the perseverance toovercome the barriers in the race have all enabled theteam to achieve third runner- up in the “GoPro Adventure
Class” in WSC 2013 and third runner-up in the “Cruiser
Class” in WSC 2017. In October 2019, SOPHIE 6scompeted in the World Solar Challenge race in Australia(Fig. 2), which requires teams to drive relentlessly fromthe north to the south of the Australian continent in 5.5
days, covering a total distance of 3,021 km (WSC, 2019).
The team was honoured as the Third-place award out of
14 international racing teams. Aimed at striving forexcellence – the SOPHIE team, has developed into its
seventh generation after 10 years of continuous effort.

Throughout the project-based learning approach,students can explore the real problem in the worldand enhance their understanding of the subject
matter as well as latest development in the industry
through working in a project collaborating withindustry. On top of enhancing their technicalcompetency, they could also develop their problemsolving skills, project management skills andcommunication skills and marketing/promotion
skills. It also helps cementing collaboration between
educational institutions and industry. In addition toleading students to ultimately achieve good results inthe competition as well as strengthening students’design and practical skills, the SOPHIE project also
opens up opportunities for joint applied research
project with the industries to develop new products
for the market. Successful examples of the SOPHIE
project team would be shared in this paper.
Keywords:
Project-basedlearning,Industrycollaboration project, SOPHIE, World Solar Challenge

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland
39

I.

The SOPHIE project revolves around the design anddevelopment of solar/electric vehicles. The nominal
design of the solar car aims to participate in the World
Solar Challenge from Darwin to Adelaide every two
years. When students joined the SOPHIE team, theteacher introduced them to the international arena of
WSC as a facilitator not a host, and shared with them thevideo of the previous competition and relatedcompetition rules, as an entry event. This format
stimulates the student’s ability to ask questions andinspires to think about their learning outcomes, e.g. thedevelopment of environmentally friendly solar car. PBL
emphasizes that students are active in the learning
process, rather than becoming passive recipients(Markham, 2011). In fact, based on the experience wehave gained, students can gain deeper knowledge byactively exploring challenges and problems in the realworld.

Fig. 2. Driving SOPHIE 6s in Australia

The team has excelled themselves and proved their real
ability to the World by completing the journey. A 3000
km adventures showcase how far SOPHIE has come andIVE student competence for the complex problem.
International recognition for IVE Solar Car at World
Solar Challenge proved the achievement entirely.
II.

Study actively and understand problems by
yourself.

ObjectiveII.

The development of green transportation has become an
important part of the global environmental protection
trend (Wang et. al, 2018). The purpose of the project isto demonstrate the excellence of IVE students and how
IVE Engineering is committed to the develop young
talents for green transportation development, smart city
mobility and renewable energy applications. Adapted
project-based learning method, the IVE Engineering
Discipline strengthen student’s ability to integrate andapply knowledge and skills while fostering theircreativity, collaboration and problem-solving skills. The
SOPHIE project is a shining example of the industry
collaboration project how the hand-on problem-solving
approach of Vocational and professional education andtraining (VPET) and also groom young professionals for
future careers in green transportation.

Select own topic and create sense of ownership

The organization of the SOPHIE team is comparatively
simple due to small number of people, including of 5
external advisors, 19 staff members and 37 students. The
hierarchical functional structure is used and have shownin Figure 3. The functional structure divides the team into
subgroup based on specialty such as Business team/
Design/ Electrical/ Mechanical/ Media. One or two staff
members are assigned to manage each subgroup. The
advantage of a functional structure is that individuals are
dedicated to a single function. These clearly defined roles
and expectations limit confusion. As a small team (61people), the communication among teams is easily
achieved. Advantage with Project-based learning
approach, an realistic environment for senior students or
graduate to share knowledge and other useful skills withfreshmen or junior students. Thus, students teaching
students. In the midst of solving a problem, senior
students with better research skills, greater knowledge aswell as keen focus and observation are easily able to passon the same to younger students. By this act of teaching,
graduates reinforce for themselves the principles of theunderlying project subject matter. Student will choose aThis paper emphasizes how project-based learning
method can benefit to students and also explains how
SOPHIE facilitate academia-industry collaboration in theareas of innovative research by integrating interdisciplinary knowledge.
Benefit students through project-based learningpedagogy
Project-based learning PBL are usually described as
active, student-centred methods of instruction thatencourage students to work in collaborative groups onreal-world problems or challenges (Butzin, 2001). PBL
integrates knowing and doing. Students learn knowledge
and elements of the core curriculum, but also apply what
they know to solve authentic problems and produce
results that matter (Markham, 2011). The SOPHIE
project is a good demonstration of how project-basedlearning and industry cooperation adds valuable elements
to the curriculum and stimulate students’ learning
experience.

Fig. 3. Structure of IVE Engineering Solar Car Team in WSC2019

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland40

subgroup according to the learning content, and also
perceive their project’s topic and related task (as small as
selection of the door hinge of the solar car) and then treat
the task as personally meaningful that they want to do it
well. Students feel more committed to the project and arewilling to work harder when they have a sense ofownership.
III.

of the project and report their result in the regularmeeting. It enables students to explain the project design
and implementation to the other members. Therefore,
PBL is an instructional strategy that enables students toachieve key competence in Vocational and Professional
Education and Training (VPET) in the 21st century suchas problem solving skills, project management skills andcommunication skills and presentation skills (VTC,2019). Given the directions of project design andimplementation, PBL paves the way for students to gain
success in the workplace. Students value the realistic
environment, can look at design from a systematic
perspective, and appreciate technical challenges in thecontext of broader global economic, social andenvironmental requirements. It is regarded as an effective
tool to develop lifelong learning, practice, and improve
technical expertise, and strengthen engineering
management principles (BIE, 2014).

Expose to the authentic working environment
under IBSP scheme

Project-based learning (PBL) is a teaching method inwhich students gain knowledge and skills by engaging ina cumulative activity for a continued period of time toinvestigate and solve problems, leading to a finalpractical outcome (BIE, 2014). Students learn about asubject by working for an extended period of time toinvestigate and respond to a complex problem orchallenge. The engineering discipline of IVE encourages
teaching and learning with the engagement of industry
exposure and provides an opportunity for higher diploma
students to work in an authentic working environment
with industry partners involvement. Industrial-based
Student Project (IBSP) is part of the curriculum of the
IVE Higher Diploma programmes. Students are required
to attach to an organization (in academia or industry) fora period of time to obtain work experience and to identify
industry-related topics for their final-year projects. The
project aims to equip students and help them to get readyfor the workplace as well as to facilitate their transition
from study to work (VTC, 2019). Throughout the projectbased learning approach, students can explore the real
problem in the world and enhance their understanding of
the subject matter as well as latest development in theindustry through working in a project collaborating withindustry (Cheung et. al, 2018). On top of enhancing theirtechnical competency, they could also develop theirproblem-solving skills, project management skills andcommunication skills and marketing/promotion skills. It
also helps cementing collaboration between educational
institutions and industry. Cheung (2016) reported that
under the IBSP program, students’ abilities incommunication skills, information management, criticalthinking and problem solving, and demonstrating
positive attitudes and behaviors are significantly
improved.
IV.

Academia-industry collaboration in the areas ofinnovative research
The seventh-generation solar car SOPHIE 6s
achieved outstanding results at the 2019 World Solar
Challenge held in Australia 2019, demonstrating thelearning achievements and technical strength of local
young talents. The great significance of the SOPHIE
project, as it has not only put PBL into real practice but
has also dovetailed well with the government policy of
increasingly leveraging innovation technologies. The
success of SOPHIE is a collaborative synergy between
academia and academia, as well as academic institutions
and industry. A very noteworthy point is the interinstitutional support that has helped keep the teammoving forward.
I.

Academia and academiaa.

Wind tunnel testing in RMITThe streamline shape of the car is very important toenhance energy-efficient of the car (Hoeri, 2008). The
SOPHIE team was honored to conduct joint research with

Develop soft skills

PBL equips students with problem-solving skills, criticalthink skills and collaboration skills, commonly known as
21st century skills. Thinking through the driving question,
students need to apply higher-order thinking skills inanalysing the situation, proposing solutions andexpressing themselves in written or spoken forms(Larmer & Mergendoller, 2011). Working in a team, they
have to find ways to communicate and collaborate wellwith teammates. Teachers can provide guidelines or
rubrics to help student review their progress. Teachers
encourage students to write logbook to chart the progressFig. 4. Aerodynamic testing of the SOPHIE model car was
performed in the wind tunnel of the RMIT

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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41

collaborative synergy between academic institutions andindustry. A collaboration that is a win-win situation forindustry and academia. Setup of collaborative research
projects in the area of car exterior, interior of carbon fiber,
suspension system, motor and battery. Collaborative
research is a powerful means of creating opportunities forinnovative knowledge exchange. Further expansion of thecollaborative research is carried on to apply the joint
Applied research project application (ITF).
Fig. 5. Car design by HKDI

With their entire support, Industry partners and SOPHIE
team together shined in the competition – a collaborationthat is a win-win situation for industry and academia. We
have devoted ourselves to this competition because wealso want to raise awareness among the next generation
about the importance of adopting new technology to help
leverage renewable energies like solar. We upgrade the
new generation of the SOPHIE solar car to achieve thebest results under new requirement for each competition.
As the number of recharging time is reduced to 3 times,
the IVE engineering staff and students jointly researchand reduce the car loading, improve the storage battery
capacity and enhance power management efficiency.

Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology RMIT.
Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and wind tunnel
testing in RMIT were performed to numerical analyze car
model structure and simulate the free-stream flow of thefluid, and the interaction of the fluid with car surfaces
defined by boundary conditions. We strive to achieve alower coefficient of air resistance on the car exterior.
Cooperating with the RMIT University in Australia onwind tunnel tests we can fine-tune the entire car bodydesign e.g. aerodynamic shape of the car chassis, lower
drag area and drag forces according to test data obtained.
b.

Car design by HKDIa.

The interdisciplinary cooperation between the Hong
Kong Institute of Vocational Education IVE and theHong Kong Design Institute HKDI under the VTC has
been strengthened. Design and engineering students
worked together to create the new exterior and interior
design of the SOPHIE solar car. Red, blue, black andwhite were chosen as the main colors to match our VTC
and SOPHIE logos. Design students have successfully
realized the modern style with the theme of oriental "TaiChi" in our SOPHIE car. Figure 5 shows the concept of
Tai Chi and the exterior and interior design of SOPHIE
6s. The interior design presents the Tai Chi concept withfree forms, curves and color, reflecting the perfect
blending of human and nature. User-friendly interior
design was successfully developed to enhance the driving
experience of the driver. The practicality marks obtainedin last competition was increased.
II.

Composite material to reduce weight –HighGain

The body must be light and strong. It must have structural
integrity to carry the weight of 2 passengers, batteries andother vehicle components in a static and dynamic balancemanner. In addition, it should be easy to manufacture andconform to the aerodynamic streamlined appearance. The
team adopted a honeycomb carbon fiber reinforced
composite material structure and perfected the
manufacturing process of the pre-impregnated autoclave.
b.

Suspension – KaShui

In addition, they work with local companies tomanufacture vehicle suspension systems using special
high-strength rare-earth magnesium alloys. The
components were fabricated using CNC machining andthe loading tests were done using finite element analysis.
We worked with KaShui on the use of magnesium alloys
for the suspension and driveshaft enabling us to shave 80
kg off the overall weight. Material properties about
Tensile strength, Yield strength and Elongation areenhanced by using rare-earth magnesium with thesupport of KaShui. The tailor-made Magnesium alloy
suspension parts on SOPHIE 6s is 40% lighter than theprevious generation by increasing the proportion ofmagnesium alloy in the car suspension system andintroducing a new handling system. Lighter weight
harder aluminum alloy and carbon fiber were used.

Academic institutions and industry

The Industry collaboration is critical to develop new
generation SOPHIE solar car and contribute a better resultin international competition. Applied researchcollaboration with VTC and Industry is established.
Actively strengthen the cooperation between VTC andlocal enterprises, and with the support of manufacturers inGreat Bay Area District, we develop a renewable energypowered electric vehicles, encourage applied researchwith industry and provide feasible solutions for thedevelopment of sustainable green transportation. The
development of SOPHIE is a multi-disciplinary project
involving various aspects of engineering knowhow.
Students from SOPHIE team completed the following
applied research topics. The success of SOPHIE is ac.

Battery pack – Totex

Noted another major enhancement regarding vehicle
power. We have been able to enhance battery
performance further with technical support from14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland42industry. SOPHIE’s batteries are the same type utilisedby the other top teams, however, ensuring manufacturingconsistency in the bonds between the cells and thestructural arrangement is key to raising their efficiency
and safety. We have made enormous strides in enhancing
these bonds to ensure even transfer of energy and thebatteries are now close to 98% efficiency, up 6% fromlast year.
d.

Motor – QTEVM

Custom-made motor was supplied by QTEVM. SOPHIE
6s’s drive motor operates for a longer period of time,
which can achieve a maximum motor speed of 98%. Dueto the All-in-One brake system including the brake disc,brake caliper and the brake motor together, the total
weight of the components is 20% lighter than before. At
the same time, the team also reduced the power
consumption during voltage conversion, thereby
improving energy efficiency. The technology that turns
technology into practical application is already underdevelopment. Compared with the previous outsourcing
motor system, the biggest breakthrough of the new motor
system tailored for SOPHIE 6s is that the teamsuccessfully integrated the existing market technology
and integrated some brake system components, including
brake discs and brake discs. The caliper (brake caliper),etc., are combined with the motor as one. This new designof "lightweight" and "miniaturization" has a total weightof only 28 kg, which is 20% lighter than the previous
outsourced motor system. The SOPHIE solar car
developed for nearly ten years has been favored bymanufacturers for the first time. The SOPHIE 6s motor
system developed by the team itself will be sold on themarket and will have the fruitful results as industryacademia cooperation. The production technology of thebrand-new motor system is expected to be applied tolightweight transportation vehicles on the market, such as
solar vehicles and small jets. And the related
technologies have the opportunity to be used in lightelectric vehicle power system, such as new energy
vehicles; and will be launched in the European andAmerican markets in the future. New products will becreated to meet the market demand.

Fig. 6. Youth New Energy Electric Vehicle Design Campaign
2019 in TY campus (Top); Workshop (Bottom Left) andSeminar (Bottom Right).

technology and STEM (science, technology, engineeringand mathematics). Local secondary schools were invitedby letters to organize a school team to participate, andthey join hands with us to promote environmental
protection to young people, and it helps to cultivate
STEM professionals for the society. Secondary school
solar car design competition aims to cultivate secondary
school pupils’ interest in engineering study through thedevelopment of two streams of solar car, i.e. Ridable
solar car and Remote Speedy Solar Car class. The
Campaign offered a series of workshops on solar car
technology to local secondary school students in 2017,2018 and 2019 for three consecutive years. Throughthese STEM-related workshops, secondary students will
be equipped with the knowledge and skills that they needto build a solar car with efficiency innovation, creative
logical thinking and problem-solving skills. And it will
help to prepare them for their participation in the
Rideable Solar Car and Remote Speedy Solar Car designcompetitions. Figure 6 shows the actively participationfrom local secondary students on competition, workshop
and seminar. Groups of rideable solar cars and remotespeedy solar cars specially designed by local secondary
school students came to a showdown at the IVE(TsingYi) campus.
Curriculum development

Spread the Green Ideas to Hong Kong’s Younger
Generation

SOPHIE will continue to be the flagship project of the
IVE Engineering discipline. It will bring benefits tobenchmark standards in energy conversion, aerodynamic
design, electric motor technology, materials engineering,battery cell development, and intelligent mobility
development. These will lay a solid foundation forinterdisciplinary research. Strengthen cooperation andresearch in courses and interdisciplinarity. Considering
the experience and technology gained through the
SOPHIE project, the enrichment module ENG3409"Introduction to Solar Vehicles" is being included in moreteaching material packages. All of these include not only
solar electric vehicles, but also Smart Mobility after the
strategic development of VTC. Coordinating such a large-

Encouraging innovativeness of new generation andexploring the use of renewable energy is a global trend.
Transfer of knowledge from one generation to other isvery crucial. IVE students take up this responsibility to
conduct some promotion events. The Engineering
Discipline of IVE organized the Youth New Energy
Electric Vehicle Design Campaign to provide theinitiative for the younger generation with immersive
experiences in the application of solar power and deepen
their knowledge of engineering and the STEM subjects
in a fun and interactive approach. The campaign inspires
young people's interest in renewable energy, innovative
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland43References
BIE (Buck Institute for Education). (2014). What isproject based learning (PBL)? Retrieved fromhttp://bie.org/about/what_pbl
Bridgestone World Solar Challenge WSC. (2019). 2019
Volunteer guide. Australia, p.5.
Butzin, S. M. (2001). Using instructional technology intransformed learning environments: An evaluation ofproject CHILD. Journal of Research on Computing in
Education, 33(4), 367–373.

Fig. 7. SOPHIE Workshop during enrichment module

scale interdisciplinary project also requires a lot ofmanagement, planning and guidance of students todevelop important design thinking skills andentrepreneurial thinking in a real-world environment
beyond the scope of classroom activities. Activity in
SOPHIE workshop was carried on during the enrichment
module class (Fig. 7).

Cheung, H. Y., Chow, M. H., & Chiu, P. K. (2016). How
science, technology, engineering, mathematics (STEM)
project-based learning improves student learning,
Proceedings of The 10th International Symposium on
Advances in Technology Education (ISATE), Sendai,
Japan.

Discussion

Cheung, H. Y., Chow, M. H., & Leung, Y. C. (2018).
Industrial engagement in engineering education to nuture
smart people, Proceedings of The 12th International
Symposium on Advances in Technology Education(ISATE), Hong Kong.

In summary, the SOPHIE project is indeed a great
example showing how project-based learning andindustry cooperation adds valuable elements to thecurriculum and stimulate students’ learning experienceand finally benefits to the students. By sharing the successof the SOPHIE project, this paper not only emphasizes thebenefits that SOPHIE bought to the Higher Diploma
students through project-based learning pedagogy, butalso explains how SOPHIE facilitate academia-industry
collaboration in the areas of innovative research byintegrating inter-disciplinary knowledge. SOPHIE’s
proven long-range performance, aside from racing,clearly demonstrates that PBL empower today’s youth
and transforms them into tomorrow’s professionals. We
have devoted ourselves to World Solar Challenge because
we also want to raise awareness among the next
generation about the importance of adopting newtechnology to help leverage renewable energies like solar.
Thought participating the competition, the SOPHIE
project with project-based approach also has empowered
the youths to design and built a viable means of green
transportation to drive humanity forward. A greener
future lies in the hands of the new generation and, for sure,the SOPHIE team will not stop here. Ready to shoulder
the mission to inspire tomorrow’s youth, we will continue
to promote green transportation throughout Hong Kong.

Hoerl, A., Larson, D., Stenson, M., Dennis, K. et al.,(2008). Aerodynamic Design Improvement of NDSU
Solar Car through Computational Fluid Dynamics, SAE
Technical
Paper
2008-01-2251,
pp.1-2.
https://doi.org/10.4271/2008-01-2251.
Larmer, J. & Mergendoller, J. R. (2011). The maincourse, not dessert: How are students reaching 21st
century goals? With 21st century project based learning.
Retrievedfrom
http://lcps.k12.nm.us/wpcontent/uploads/2015/10/The-Main-Course-NotDessert.pdf
Markham, T. (2011). Project Based Learning. Teacher
Librarian, 39(2), 38-42.
Savage, R. N., Chen, K.C., and Vanasupa L. (2007).
Integrating project-based learning throughout theundergraduate engineering curriculum. Materials
Engineering: 1-18.

Acknowledgements
Vocational Training Council VTC. (2019). VTC Annual
Report 2018/19. HK, p.4.

Great thanks to Vocational Training Council (VTC)
and the Hong Kong Institute of Vocational Education(IVE) Engineering Disciplines for the fully financial
support provided to the IVE Engineering Solar Car
SOPHIE project. At the same time, I would also like tothank all the sponsors of the SOPHIE project for theircash, in-kind, materials, resources, advices and support
throughout the entire decade.

Wang, L., Xue, X., Zhao, Z. and Wang, Z. (2018). The
Impacts of Transportation Infrastructure on Sustainable
Development: Emerging Trends and Challenges. Int. J.
Environ. Res. Public Health, 15, p. 1172.

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland
44

ONLINE-BASED TRAINING PROGRAM TO ENHANCE ADVICE-GIVING PRACTICE
OF COMMUNITY PHARMACY ASSISTANTS
W.K.MakDepartment of Health and Life Sciences, IVE (Chai Wan), VTC, Hong Kong
makwaikei@vtc.edu.hk
Abstract
Introduction
The study is designed to thoroughly assess and evaluate
the efficacy of the advice-giving practice of Hong Kong
Community Pharmacy assistants (CPA) under the novel
Patient-Centered Communication (PCC) program. Also,
to investigate the influence that incurred by the changes
in attributes of CPA including the attitude (A), subjective
norm (SN), perceived behavioral control (PBS) andintention of CPAs.

Background: Most of the advice-giving duties are
performed by community pharmacy assistants (CPAs)
in Hong Kong. Local systematic program guiding
advice-giving are lacking and there is no local study
regarding the advice-giving practice of CPAs.
Aim:To develop a program targeted for CPAs to
improve their advice-giving practice; Secondly, toevaluate the effectiveness of the program; And toinvestigate any changes in attributes as attitude,
subjective norm, perceived behavioral control andintention that influence their advice-giving practice.
Study design:
TheoryofPlannedBehaviour (TPB) is used to examine the effects on
psychological variables including attitude, subjective
norm, perceived behavioral control, and intention, on
advice-giving practice. An eight-week novel onlinebased program based on TPB was developed patient-centered communication (PCC) program.
Quantitative data obtained: (1) A self-administrated
questionnaire on advice-giving filled by the CPAs
before and after the program. (2) Student feedbackquestionnaire (SFQ) for program by CPAs.
Qualitative data obtained: (1) Open-ended questionsin the questionnaire; (2) Open-ended questions in
SFQ

The significance of the PCC program is to equip CPA
with medication and advice-giving knowledge and as aresult greater confidence will be fostered in assisting
patients in managing their disease states and medications.
Through the program, clients will be encouraged to haveappropriate self-care with over-the-counter medications
and foster safety in client’s medication. Also, it generates
an effective advice-giving which enhance correct use of
medications to meet the therapeutic goals. Moreeffective communication between clients and CPA will
be built and trusting relationship will be facilitated andfoster a sense of partnership between CPA and theirclients (Beardsley, Kimberlin & Tindall, 2012).
The Theory of Planned Behavior model (TPB) (Ajzen,
1988, 1991) is adopted to guide this research study. The
theory is made on assumption that human social behavior
is reason action (Fishbein and Ajzen, 2010). There are
four attributes for prediction of behavior, which are
attitude (A), subjective norm (SN), perceived behavioral
control (PBC) and intention (I)).

Results: 67 CPAs have completed the program.
First, the frequency of advice-giving increased
significantly (P-value <0.05). For TPB attributes,
both the attitude and perceived behavior control of
CPAs for advice-giving increased significantly (Pvalue <0.05). The SFQ survey showed that CPAs
appreciated the online study mode and satisfied withthe overall program (8.13 out of 10 marks).

Importance of advice-giving by Pharmacy staff
In community pharmacies, CPAs play a pivotal role tosupport consumers’ purchases of non-prescription
medicines. To ensure patient safety and quality service
in community pharmacy surely require CPA’s
knowledge and skills (Benrimoj, Werner, Raffaele andRoberts, 2008).
The provision of medicines incommunity pharmacies generally can be divided into two
two stages: the patient assessment stage (informationgathering), and advice-providing stage (to give advice
about the disease; or provide a product to relieve the signs
and symptoms of the disease; and provide non-Conclusion This study showed that the PCC
program significantly enhanced the advice-giving
competency of CPAs in Hong Kong. The result is very
encouraging that further online training in-service
program should be developed and promoted to CPAs
in Hong Kong.
Keywords:
Advice-giving,
Patient-centeredcommunication, Community Pharmacy Assistants
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland45

pharmacological advice) (Blenkinsopp, Paxton andBlenkinsopp, 2009); (Brown and Isetts, 2009).

understand the applications of effective communication
skills in different situations in pharmacy especially
special situations. They would know how to identify andmeet individual patient’s needs etc.

Problem of advice-giving in Hong Kong community
pharmacies
In Hong Kong, the prescribing and dispensing right are
not separated. The number of prescriptions issued to
private market (community pharmacies) is very low.
This situation is very similar to the case in Malaysia(Chua, Lim & Lee, 2013).

The weekly PCC program materials compiled into a
program booklet. There were well-planned feedback
mechanisms (email, SMS and WhatsApp group
communication) to guide the students through theprogram materials. Simple formative assessment items(online quizzes) were devised to monitor the participants’acquisition of knowledge and tracked the progress andattainment of learning outcomes.

The Problem of counseling service in Hong Kong
community pharmacies are identified.
Firstly, there is insufficient counseling provided topatients. Many studies have indicated that thecounseling in community pharmacy is insufficient andneed improvement (Horvat, Koder & Kos, 2012)(Mesquita, de Oliveira Sá, Santos, de Almeida Neto &Lyra, 2013). Neoh, Hassali, Shafie and Awaisu (2011)
studied that the information given to patients on
medication use is not adequate in most community
pharmacies.

Video clips, online quizzes, case studies with video
demonstrations and lecture notes were uploaded on thewebsite.
The Research Study
The research team visited the CPAs in their working
community pharmacy. The researcher gave a briefing of
the research project to the CPAs. The CPAs signed theinformed consent to join the research and filled in the
self-administrated questionnaire.
CPA were encouraged to provide feedback to theresearcher by email, mobile or WhatsApp. The researchteam visited the CPA at their working pharmacy one
month after completion of the 8-week program. The
CPA then were then filled in the self-administrated
questionnaire again.

Another study showed that many staff working in
general sales store and pharmacies are not capable todistinguish between different types of analgesics(Bardage, Westerlund, Barzi & Bernsten, 2012).
Puspitasari, Aslani and Krass (2009) reviewed thecounseling practices in community pharmacies andfound that medication safety information are not often
given to patients e.g. the side effects, drug interactions,precautions for drug use etc. Kelly, Williams andBenrimoj (2009) stated there is variation in pharmacy
staff behavior. They provide in-depth service topatients when they provide more tightly legislated
medicines, and they are more competent at providing
verbal advice than assessment of symptom history.

The rundown of the research study was illustrated in
Figure 1. 69 CPAs were enrolled and two CPAs werewithdrawn from the study since they had left the post of
CPA and opted not to continue the study.
Figure 1. Design of the Research Study
69’s CPA conducted self-administrated questionnaire(Pre-PCC group)

Need for the PCC Program
There is no formal training program in advice-giving
practice in community pharmacy in Hong Kong.
Mostly advice-giving practice is provided as on-the-job
training to new CPA by senior sales. The training needof advice-giving for CPAs is very evident.

8 weeks PCC program
CPAs received a program book of all self-study
materials at start of program

The design of program content is made reference todeveloped countries standards e.g., UK, Australia andUnited States, but the content is localized and tailored
made for local CPAs. Also, it contains component ofevaluation and assessment of the advice-giving practice.

CPA filled a Student Feedback
Questionnaire (SFQ)

One month after, CPA conduct self-administrated
questionnaire (Post-PCC group)

Methodology
The 8-week novel PCC program is run online to tailor for
the CPAs working schedule that they could learn at theirown pace. The program content was designed in Chinese,
supplemented with simple English. The PCC program
contained six learning outcomes. For example, CPA
could identify the salient role of effective advice-giving
practice. They could learn the updated advice-giving
guidelines in developed countries. Also, they would

The questionnaire was modified by using standard TPB
method (Francis et al, 2004). The behaviour to be studied
is the advice-giving by CPAs during provision of
medicines to customers in community pharmacy counter.
Section I is the basic demographics of CPAs e.g., age and14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland46

Questionnaire (SFQ). CPAs’ comments on the feasibilityof online study mode and the PCC program are collected
in open questions.

gender, number of years as CPA, number of hours
worked in pharmacy (per week), number of hours spent
for advice-giving (per week) etc. Section II comprises of
14 questions. Question 1 is used to assess behaviour.
Questions 2 to 10 are used for assessment of TPB
variables (A, SN, PBC, and I) and Questions 11 to 14 are
open-ended questions. Questions 2 to 10 are set as 7point scale (which 1 is strongly disagree to 7 is strongly
agree). CPA could grade their level of agreement or
disagreement to items relevant to advice-giving practice.
One item (Question number 1) is mapped for B, three
items (Question number 2, 8 and 10) are mapped for SN,
three items (Question 3, 7 and 9) are mapped for PBC,
two items (Question number 4 and 6) are mapped for I,
and one item (Question number 5 is divided into five subquestions) is mapped for A. Questions 11 to 14 are openended questions. These are used to collect the selfreported comments by CPAs involved the following
areas: (i) conditions of patients referral; (ii) questions to
ask customers during provision of medicines; (iii) CPAs
perception to deal with symptom request; and (iv)whether advice-giving is CPAs’ responsibility

Results
For the Pre-PCC group, among the first ten questions, thescore for question 5 (the opinion for CPA to provide
advice during provision of medicines in community
pharmacy counter), subset a (Good Practice-Bad Practice)and subset b (Helpful-Unhelpful), were the largest withscore 6.07 and 6.09 respectively. The minimum score
was question 2 (that CPA feel under social pressure toprovide advice during provision of medicines incommunity pharmacy counter) with score 3.1. For PostPCC group, in question 5 subset a, b and c, were thelargest with score 6.28, 6.31 and 6.33 respectively. The
minimum is for question 2 (CPAs feel under socialpressure, from their colleagues, to provide advice duringprovision of medicines to the community in community
pharmacy counter) with score 2.97.
2-Population t-Test for individual questions 1 to 10
First, the F-Test two sample for variance is conducted.
For question subset 5a, 5b, and 5c, the P-values were
smaller than 0.05, a t-Tests for Two-Sample Assuming
Unequal Variances were conducted. For other questions,the P-values were larger than 0.05, so t-Tests for TwoSample Assuming Equal Variances were conducted.

Measurement of Theory of planned behaviour attributes
Question number 1 counted the number of customers (outof latest ten customers) CPA provided advice-giving.
The number was converted to score for behavior (out of
10 marks). The Attitude was measured by taking the
average marks of four statements (helpful-unhelpful,necessary-unnecessary, satisfying-not satisfying, very
easy-very difficult). It was counted in bipolar scales(1 is good practice while 7 is bad practice). Subjective
norm was measured by taking average scores of threestatements, but it is reverse scored. PBC was measured
by averaging scores on three statements using bipolar
scales (1 is difficult and 7 is easy).
Intention wasmeasured by averaging two score for statements.

For Questions 2 and question 5 subset d, the scores for
Pre-PCC group were larger than the Post-PCC group i.e.
the scores decreased after the PCC program. For theother questions, the score for Post-PCC group were larger
than the Pre-PCC group. For question 1, the averagescore increased from 4.58 to 5.84 out of 10 after taking
the PCC program. There was significant difference (Pvalue is 0.004, which is less than 0.05) between the Preand Post- PCC group. The frequency of advice-giving by
CPA increased significantly after taking the PCC
program. For question 5 subset c, the average scoreincreased from 5.93 to 6.33 after taking the PCC program.
There was significant difference (P-value is 0.036, whichis less than 0.05) between the Pre- and Post- PCC group.
The attitude that CPA were necessary to provide advice
during provision of medicines increased after taking the
PCC program.

Data analysis
For, Quantitative data analysis, P-value less than 0.05
was considered as statistically significant and rejected
null hypothesis. The mean score and standard deviationof individual questions 1 to 10 of the questionnaires were
calculated. And the mean score of grouped questions for
attributes were calculated.
The score of questions of the questionnaires wereanalysed using t-test: paired two sample t-test for meansof Pre-PCC group and Post PCC group i.e., before andafter conducting the PCC program. For the Student
Feedback Questionnaire (SFQ), the means and standard
deviations of score for each question were calculated.

Paired t-Test for Grouped Questions
All the composite scores for A, SN, PBC and I increasedfor Post-PCC group, i.e. scores increased after taking
PCC program. For both A, SN, and I, the P-values werelarger than 0.05. There was no significant difference for
A, SN, and I between the Pre- and Post-PCC group. For
A, where the P-value was 0.074, it showed a certain
towards significance.

There were two parts of qualitative data collected in the
research. First, there were four open-ended questions in
the questionnaire. The individual open-ended questionsof questionnaire referred to individual themes. The
comments of individual open-ended questions weregrouped in terms of similar words or phrases that aresynonyms.
The second is the Student Feedback

For PBC, there was significant difference (P-value is0.013, which is smaller than 0.05) between the Pre- andPost-PCC group. The PBC for CPA to provide advice
during provision of medicines in community pharmacy

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland
47

counter increased significantly after they completed the
PCC program.

format were used for a range of health studied behaviors.
Also, the responses with respect to different behaviors
could be directly compared. The positive endpoints ofquestionnaire items were aligned on the right-hand side
for clarity and were more convenient for data entry.

Student Feedback Questionnaire (SFQ) for the PCC
program
CPAs were satisfied with the overall program (8.13
marks). The second highest score is question 8 that theteacher cared for the CPAs’ learning progress and CPAs
were provided with help (7.94 marks). For the openended question, many CPAs reflected that the PCC
program was convenient and save time. They could
study the program online anytime at any place. They
enjoyed reading the teaching materials using mobile
phone. Some CPAs appreciated that they could study thematerials online at home and there was no need to study
at certain place such as face-to-face lecture.

The result of Self-administrated questionnaire is first
discussed. All scores for questions (except question 2
and subset d of question 5), were larger for Post-PCC
group compared with Pre-PCC group. For question 1, theaverage score increased significantly. The number ofadvice-giving sessions increased significantly (scoreincrease by 1.26 out of 7 points, percentage increase by
27.4%). That reflected the CPAs significantly provided
more advice-giving to customers after taking the PCC
program. For question 5 subset c, the average scoreincreased significantly. So the attitude that CPAs werenecessary to provide advice increased after taking the
PCC program. However, for the other questions, there
was no statistically significant difference between thePre- and Post- PCC group. Only for question 8, there wasa certain towards significance.

For question 11, ‘how could this module and the teaching
be improved?’, many CPAs would like to have moreteaching materials. They appreciated to have moreinteractive sessions e.g., online support, real person
chatting etc. And some CPAs would like to havepractical training session for advice-giving.

All the composite scores for A, SN, PBC and I increasedfor Post-PCC group, i.e., scores increased after taking
PCC program. There was a certain towards significancefor A. While for PBC, there was significant difference
between the Pre- and Post-PCC group. The increase inscore was Perceived behavior control (score increased by
0.32 out of 7 points, percentage increased by 6.95%).
The PBC for CPAs to provide advice increased
significantly after they completed the PCC program. The
third increase in score was Attitude (score increased by
0.21, percentage increased by 3.55%). It showed that
CPAs were more confident to perform advice-giving incommunity pharmacy consultations. In short, CPAs
attended the PCC program did improve in all TPB
attributes in providing advice-giving in community
pharmacy consultation.

The result of open-ended questions of Questionnaire
showed that CPAs with longer working experiencetended to give more comment and feedback. The mostfrequent condition for referral to pharmacist were forpregnant and children. CPAs mostly asked customers for
drug allergy, the age of customers, and signs andsymptoms or condition of the customers. Only a few
CPA would ask for the current medicine taken bycustomer and customer’s disease history. For the dealing
with customers’ request to treat symptoms or conditions
with OTC medicines, nearly 59% CPAs stated that
advice-giving was not difficult. Among them, many
CPAs stated that they could get help from pharmacist incharge. Also, many CPAs said that they had drugknowledge and could solve drug problem using
smartphone. While 41% CPAs found advice-giving
difficult. Among them, many commented that it needed
extensive product knowledge to answer customer enquiry.

As shown in overall result of the pilot study and theresearch study, the composite score for all TPB
predictors (I, SN, PBC and A) and question one result
increased for those CPAs after taking the PCC program.
The most significant increase was the result of question
1 i.e. the number of customers (out of ten recent
encounters) CPA provided advice in community
pharmacy counter. This indicated an increase inawareness in advice-giving of CPAs and they had put
their knowledge in actual practice. This was a promising
result that the improvement in advice-giving practice was
the main objective of PCC program.

Discussion
In this research study, community pharmacy is defined asa property registered pharmacy under supervision by one
or more registered pharmacists. Over-the-counter (OTC)
medicines are deﬁned as medicines that are supplied
without prescription in community pharmacy or
medicine shop. An OTC consultation is deﬁned as ahealth request by customer for themselves or on someone
else's behalf.
The theoretical framework for the research is TPB. Apartfrom behaviour, the variables in the TPB model are
psychological (internal) constructs. For construction of
TPB questionnaire, direct measure of TPB constructs
were adopted in this research. Direct measures ofpredictor variables were used in this research. The
questionnaire items were easier to develop that the same

Discussion of the Open-ended questions ofquestionnaire
Seasoned CPAs gave more comment and feedback.
These CPAs are pharmacy managers or partners of thecommunity pharmacy. They had rich frontline counter
experience and responsible for supervisory and14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland48

managerial work including on-the-job training of new
CPAs.

training program (PCC Program) tailor-made for local
CPAs was developed.

CPAs mostly referred pregnant and children case topharmacist. Also, when customers required prescription
drugs or had special conditions. It is common that CPAs
would refer to pharmacist when they did not sure about
the drug and they clearly understood that prescription
drugs should be handled by pharmacist. CPAs shouldcollaborate with pharmacist in-charge for better patientcare.

As one of the first formal research project in Hong Kong
community pharmacy targeted for CPAs, the researchwould bring benefit for community pharmacy industry
that it increased the public awareness and confidence of
CPAs to provide quality community pharmacy service.
The research illustrated that the PCC Program could
significantly enhance the advice-giving competency of
CPAs. The program would be further promoted tocommunity pharmacy industry.

During provision of medicines, most CPA would ask for
drug allergy, the age of customer, and signs andsymptoms or condition of the customers. However,many essential items are often omitted. For example,
most CPAs did not ask customers the indication of drug,
their current medication, and their disease history. And
nearly all did not ask for side effect of drugs and whether
customers have consulted doctor before. These show thatmost CPAs lack the technique of questioning ofcustomers in advice-giving during provision of medicine.

Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank for the Hong Kong
General Chamber of Pharmacy, and those community
pharmacy staff who kindly taken part in the researchstudy.
References
Ajzen, I . (1988). Attitudes, Personality and Behaviour,
Open University Press, Milton Keynes.

Despite the unsatisfactory performance of questioning ofcustomers, nearly 60% of CPAs stated that advice-giving
was not difficult. Most of them would seek help frompharmacist or search drug information through internet.
It should be noted that the pharmacist only attended twothirds of the opening hours of pharmacy and had leave on
Sunday and public holidays. Also, the drug information
in internet varied and discretion was needed for the
reliability of online information sources.

Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior.
Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes,
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While 40% CPA shared the difficulty for advice-giving.
One problem is the lack of patient medication history
available in community pharmacy. The electronic healthrecord (eHR) did not cover the community pharmacies inHong Kong so that the only way to obtain information ofcustomers or patients is by questioning. CPAs founddifficult to identify overwhelming drug products
available in the market. This illustrated the need forcontinue education for CPAs especially information for
the new drug products. Also, CPAs expressed difficulties
for differential diagnosis. This reflected the importanceand need for advice-giving practice and tis is the aim of
PCC program.

Beardsley, R. S., Kimberlin, C. L., & Tindall, W. N.
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Blenkinsopp, A., Paxton, P., & Blenkinsopp, J. (2009).
Symptoms in the pharmacy: a guide to the managementof common illness. Wiley-Blackwell

All CPAs in the research thought that advice-giving wastheir job duties and responsibility and were important tohelp customers. It reflected that CPAs were aware of theimportance of advice-giving practice.

Brown, L. & Isetts, B. (2009). Patient assessment andconsultation. In: Berardi, R.R., Ferreri, S.P., Hume, A.L.,
et al.
Handbook of Nonprescription Drugs: An
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DC: American Pharmacists Association.

Conclusions
Community pharmacies are an integral component of the
primary health care system. In community pharmacies,
CPAs are usually the staff who provide service to patients.
While they are responsible for most routine pharmacy
operation, one of the main services provided is theadvice-giving practice to patients. However, relevant
training is currently not available. Thus, an online-based

Chua, S. S., Lim, K. P., & Lee, H. G. (2013). Utilisationof community pharmacists by the general public in
Malaysia.
International Journal of Pharmacy

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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Practice, 21(1), 66-69.
Fishbein, M., & Ajzen, I. (2010). Predicting andchanging behavior: The reasoned action approach. New
York, NY: Psychology Press.
Francis, J. J., Eccles, M. P., Johnston, M., Walker, A.,
Grimshaw, J. M., Foy, R., ... & Bonetti, D. (2004).
Constructing questionnaires based on the theory ofplanned behaviour. A manual for health services
researchers, 2010, 2-12.
Horvat, N., Koder, M., & Kos, M. (2012). Using thesimulated patient methodology
to assess paracetamol-related counselling forheadache. PLoS One, 7(12), e52510.
Kelly, F. S., Williams, K. A., & Benrimoj, S. I. (2009).
Does advice from pharmacy staff vary according to thenonprescription medicine requested? Annals of
Pharmacotherapy, 43(11), 1877-1886.
Mesquita, A. R., de Oliveira Sá, D. A. B., Santos, A. P. A.
L., de Almeida Neto, A., & Lyra, D. P. (2013).
Assessment of pharmacist’s recommendation of nonprescription medicines in Brazil: a simulated patient
study. International journal of clinical pharmacy, 35(4),647-655.
Neoh, C. F., Hassali, M. A., Shafie, A. A., & Awaisu, A.
(2011). Nature and adequacy of information on dispensed
medications delivered to patients in community
pharmacies:
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from
Penang,Malaysia. Journal of Pharmaceutical Health Services
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Puspitasari, H. P., Aslani, P., & Krass, I. (2009). A review
of counseling practices on prescription medicines incommunity pharmacies. Research in Social and
Administrative Pharmacy, 5(3), 197-210.

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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50

Continuous
Improvement
and Quality
Enhancement

DEVELOPMENT OF GRADUATION RESEARCH IN FOOD TEXTURE ESTIMATION
S. Kato *, a, T. Kagawa a, N.Wada a, T.Hino a and H. Nobuhara baNational Institute of Technology (KOSEN), Niihama College, Ehime, Japanb
University of Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan* skatou@ele.niihama-nct.ac.jp

Abstract

Introduction

This paper describes a suitable graduation
research subject that makes students interested in AI(Artificial Intelligence). Food is familiar to us.
Therefore, we built up a research topic related to food.
The objective of the proposed subject is to design an
intelligent system, which can recognize foods' textures.
In the proposed research, AI estimates food texture
from sound and load signals. Our original equipment
measures these signals when the food is compressedor cut. The authors applied CNN (Convolutional
Neural Network) to classify various texture type.
CNN is one of the NN (Neural Network) models andregarded as one of the latest beneficial AI (Artificial
Intelligent) techniques. The input of CNN is an image
representing the load and sound signals when the foodis cut or compressed by the equipment. The output isthe estimated classification value of the food. In the
research process, the students are required to figureout the electric sensors, such as load cells and thesound sensors, and learn the usage of the individual
amplifier of the sensors. In the experiment stage, tocollect signal data of the foods, the students have tomeasure the size of the food samples and memorize
the experimental conditions as detailed as possible in
the notebook. In this way, they can take advantage of
their experience writing reports in student
engineering experiments in their lower grades.
Besides, the students should construct an information
system using Matlab. By using Matlab, they canaddress building intelligent information systems
quickly. They have to analyze the physical features ofload and sound strength by calculating the mean andstandard deviation (STD). Furthermore, they are
required to comprehend the result of FFT (Fast
Fourier Transform) and STFT (Short Time Fourier
Transform) of the sound signal. The first half of thepresent paper shows the texture classification
experiment of three kinds of snacks performed by astudent. The latter half shows the experiment inapples' texture. Finally, conclusion and future work
are discussed.

AI (Artificial Intelligent) evolves rapidly in the latest
few years, and it is necessary to nurture students incomputer science to be capable of dealing with AI
techniques. NN (Neural Network) model proposed by
Rumelhart (1986) is an effective AI technique widelyused for practical problems such as automatic control andpattern recognition. Our previous study (S.Kato, 2018)
proposed an experiment to make students interested in
NN. In the proposed experiment, NN is applied to foodtexture estimation. The food is familiar to us, and thepresented AI pedagogy is unique, incorporating foodtexture.
On the other hand, CNN (Convolutional Neural
Network) model proposed by Yann LeCun (1998) has
made innovation in image recognition. Since CNN isbeneficial in not only image recognition but also soundrecognition, the students have to learn CNN. Therefore,
we built up a research topic on CNN. We realized thefood texture estimation system (S.Kato, 2019-2020), as
shown in Fig.1. The input of CNN is the characteristic
image comprising the spectrogram of a sound and a color
bar representing load strength when the food sample iscompressed or cut. The output is the classification resultof the food, such as rice crackers, egg bolo, or cornsnacks.

Keywords: neural network, graduation research,
artificial intelligence, CNN

Figure 1 The overview of the presented system.
The present paper shows experiments conducted by a 21years-old college student who belongs to our college. He

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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assisted our experiments using CNN. The first half of thepresent paper shows the texture classification experimentof three kinds of snacks. The latter half shows anexperiment in apples' texture. Finally, conclusion andfuture works are discussed.

the point (2) at 10% of the maximum load is searched.
The signals for the 3.0-[s] period from the point (2) are
extracted as (3) in Fig.4.

Overview of the present system
Fig.2 (a) shows the equipment to measure the soundand load of the food (rice cracker in the picture). The rodof the air cylinder moves plunger down to compress the
food. As shown in Fig.2 (b), the rice cracker iscompressed, and then the rice cracker is crushed, as
shown in Fig.2 (c).

Figure 4 Signal extraction.
The characteristic image given to CNN is created. As
Fig.5 shows, the extracted 3.0-[s] signals explained in
Fig.4 are converted to 227-by-227 pixels RGB image.
The sound signals are converted to the spectrogram by
STFT (Short-Time Fourier Transform). The bottom color
bar represents the load strength. The brighter the color,the higher the load. The detail is described in the papers
by S.Kato (2019-2020).

Figure 5 Creation of characteristic image.
Fig.6 shows the presented CNN. The input of CNN isa characteristic image. CNN outputs classification
probability. AlexNet (A. Krizhevsky, 2012) is adopted toperform characteristic image classification. AlexNet is
CNN and trained with a large amount of image data
beforehand.

Figure 2 The equipment to measure the sound and load.
Fig.3 shows an example of obtained signals of therice cracker. The upper graph in Fig.3 shows measured
load and sound signals for 10-[s]. The middle graph is
automatically extracted signals for 3.0-[s]. The bottom
one is the FFT (Fast Fourier Transform) result of theextracted sound signal.

Figure 6 CNN (Convolutional Neural Network).
In the CNN training phase, the adjustment of connection
weights between fc7 and fc8 is performed mainly toclassify characteristic images correctly using transfer
learning (Shin HC, 2016). The Deep Learning Toolboxof MATLAB is utilized for transfer learning(MathWorks, 2020). In Fig.6, the probability of “ricecracker” is the highest, thereby CNN estimates correctly
because the inputted characteristic image is one of therice crackers. The presented CNN is used in our previous

Figure 3 Example of obtained sound and load signals(Rice cracker: No.1).
As shown in Fig.4, the signals are extracted for the
3.0-[s] period to analyze the physical feature of food.
Firstly, the maximum load point (1) is found, and then
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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53

studies (S.Kato, 2019-2020). The details of CNN are
explained in our previous papers.
Experiment in snack texture
The author and a student (21 years old, male)conducted the snack texture experiment to obtain signal
data. We prepared three kinds of snacks such as ricecrackers (named sample A), egg bolo (sample B), andcorn snack (sample C) shown in Fig.7, purchased in thelocal supermarket.

Figure 9 Picture in the experiment of sample B.
Fig.10, 11, and 12 show the signal examples of eachsnack kinds, such as "rice cracker," "egg bolo," and "cornsnack," respectively.

Figure 7 Snack-size used in the experiment.

Figure 10 Signals of sample A (Rice cracker: No.2).

The author directed the student to draw and memorize theform and size of the snacks, as illustrated in Fig.7. Fig.8
shows experimental conditions. As well, the student
memorized necessary details in the experiment in thenotebook, as displayed in Fig.8 (a).

Figure 11 Signals of sample B (Egg bolo: No.1).

Figure 8 Experimental condition.
The experiment is carried out under the condition
presented in Fig.8. Fig.9 shows the picture when thesample B (egg bolo) is compressed.
Figure 12 Signals of sample C (Corn snack: No.1).
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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54

The student obtained 20 signal data for each kind of threesnacks in the experiment, respectively. Fig. 13 (a) shows
the means of extracted 3.0-[s] period load signal averages
for 20 sample data for each snack. Fig.13 (b) shows themeans of the integral of FFT results. It is found thatphysical features are different among the snacks.

As for Data Set (1), fifty data except No.1-10 of sample
A are used for training CNN. After the training CNN, theclassification accuracy of CNN is confirmed by using
Sample A No.1-10. The training condition is shown in
Fig.15 (b). For each data set, the accuracy was 90%, 90%,
90%, 100%, 90%, and 100, respectively. The average ofthe accuracy was 93.33 %. The student would
comprehend the CNN effectiveness and validation
method.
Experiment in apple texture
In the same manner, as the previous section, the author
and the student carried out an experiment to obtain apple
physical data. We prepared two kinds of apples named
brand A and brand B, as shown in Fig.16, purchased in
the local supermarket. The author directed the student todraw and memorize the form and size of the apples, as
illustrated in Fig.16.

Figure 13 Mean of load and sound strength for eachsample.
Since the rice cracker (sample A) is hardest, the load
average is highest. On the other hand, the corn snack is
not so hard, and the value is not high. The student would
comprehend the physical features by seeing the chart in
Fig.13. Fig.14 shows the characteristic image for eachkind of snack. The features of the images are different
depending on the kind of snacks.

Figure 16 Pictures of apples and size used in theexperiment.
Figure 14 Characteristic image for each kind of snack.

As Fig.17 (a) shows, the flesh of the apple is hollowed
out with metal pipe to be 17-[mm] diameter. And then,the hollowed-out flesh is trimmed in 30-[mm] length, asshown in Fig.17 (b). Finally, the sample flesh shown in
Fig.17 (c) is created.

CNN shown in Fig.6, is validated by using thecharacteristic images. We have 60 images (sample A: 20,
sample B: 20, sample C: 20). Six-fold cross-validation
shown in Fig.15 (a) is conducted.

Figure 15 CNN validation using characteristic images.

Figure 17 Process of apple flesh sample production.

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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55

The author and the student made up over 30 pieces ofsamples shown in Fig.17 (c) for each brand’s apples tocarry out the following experiment. The plunger of theequipment in Fig.2 is replaced with the blade, as shownin Fig.18 (a), and then the apple flesh sample is cut withthe blade, as shown in Fig.18 (b) to measure the soundand the load when the apple flesh is cut. Finally, thirty
signal data of the Bland A and B are corrected,
respectively.

Figure 20 Signals of brand A (brand A: No.1).

Figure 18 The apple flesh sample is cut by the blade.
The student memorized the necessary details in theexperiment in the notebook, as displayed in Fig.19 (a).
Fig.19 (b) shows experimental conditions.

Figure 21 Signals of brand B (brand B: No.1).

Figure 19 Experimental condition.
Figure 22 Mean of load and sound strength for eachsample.

Fig.20 and 21 show the signals of brand A and B,
respectively. The sound and load of brand A are
somewhat higher than B. Note the extracted period is set
to 2.0-[s] because the period is adequate for the apple
experiment. Fig.22 (a) shows the mean of extracted 2.0[s] period load signal average for 30 sample data for eachbland. Fig.22 (b) shows the means of the integral of FFT
results. It is found that physical features are different
between two bland. Fig.23 shows the characteristic
images.

Figure 23 Characteristic image for each bland.

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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Fig.24 (a) shows the CNN for apple texture
classification. The input of CNN is a characteristic
image. CNN is the same construction as Fig.6 except forthe output classification layer. CNN outputs theclassification probability of the apple’s bland.

By continuing an experiment with the student, we would
discover improvements in the equipment, experimental
condition, food sample production, analytical method,and AI algorithm.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to appreciate our student
Shiozaki participating in our experiment, and Maeda in
MathWorks for giving us technical advice.
References
David E. Rumelhart, Geoffrey E. Hinton & Ronald J.
Williams (1983). Learning Representations by Backpropagating Errors. Nature, 323, 533-536.
S.Kato & N.Wada (2018). DEVELOPMENT OFNEURAL NETWORK EXPERIMENT USING FOODTEXTURE ESTIMATION. Proc. of 12th International
Symposium on Advances in Technology Education(ISATE2018), 1-7.
Y. LeCun, L. Bottou, Y. Bengio & P. Haffner (1998).
Gradient-based learning applied to document recognition.
Proceedings of the IEEE, 86 (11), 2278-2324.

Figure 24 CNN and validation method.

S.Kato, N.Wada, R.Ito, T.Shiozaki, Y.Nishiyama &T.Kagawa (2019). Snack Texture Estimation System
Using a Simple Equipment and Neural Network Model.
Future Internet, 11(3), 1-16.

CNN is validated by using the characteristic images
shown in Fig.23. We have 60 characteristic images(Brand A: 30, Brand B: 30). Four-fold cross-validation,
shown in Fig.24 (b), is conducted. As for Data Set (1), 45
data except for No.1-15 of Brand A are used for training
CNN. After training CNN, the classification accuracy of
CNN is confirmed by using No.1-15 of brand A. Training
condition is shown in Fig.24 (c). For each Data Set, theaccuracy was 93.33%, 93.33%, 93.33%, and 66.67%,
respectively. The average accuracy was 86.67%. CNN
can distinguish the texture pattern of two kinds of apples,even though the average of the physical features weredispersed as Fig.22 shows. The student would
comprehend the flexibility of CNN.

S.Kato, R.Ito, T.Shiozaki, F.Kitano, N.Wada, T.Kagawa,
H.Nobuhara, T.Hino & Yukinori Sato (2019). Apple
Brand Classification Using CNN Aiming at AutomaticApple Texture Estimation. Lecture Notes in Networks
and Systems, 96, 811-820.
S.Kato, T.Kagawa, N.Wada, T.Hino & H.Nobuhara(2020). Citrus Brand Classification by CNN Considering
Load and Sound. Advances in Intelligent Systems andComputing, 1150, 1239-1249.

Conclusions
We interviewed the student who assisted in thepresented experiment. His remarks are described asfollows.
- The student felt be interested in AI because CNN isvery flexible, and the programming code written by
Matlab is simple.
- He found the importance of memorizing
experimental conditions such as date, time,
temperature, humidity, and size of samples asevidence.
- The mechanical setting of the equipment by hand
was interested because the mechanical condition
affects the experimental results.
- He figured out the signal processing meaning, such
as FFT and STFT, in order to recognize signal
feature differences.

A. Krizhevsky, I. Sutskever & G. E. Hinton (2012).
ImageNet classification with deep convolutional neuralnetworks. In Proceedings of the 25th International
Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems(NIPS'12), 1097-1105.
Shin HC, et al. (2016). Deep Convolutional Neural
Networks for Computer-Aided Detection: CNN
Architectures, Dataset Characteristics and Transfer
Learning. IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, 35(5),1285-1298.
MathWorks (accessed on 20 April 2020). Transfer
Learning
Using
AlexNet,Retrievedfromhttps://www.mathworks.com/help/deeplearning/exampl
es/transfer-learning-using-alexnet.html.

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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57

FOLLOW-UP REPORT: A CLASSROOM STUDY OF ONLINE TUDY ON TEST OFENGLISH FOR INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION AT NATIONAL INSTITUTE OFTECHNOLOGY, HAKODATE COLLEGE
Mariko Okuzaki*,aaGeneral Department, National Institute of Technology, Hakodate College, Hakodate, Japan*okuzaki@hakodate-ct.ac.jp

Abstract

Introduction

In 2018, Hakodate College commenced online
study on Test of English for International
Communication (TOEIC)*1 a mandatory course for
all fourth-year Japanese students. This classroom
research focuses on a specific group of 36 students inthe fourth year of mechanical engineering majors at
the Production System Department in academic year
2019 (hereinafter referred to as 4SM2019). This study
reflects on the process used for a previous group of 37
students in the fourth year of mechanical engineeringmajors at the Production System Department inacademic year 2018 (4SM2018) to gain the following
insights on improving e-learning for 4SM2019: (a)students with total score of 350 or lower tend to spend
much less time on e-learning compared with those
who scored 500 or more; (b) students with total scoreof 350 or lower tend to spend much less time on the
TOEIC examination compared with those who scored
500 or more; (c) of the total number of students, 75%
engaged in inappropriate e-learning because of
improvisational attitudes towards learning; and (d) ateacher’s
face-to-facelearning
confirmation
facilitates the self-efficacy of lower-level students.
Based on the study results, the following measures
were taken to improve the English learning of
4SM2019 using the learning management system(LMS): (a) conducting regular quizzes that expand
vocabulary to prevent students from doing
monotonous work or pretending to learn and (b)allowing students to set feasible learning goals,
achievement objectives, and e-learning selfevaluation and to regularly monitor their learning
status together. In terms of the frequency distributionof study time and reading score, the measures proved
effective for 4SM2019. However, overall results
indicate that the measures were not enough to help
lower-level students in acquiring a total score of 400
in TOEIC.

The English department at the national Institute ofTechnology (NIT), Hakodate College, continuously
undertook a TOEIC e-learning course for 36 students inthe fourth year of mechanical engineering majors at theProduction System Department for academic year 2019
(hereinafter referred to as 4SM2019). The course is
aimed at helping 4SM2019 achieve the necessary TOEIC
score for their future career through a self-learning
program provided by the same learning management
system (LMS) used for 37 students in the fourth year of
mechanical engineering majors at the Production System
Department for academic year 2018 (4SM2018). LMS
enables students to practice TOEIC using the ALC
NetAcademy NEXT: TOEIC🄬L&R test*2. The target
scores of the TOEIC e-learning program were 350 points
for the subject Practical English 1A in the first semesterand 400 points for the subject Practical English 1B in thesecond semester. A total of 36 students were included in
4SM2019. Figure 1 shows a bar chart of the frequency
distribution of the TOEIC scores of 4SM2019 in their
third year of school (2018).

Keywords: TOEIC, e-learning,monitoring learning status

The horizontal axis indicates that the total TOEIC
score ranges by 50 points, whereas the vertical axis
indicates the number of students in each range. In 2018,the score was 287 on average, with the maximum andvocabulary

12
10

11

400

8
8
6
4

5

5
4

2
0

0

1

0

1

0

0

1

0
99 149 199 249 299 349 399 449 499 549 599 649 699

Figure 1 Frequency distribution of TOEIC IP scores of
4SM2019 in the third year of school (2018)quiz,

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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58

minimum score being 665 and 170, respectively. In the
beginning of academic year 2019, the learning goal ofachieving 400 points or above within a year appeared
relatively difficult for majority of the students.
Regular vocabulary quizzes to suppress
inappropriate e-learning behaviour of students

Each quiz was designed to complete within a few
minutes. However, several students repeated the task andspent 20 to 30 minutes to complete the quizzes. Thosestudents were deemed insufficiently prepared for aregular vocabulary quiz. The practice revealed students
who had improvisational attitudes toward learning.
Through the vocabulary quizzes, other students
recognized that preparation can benefit learning and, thus,
took steps to gradually prepare for and finish a quiz in thefirst attempt.

theWatanabe and Aoki (2011) defined a case of
inappropriate study wherein a student undergoes elearning within a shorter time than that required forcompletion based on competence and task volume.
Furthermore, Okuzaki, Hirano, and Maruyama (2019)focused on fourth-year students of NIT, Hakodate, andfound that 75 % of the students engaged in inappropriate
e-learning due to their improvisational attitudes towards
learning in 2018. Therefore, to prevent the
improvisational attitudes towards e-learning and to
suppress the inappropriate e-learning behaviour of
students, vocabulary quizzes were regulated for every
lesson in Practical English 1A and 1B. The quizzes weregenerated using the LMS named GLEXA*3 and produced
by Version2*3. The vocabulary for a quiz was arranged
based on the TOEIC L&R TEST: Derutan-tokkyuKinnoFurezu (Asahi Press, 2018). The book presents
approximately 1,400 English words and phrases
frequently used in the TOEIC test. The students were
informed in advance of the pages that will be covered by
the quiz. Each vocabulary quiz consists of 100 words andphrases taken from a section and presented according tothe order displayed in the textbook. As the textbook
consists of 16 sections, students took a quiz on one or two
sections for each lesson. The process was repeated 14
times for the first and the second semesters. At the
beginning of each lesson, oral repetition of words andphrases was conducted in chorus and was led by a teacher.
A multiple-choice quiz (Figure 2) was then given for the
first semester, whereas a word order quiz was provided
for the second semester (Figure 3).

Comparing TOEIC reading conversion scores by
examination
Figure 4 shows the differences in the average TOEIC
reading conversion scores between 4SM2018 and
4SM2019 for each examination. Although 4M2018
marked the highest scores in the second midterm, thevalues dropped in the second final. Conversely, theaverage scores for 4SM2019 were slightly higher thanthose for 4SM2018 in three examinations, namely, firstmidterm, first final, and second final.
200
100
0
first-mid

first-final second-mid second-final
2018

2019

Figure 4 Comparison of average TOEIC reading scoresof two classes by examination
first-mid

first-final

second-mid

second-final

20
10
0
49

Figure 2 Example of a multiple-choice quiz

99

149

199

249

299

349

Figure 5 Frequency distribution of reading scores for
4SM2018
first-mid

first-final

second-mid

second-final

20
10
0
49

Figure 3 Example of a word-order quiz

99

149

199

249

299

349

Figure 6 Frequency distribution of reading scores for
4SM2019

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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59Regarding the frequency distribution data of thereading scores, the second final line for 4SM2018
indicates bipolarization (Figure 5). In contrast, each line
for 4SM2019 in Figure 6 lacked bipolarization despite
the peak differences. According to Fujita (2011),
bipolarization occurs when a class divides into twogroups, namely, motivated learners (those who study
after class) and less motivated (those reluctant to study
after class). Figure 7 shows that standard deviation
increased in the second semester of 2018, whereas itslightly dropped by the end of 2019, although the firstvalues were similar. This finding supports the notion that
4SM2019 maintained a learning community for a year.

1h-2h59mins
up to 59 mins
1h-2h59mins

0%
0%
0%

3h-4h59mins

8%
42 %

5h-6h59mins
7h-8h59mins
9h-10h59mins
11h-12h59mins
13h-14h59mins

31 %
3%
5%
0%

15h60
50
40
30
20
10
0

11 %

Figure 9 Total duration of the study time of 4SM2019
for academic year 2019first-mid

first-final

Comparing the average times in the entire TOEIC
conversion tests between the first midterm and second
final examinations for 2018, students who scored below
350 took the exam 30 minutes faster than those whoscored more than 500 (Table 1). In 2019, the timedifference between students who scored below 350 and
those who scored more than 500 became less than 20
minutes (Table 2).

second-mid second-final

2018

2019

Figure 7 Comparison of the standard deviations ofreading scores

Table 1 Comparison of time spent to complete the
TOEIC conversion tests (4SM2018)

Inappropriate e-Learning
Figure 8 shows that in 2018, 90% of the students
spent less than 35 hours on e-learning, which is therecommended study time for the ALC NetAcademy
NEXT: Target 500/600/730 Course for the
TOEIC®L&R TEST (Okuzaki, Hirano, and Maruyama,2019).

up to 59 mins

1h - 2h 59 mins

1.2%
2.9%
33.7%

5h - 6h 59 mins

26.7%

7h - 8h 59 mins

11.0%

9h - 10h 59 mins

9.9%

13h - 14h 59 mins
15h -overall mean

345 and below

500 and above

1st-mid (June 2018)

1:18:54

1:05:01

1:38:28

1st-final (August 2018)

1:32:10

1:22:41

1:54:35

2nd-mid (November 2018)

1:32:49

1:09:33

1:47:26

2nd-final(February 2019)

1:22:55

1:13:49

1:44:52mean

1:26:42

1:12:46

1:46:20

Table 2 Comparison of time spent to complete the
TOEIC conversion tests (4SM2019)3h - 4h 59 mins

11h - 12h 59 mins

mean of scores of mean of scores of

examination periodmean of scores of mean of scores of

examination period

overall mean

345 and below

500 and above

1st-mid (June 2019)

1:43:51

1:33:00

1:50:28

1st-final (July 2019)1:26:23

1:01:05

1:41:30

2nd-mid (November 2019)

1:28:22

1:26:00

1:35:12

2nd-final(February 2020)

1:06:16

1:01:54

1:07:20mean

1:26:13

1:15:30

1:33:38

Table3 Comparison of total average scores of TOEIC
conversion tests
1st-mid
1st-final 2nd-mid 2nd-final
4SM2018
420
368
447
410
4SM2019
436
371
427
409

5.2%
2.9%
6.4%

Figure 8 Total duration of the study time of fourth-year
students for academic year 2018

The total average scores for 4SM2019 were mostly
similar to those for 4SM2018 (Table 3). Although most
students of 4SM2019 were anticipated to achieve lessthan 400, the numbers of students were similar to thosefor 4SM2018 in each examination (Figure 10).

Figure 9 shows the total duration of the study time of
4SM2019. The graph indicates that more students
studied longer than 4SM2018.

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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30

1. In the context of the current study, the TOEIC
Listening and Reading (L&R) and Institutional Program(IP) tests are referred to as TOEIC tests.

20
10

2. In this research, the score attained in the examinationof the ALC NETAcademy NEXT: Target 500/600/730
TOEIC®L&R TEST is referred to as the TOEIC
conversion score. Takashima (2006) reported the quality
and validity of questions in the ALC NetAcademy test.

0
1st mid

1st final

2nd mid

2nd final

2018 students of scores 400 and above
2019 students of scores 400 and above

3. Version2 is a company located in Sapporo, Hokkaido
which facilitates Blended Styled Education, that is, acombination of classroom teaching and individualized
learning using a computer. It provides an e-learning
system wherein communication and a portfolio function
are reinforced in a face-to-face classroom setting in
addition to conventional LMS learning. GLEXA is oneof the LMSs that facilitate English education inside andoutside the classroom setting by providing e-learning
functions for development of the reading, writing,listening and speaking skills of students.

Figure 10 Comparison of number of students whoachieved approximately 400 in TOEIC conversion
scoresResults and Discussion
Based on the test results, examination times, study
hours, and number of students who achieved a score of
400 and above the total TOEIC conversion scores as thelearning goal, the vocabulary quiz functioned efficiently
to prevent students from engaging in inappropriate elearning. However, after allowing the students to set
feasible learning goals, achievement objectives, elearning self-evaluation and regular monitoring of theirlearning status with a teacher (the author), six students
were unable to pass the second semester in 2019, thesame case as in 2018. This indicates that the measures
for improving the LMS for English were effective forfacilitation of the entire class of 4SM2019 but
insufficient for lower-level students. According toIshihara (2016), providing other suitable instructions forlower-level students as early as possible based on theirlearning motivation and problems is necessary. Maeda(2008) points out that successful learners andunsuccessful learners in classroom should be aided by
web-based training because of differences in learning
aptitudes. The author claimed that instructions should beflexible so to maintain balance in the students' aptitude
by investigating learner beliefs, learning motivations, andlearning strategies, which are aspects that lack attention
in the context of teaching 4SM2019.

Acknowledgments
I thank the students who allowed me to use theirpersonal data for this research.
References
Ishihara, T. (2016). Implementation of e-learning based
Tasks at TOEIC 1 Classes in 2014: Achievements andFuture Issues, Language and Culture Contents, 61(34),127-136.
Kato, T. (2018). TOEIC L&R TEST: Derutan-tokkyuKinnoFurezu. Tokyo: Asahi Press
Maeda, H. (2008). Successful Learners and Unsuccessful
Learners in Classroom Teaching Aided by Web-Based
Training, ARELE: Annual Review of English Language
Education in Japan, 19(0), 253-262.
Okuzaki, M., Hirano, T., & Maruyama, H. (2019). A
Classroom Study of TOEIC E-Learning Involving
Fourth-year Kosen Students at NIT, Hakodate College.
Transaction of The 13th International Symposium on
Advances in Technology Education, 216-219.

Conclusions
Based on the previous study results, the two measures
for improving the LMS for English for 4SM2019 weretaken.
Conducting regular quizzes that expand
vocabulary was effective for preventing the class fromundergoing monotonous work or pretending to learn.
However, the measures were not enough to help lowerlevel students who were unable to achieve a total scoreof 400 in the TOEIC conversion tests. To support lowerlevel students, instruction should be flexible to suit theirlearning aptitudes. Inaddition, this aspect is an interestingangle for future studies.

Takashima, H. (2006), An Attempt to Improve theStudents’ TOEIC® Test Scores, Memoirs of the Kure
National College of Technology, 68, 35-44.
Watanabe, T.& Aoki, N. (2011), Effects of an English elearning program: Task completion rate, time on task,
and improper study based on TOEIC score gains,
Hiroshima Journal of International Studies, 17, 105-119

Notes*
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
18-21 August 2020, Turku, Finland
61

Visualization of students' Generic Skills growth through Overseas Internship Programs
K. Yajima*,a, K. Kawasakia, Y. Kubotaa, T. Shiranea and H. FukumuraaaDepartment of General Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Sendai College, Sendai,Japan*E-Mail yajima@sendai-nct.ac.jp

Abstract

results of these surveys can be used to improve thecontents of pre- and post- guidance on the programs andsupport to make OSI more effective.
In this paper, the differences of GSs growth
characteristics between the students who participated in
a 5-month OSI (longest program) and those of otherstudents from Hirose campus are reported. By comparing
the GSs of the students who participated in OSI withthose of other students, some tendencies can be observedin the differences in the abilities of students before
participating in the internship and the differences ingrowth characteristics with and without the participationin OSI. For the dispatched students in 2020, in addition,
we measured their GSs immediately after dispatching,and compared their growth from 1st to 4th grade with thatfrom 4th to 5th year (after dispatch). By analyzing thesetrends in detail, it is possible to achieve more effective
overseas internships. For that purpose, we will introduce
the results of the differences in GSs growth with andwithout overseas internship participation of our students.

National Institute of Technology, Sendai College(Sendai KOSEN) has been engaged in global
education for students by offering internshipprograms at overseas universities since the early
2000s. On the other hand, a continuous survey ofstudents’ generic skills (GSs) by an objective method
has been conducted from the academic year 2014. The
GSs of Hirose campus students who participated in
the 5-month overseas internship (OSI) program wereanalyzed, and the results are reported in this paper.
From the comparison of results between before
and after OSI, it became clear that OSI program canefficiently enhance the participants’ Competency
abilities. This results are expected to make more
effective and fulfilling OSI programs possible, and wewill continue these surveys and analyze the effects ofoverseas internship by analyzing students’ GS growthtrends.
Keywords: Quantitative evaluation of Generic Skills,
Oversea Internship programs, A continuous survey ofGeneric Skills, Progress Report on Generic Skills

Evaluation method of Generic Skills
In order to quantify GSs, there are two representative
methods, that is, direct evaluation using rubrics, andindirect evaluation using external assessments. Progress
Report on Generic Skills (PROG) [1], one of Japan’s
standard tests, was adopted in this survey because the test
has advantages of eliminating evaluators’ subjectivity
and of being able to use for comparing our students’
results with those of university students. Since Itoreported the assessment of PROG as a useful assessment
tool [2], the results of PROG have been used in theevaluation of educational effects and proposals for new
educational methods, for example, the proposal of A3
Learning system by Takahashi et al. [3] and proposal ofutilization of PROG for objective GSs assessment by
Yajima et al. [4].
The PROG consists of two parts: Literacy part, which
evaluates the examinee’s ability to apply their knowledge
to solve new or inexperienced problems, andCompetency part, which evaluates the examinee’s coping
abilities with their surroundings, including decision
making or action principle characteristics.

Introduction
Sendai KOSEN has signed the academic agreementswith 10 universities in the European region and 5
universities in the Asian region. In these agreements,
exchanges of students are included. Sendai College has
several overseas internship programs, for example, aprogram to dispatch 5th grade students of regular course
to the partner universities in Finland, France or Thailand
for about 5 months. Therefore, Sendai KOSEN iscommitted to fostering a global mindset of our students
by dispatching our students to OSI and also acceptinginternational students for our school programs.
As part of quality assurance of education, on the other
hand, continuous surveys of students’ GSs, abilities tocomprehensively adjust to society, has been conductedsince the academic year 2014. Through these continuous
surveys, it is possible to know the GSs characteristics ofthe students who want to participate in OSI and the GSs
growth between before and after the internship. The
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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62

Literacy part consists of questions such as numericalreasoning and text comprehension. In Competency part,
there are many questionnaire-type questions for
examining behavioral characteristics. For example, to aquestion “When talking with a person you are new to,
how do you act?” the answer should be in a five-scale
rating from “Very friendly” to “Very politely." Theevaluation of each component in this part is quantified bycomparing the statistically processed exemplary answersof 4,000 Japanese businesspersons who were rated as“excellent”. PROG test scores are rated either from 1 to
5, or from 1 to 7, depending on factors, in both Literacy
and Competency parts, with larger numbers indicating
better results.

those who are interested take the test, so the numbers ofthe dispatched students and the students who took the test
do not match. In addition, since some students did not go
on to the advanced course, the number of students who
took the test in 1st grade of the course is further reduced.
For the three dispatched students in 2019 who have nodata for 1st grade of advanced course, on the other hand,
we compared their GSs growth between that from 1st to
4th grade with that from 4th to 5th grade.
The students in the survey did not differ significantlyin the curriculum compared to other students, except thatthey participated overseas internship in their 5th grade.
Therefore, it is considered that the difference between thestudents who participated in the internship and otherstudents is due to the difference whether or not they
participated in overseas internship.

Results of the Surveys
Information of the Surveys
Table 1 indicates the grades of students who took the
PROG in each academic year. The target students in thesesurveys are those who were dispatched to a 5-month OSI
program in their 5th grade and took the PROG in theacademic years before and after the dispatch. Specifically,
it targets 5th grade students in the academic years of 2015,2016, 2017 and 2018. In 2015, eight students weredispatched to OSI, and all six of them took the PROG intheir 4th grade and in the 1st grade of advanced course,
respectively. Similarly, eight students were dispatched in2016, and six and three of them took the test in 4th grade
and in 1st grade of advanced course, respectively. In 2017,
ten students were dispatched, and eight and four of themtook the test in 4th grade and in 1st grade of advanced
course. For 2018, three students were dispatched, andthree and one of them took the test in 4th grade and in 1st
grade of advanced course. (As for the PROG test, only

Generic Skills characteristics before dispatch : Comparison between students dispatched to OSI and others
Fig. 1 shows a ratio between the average value of thestudents who were dispatched to OSI and the value ofother students (a value of average score of the students
participated in OSI divided by the scores of otherstudents) for the Literacy and Competency overall scoresin PROG which they took in 4th grade. If this value
exceeds 1.00, it means that the students who weredispatched to OSI have higher abilities at the time of their
4th grade before dispatch. As shown in Fig. 1, both ofoverall Literacy score and overall Competency score, thescattered results were observed and we can not say ifthere is a particular tendency. Fig. 1 tells us that thestudents who participated in OSI do not have particularlyhigh Literacy and Competency abilities compared toother students.
Next, a comparison of “language processing skills” in
Literacy part was shown in Fig. 2, since it is consideredthat students who wish to participate in overseasinternship have higher language skills than others. The

Table 1. The grades of students who took the
PROG test in each year
Grade

Academic Year2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

1st

○

○

○

○ ○

○

2nd

○

○

○

○ ○

○

3rd

○

△

○

○ ○

○

4th

○

○

○

○ ○

○

5th

○

△

○

× ○

△

1st

△

△

○

○ ○

○

2nd

△

△

○

○ ○

○

○ : All the students took the test
△ : Only some students of regularand advance course took thetest
× : Students did not take the test.

Figure 1. Comparison of Overall scores between
OSI students and other students. (“OSI students”
means the students who participated in the Overseas
Internship.)

R : Regular course
A : Advanced course
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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63

ratio of "language processing skills" showed a value of0.96 to 0.99, which indicates that the students who wantto participate OSI do not have high language processing
ability in particular. Therefore, it became clear that thelevel of language processing skills did not match thedesire to participate in OSI.
Finally, we compare scores for the elements ofCompetency main (3) categories to confirm if there aredifferences between students who want to participate in
OSI and other students. Fig. 3 shows the results of acomparison of main categories' elements “Teamwork
skills”, “Personal skills”, and “Problem solving skills”.
Similar to Fig. 1, the results are also scattered among
these elements. Even in the elements of the main
Competency category, no particular tendency was foundin the comparison between students who wish toparticipate in OSI and other students.

GSs growth characteristics before and after OSI(Comparison between students were dispatched to OSI
and others)
Fig. 4 shows GSs score improvement (the value
obtained by subtracting the score in 4th grade before
dispatch from the score in 1st grade of advanced course
after dispatch) before and after OSI in the evaluation
elements of Literacy part. From this point on, the growthof GSs was treated as the average of all dispatched years,
due to the small number of students taking PROG in 1st
grade of advanced course. It was found from Fig. 4 thatthe growth associated with the element of Literacy,
whether or not participating in OSI, is relatively small in
the range -0.2 to 0.8. This is caused since the Literacy
growth tendency of Hirose campus students grows up to
4th grade of the regular course, and then shows asaturation tendency after 5th grade [5]. Furthermore,
score improvement of those who participate in OSI islower than those of other students. Therefore, regarding
improvement of Literacy part skills, it is clear thatstudying at Sendai KOSEN is better than participating in
OSI.
Next, GSs score improvement in each evaluation
element of Competency part before and after OSI wereshown in Fig. 5. In contrast to Literacy, students
dispatched to OSI have higher scores for most elementsof Competency than others. In the main (3) category,"Teamwork Skills" and "Personal Skills", the students
dispatched to OSI scored about 0.6 points higher than
before dispatch, while the score of students who did notparticipate in OSI is in the range of 0.1 to 0.2, that is,
students dispatched to OSI grew more on the factor thanothers. On the other hand, it was found that the students
who did not participate in OSI had higher score
improvement for each element belonging to the "Problem
solving skills". Therefore, it became clear that OSI
program can efficiently enhance Competency abilities,
which are considered to be difficult to improve by justattending lectures. In particular, every element of"Teamwork Skills" and "Personal Skills" grew efficiently.

Figure 2. Comparison of Linguistic processing
skills between OSI students and other students.

Comparison of between GSs growths from 1st to 4th
grade with from 4th to 5th grade
Since there are no data for 1st grade of advanced
course for the three students who dispatched at 2019, we
compared between their GSs growth in 3 years from 1st
to 4th grade with their GSs growth in 1 year from 4th to
5th grade. The GSs score improvement in each
evaluation element of Literacy and Competency part in 3
years before being despatched to OSI and in 1 year of theyear of OSI were shown in Fig. 6 and 7, respectively. It
is not possible to make a simple comparison because it is
a comparison of growth over three years and one year,
but from Fig. 6 it can be seen that each element of
Literacy, except linguistic and nonliguistic processing
skills, has grown remarkably in the three years prior todispatch. On the other hand, regarding each element ofcompetency, the growth during the one year participationin OSI is substantially higher in almost all the elements.
However, regarding the factor of problem solving ability,

Figure 3. The elements of Competency main (3)categories between OSI students and other students.

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
18-21 August 2020, Turku, Finland64Figure 4. Comparison of scores improvement in Literacy between OSI students and other students.

Figure 5. Comparison of score improvement in Competency between OSI students and other students.

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
18-21 August 2020, Turku, Finland
65Figure 4. Comparison of scores improvement in Literacy between 3 years from 1st to 4th grade and 1 year from4th to 5th grade.

Figure 5. Comparison of score improvement in Competency between 3 years from 1st to 4th grade and 1 year
from 4th to 5th grade.

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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66

the growth rate in one year when dispatched to OSI issmaller than other factors, and it is almost equal to or
smaller than the value in three years before dispatch.
These results show the same tendencies as thecomparison before and after OSI dispatch in Fig. 4 and 5.
Therefore, it became clear from these results that OSI
programs can efficiently enhance the participants'
Competency abilities, especially the elements of"Teamwork Skills" and "Personal Skills"[2] Ito, H. (2014). Assessing an Assessment Tool ofHigher Education: Progress Report on Generic
Skills (PROG) in Japan, International Journal of
Evaluation and Research in Education (IJERE),
Vol.3, No.1, pp. 1–10, 2014.
[3] Takahashi, A. et al. (2016). A3 Learning System:
Advanced Active and Autonomous Learning
System, International Journal of Engineering
Pedagogy, Vol.6(2), pp.52-58, 2016: http://dx.doi.org/10.3991/ijep.v6i2.5645

Conclusion
Sendai KOSEN has been engaged in global education
for students by offering internship programs at overseas
universities since the early 2000s. In this paper, the GSsof Hirose campus students who participated in the 5month OSI program are surveyed before and after OSI byan objective method.
From the survey before OSI, remarkable tendencies
were not observed in Literacy and Competency
regardless of whether or not there was a desire toparticipate in OSI. Furthermore, the level of language
processing skills did not match the desire to participate in
OSI.
Moreover, from the comparison of results between
before and after OSI (two different surveys), it became
clear that OSI program can efficiently enhance
participants' Competency abilities. Since Competency
abilities, especially personal and teamwork skills, areconsidered to be difficult to improve in just attending
lectures at school, the results of our survey seems toprove the educational effects of OSI (the training
experience overseas).
It is considered possible to visualize the effects of the
OSI program on GSs by continuing these surveys andconducting more detailed analysis. Since feedback of thevisualized effects to the students participating in theinternship is expected to make more effective andfulfilling OSI programs possible, we will continue thesesurveys and analyze the effects of overseas internship byanalyzing students' GS growth trends.

[4] Yajima, K. et al. (2018). Objective Assessment ofStudents’ Generic Skills, IEEE International
Conference on Teaching, Assessment and Learning
for Engineering (TALE2018) : https://www.tale
2018.org/[5] Kawasaki, K. et al. (2019). A Proposal of a students’voluntary improvement cycle method byvisualization of Generic skills, Transactions of The
13th International Symposium on Advances inTechnology Education (ISATE2019), 364-368

Acknowledgements
This survey was supported by the Acceleration
Program for University Education Rebuilding, Ministryof Education in Japan. We are deeply grateful to theprincipal, teachers and support staff of our college for
their contribution to this project. In addition, we
appreciate Professor N. Fujiki and Professor H. Matsueda
of Sendai KOSEN for their helpful cooperation in thecollection of data.
References[1] About Progress Report on Generic Skills (PROG)
test:https://www.kawaijuku.jp/jp/research/prog/(URL: In Japanese)

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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67

CAREER EDUCATION PROGRAMS IN NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY,TOYOTA COLLEGE
T. Shimizu*,a and A. Kaneshige aaNational Institute of Technology, Toyota College/Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Professor, Toyota, Japan*shimizu@toyota-ct.ac.jp

Abstractthemselves. It will be also a great help for deciding
their new career course after leaving Toyota College.

Career education includes wide varieties of
educational
activities
suchas
improvingcommunication skill, learning aptitude area of
oneself and planning one’s life as well as vocational
guidance. The career education has been playing animportant role in educational programs in National
Institute of Technology, Toyota College since the
Ministry of Education Culture, Sports, Science andTechnology issued public message “Promotion of
Career-oriented and Vocational Education” in
October 2011. In 2012, project group for preparing
the career-oriented education in Toyota College wasorganized and started working on making systematic
unique career programs. The project groupmembers listed up all existing extracurricular
activities except club activities and classified theminto several purposes. Then activities that efficiently
meet each purpose carefully were picked up andprogram lists were reconstructed. Eventually, thecareer education programs in Toyota College
introduced in 2013 have three unique features, suchas, (1) residential training course for new students
specialized to communicational training, (2) personal
profile stock file book called T-file which is given to
all new students every year and (3) vocational andsocial training e.g. self-present skills, job interview
training by graduates. On April, new students ofToyota College submit their first homeworkassignments given in March (in advance) and enter
the College. In these assignments, a filling form
activity about their recollection of just graduatedjunior high schools and expectations for school lives
starting in April 1, which is the first program ofcareer education is included. With this form, ahomeroom teacher can have useful information
about their history and wish and will for their school
lives. After entering school, they get their T-file at
new student orientation guidance and then they start
to keep handouts or forms described their thinking.
After four years, the file will be a useful personal
profile when they would like to know about theiraptitude, way of thinking and growing history of

Keywords: career-education, residential-training,
personal-profile-stock-file, job-interview-training-bygraduates, filling-form-activity-before-entering
Introduction
The Ministry of Education Culture, Sports, Scienceand Technology has been promoting career education to
Japanese educational institutes more than two decades.
The career education promotion policies have beenvaried with social environments.
A strong awareness of the need to promote “career
education” as a national policy matter arose in
December 1999, when the Central Council for
Education; the most comprehensive consultative agency
to the Minister of Education called for the
implementation of career education from elementary
school level. It reads “there is a need to implementcareer education from the elementary school revel, in
line with each stage of a child’s development, in orderto provide smooth transitions between school andsociety, and between different levels of schooling”. This
education should help students to gain a desirable
perspective of employment and work, as well as
knowledge and skills related to work itself, and at thesame time, encourage them to understand their own
personalities so as to foster their abilities and attitudes
and allow them to select their own careers
independently.
The main backdrops of the proposal were theincreasing number of young people out of work, andthose who spend their time on part-time, mostly
unskilled work, who are known in Japan as “Freeters”,
and currently around 9% of senior high school graduates
leave school without progressing to higher education orentering employment. In addition, according to a survey
by the Ministry of Labor, 47% of new senior highschool graduates and 32% of new university graduates
leave their employment situation within three years. The
reason why part-time work and high frequency of jobchanging drew serious attention from the government is
the fact that so-called lifetime employment practices

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland68were deeply rooted in Japan. It had always been
assumed that young people would move from full-time
study directly to full-time work.
However, after that, there was a new move in the
direction of career education. That was the shift fromCountermeasures against youth employment issues
toward education initiatives. In January 2011, theCentral Council for Education changed the definition of
Career Education; education which encourages careerdevelopment by cultivating the competencies andattitudes needed to raise the social and vocational
independence of individuals. This definition is based on
the understanding that all persons live their life while
playing various roles, such as that of a professional, afamily member, a member of the larger community; andthat these roles change, accumulate, and interact overthe period of lifetime. Also, the Council reconfirmedthat career education program should be implemented at
all school form pre-primary to tertiary levels, and thepractices through each school’s overall educational
activities are crucial.
Also, the Council proposed a clear recommendationon the competencies to be fostered through career
education as “the Basic and General Competencies
consist of four group;
1. Competency to establish relationships andcommunity.
2. Competency to manage and understand oneself.
3. Problem-solving Competency.
4. Career-planning Competency.
All of the competencies are indispensable in bothlife and professional career in the 21st century.

In 2012, project group for preparing the careeroriented education in Toyota College was voluntarily
organized. The target of the project was established selfconsistent programs to foster student’s competency toself-realization. It is not only vocational education,
which is often related to career education in limited
meaning. The group was consisting of five teams forresidential training, intercultural understanding, careerplanning, vocational educations and making T-file(personal profiles). Then, every team started to consider
programs for career education to achieve their goals.
An educational activity known as “homeroom
activity” or “classroom activity” takes place in first to
third grade class room once a week in Toyota College as
almost College of Technology. This involves group
work and discussion-based activities, during which
students learn how to form positive relationships, plan
how to enjoy class and school activities, and think about
their own futures. The person leading these activities isthe class teacher. The project group needed help fromclass teachers because the career programs have to be
implemented in those homeroom activities. Every classteacher has own skill and different way of classmanagement so, it is not easy to persuade them to
implement career activities as classroom activities.
There had already existed some program such as a half
day excursion, a seminar by outside of college lecturer,
sports activity and so on. Those activities were one-offbasis and managed my individual class teachers. So, theproject group members listed up all existing
extracurricular activities except club activities andclassified them into four categories corresponding to thecompetencies the Council proposed as mentioned above.
Then activities that efficiently meet each purpose
were newly planned and with carefully picked up fromprevious activities, new program lists werereconstructed.

Promoting Career Education in Toyota College
The Ministry of Education Culture, Sports, Scienceand Technology issued public message “Promotion of
Career-oriented and Vocational Education” in October
2011 as shown in Figure 1.

1) Programs related to competency to establish
relationships and community.
Competency to establish relationships andcommunity is crucial in the social context in Japan
today and it is the basis of all other competencies.
Career education activities in Toyota college listed inthis section is residential training course for new
students specialized to communicational training,intercultural understanding, etc.
99% of new students of Toyota College are entering
dormitory on entering school. Most of them start livingin the dorm with their classmate. For most of thestudents the dormitory-life last two-years, but somestudents remain as senior residents of dormitory andlead younger residents. This boarder experience ofToyota College students have been highly rated byrecruitment staff of company. However, in the routine
daily life, the usual friends prone to be limited. And
misunderstand between the groups in the class is goingto happen. This causes because of lack ofcommunication between the groups.

Figure 1. Statement of MEXT “Promotion of Careeroriented and Vocational Education” (Summary)
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland69

Mechanical Engineering
Electrical and Electronic
Engineering
Information andComputerEngineering
Civil Engineering

41Architecture
Average

7

2

3

2

Figure 2. The theatre working activity in Residual
Training Course

6

Career program: Residual Training Course wasspecially planned for new students’ competency ofcommunication. Residual training course is carried out
in the middle of June every year from Friday toSaturday and which is an overnight training. It holds
just after the first mid-term exam for new students andby that time, most of them have been making the groupof their usual friends. The residual training course
consists of roughly three activities i.e. theatre working
by four students, group work in each class, and outdooror sports activities. The theatre working which is
directed by actors and scriptwriters of private theatricalgroups. The task for the group with four students is forexample, “stand up a person sitting chair and reding
book with conversations only. They must convince thesitting person to stand up, so have to develop strategy
within their groups. Four roles are assigned each student
in the groups. One student in every groups cannot speak
but have to join in the performance. Since thesignificance of this activity is communicationcompetency, so four group members gathered from all
department randomly. For most cases, they never talknor even seen each other before the activity. Prior to theperformance, each group has enough time for discuss
their strategy within the discussion, students experienceinteraction with students from another department class.
Subsequently, every group perform with their scheme infront of the audience of all other students. One of This
performance scene is shown in Figure 2. Most situations,they fail to persuade the sitting person to stand up andfound it difficult to have their own way. The group
work in each class is discuss about good and bad subjectof classroom activity in the school life, and makes threeor more motto of the future classroom. The groupmembers of this activity are carefully chosen byclassroom teachers to promote interaction spreads
among the classmates in the classes. Some classroom
teacher said that trouble in the classroom around before
the summer vacation decreased after this activity had
took place in this period of school calendar.
After the series of activities, a survey was conducted
to find out the level of satisfaction with the activities.
Figure 3 describes the most recent results of the survey.

3

4
1
2
3

By and large, I enjoyed the Residual Training.
Two class room activities have improved my communication
skill with classmates.
By the theatre role playing, I noticed importance ofcommunication skill.

4

I enjoyed the sports activities.

6

No problem with having meals, taking a bath, and sleeping.

7

Are you refreshed after the Residual Training?

5

Cooking in the field was called off due to the bad weather.

Figure 3. Results of a questionnaire to students
regarding the effectiveness of the Residual Training
Course (The Rader chart of every class and the question
item)
From this figure, most of the students satisfied withthe activities, such as the theatre role playing, twoclassroom activities, and the sports activities. As will be
described later, the large number of students regard the
Residual Training Course as the most memorable
activity in the school life.
Another activity in this category of competency toestablish relationships and community is intercultural
understanding programs which consist of from Toyota
to the world programs and from world to Toyota
programs. Every year, more than fifty students ofToyota College go abroad to study and around ten
students from foreign countries are studying in theCollege. The target of these program is cultivating
feeling for the wider world with attend lectures of a
returned student from studying abroad and a student
from outside of Japan. The lectures are focused on the
different cultures, foods and annual school events tounderstand different way of thinking between foreign
students and Japanese students. Recently, these
programs are implemented in monthly dormitory
meetings due to packed schedule of career programs.

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland70

During the first and second grade, plans made by
students were stored in their T-files and put efficient use
of career planning. The career planning programs aredesigned to complete self-introducing part ofapplication form. A class subject Japanese expression
also setting one of the goals for students to makepersonal introducing form. Thus, career programs and aclass subject go along to foster competency of careerplanning. Just before the submission of the entry
sheets, fee-charging program “writing entry-sheet” held
for forth grade students after the second semester
examinations. This program is conducted by instructor
outside the school and some forty students attend every
year.
Concern about vocational education, in Finnish
secondary schools’ the activities centre on a career
counsellor known as Opinto-Ohjaaja, in Europe, many
countries provide career support through partnerships
with organizations outside the schools. Examples of thisare UU-centers (Ungdommens Uddannelsesvejledning:youth guidance centers) in Denmark. UU-centers are
established across the country. Also in Germany, BIZ(Belufs Information Zentrum : job information centers)
have been active in cooperation with the schools. On theother hand, Japanese schools give the responsibility forcareer guidance and counselling to the members ofschool teaching stuff, each of whom has their own
subject to teach. As is usual with Japanese public school,
most of National Institute of College have no special
dedicated section for vocational education at the
moment.
Getting through the company interview is one of themost concernedly thing for the job-hunting students.
The guidance for the interview is usually made byclassroom teachers of fourth grade students and teachers
belong to the department of the students. In this kind of
circumstances, some alumnus lends their hands to carryout “how to improve self-expression” seminar andrealistic practical simulation of company interview(Figure 5). In the latter program, about sixteen alumnus
act as interviewers. In the simulation, some students
getting so nervous that cannot speak at all. This program
is for about one hundred students and twenty-four
students interviewed and get right into candidates of
employee.

Figure 4. T-file (personal portfolio)
2) Programs related to competency to manage andunderstand oneself.
The competency to manage and understand oneself
is significant for most new students of Toyota College
because they must make their living in dormitory. The
career programs listed in this category must be carriedout at the same time their starting school lives. On April,
new students of Toyota College submit their first
homework assignments given in advance in March andenter the College. In these assignments, a filling form
activity about their recollection of just graduated juniorhigh schools and expectations for school lives starting in
April 1, which is the first program of career education is
included. With this form, a homeroom teacher can haveuseful information about their history and wish and will
for their school lives. After entering school, they get
their T-file which is personal portfolio shown in Figure
4, at new student orientation guidance and then they
start to keep handouts or forms of subsequent career
programs in which described their thinking. After four
years, the file will be a useful personal profile when
they would like to know about their aptitude, way of
thinking and growing history of themselves. It will bealso a great help for deciding their new career course
after graduate Toyota College. There is another program“desired persons of talent” for third grade students tolook back their lives so far and try to know themselves.
The lecturer of this program comes from recruiting
section of a company and who is a graduate student of
Toyota College. In this program, students work on
making own life plan and prepare for choosing their
future paths.
3) Career-Planning Competency.
Prior to the career-planning programs set at the
beginning of two semesters of third and fourth grade,the program for making plan of campus activity andlooking back of the latest plan invoked in the head of
every semester for first- and second-degree students.

Figure 5. Job meeting training with alumnus

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland71

To what extent were the career programs helpful for formation of your own career?
programs in fourth grade
programs in third grade
programs in second grade
programs in first grade
0%

10%

20%

very helpful

helpful30%

40%

somewhat

Figure 6. A questionnaire survey for graduated students

50%

60%

not so helpful

70%

80%

90%

100%

little helpful

a business etiquette course for fourth grade students.
Lectures by alumni followed, and job interviews
training by alumni came in fifth place. On the other
hand, many students did not pay much attention to thesemiannual goal setting and review and career planning.
These results led us to the idea that the growth ofstudents is variable and cannot be controlled, and that it
is inappropriate to consult with a uniform program andencourage their growth. Therefore, it was decided toleave the individual qualities of these students to theirclass teachers.

From late February in 2020, career programs werecancelled due to the spread of the coronavirus. Students
were not allowed to go to school, and cannot practicing
job meetings in the career programs. Most job-seeking
students want to practice their job interviews. In thisyear, unlike in previous years, students talking about
their anxious about having a job interview. Therefore,
it can be said that systematic job search support is avaluable support for students. Due to the influence ofthe corona disaster, the number of remote interviews bycompanies has been increasing. The anxiety of students
who go through such an unfamiliar experience without
being adequately prepared is great. It may be necessary
to think about how to deal with these new forms of job
hunting in the future. The school's job-hunting support
events include briefings by local small and mediumsized companies in booths, but there is insufficient timeand space to hold individual company briefings
separately. Our school has an effective job offer ratio
of about 30 times. Therefore, individual company
briefings are not conducted because they interfere witheducational activities.

Conclusions
In Toyota College, a series of career oriented
educational programs were introduced since 2013 andimplemented for eight years. These programs have tookroot with the College. The programs consist of (1)residential training course for new students specialized
to communicational training, (2) personal profile stock
file book called T-file which is given to all new students
every year and (3) vocational and social training e.g.
self-present skills, job interview training by graduates.
From the questionnaire survey by the graduated students,
career education programs seem to have received acertain amount of recognition. On the other hand,
however, the temperament of the students is changing,and it is also necessary to make changes accordingly.
Also, this Corona disaster has shown the importance of
support for job hunting. We would like to continue tosupport the growth of students without the high job
offer ratio.

Results and Discussion
A questionnaire survey was conducted every year at
the time of graduation in order to invesigate the overallsatisfaction and effectiveness of the career education
programs. The answers of the most recently graduatedstudents to the question “To what extent were the career
programs helpful for formation of your own career“ aresummarized in the Figure 6. From the results, 80 to 90%of the students reflected the career education programs
were effective. But the differences were found between
programs in each grade. The programs in fourth grade
is considered very effective, while the programs insecond grade is not so effective. This is because, goal
setting and reflection were not considered as important,while job preparation was desperate for them.
The questionnaire asks which initiatives have beeneffective. From the results, the residual training course
received the most votes. In second and third place was alecture on human power for second grade students andAcknowledgements
When the career program was introduced in 2013,
the Career Education Support Office was created. Since
then, many faculty members have made significant
contributions to the career development of our students.
The authors would like thanks our member of the
Career Education Support Office spanning for eight
years. Especially, we thank Ms. Numaguchi for her
contribution for number of activities and administrative
contact and procedure for years.

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland72References
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science andTechnology. (2010). The Ideal Education to Support
People for Lifelong Career Building. White Paper on
Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
2010. Retrieved fromhttps://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/hakusho/html/hpab201
001/detail/1326588_006.pdf.
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science andTechnology. (2014a) Announcement on FY2013 School
Basic Survey. [in Japanese]. Retrieved fromhttp://www.mext.go.jp/component/b_menu/houdou/__ic
sFiles/afieldfile/
2014/08/07/1350732_02.pdf (accessed August 29,
2014)
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science andTechnology. (2015b). Statistics on Student Guidance(2014)[inJapanese].
Retrievedfrom
http://www.mext.go.jp/b_menu/houdou/26/10/__icsFile
s/afieldfile/2014/10/16/1351936_01_1.pdf.
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science andTechnology, Guidance and Counseling Research Center,
National Institute for Educational Policy Research ofJapan. (2013c). The result of research of FY 2011
workplace experience and internship enforcement(summary). [in Japanese]. Retrieved fromhttp://www.nier.go.jp/shido/centerhp/iship/h24iship.pdf.
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science andTechnology, Guidance and Counseling Research Center,
National Institute for Educational Policy Research ofJapan, .(2013) Creating Career Education. November
2011(Translated in March 2013)
Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communication,
Statistics Bureau(2013) Annual Report on the Labour
Force Survey2012. [in Japanese]. Retrieved fromhttp://www.stat.go.jp/data/roudou/sokuhou/nen/dt/pdf/in
dex1.pdf.
Takao Mimura. (2016), Vocational Guidance, Career
Guidance, and Career Education phases in Japan.
Bulletin of the Graduate School of Teacher Education,
Waseda University vol. 8, 19-34
Teruyuki Fujita. (2011). The Current State and Future
Tasks of Japan’s Career Education Promotion PoliciesEmbarking on the Road Less Traveled. Japan Labor
Review, vol. 8, No. 1, 26-47.

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland73

A continuous survey of students’ Generic Skills from pre-admission to post-graduation
K. Kawasaki*,a, Y. Kubotaa and K. Yajimaaa

Department of General Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Sendai College, Sendai,Japan*E-Mail kawasaki@sendai-nct.ac.jp
In addition, its great advantage is that we are able tocompare our students’ test results with those of otherexaminees, for example, university students or company
employees, who have taken the same test. It means thatan extended continuous surveys of pre-admission or postgraduation students can be also possible by having themtake the PROG test.
In this paper, we will report the students’ GSs growth
characteristics of Sendai Kosen, Hirose Campus fromtheir admission to graduation found out by the previous
surveys. In addition, as a development of continuous
surveys, we will introduce a research plan from preadmission to post-graduation. As a pre-admission survey,
a PROG Competency Test was given in March 2020 tothe prospective students who passed the Hirose Campus
entrance examination. The measured results ofprospective students were compared with those of thefirst grade students who are surveyed annually from 2014,
so the comparative results are reported in this paper. In
addition, the post-graduation survey for Sendai KOSEN
graduates who entered Universities of Technology at
Toyohashi and Nagaoka, both of which have strong ties
with Kosen, is now being coordinated for the first time.
Other post-graduation surveys are planned to be
expanded to graduates who entered universities or got a
job in a company. In this paper, we introduce the results
for three graduates who cooperated with the trial survey
conducted in March 2020. Through these surveys, we
attempt to establish a visualization method of GSs growthfor engineering students.

Abstract
A continuous survey of students’ Generic Skills(GSs) has been conducted since the academic year of2014 at National Institute of Technology, Sendai
College (Sendai KOSEN). Since the survey fromadmission to graduation at Sendai KOSEN has been
completed, the results are reported in this paper.
We conducted the five-year continuous survey
during college and planned surveys of pre-admission
and post-graduation. As a pre-admission survey, we
conducted a competency test of PROG for prospective
students in March 2020. On the other hand, for asurvey for post-graduation, we attempted to conduct
a PROG follow-up survey as a trial in March 2020
with the cooperation of three graduates who hadentered a university. In this paper, we introduce theresults of these surveys.
Keywords: Quantitative evaluation of Generic Skills, A
continuous survey of Generic Skills from pre-admission
to post-graduation, Visualization method of Generic
SkillsIntroduction
In addition to the expertise and technical skills
acquired at colleges and universities, it is important tonurture students with GSs, which consist of fundamental
competencies and literacy skills, to make good use of
their expertise and skills. In order to nurture GSs, manyeducational institutions have begun to introduce active
learning (AL) techniques and project/problem based
Learning (PBL). Some problems, however, remain about
evaluating GSs quantitatively, objectively and accurately.
A continuous survey of students’ GSs in Sendai
KOSEN started in the academic year of 2014 and has
been conducted annually for 6 years. The results of thesesurveys clarified our students’ GSs growth characteristics
in the educational curriculum of Sendai KOSEN.
In order to quantify GSs, we adopted Progress Reporton Generic Skills (PROG) [1], which is one of thestandardized tests of GSs in Japan. PROG is an objective
evaluation method, and has the advantage that the
subjectivity of the evaluator is excluded from the results.

Objective Evaluation of Generic Skills
In order to quantify GSs, there are two representative
methods, that is, direct evaluation by teachers andstudents using rubrics, and indirect evaluation using
external assessments. We have conducted a six-year
continuous survey of our college students' Generic Skills
using PROG, which is an assessment of GSs. PROG isan objective test, so we can use it to compare the scoresof an examinee with an average score of all examinees. It
means that the examinees can recognize their own
strong/weak points by comparing their scores to theaverage scores of their classmates at school (and also to

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
18-21 August 2020, Turku, Finland74those of other university students). An outline of PROG
is described below.
The PROG test was originally developed by KAWAIJUKU [2] and the test consists of two parts: the Literacy
part, which evaluates the examinee’s ability to apply
knowledge to solve new or inexperienced problems, andthe Competency part, which evaluates the examinee’s
coping abilities with their surroundings, including
decision making or action principle characteristics.
Evaluation components of PROG test were defined byreference to key-competencies determined by DeSeCo
project [3] of OECD. The evaluation items of the
Literacy part were classified into six categories, andthose of the Competency part were classified into three
categories that consist of 9 contents and 33 components.
The questions of the Literacy part are similar to thoseof Synthetic Personality Inventory (SPI) [4], while, in theCompetency part, a number of questions are given in aquestionnaire format, to examine the characteristics ofthe examinee’s behaviors. The scores of components in
the Competency part were evaluated, by comparing theanswers of the examinees with statistically processed
exemplary answers from many Japanese businesspersons
who were classified into the high level. The scores of
PROG test are quantified with values from 1 to 7 (or 5,
depending on the components), indicating that the larger
the numbers are, the better the results are.
In the 2019 test, about 134,000 university and college
students took the Literacy part and about 613,000
university and college students took the Competency part.
Therefore, a statistical comparison of GSs between ourstudents and university students is possible. In this paper,
we compared our students' average score of PROG withthe score of university students who took the same test to
confirm the educational effects.

Table 1. The grades of students who took the
PROG test in each year
Grade

Academic Year2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

1st

○

○

○

○ ○

○

2nd

○

○

○

○ ○

○

3rd

○

△

○

○ ○

○

4th

○

○

○

○ ○

○

5th

○

△

○

× ○

×

1st

△

△

○

○ ○

○

2nd

△

△

○

○ ○

○

○ : All the students took the test
△ : Only some students of regularand advance course took thetest
× : Students did not take the test.
Red:Regular course
Blue:Advanced course

Growth Characteristics of Generic Skills
Table 1 indicates the grades of students who took the
PROG in each academic year. A continuous survey ofstudents’ GSs started from the academic year of 2014 andsix years have passed since then. Now we can assess how
the students’ GSs change as their grade progresses in
Sendai KOSEN, Hirose Campus.
Figure 1 shows yearly changes of overall scores of
Literacy and Competency parts for the follow-up surveyof the same students from their 1st year to 5th year and1st year of advanced course (red arrow in Table 1). In Fig.
1, the results of the advanced course are shown with pink
dots for reference. This is because the number of samples
is very small compared with the number of the regularcourse, since only about 30% of the students go on to theadvanced course and the PROG is not mandatory in theadvanced course. The reduction in the number of samples
can also be seen from the size of the error bar. It is
obvious from Fig. 1 at first glance that their abilities ofboth Literacy and Competency steadily grew with theprogress of their grade from 1st to 5th grade in regularcoerce. The Competency scores increase as their grade
progresses, with the exception of a decrease in one year

Fig. 1. Yearly changes of overall scores of
Literacy and Competency parts for the follow-up
survey of the same students from their 1st years of
regular course to 1th years of advanced course.
between 2nd and 3rd grade. In the Literacy part, it wassteadily increasing until 3rd grade, but a saturated
tendency was observed after 3rd year. One of the reasonsfor the saturation after the 3rd grade is that the Literacy
overall score is very high at about 5.4 compared to thecompetency overall score, and it is very difficult to obtaina score higher than this score. Therefore, it is considered

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
18-21 August 2020, Turku, Finland75

that our students' literacy abilities have been sufficiently
developed by the 3rd grade.
On the other hand, Figure 2 shows yearly changes ofoverall scores of Literacy and Competency parts for thecomparative survey from 1st year students of regularcourse to 2nd year students of advanced course in thesame year 2019 (blue arrow in Table 1). Here, since the
5th grade students of the regular course have not taken
the PROG test in 2019, the result of the 5th grade is notdescribed. The results of the advanced course arereference data for the same reason as in Fig. 1. Comparedto the follow-up survey of the same students in Fig. 1,
since the students surveyed in Fig. 2 were different ingrades, more scattered results are expected to bemeasured. For the Competency part, it is observed thatthe overall score decreases slightly in one year from the
1st grade to the 2nd grade of the regular course, but thescores are totally increasing with the progress of thegrade. As well as Figure 1, this results tells us that ourstudents' competency abilities are growing steadily. The
reason for the decrease in one year from 1st to 2nd grade
can be considered as follows; since the competency
abilities of the 1st grade students in recent years havebeen improved (as you can see from the results that comeout later (Fig. 3)), it is considered that an effect of GSs
education at elementary and junior high schools can bestarting to appear. On the other hand, for the Literacy part,the overall score increased with the progress of the grade,with the exception of almost the same score of 1st and2nd grade. In Fig. 2, the score of 2nd grade students inadvanced course is very high (6.09). This result ispossible to be considered to show that only students withhigh literacy ability took the examination, because thenumber of PROG examinees in the 2nd grade of theadvanced course is very small (only 11 students took thePROG). The error-bar of Literacy is very narrowcompared with the bar of Competency, and this suggeststhat the hypothesis is correct. Therefore, also in Fig. 2,
the tendency that the literacy score is saturated at around
5.4 is observed.
On the other hand, the green dotted line in the figures
represents the average value of university students who
took the same test in 2019 (Literacy: 4.56, Competency:
3.11). The average of our college first-grade students’
Literacy scores exceeds that of university students’.
Regarding the Competency, the score of 4th grade of theregular course, which correspond to the 1st grade ofuniversity, greatly exceeds the average score ofuniversity students. From the results of comparison withthe scores of university students, it is clear that our
educations were also effective in terms of GSs.
Results of pre-admission competency survey
We are planning competency research from a preadmission to post-graduation as a development of the 5year continuous survey in Kosen. First, as a preadmission survey, we conducted only the PROG
Competency test for the prospective students of Hirose
campus who passed the 2020 entrance examination.
Since this is the first measurement, there is nocomparable results. Therefore, we compared the resultwith the measurement results of the 1st grade students,
which has been measured since 2014 (green arrow inTable 1). The result is shown in Fig. 3.
Fig. 3 shows the average of the Competency overall
scores for 1st grade students from 2014 to 2019 with thegreen bar, and the average of the score for the prospective
students in 2020 with the red bar. First, the measurement
conditions will be explained. The examination conditionsof 1st grade students are a paper-based written test in theclassroom, examination about half a year after admission(midpoint of first-year) and 40 minutes of the time limit.
Some students are unable to answer all the questions in
40 minutes because there are so many questions in thecompetency part of the questionnaire-style test.
Meanwhile, the prospective students took PROG test
online. Regarding the testing time, it is possible to extend
if the students could not answer all questions in the 40
minutes. Regarding the completion time of the exam forprospective students, the percentage of those whocompleted the examination within 40 minutes, between
from 40 to 60 minutes, and more than 60 minutes was
37.2%, 38.8% and 24.0% respectively.
From Fig. 3, the scores for the first year students ineach year are in the range of 2.8 to 3.1, whereas the scoresfor the prospective students are as high as 3.62. The
reason seems to be that the prospective students wereable to spend enough time, and their motivation to takethe test is considered to be very high because they took
PROG test as part of the admission procedure.
Furthermore, since the learning guidelines in Japan havebeen revised in 2008 -2009 [5] and partially revised at2015 [6] to introduce AL techniques to foster GSs in all

Fig. 2. Yearly changes of overall scores of
Literacy and Competency parts from 1st year gradesof regular course to 2nd year students of advanced
course in the same year 2019.

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
18-21 August 2020, Turku, Finland76

results are shown in Fig. 4. In figure (a), thePROG examinations' year of the graduates
who cooperated to our survey are shown.
The student #1 transferred to the university
after graduating from our school and iscurrently a 1st grade student of the master’scourse. #1 student took the PROG in 3rd, 4th,and 5th grade of our college and 1st grade of
the master's course, and the change in the scoreis shown by the red triangles in (b). The resultsof the 3rd grade in Kosen, which is the firstexamination, are very high, as 7 for the
Literacy overall score and 6 for theCompetency overall score. However, since thesecond examination, both Literacy andCompetency overall scores have decreased.
The student #2 is a student who transferredFigure. 3 The average of the competency overall scores for 1st
to 3rd grade of our college from high school,
grade students from 2014 to 2019 (green bar) and the average of theentered university after graduation of thescore for prospective students in 2020 (red bar).
regular course. The score change is shown by
blue rhombus. No significant changes are seenin the PROG results for # 2 student.
Finally, the student #3 is a student who
educational institutions (the elementary and junior highgraduated the regular course, and then entered university,
schools are included), it is also possible that theand now graduated with a master's degree in March 2020.
introduced effects have come out.
Although #3 took the PROG only twice, in the 4th grade
The first measurement of pre-admission survey wasof Kosen and in the 2nd grade of the master's course, acompleted in March 2020. While continuing this survey
decrease was observed in both the Literacy and thein the future, we are planning to improve education byCompetency, as shown black circle in figure (b).
thoroughly investigating the ability at the time of entering
The number of samples is extremely small, 3 students,
the school and the subsequent growth situation.
which is just reference data, but the growth of GSs was
not seen from the results of them who cooperated in the
Results of trial post-graduation survey
survey. There are several possible causes for this, as
following. First, as shown in Fig. 1 and 2, both theRegarding the growth of generic skills, especially forliteracy and the competency are seen to grow as the grade
the competency abilities, their own experience and theirprogresses in our college. These results are the averagesurrounding environments are considered important fordata of all students who go on to university or findthe growth, unlike the knowledge acquisition andemployment at companies. A tendency is considered toretention in the lecture. Furthermore, it is very
be strong that students who go on to university or
meaningful to know how experience and changes in
graduate school, prefer to develop their specialized skills
environment affect the competency abilities. Therefore,
and specialized research and development abilities than
it is very important to know the growth of the abilities
GSs. For that reason, they may have grown specialized inthat the abilities have to be continually measured by thethe required specialized skills and abilities. It issame method not only for the period of enrolment insuggested that the analysis on the overall score was not
Kosen, but also for the post-graduation. Continuingsufficient, as some subdivided elements of competency
survey after graduation can evaluate and analyze thegrowing in university were observed. Therefore, moreeducational situations of Kosen by comparing the growthdetailed analysis is needed in the future. The second point
features of students after entering the companies andis that the PROG evaluation method determines the scoreuniversities, which are more diverse. Therefore, it isby comparing it with the statistical data of 4,000 excellent
possible to give useful feedback to the Kosen education.
young businesspersons in various fields and industries ofNow, we are starting to coordinate with both theJapanese companies. It cannot be concluded at the
University of Technology, Toyohashi and Nagaoka,
moment that this evaluation method is absolutely correctwhich have many students from our college, to conduct a
as an evaluation standard for students who studying theGSs survey of our students after entering the universities.
engineering such as students of Kosen. We think that
After realization of post-graduation survey withsome answers will be given to these points by conducting
universities of Technology, we plan to develop it into
a continuous survey of our graduate students inother universities and companies.
collaboration with universities and companies.
In this paper, we attempted to conduct a PROG
follow-up survey in March 2020 with the cooperation of
three graduates who had entered the university. The
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
18-21 August 2020, Turku, Finland
77Sendai KOSEN

#1 :

3rd

#2 :
#3 :

4th

University

5thHigh school

B3

B4

M1

4th

5th

B3

4th

5th

B3

B4

M1

M2

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

(a) the PROG examinations' year of the graduates who cooperated with our survey(b) Results of a PROG follow-up survey with the cooperation of three graduates who had entered the university.
Figure 4. Results of trial post-graduation survey.

post-graduation. As a pre-admission survey, we
conducted a Competency test of PROG for theprospective students in March 2020. The results of theCompetency test of those students were found to behigher than the scores of 1st graders who took the test at
midpoint of the first year. As a survey for post-graduation,
we attempted to conduct a PROG follow-up survey inMarch 2020 with the cooperation of three graduates who
had entered another university. As a follow-up survey
after graduation, we plan to expand the scale of thesurvey to Toyohashi and Nagaoka Universities ofTechnology, other universities and companies. By
conducting these surveys and continuing them, theConclusions
A continuous survey of students’ Generic Skills has
been conducted since the academic year of 2014 at
Sendai KOSEN. Six years have passed since the survey
started, and the survey from admission to graduation at
Sendai KOSEN has been completed. The Competency
scores increase steadily with grade. In the Literacy part,on the other hand, it was increasing until 3rd grade, but asaturated tendency was observed after 3rd year.
We conducted the five-year continuous survey
during college and planned surveys of pre-admission and14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
18-21 August 2020, Turku, Finland78

strengths and weaknesses of our college's education will
be clarified, and effective and efficient improvement ofeducation will be possible. Furthermore, we hope thatthese survey results will be useful for improving thestudents’ voluntary GSs growth cycle [7] that started thisacademic year.
Acknowledgements
This survey was supported by the Acceleration
Program for University Education Rebuilding, Ministryof Education in Japan. We are deeply grateful to theprincipal, teachers and support staff of our college for
their contribution to this project, and 3 graduates who
cooperated in this survey. In addition, we appreciate Mr.
Kondo at RIASEC Inc. for his helpful cooperation in theanalysis of data.
References[1] About Progress Report on Generic Skills (PROG)
test:https://www.
kawaijuku.jp/jp/research/prog/(URL: In Japanese)[2] About KAWAI-JUKU:http://www.kawai-juku.ac.jp/(URL: In Japanese)[3] About DeSeCo Project at OECD: http://www.oecd.
org/education/skillsbeyondschool/definitionandsele
ctionofcompetenciesdeseco.htm (URL)[4] About Synthetic Personality Inventory (SPI):
https://www.spi.recruit. co.jp/ (URL: In Japanese)[5] About Revision of learning guidelines at 2008-2009
inJapan:https://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/shotou/
new-cs/youryou/index.htm (URL: In Japanese)[6] About Partial revision of learning guidelines at 2015
in Japan:https://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/shotou/
new-cs/youryou/1356248.htm (URL: In Japanese)[7] K. Kawasaki, et al., Transactions of The 13th
International Symposium on Advances inTechnology Education (ISATE2019), 364-368,
2019

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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79

USING ENGLISH-MEDIUM INSTRUCTION FOR SPECIALIZED SUBJECTSIN A SECOND LANGUAGE: TEACHER TRAINING
AND TRAIAL IMPLEMENTATION
Y. Nakajima*, a and H. Honma aaCreative Engineering, National Institute of Technology, Kushiro College, Kushiro, Japan*yoko@kushiro-ct.ac.jp
Therefore, the proposed method showed that teachersand students could reduce the difference in language
skills and motivation.

Abstract
The “Top Global University Project” is one ofJapan’s strategic approach to reform university
education, focusing on the use of English as themedium to teach specialized subjects. Faculty
members often teach without the awareness or theopportunities to learn English as a medium ofteaching and assessments. Therefore, English as a
medium of teaching, knowns as “English-Medium
Instruction” (EMI), aims to bridge the gap in English
proficiency levels among teachers and students, aswell as the gap in skills and awareness. This has
continued to be a subject of research. Acquiring theprinciples and teaching methods of EMI is crucial inbridging these gaps, and they serve to develop
students’ understanding. Studies on EMI haverevealed that taking courses on specialized subjects ina second language helps to improve students’comprehension of their second language and that of
the subject matter. One example of such a training
program for teachers was the 100-Hour Customized
Content Area Teacher Training Program at the
University of Arizona’s Center for English as a second
language, which was based on five principles (theoryof second language acquisition, methodology,
classroom management, assessment, and teachingpractice). Subsequent to participation in the course,
this study details the observations of teaching a classof a small mixed-group of fifth-year international andJapanese students at the National Institute ofTechnology, Kushiro College. The teaching method of
this class applies EMI, assessments, modifying
materials, observations and second language
acquisition theory. To develop specialized subject
class materials, the theories of these subjects wereconsidered. Describing the questionnaire, a student
said, “The material is useful to understand, even forpeople with poor English skills.” The survey foundthat 83.3% of the students felt that they understood
70% or more of the specialized subject matter
regardless of their level of language proficiency.

Keywords: English Medium Instruction, Second
Language Acquisition, Content Area, TEFL, TESLIntroduction
English is increasingly used as a lingua franca (ELF)in educational settings as a result of globalization. At thesame time, English as a Medium of Instruction(hereinafter EMI) in which a specialized subject is taught
in English, is on the rise, even in countries where English
is not the first language. This development is especiallyprevalent in Europe, where efforts are being poured into
the European Community Action Scheme for the
Mobility of University Students (ERASMUS) program(2007-2013) since its early days and has become evenmore pronounced after the Bologna Declaration1 , which
promotes the "free mobility and employment ofEuropeans." However, EMI has been introduced in Asian
countries as proactively as in Europe. Among theASEAN countries where the official language is English,
Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, and other countries share ahistory of former British colonialism, which explains theprevalence of EMI in these places. In recent years, East
Asian countries such as Korea and China have also
started to encourage EMI in their education systems as ameans of responding to the advancement of globalization,and to appeal to exchange students from overseas.
Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports,
Science, and Technology has actively promoted
globalization while participating in the SGH (Super
Global High Schools Program) as part of its international
education efforts.
In order to examine the state of EMI in Japan, (Murata,2017) conducted a questionnaire survey at Waseda
University which targeted students attending classes inseveral of the humanities faculties and graduate schools,
where EMI is available, alongside the respective
instructors of each class. The observations indicated that1
http://www.ehea.info/cid100210/ministerial-conference-bologna1999.html

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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80the current approach of the classes requires further
consideration. Further, Nagai 2 states in the FY2018
Super Global Highschool examination report that both
the development of teaching methods and further teacher
training are urgent issues that need to be addressed prior
to any other issues within global education.
In Southeast Asia, (Vu & Burns, 2014) reported thatthe failure of the foreign language system in Vietnam
from 2008 to 2020 can be explained by the misuse of L1
in classes, the imbalance in dedicated teaching time forfour different language skills (listening, speaking,reading and writing), the lack of teacher-student
interactions, and the shortage of English language
teaching equipment. (Nguye, 2017) additionally positedthat teacher skills were one of the problems, and statedthat there are still gaps between schools in terms ofteaching ability and teaching environments.
While the aim is to foster global human resources byadopting EMI, the reality in many universities is that
lecture materials may be given out in English, but manyof the actual explanations remain in Japanese.
Brown notes that the rapid growth of global education
has raised concerns that human resources and expertiseare not sufficiently available to effectively plan andimplement EMI. Further, he states that these universities
often implement EMI as a survival strategy in the face of
declining enrollment numbers, with levels of dedicatedresources and commitment often not meeting thoserequired to effectively implement EMI (Howard, 2018).
To realize the level of resources and commitment
required to effectively implement EMI, the first step interms of its implementation is to ensure that EMI is being
approached with the correct mindset.
After conducting voluntary overseas research, (Abe &Oota, 2017).summarized that in order to foster global
human resources to play an active role overseas, teachers
need to have global education skills, and training forteachers in addition for students needs to be improved in
the future.
The National Institute of Technology, Hachinohe
College, to which Abe belongs, conducted a 100-Hours
Customized Content Area Teacher Training Program(CATT) provided by the Arizona University Center for
English as a Second Language, in which the Teacher
Training Program courses were especially arranged fortechnical college teachers. This training program isconducted by the Center for English as a Second
Language (CESL) which is a language training
institution attached to the University of Arizona, a
research-oriented public university that offers various
programs that focus on English as a Second Language.
Instructors have master's or doctoral degrees in related
fields such as Teaching English as a Foreign Language(TEFL), Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL),and linguistics, and are generally experienced teachersthat have been technically trained in English language
education for international students.
2

The author participated in the CATT program in 2018,
passed the CATT course, and conducted a demonstration
class in line with the presented methods.
In this paper, the author details the CATT methods andsummarizes and discusses the results of a questionnaire
survey conducted after a demonstration class.
Materials and Methods
The CATT course that the author participated inconsisted of a 100-hours Intensive TEFL/TESL
Certificate Program that was arranged for technicalcollege teachers by the National Institute of Technology,
Hachinohe College.
The goal of this course was to acquire theories andtechniques for teaching this specialized subject, where
the teacher is responsible for English around students
who use English as a second language. This 100-hour
intensive a TEFL/TESL Certificate Program curriculum
was developed around five content areas: second
language acquisition theory, methodology, classroom
management, evaluation, and teaching practice. The
TEFL/TESL certificate is considered a basic entry-level
qualification to the ESL/EFL education profession andallows graduates to work in international EFL education
situations for short-term employment opportunities orvolunteer work.
The program that the author participated in consistedof six subjects. During the first half of the 50 hours (fromSeptember 4–14), three subjects of EMI Theory,
Assessments, and Modifying Materials were covered ina face-to-face context in the CESL classrooms andcomputer rooms at the University of Arizona. After theauthor returned to Japan, the remaining three subjects ofObservations, Second Language Acquisition Theory, andPracticum were covered in an online format during thelatter 50 hours (September 17–October 19).
We introduce to the purpose and content of each course.
1: English Medium Instruction Theory andPractice Module
Modules of this course teach about the history, theory,and practice of English as a Medium of Instruction (EMI)around the world. Trainees explore previous research andcase studies pertaining to EMI to understand the motives
and issues of EMI. Relevant papers have been selected to
explore how other programs address EMI-specific issues
pertaining to learning and teaching based on EMI,
including specific education strategies. The following
examples can be listed: Manh’s paper (Manh, 2012) on
the use of English as the medium of instruction in Asian
higher education institutions (HEI) and (Roy L. , 2007)
book that outlines a counterbalanced approach as an arrayof opportunities for learners to process language throughcontent by means of comprehension, awareness, andproduction mechanisms. Trainees evaluate content

https://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/kokusai/sgh/1418622.htm

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
18-21 August 2020, Turku, Finland81

pertaining to their particular field of study or other EMI
settings and develop an “EMI Best Practice Manual” foruse after completing the course.

2. Prepare newly developed material and modify thecontent or design of material to suit the respective field.
[Tasks] Development of a Lesson Plan.

[Task] Best Practices for Effective English Medium
Instruction.

4: Observations

2: Assessment

During this course, trainees learn about reasons forobservations, examine observation goals from various
perspectives (such as from peers via equivalent positions,and mentors via good instructors and managers), learn
about observation protocols, and learn how to effectively
choose observation formats. Trainees learn to makeobservations using a variety of observation formats andpresent reports reflecting their results.
In regard to the learning achievements, by the end of
this module, trainees will be able to:
1. Recognize the purpose of observation and choose anappropriate observation format.
2. Evaluate observational settings and determine if
feedback needs to be global, formative, or both.
3. Conduct online course observations using appropriate
formats to reflect EMI education practices.
4. Apply appropriate observation protocols in future faceto-face observations as follows:

In terms of course assessment, basic principles ofassessment, various types of assessment (format,
summary, substitution), rubric design, as well as methodsof balancing and prioritizing language and content
assessment discussed in EMI theory are covered.
Furthermore, plagiarism, its cultural importance in the
research community, and its prevention are also covered.
With regard to rubric design, we discussed Mertler’s
method (Mertler, 2001), and with regard to assessment
methods, we discussed (Coombe, 2007).
By the end of this module, as learning outcomestrainees will be able to:• Assess the effectiveness, reliability, and practicalutility of a test
• Apply basic principles of assessment, design anassessment method suitable to a field of study (e.g.,diagnosis, summary, test), and effectively design or
modify rubrics• Recognize and clarify the role of students’ language
when performing an assessment• Trainees are given asks pertaining to each course tounderstand the cultural and social foundations ofplagiarism. They perform the tasks and practice[Tasks] Select observation tools from existing online
classes and consider appropriate evaluation styles forclass tours. Observe the selected classes (three courses)
and evaluate them using an appropriate evaluation
method. Present evaluation results within the group,
receive questions and comments from the instructor orstudents in the group, and respond appropriately.
5: Second Language Acquisition Theory[Task] Prepare a quiz for a specialized course, anddesign a rubric for the evaluation of the quiz.

The Second Language Acquisition (SLA) theory
module provides introductory methods for the
specialized field, and functions as a theoreticalframework for effective language education. Trainees
learn basic SLA concepts and frameworks that answer
questions such as how people learn languages, and what
factors affect language acquisition. Trainees will also
challenge common assumptions about language
education and learning, and read and discuss (Myles,2013).
In regard to the learning achievements, by the end of
this module, trainees will be able to:
1. Deepen their understanding of second language
learning and acquisition.
2. Link second language learning concepts to EMI
education practices.
3. Identify internal and external factors that influence a
student's language learning process as follows:

3: Modifying and Developing Materials Module
The course primarily focuses on modifying material
that was originally designed for native English speakers.
The goal of such modification is to build on student
learning (such as vocabulary support, long and difficult
reading summaries, etc.,) and includes processes fordeveloping new materials (such as the presentation ofimportant information and written compilations, etc.). It
also covers the preparation of field-specific English
language teaching materials as well as the examination of
study objectives, the development of effective learningachievements, classroom activities that are useful forvarious learning situations, and lesson plans.
Behaviorism, constructivism, and cognitive learning
processes are also discussed in reference to (Schunk,1991) Further, the classification of educational goals, asbased on Bloom's Taxonomy, is also discussed.
In regard to the learning achievements, by the end of
this module, trainees will be able to:
1. Identify various methods for planning, modifying, anddeveloping teaching materials.

[Tasks] Detail a significant incident experienced in theclassroom in 300 to 500 words using MacAtreer'squestions (McAteer, 2010). These are discussed andsuggested within groups of two to three people. Thismethod of suggestion raises the level of understanding by

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
18-21 August 2020, Turku, Finland82Lecture language: English.
Period: about 15 minutes.
Students with English as their Second Language:
six fifth grade students in this department.
Content: explanation and quiz regarding precision,
recall, and F1, which are indexes used in performance
evaluation of data classifiers as constructed bymachine learning.

raising opposing perspectives and arguments via the"How to play the 'Devil's Advocate'" technique.
Discussions are conducted using D2L.
6: Practicum
This module includes explanations and demonstrationsof teaching methods, approaches, and strategies related
to English language media instruction and includes CLT
approaches, task-based instructions, and SIOP strategies.
Trainees create their own lessons and perform
educational demonstrations. They provide effective EMI
lessons in their respective field, incorporating theknowledge and strategies of all previous classes. Trainees
observe each other's demonstrations and receive
feedback from each other and from the CESL instructors.
In regard to the learning achievements, by the end of
this module, trainees will be able to:
1. Recognize and evaluate various teaching methods andapproaches related to EMI.
2. Choose from these methods to effectively design
lessons and class activities as follows:

The class structure was arranged with the following
items in mind, and the class was conducted using slides
and a VTR:
1. Review of the last class.
2. Today’s objective.
3. Schedule.
4. Explanation of important English words.
5. Explanation of class content.
6. Simple quiz questions and answers on classcontent.
7. Class summary.
8. Preview of the next class.
Results[Tasks] In this subject, students comprehensively
practice what they have learned up to this point. First,
they create lecture materials to be used for ademonstration class of about 15 minutes and upload arecording of the demonstration class to D2L. They thencreate a rubric for class evaluation and upload their lesson.
They have discussions with the trainees in their groupand with instructors and exchange answers with eachother. Finally, they summarize what they have learned so
far in a report. In regard to the evaluation, the instructor
comprehensively evaluates the contents of the recording
and discussion of the demonstration class, as well as in
the final report.

After the demonstration class had concluded, aquestionnaire was handed out to the students. The
purpose was to clarify the understanding of both thespecialized subject and English language when attendingclasses on specialized subjects in English.
The questions and possible answers provided in thequestionnaire are shown below:
Q1. What is your English level?
・ Eiken3 Semi-Level 2 ・ Eiken Level 2・ TOEIC4 less than 400 points
・TOEIC 400 points or more ・Unknown
Q2. How much did you know about the content of thedemonstration class?
・ A little・ Enough to understand the content
・Nothing
Q3. How much of the content did you understand?
・Less than 50% ・About 70%・Almost everything
Q4. Did the initial explanation of important words help
you understand the content?
・Very much ・OK ・ So-so
Q5. Please choose one of the following statements
regarding the quiz that was conducted to re-confirm thecontent.
・ I was able to re-confirm the targeted content
・ I could not understand the question in English
・ I could not fully understand the content, and it felt
difficultQ6. Please think of the words that were used in class andanswer the following.
・ I could understand most of the used words

Discussions follow along observation points of each
student and the instructor. The observation points areshown below:
1. Are students and teachers interested and engaged?
2. Are teachers calling students by their names?
3. Is humor used properly?
4. Does the teacher embarrass or neglect students?
5. Are students actively participating in classroom
activities?
6. Did the teacher make eye contact with the students?
Trial Implementation
The setting the author chose for their demonstration
class is shown below.
[Class setting]
Lecture content: performance evaluation indexes formachine learning.
3

4

Test in Practical English Proficiency is provided by the
Eiken Foundation of Japan.

Assessment of English Proficiency is provided by theInstitute for International Business Communication

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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83

students with English as their Second Language), theauthor conducted a demonstration class after learning
about the related theoretical framework developed by
CATT which consists of the five content areas of SLA
theory:methodology,
classroom
management,
evaluation, and practical training in an effective, logical,
and systematic manner.
According to the student questionnaire, 83.3% felt thatthey understood 70% or more of the content regardless of
their language proficiency, while 83.3% of students also
stated that they would like to take specialized subjects in
English in the future.
The author experienced first-hand that these skills inteaching a specialized subject in English can bridge thegap in the English proficiency differences between
students and instructors, provided that classes andevaluations are prepared systematically and based on
logical methods.
Amid a lack of human resources and expertise toeffectively plan and implement EMI, and in order tosolve the problem of teachers requiring global education
skills for developing global human resources to become
leaders abroad, visits to a course such as the one offeredby CATT could be very helpful.
It is the author’s intent to reproduce this study in amore continuous manner in the context of laboratory
seminars, and to investigate changes in students over alonger period.

・ The used words were difficult to understand thecontent
Q7. Did the slides aid understanding?
・ Yes・ No
Q8. Did the class motivate you to take classes in yoursecond language (English)?
・ Given the opportunity, I would like to try
・ I would definitely like to try
・ I would like to try after studying more English
・No
Q9. If you have anything else you would like to share, or
if you have advice for the teacher, feel free to write it here.
Figure1 shows the questionnaire results for Q1 to Q8 ofsix students who participated in the demonstration class.
Regarding Q9, one student answered, "I am grateful that
content was presented in a way that allowed
understanding, despite my low English proficiency."
Discussion
According to the student questionnaire results (Figure1), 83.3% of students felt that they understood 70% ormore of the content regardless of their language
proficiency, while 83.3% of students also stated that theywould like to take specialized subjects in English in the
future. These results suggest that taking classes in asecond foreign language is effective for bothunderstanding English and the specialized subject.
EMI theory states that breaking down English in order toconvey the contents of a specialized subject is effective
for deepening the understanding of both the topic at handas well as promoting language acquisition.
Regarding Q9, one student answered, "I am gratefulthat content was presented in a way that allowed
understanding, despite my low English proficiency."
Due to the limited number of students, the amount ofdata was not sufficient to analyze a trend but neverthelessserves as a reference for future studies.
The author’s impression is that this method makes it
easier for students to understand both English andspecialized knowledge, while at the same time takes
pressure off the instructor regarding the necessary levelof English. It is necessary to prepare vocabulary
explanations and theoretical explanation material, makeuse of quizzes, and so on, in order to aid students inprogressively deepening their understanding step by step.
Describing evaluation criteria early and in detail is
important for both the students as well as the instructor,
and eliminates unnecessary stress.
In addition, the author feels that the methods for classcomposition and modifying and developing materials arealso useful for first-time learners of specialized subjects
in Japanese at technical colleges.

References
Abe,M. & Oota,T. (2017). Global Kosen Project.
National Institute of Technology, Hachinohe
College,145-148 (in Japanese).
Coombe,C & Folse,K &Hubley,N. (2007). Introduction
to Issues in Language Assessment and Terminology. A
Practical Guide to Assessing Language Learners.
University of Michigan Press.
Howard,B. (2018). English-Medium Instruction in
Japanese Universities: History and Perspectives.
LANGUAGE TEACHING IN A GLOBAL AGE,
Publisher: JALT, 273-278.
Manh,L. (2012). English as a Medium of Instruction in
Asian Universities: The Case of Vietnam. Language
Education in Asia, Volume 3, Issue 2.
McAteer,M. & Hallett,F. & Murtagh,L. & Turnbull,G.
(2010). Achieving Your Masters in Teaching and
Learning. 1st ed. Exeter: Learning Matters Ltd.
Mertler,C,A. (2001). Practical Assessment Research &Evaluation. A peer-reviewed electronic journal, Volume
7.

Conclusions

Murata,K. & Iino,M. & Konakahara,K. (2017). An
Investigation into the Use of and Attitudes toward ELF(English as a Lingua Franca) in English-medium

In order to acquire the skills necessary to teach andevaluate in a specialized field in English (in front of
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
18-21 August 2020, Turku, Finland
84

Instruction (EMI) Classes and its Implications forEnglish Language Teaching. Waseda review of education
Vol.31(1), 21-38 (in Japanese).
Myles,F.
(2013).
Theoretical
approaches.
In
Herschensohn,J. & Young-Scholten,M. The Cambridge
Handbook of Second Language Acquisition. Cambridge
University Press.
Nguyen,T. (2017). Vietnam’s National Foreign
Language 2020 Project after 9 years: A Difficult Stage.
Conference Proceedings in The Asian Conference on
Education & International Development 2017
(ACEID2017)
Roy,L. (2007). Learning and teaching languages throughcontent:A counterbalanced approach. Language
Learning & Language, Vol.18, Teaching Jhon
Benjiamins Publishing.
Schunk,H,D. (1991). Learning theories: An educational
perspective. New York, NY, England: Macmillan
Publishing Co, Inc.
Vu,N. & Burns,A. (2014). English as a medium of
instruction: Challenges for Vietnamese tertiary lecturers.
THE JOURNAL OF ASIA TEFL Vol.11, No. 3, 1-31.

Figure 1: The student questionnaire results regarding
the class in the second language (in English).

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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85

NANOTECH PLATFORM ESTABLISHED FOR AVERAGE TECHNICAL EDUCATIONSCIENCE LABORATORIESS. Nagaoka*,a, M. Yamamoto b, T.Tsuji c, T. Shikama b, T. Shimizu a, R. W. Johnston a, K. Matsudad,
F. Shimokawae and H. Horibe fa

NIT, Kagawa College/Dept. of Electronic System Engineering, Mitoyo, Kagawa, Japan
NIT, Kagawa College/Dept. of Electrical &Computer Engineering, Takamatsu, Kagawa, Japanc
NIT, Suzuka College/Dept. of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Suzuka, Mie, JapandTokushima Bunri Univ., Dept. of Nano and Bio Material Engineering, Sanuki, Kagawa, Japane
Kagawa Univ., Faculty of Engineering, Takamatsu, Kagawa, Japanf
Osaka City Univ., Graduate School of Engineering, Osaka, Osaka, Japanb*nagaoka@es.kagawa-nct.ac.jp
Abstract

confirmed that these results can contribute toestablish a nanotechnology platform which is as samelevel as the early days of semiconductor researchlaboratory, at the average science laboratory level.

Actual device fabrication experience is importantfor students to gain deep understanding. A
nanotechnology platform established for the averagescience laboratory that makes the design, fabricationand evaluation possible is crucial to achieve thispurpose. Simple methods for the following processes
including impurity diffusion control depending on thetype of silicon substrate surface, fabrication of silicon
dioxide thin film for the insulation layer, fabricationof the thin film for the electrodes, and a lithography
process to make the circuit pattern are required. In
this study, we investigated the simplification of allthese processes under a normal air environment withsimple apparatus and in the limited environment ofan average science laboratory. Thermal diffusions ofphosphorous and boron, thermal oxidization of thesurface of the silicon substrate and sintering of thesilver contained material for the electrode prepared
under a normal air environment were studied andsuccessfully demonstrated to make and control p-njunctions which are the foundation for various kindsof semiconductor devices. In addition, a simplificationof a photo lithography process was also studied by our
original idea of the photo mask design making andrevising process using a transparent plastic sheet
without using special CAD soft. Approximately, 20µm
line as the highest resolution and less than 10µm as
the pattern alignment error was achieved without
using XYZθ stage. Furthermore, a simple evaluation
apparatus consisting of average PC and the analog &digital circuit design kit for the device evaluation also
proposed and successfully demonstrated to measure
the I-V characteristic of the p-n junction. As the result,the possibility to establish the design and fabrication
processes required to make MOS and bipolartransistors, which are the basic devices of integrated
circuit design was successfully demonstrated. It was

Keywords: semiconductor, device,fabrication process, lithographyp-njunction,

Introduction
IoT is expanding in various fields. New device
development is necessary to meet new demands due tothe expansion of this field. The training of engineers who
can work on the device development is an important issueeven in educational institutions such as KOSEN. In orderto achieve this aim, it is necessary to have the actual
experiences of design, fabrication and evaluation ofdevices, with learning device physics from an early stage,
the same as with the education of programming,
experiments on electric and electronic circuits, etc.
[1],[2]. However, it has been an obstacle to establish thiseducational circumstance in KOSEN, because therequired cost for the equipment for the fabrication andevaluation for the device making is very high, andspecialized knowledge is required for its operation.
Therefore, one must make full use of the equipment
around to design and manufacture semiconductor devices
1040℃ in Air
Protect the Contamination

Diffusion
Source of Por B( )

Protect the Contamination ?

n-Si Regionp-Ｓｉ

Si p-n Junction
SiO2

Protect the Contamination ?
Phosphorus Diffusion from PSG Thin
Film to the p-Si Substrate
Phosphorus Diffusion : PSG Thin Film
Boron Diffusion: BSG Thin Film

p-Ｓｉ

SiO2

Protect the Contamination ?
Thermal Oxidation under
Normal air environment

Fig.1 A hypothesis of the simplified fabrication of
insulation layer and impurity diffusion

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
18-21 August 2020, Turku, Finland
86Photo‐mask 1(PM‐1)

Photo‐mask 2 (PM‐2)

Gate

n+

Si substrate (SS)n+(a) Typical lithography process flow

PM MOS FET pattern
yPM
SS
yS
ΔφPM S ΔφSSx
 (0,0)SS SSi

xPM

Traditional method for Ideal condition :ri, θi = constant, ΔφPMi, ΔφSSi =0

ΔφPM

Perfect patternmatching
Position Offset = 0

p‐Ｓｉ

Spin Coating of Sol‐Gel
Material

Casting

a

xSS

Si pn
Junction

Thermal Decomposition andFormation of the PSG Thin
Film

Drying and Sinteringp‐Ｓｉ

n‐Si Region

1040℃ in Air

Phosphorus Diffusion from PSG Thin Film tothe p‐Si Substrate

Impurity Diffusion

Fig.3 process flow of the simplified impurity
diffusion under normal air environmentSSaDiffusion
Source ofP( )PSG~600℃ in Air

Cross sectional viewof the ideal
perfect patternmatching

yPM PM
yS
S Δφ
SS

r

Protect the Contamination“Simple Furnace”
PSG
Thin Film
p‐Ｓｉ

Ideal

(Electrodes:S, D and Gagte)(0,0)PM(P8545SF)

p‐Si#2 Lithographyri

Sol‐Gel precursor

Drain

Sourceoxidization under atmospheric environment on the device
fabrication process.

ALL
Perfect pattern matching
Position Offset =Constant

Alignment‐less lithographyra, θa = constant , ΔφPMa, ΔφSSa = constantLithography～principle of the alignmentless lithography (ALL) ～The device is manufactured by the bottom up methodby repeating the lithography process. It is necessary toachieve high alignment accuracy of circuit patterns andsimplification of the lithography process at the same time.
In the conventional fabrication process, in order toachieve the accurate positioning, the XYZθ stage wasused. However, it may be a cause of the difficulty tointroduce the process in the experimental program by thesophistication. Therefore, we proposed an Alignmentless Lithography method (hereinafter ALL), which is alithography method that does not require mask alignment.
Figure 2 shows the principle of alignment-lesslithography. This method focuses on only the positional
relationship between the photomask and the mask patternformed on it, and makes the mask so that the positional
relationship is the same among multiple masks. By using
this method, it is possible to perform the exact patternalignment by this mechanical pattern alignment without
performing the mask alignment that was conventionallyrequired. Furthermore, even if the pattern is difficult tosee due to the reflectance of the substrate and alignment
is not possible, it is possible to realize a feature that is notpossible with the conventional method of aligning.

(b) Alignments of Traditional Lithography process and Alignment‐less Lithography

Fig.2 Principle of the simplified photo-lithographymethod without photomask alignment (ALL)in an environment such as that of an average technicaleducation science laboratory. And we have been working
the basic and simplification studies to enablefundamental technology for device fabrication such aslithography, impurity diffusion, insulating layer
fabrication, and electrode fabrication, and we finallyachieved the simplification of each of these key processes
and established a nanotech platform[3]-[5]. In this paper,
we have demonstrated simplification of the elementary
technologies for designing, manufacturing, andevaluating semiconductor devices, and to establish a
nanotech platform in the average technical education
science laboratory.
Hypothesis of the simplification of the Key Process
Insulation Layer and Impurity Diffusion
For impurity diffusion by heat treatment, we devised
to simplify the process by using a PSG thin film preparedby the Sol-Gel method, which is safe and easy to handle,
as a phosphorus diffusion source and thermally diffusing
in an atmospheric environment. The outline is shown in
Fig. 1. According to this method, the PSG thin film canfunction as an impurity diffusion source, and at the sametime, the Si substrate surface can function as a protective
film that prevents impurities from entering from theoutside. Therefore, it is considered that the influence ofthe very small amount of gas contained in the atmospherecan be further reduced, and the performance equivalent
to the heat treatment in the environment of high-purity
inert gas can be realized. This makes it possible tosimplify the thermal diffusion process in addition tosimplifying the equipment. Moreover, in order tofabricate devices, it is necessary to fabricate a siliconoxide film SiO2 to form element isolation and gateinsulating layers. We considered that about 20% ofoxygen contained in the atmosphere is used for the
production of SiO2 film. In addition to this, actual air
contains a very small amount such as water vapor andCH4, but if the effect of the substance on the insulating
film characteristics and the silicon substrate is not large,
It is expected that it will be possible to apply the thermal

Fabrication of the Electrode
In order to achieve low resistance and ohmic contact,
the thin film for the electrodes are usually prepared by
vacuum evaporation system. However, thin film
fabrication using a vacuum system is difficult because it
requires special equipment, requires a high level ofproficiency in handling, and requires lithographyequipment. In order to satisfy the above requirementswith the simplest device possible without using a vacuum
device, a method that can be sintered under normal air
environment with a material containing silver (Ag) toform an electrode was proposed. We proposed a method
in which the electrode thin film is formed by, and theelectrode pattern processing is made by using screen
printing with no use of the lithography process. We also
proposed the fabrication of embedded electrodes that do
not require a screen printing method by forming a groove
on a silicon substrate by using silicon anisotropic etchingor Reactive Ion Etching (RIE), and embedding the above
electrode material in the groove.

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
18-21 August 2020, Turku, Finland87

1. Wafer cutting
Size : 2cm × 2cm
n-type Si substrate

5. BSG film removal

Resistivity : 3 ~ 5 Ω・cm

BHF , dip (20 min.)Room temperature

2. Silicon cleaning

n-type Si substrate

H2SO4 : H2O2 = 3 : 1
boil (10 min.)Pure water cleaning

6. Preprocessing ofVapor depositionp-type layern-type Si substrate

3. Doping material film
BSGn-type Si substrate

Spin coating
Sol-Gel agent (B2O2)
1st : 500 rpm / 3 sec
2st : 2000 rpm / 60 sec

7. Deposition of the
Al electrode

HCl :H2O2:H2O=1:1:6
boil (10 min.)Pure water cleaning
HF : H2O = 1 : 50
dip (30 sec.)
Pure water cleaning

Al Deposition

4. Thermal diffusion of B

Fig.4 Photographs of the equipment for the thermal
treatments

Setting : 800 ~ 1150 ℃

BSG
20 min. ~ 18 h
p-type layer
Atmosphere :n-type Si substrate
Air environment

Surface deposition

Metal
mask
Back vapor deposition

Fig.6 A simplified p-n junction fabrication processusing Sol-Gel materials and thermal treatment undernormal air environment

Experimental Method for Simplified Key Processes
Insulation Layer and Impurity Diffusion Processes
Figure 3 shows the thermal diffusion process ofphosphorus (P) and boron (B) by PSG (Phosphorus
Silicate Glass) thin film or BSG (Boro Silicate Glass)thin film prepared from Sol-Gel agent by heat treatment
under atmospheric environment. First, the Sol-Gel agent
is spin-coated on the substrate surface and sintered to
produce PSG thin film and BSG thin film. Since the PSG
film contains P and the BSG film contains B, it isconsidered that P or B can be diffused to the surface ofthe silicon substrate by using it as an impurity diffusion
source and heat treatment.
Figure 4 shows the heat treatment equipment used in
the experiment. Two types of apparatuses, which are ageneral box furnace and a simple thermal diffusion
furnace were used. A ceramic plate for the box furnaceand q quartz plate were used as the sample boat during
thermal treatment. For the diffusion furnace, a quartz
core tube was used, the temperature of both devices was
PID controlled, and the soaking range was about 10 cm,
and controlled at any temperature until 1100℃.

as the positioning jig. And the lower left corners are the"photomask origin" and “substrate origin”, respectively.
In each photomask, the photomask pattern is formed inexactly the same positional relationship from thephotomask origin. Thereby, the position of the pattern inthe photomask and the angle ψ (ψ = 0) can be accurately
determined. If the positioning of Si substrate is handled
as the same, the Si substrate can be arranged at the same
position and angle Φ every time. This will enableaccurate pattern alignment without using the XY stage.
In the design and manufacture of photomasks used inlithography, a transparent plastic sheet (OHP sheet) for
overhead projectors was used as a photomask to facilitate
the design and manufacture and revision of masks.
Simplification of the device fabrication process
Figure 6 shows the p-n junction fabrication process.
P type and n type, silicon ((100), 3-5Ω･cm) are used as
the substrate. They were cut into 20mm squares with adiamond pen. They were treated to create n type and p
type regions by the method described about P and B
diffusion in Fig. 3 after cleaning. A pair of Al combshaped electrodes with a film thickness of about 500 nm
and a width of about 200 μm were formed on the

Photo Lithography (ALL)
Figure 5 shows an outline of the ALL photomask and
the ALL process. Pin alignment method was applied toalign the substrate and photomask for ALL process. Two
step concavity was made on the aluminum(Al) plate to
set the photomask and substrate shown in the figure 5(c)Fig.7 A simplified fabrication process of MOS FETusing Sol-Gel materials and thermal treatment undernormal air environment

Fig.5 Schematic overview of ALL process
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
18-21 August 2020, Turku, Finland
88Ellipsometer
Dektak 150
Wet *
Dry*

10-2

Wet *

Current I [mA]

Thickness [m]

1

10-1

Normal Air
Environment

Dry*

0.1

0.01
0.1

1

10

100

Experimental Result and Discussion
Figure 8 shows the results of thermal oxidation undera normal atmospheric environment. The results of wet
oxidation and dry oxidation are also shown as acomparison. The thickness of the thermal oxide film
Diffusion Depth Xｊ [m]

3.0

HIOKI 7005
Voltage Current Standard

2.0

ρ

10-3
10-4

10-3

10-5

10-4

10-6

10-5

10-7

10-6

10-8

10-7

10-9

10-8

10-10

10-9

10-11
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9
Voltage V [V]produced was measured by an ellipsometer (Mizojiri
Optical DV-36), and the surface profiler (DekTak150). It
was found that the measured values by the two measuringmethods showed good agreement. It was also found thatthe oxide film thickness increases in proportion to time,
and the oxidation rate is intermediate in between wet
oxidation and dry oxidation.
Figure 9 shows the time and temperature dependenceof the diffusion depth in the thermal diffusion of P underatmospheric environment. The diffusion depth Xj wascalculated from the measurement results of visualization
method of the diffusion part using the spherical drillingand stain etching. From the results, it can be confirmedthat the Si surface can be inverted to the n-type in all
thermal diffusion treatments at 800℃ or higher. It can beseen that Xj becomes deeper as the diffusion timeincreases and the heat treatment temperature increases.
From this result, it was found that Xj can be controlled bytime and temperature even in the atmosphericenvironment.
Figure 10 shows the current-voltage characteristics ofa p-n junction diode fabricated by diffusing B on the n-Si
substrate. The characteristics of a commercially available
diode (1S1555) are also shown for comparison．The
typical ideal coefficient n were obtained about 2.2 of oursurface, and plane Al thin film electrode was also formedon the entire back surface to a thickness of about 500 nm
using a vacuum evaporation system.
Figure 7 shows a flowchart of the simplified nMOS
FET fabrication process of the theoretical structure using
simplified thermal oxidation, impurity diffusion and
ALL process with 2 photo-masks. First, the surface of the
Si substrate is thermally oxidized to form a SiO2 thin film,
and the first ALL process to prepare the n type region wasapplied. The diffusion area for P is determined by the first
ALL and SiO2 thin film etching processes. P is diffused
only in a limited area of the surface of Si substrate by
SiO2 thin film, Al thin film is deposited on the entire
surface of the substrate by a vacuum vapor deposition,and the Al thin film is processed in the same manner as
the first ALL process which is the second ALL process
to create electrodes. Finally, nMOS FET is obtained. The
pMOS FET also can be prepared in the same manner byusing an n-type silicon substrate and a BSG thin film withsame photo-masks．

Diffusion
Temperature
800 ℃
900 ℃
1040 ℃

10-2

Fig.10 A typical current-voltage characteristic of the
p-n junction prepared by Boron diffusion using SolGel material on the n-type silicon substrate

Time [hour]Fig.8 Time dependency of the thickness of thethermal oxidation layer prepared under normal air
environment

4.0

Sample
1S1555
Sample (reverse current)
1S1555 (reverse current)

Reverse Current I [mA]

10 0

100

A
V

probes
d=1m

1.0

d

d

d

n‐Si
p‐Si

0
0

2

4

6

8

10 12

14 16 18

Fig.11 A typical current-voltage characteristic of the
p-n junction prepared by Boron diffusion on n typesilicon substrate using Sol-Gel material under normal
air environment

Diffusion Time [hour]Fig.9 Time and temperature dependencies of the
diffusion depth of Phosphorus by thermal treatment
under normal air environment
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
18-21 August 2020, Turku, Finland
89

45
40

#2000 (～10m)

Polishing Depth [μm]

35

A’

A
(a) Top view (right)
and illustration of thecross sectional viewat A-A’ of the OHP
sheet before polishing

30
25
20

#4000 (～3m)

15(b) Top view (right)
and illustration of thecross sectional viewat B-B’ the OHP
sheet after polishing

10
5

100m

B’

B

100m

#10000 (～0.5m)

0
0

100

200

300

400

500

Polishing Times [Times](a) Abrasive diameter dependency of the Polishing rate

Fig.12 A typical current-voltage property of thenMOS FET prepared by the thermal treatment undernormal air environment

25“zero”alignmenterror

Y : Vertical Error
X: Horizontal Error

20
15
10

Rotation Angle φ (degree)

Accumulated Number of the Events

30
0.03
0.02
0.01
0
- 0.01- 0.02- 0.03

5

0

2

4

6

8

10

Number of the Trial (times)

SE (µm) = Δx01 - Δx00

0-300 -200 -160 -120 -80 -40

040

80 120 160 200 300

Superposition Error (µm)φ = tan-1

Δx01 - Δx00
Ys(b) A typical position error distribution of the pattern alignmentp-n junction, 1.9 of 1S1555 respectively. From theseresults, it can be confirmed that the p-n junction diodefabricated by our proposed simplified process can obtainthe same rectification characteristics as those on themarket. The current-voltage characteristics of the solar
cell were also evaluated.
Figure 11 shows the current-voltage characteristics ofa p-n junction solar cell prepared by diffusing B on the nSi substrate prepared at the condition of the thermal
diffusion treatment temperature of 1040℃, 3 hours, andthe diffusion depth was about 3 µm. The area S of theelement is 0.70 cm2. F.F was about 0.6. It was confirmedthat it performed well as a solar cell.
Figure 12 shows a typical result of the ID-VSD
characteristics of an nMOS FET prepped by this method.

Fig.14
A typical edge polishing rate of thetransparent plastic sheet for photo-mask
From the results, the drain current (ID) is controlled bygate voltage (VG). It was confirmed that it performed asa depletion type nMOS FET. "Selective Diffusion" inwhich patterned sintered PSG or BSG thin film isselectively placed on the substrate and to selectively
diffuse P or B, like ion implantation, and “Simultaneous
Diffusion” in which patterned sintered PSG and BSG thinfilms are selectively placed at any place on the same
substrate and to simultaneously diffuse P and B were
proposed, and the feasibility were investigated under anormal atmospheric environment.
Figure 13 shows the current-voltage characteristics ofthe p-n junction whose electrodes are the electrodefabricated by the sintering of the material containing Ag
under an atmospheric environment. The screen printing
method was used to prepare the electrode. In addition, thedamascene interconnect method was also evaluated. The
grooves to embed the electrode material were fabricatedFig.13 A typical current-voltage property of the p-njunction by Boron diffusion with sintered electrodeprepared all under normal air environment

Fig.15 A typical alignment result by ALL process

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
18-21 August 2020, Turku, Finland90

fabrication and evaluation will be made possible.
Furthermore, the education and the research in a wide
range of fields from basics to advanced contents are also
made possible in a step-by-step by incorporating from thedesign to the evaluation of semiconductor devices.
Therefore, we focused on the analog & digital circuitdesign kit, "Analog Discovery" and proposed anenvironment where the basic properties of p-n junction
can be evaluated by combining it with a PC. Figure 16
shows the outline of the system. The feasibility of themeasurement system including light source control andits programming for the solar cell characteristics wasevaluate. The short circuit current and the open circuit
voltage with the current-voltage characteristics of thesolar cell was successfully measured with the applied
voltage was continuously changed from negative topositive voltage. It was confirmed that the simple
evaluation system can be established.

Fig.16 A simplified evaluation system using average
equipment and analog & digital circuit design kit andits typical measurement result

Conclusions

by Si anisotropic etching. The good rectification
characteristic were obtained by either structures. From
this result, it was proofed that the electrodes fabricatedunder atmospheric environment can be used as theelectrode for the devices. In order to improve thealignment accuracy of the mask pattern in the ALL
process using the plastic sheet mask (OHP mask), we
proposed the micro adjustment of the pattern position on
the OHP mask by polishing the edge face of the OHP
mask. Several polishing pads that have approximately 0.5µm to 2 µm size of abrasive material were used for thepolishing. The relationship between the number of timesof polishing and the amount of polishing was investigated.
Figure 14 shows the result of the feasibility test. From
the figure, it was found that the polishing rate wascontrolled the grain size of the abrasive material. The
precise polishing rate control under Micro meter size canbe achieved by the particle size of the polishing agent andthe number of times of polishing. The accurate
positioning of the Micro meter order of the can be
performed by the Cut & Try compensation. The
alignment error in the XY directions was evaluated byabout 100 trials. The rotation error θ was also evaluatedin addition to the alignment error in the XY directions. It
was found that the resolution of the pattern wasapproximately 20m by the duplicated film mask patternon the OHP mask, standard deviation σ was about 40 µm
and the rotation error was as small as 0.01°.
Figure 15 shows the alignment result of the mask set
for MOSFET fabrication, which consists of three masks
actually fabricated. From these results, it wasdemonstrated that by applying the polishing OHP mask
set and the ALL process, it is possible to achievealignment with almost no mask displacement and toachieve the purpose of ALL. From the above results, theusefulness of the ALL process was verified [6].
If it is possible to achieve an environment in which
own made device can be evaluated by making full use of
the measurement equipment in the average laboratories,
simplification of the entire processes, device design,

To create "Nanotech Plat Form Established in the
Average Science Laboratory", we examined thesimplification of all the key processes of device
fabrication, which are oxide film fabrication, impurity
diffusion, lithography, and electrode fabrication using
general-purpose equipment and devising the process
without using sophisticated apparatus under atmosphericenvironment. As a result, it was demonstrated that heat
treatment under atmospheric environment enables oxide
film fabrication, p-type and n-type fabrication, andelectrode fabrication. We also proposed a new simplified
lithography method "Alignmentless Lithography (ALL)"and successfully demonstrated the possibility of realizing
pattern matching with less error by adjusting the mask. It
was shown that this method can be expected to have theeffect of deepening the understanding of the learning
subjects of device physics through the lectures andexperiments and fostering creativity, and also contributeto the learning of physical chemistry.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant
Number JP16K00992, 19K0454301 and 20HT0207.
References[1] S. Nakamura,JSEE,Vol.51,No.1,pp.115-18(2003)[2] K. Shohno IEEE Trans. on Education. Vol.E-20, No.2,
pp92-97 (1977)[3] T. Tsuji, et al., Japanese Society for Engineering
Education, Vol.64, No.6, pp127-130 (2016)[4] T.Takahashi, et al., Advanced Material Research,
Trans Tech Publications, ISSN:1662-8985, Vol.1109,
pp625-630 (2015)[5] K. Kai, et al., American Institute of Physics, Vol.1733,
pp020094-1-020094-4 (2016)[6] S. Nagaoka, et al., Transactions of ISATE 2017, The
11th International Symposium on Advances inTechnology Education, Vol.1, pp275-279 (2017)

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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91

FOSTERING COLLABORATIVE LEARNING WITH HACKATHON
Linda William
Temasek Polytechnic / School of Informatics & IT, Singapore
Linda_William@tp.edu.sg

Abstract

Introduction

In a teaching and learning environment, college
hackathon has been introduced as a platform forcollaborative learning by gathering the students toengage in intensive work to solve a problem andproduce a solution to the problem in a highly
constrained time frame. For student participants, thishackathon helps them to acquire and improve theirprogramming skills, immerse and collaborate withlike-minded people, and provide direct contact withpotential employers. Although many recent studies
have identified the benefits of using college
hackathons as a collaborative learning platform,
minimal works have been conducted to measure theeffectiveness of hackathon for the pedagogicaloutcome. Hence, this paper aims to evaluate theeffectiveness of the hackathon in fosteringcollaborative learning of IT students in Temasek
Polytechnic. We worked together with one of ourindustry partners to design a specific format of college
hackathon. In this hackathon, the students worked on
various industry problems for one month. Our
students formed a team with other students and thestaff from our industry partner. The team members
consisted of different types of specialist, educational
background and interest in the hackathon. As a team,these individuals were tasked to solve the given
industry problem and produce an innovative productor solution. We focus our study on the dynamic of thecollaboration between the students and the staff. This
dynamic would influence the students' motivationand learning. We collected data from observations,informalinterviews
andpost-hackathon
questionnaires. The data suggest that strong
engagement between the students and staff would
motivate the students to learn and refine their skill
sets and knowledge to produce a decent product orsolution. The collaboration also provides an excellent
opportunity for the students to understand more
about the working environment and work etiquette.

Hackathon has emerged as a popular tool to gather
individuals to engage in intensive collaborative work to
produce an innovative product or solution in a highly
constrained time frame (Aboab, et al., 2016; Komssi,
Pichlis, Raatikainen, Kindström, & Järvinen, 2015;
Lyndon, et al., 2018). It creates a focused working
environment where the participants can assess their skills
and exchange knowledge (Pe-Than & Herbsleb, 2019).
Hackathon may require the participants to learn or refine
skill sets or expertise (i.e. new programming language,
new hardware, new strategies, and new businessprocesses) in a limited amount of time. These skill sets
and expertise are used to "hack" or design a new productor solution. Although the original idea of a hackathon ismostly exclusive to software development (Taylor &Clarke, 2018), it is now run to cover various topics. It
includes retail (Nasser, 2017), business (Calco & Veeck,2015; Komssi, Pichlis, Raatikainen, Kindström, &Järvinen, 2015), and health care (Lyndon, et al., 2018;
Aungst, 2015).
One of the most distinct types of a hackathon iscollege hackathon (Warner & Guo, 2017). College
hackathon is usually held in a college campus andinvolves the students as the participants to create asolution or a product and optionally compete for prizes.
Several examples of college hackathon include
hackathons sponsored by Major League Hacking in 200
colleges with over 65,000 student participants (Hacking
Major League, 2020), and PennApps hackathon(PennApps, 2020).
Previous studies have identified the benefits ofcollege hackathon. It includes promoting content
mastery, developing technical and thinking skills,
creating social networks and engaging individual
students to take actions (Lyndon, et al., 2018). It is also
believed that college hackathon can create anenvironment to encourage effective collaboration thatwould further improve the students’ learning (de Toledo
Piza, et al., 2018). Successful teams are associated withhigher affective learning gains. However, these studies
are mostly focusing on the hackathon benefits itself
without considering it as a part of pedagogical methods
for a particular subject in IT.
The primary purpose of this study is to evaluate theeffectiveness of college hackathon to encourage

Keywords: collaborative learning, hackathon, industry
collaboration, industry problem, impacts of student-staff
collaboration

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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92

collaborative learning as part of a pedagogical method fora specific IT subject in Temasek Polytechnic. We
designed a particular college hackathon format as one of
the assessment methods for one IT subject. We
collaborated with one of our industry partners to match
their staff with our students to work on various “realworld" industry problems. Each team had one month tofinish the solution or the product before they needed topresent it to the teaching team and the company’s senior
management in the final hackathon day. The teachingteam graded the solution or product by considering the
feedback from the company's senior management.
We design a research model and hypotheses byfocusing on the dynamic of the collaboration for students
and staff. The research model considers five main aspectsof collaborative learning to motivate the students to learn
and refine their skill set and knowledge. These aspects
are (1) mutual exploration of the issues/problems, (2)exchanging of ideas, (3) team formation, (4) social
interaction, and (5) communication. Based on these
aspects, we develop two questionnaires for the posthackathon survey. One questionnaire is for the students,
while another one is for the staff. Throughout the college
hackathon duration, observation and informal interviews
with the students and the staff were also conducted.
These data complement the post-hackathon survey.
Based on the data from observation, informalinterview and post-hackathon survey, the results showthat students in a strong team are more motivated to learn
and refine their skill set and knowledge. They would
spend time and effort to produce a decent product orsolution. The results also show the collaboration between
the students and staff on college hackathon would help
the students to understand more about the “real-world”
problems, working environment and work etiquette.

feedback regarding the feasibility to implement thesolution or product in the company. Each team wasgraded based on the working processes and the solution
by the teaching team. The teaching team would take into
account the feedback from the company’s senior
manager. This grade is one of the assessments for aparticular IT subject.
Research Model and Hypotheses
In this paper, we emphasize the benefits of college
hackathon to foster collaborative learning as part ofpedagogical methods for a particular IT subject. The
skills and knowledge gained in the college hackathon arealigned with their IT subject and would be reflected in
the students’ grade. To evaluate these, we focus on the
dynamic collaboration between the students and the staff
to motivate self-learning (Anderman & Dawson, 2011).
We consider five main aspects of collaborative
learning to motive the students to learn and refine theirskill set and knowledge. These five main aspects are:1. mutual exploration of the issues/problems (Harasim,
1989),
2. exchanging of ideas (Harasim, 1989)
3. team formation (Wessner & Pfister, 2001),
4. social interaction (Dillenbourg, 1999), and
5. communication (Dillenbourg, 1999).
We design our research model and hypotheses using
these five main aspects, as illustrated in Figure 1. For thisresearch model, we review the literature on collaborative
learning and college hackathon to identify essential
aspects for motivating students' self-learning. Using
these aspects, we hypothesize the following:

Hackathon Design

Hypothesis 1: Mutual exploration of the problems (i.e.
real-world or industry problems) would
improve students' motivation for selflearning.
Hypothesis 2: Exchanging ideas during college
hackathon
improve
students’motivation for self-learning.
Hypothesis 3: A good team formation would improvestudents’ motivation for self-learning.
Hypothesis 4: Strong social interaction during college
hackathon would improve students’motivation for self-learning.
Hypothesis 5: Good communication within the teamwould improve students’ motivation for
self-learning.

A particular format of college hackathon was
designed to encourage collaborative learning as well as
to expose the students to real industry problems. This
college hackathon was supported by one of our industry
partners. Students from one class were divided into fiveteams. Each team had five to six students. Each teamcollaborated with two or more staff from the company.
At the beginning of the hackathon duration, each teamselected one problem to work. The problem was derived
from company problems.
After forming the team and selecting the problem towork on, each team had one month to finish the solution
or the product. The staff were able to provide the students
with real-industry context as well as real company
dataset. Each team was able to arrange meetings with thestaff from the company within that one month. There wasno limitation on the number of sessions that they canarrange.
At the end of the one month, each team needed topresent their solution or product to the teaching team andthe company's senior management in the final hackathonday. The company’s senior manager would provide

Based on this research model and hypotheses, wedevelop a questionnaire to collect feedback fromstudents. The questionnaire comprises of nine items, as
illustrated in Table 1. We use this questionnaire as thestudent’s post-hackathon survey. In this questionnaire,
we identify two items for mutual exploration of theissues/problems aspect, two items for exchanging ofideas aspect, two items for team formation aspect, one

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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93

item for social interaction aspect, and one item forcommunication aspect. We also add one item regarding
their motivation to self-learn. The questionnaire uses the
5-point Likert scale (5= strongly agrees, 1= strongly
disagrees).

Table 1. Questionnaire for the student’s post-hackathon
surveyItems
1. Do you feel that the staff fromthe company help you tounderstand the problem?
2. Do you feel that the staff fromthe company helps you tounderstand real world problem?
3. Do you feel that the staff fromthe company help you to develop
the solutions?
4. Do you feel that the staff fromthe company allow you to use yourknowledge and skills?
5. Do you feel that you can work
together with the staff from thecompany?
6. Do you feel that the hackathon(including
team
arrangement
meet
your
arrangement)
expectations?
7. Do you feel that you can work
together with the staff?
8. Do you feel that the hackathon
helps you to build your confidence
to communicate your solutions toother people?
9. Do you feel that you aremotivated to learn new skills for the
hackathon?

Figure 1. Research Model
Other than the questionnaire for the students, we also
develop another questionnaire to collect feedback fromthe staff. To emphasize the team interaction in college
hackathon, the staff questionnaire does not include all the
five main aspects for collaborative learning. It only
includes mutual exploration of the issues/problems,
exchanging of ideas and team formation aspects. We
identify one item for mutual exploration of theissues/problems aspect, three items for exchanging ofideas, and two items for team formation. We also add one
item regarding the student’s motivation. The
questionnaire also uses the 5-point Likert scale(5=strongly agrees, 1=strongly disagrees).

Aspects
mutualexploration oftheissues/problems
mutualexploration oftheissues/problems
exchanging of
ideas
exchanging ofideas
team formationteam formationinteraction
communication

motivation

Table 2. Questionnaire for the staff post-hackathon
surveyEvaluation Method

Items
1. Do you feel that the students
understand the problem?

The college hackathon was held from mid October to
mid November 2019. During the one-month period, we
met the students twice a week to observe theirinteractions with the staff. We also conducted fiveinformal interviews with the students and two informalinterviews with the staff. In addition to that, we discussed
the progress for each team with the company’s senior
management.
After the college hackathon, we asked the students
and the staff to fill in the post-hackathon questionnaires.
We received 19 valid responses from the students and 12
valid responses from the staff. Other than the posthackathon questionnaires, we also gathered feedback
from both students and staff on the overall hackathon inan open-ended question. We received 19 valid responses
from the students and 12 valid responses from the staff.

2. Do you feel that the students help
you to develop the solutions?
3. Do you feel that the students
have the knowledge and skills tosolve the problem?
4. Do you feel that the students
learn new knowledge or skills bysolving the problem?
5. Do you feel that you can work
together with the students to comeup with the solutions?
6. Do you like to work with thestudents?
7. Do you feel that the students are
motivated to solve the problem?

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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Aspects
mutualexploration oftheissues/problems
exchanging of
ideas
exchanging of
ideas
exchanging ofideas
team formationteam formation
motivation

Findings

hackathon provides motivation for the students toperform self-learning to improve their skill set andknowledge.
Table 4 shows significant relations between all thethree aspects with motivation for self-learning (p<0.01).
This indicates that from the staff perspective all the three
aspects in college hackathon would provide motivation
for the students to perform self-learning (p<0.01). Since,
both Table 3 and Table 4 indicate that significant
influence of team formation to motivate self-learning, weconclude Hypothesis 3 is supported.

From the observations and informal interviews during
the one-month hackathon period, we observe thefollowing:
1. Two teams out of five student teams were having
communication problems with the staff the company.
They only met the staff two times over the period of
one month.
2. One team out of five student teams were interacting
and communicating very well. The staff encouraged
the students to push their own limits and produce awell-thought solution.
Based on the valid post-hackathon questionnaire
responses, we illustrate the summary as shown in Figure
2 and Figure 3 for the students and staff questionnaire
respectively. Figure 2 shows that the students’ averagescores for all the five aspects are above 3.5, but theminimum score for communication aspect is 1 and theminimum score for exchange ideas and team formation
aspects are 1.5. The results suggest that few students do
not feel that they can communicate, exchange and form asolid team. These may affect their motivation to selflearning.

Figure 3. Staff questionnaire result for each aspect

Table 3. Linear Regression Result for Students’
Questionnaire
Model
Aspect 1. Mutual exploration of theissues/problems
Aspect 2. Exchanging of ideas
Aspect 3. Team formation
Aspect 4. Interaction
Aspect 5. Communication* p < 0.05** p < 0.01

Figure 2. Students questionnaire result for each aspect
Figure 3 shows the average scores for the aspects
from the staff questionnaire are above 4.8. The results
suggest that the staff are happy with the students’performance. Do note that not all staff involved with thestudents respond to the questionnaire.
The research model and hypotheses are calculatedusing linear regression. The linear regression result for
both students and staff questionnaires are summarized inTable 3 and Table 4 respectively. Table 3 shows
significant relationship between team formation aspectwith motivation for self-learning (p<0.01). While theother aspects do not have significant influence (p> 0.05).
This indicates that the team formation in college

Coefficient
0.57280.75860.6828**0.71570.4175

Table 4. Linear Regression Result for Staff Questionnaire
Model
Aspect 1. Mutual exploration of theissues/problems
Aspect 2. Exchanging of ideas
Aspect 3. Team formation* p < 0.05** p < 0.01

Coefficient
0.9176**0.9168**1**

We also extract the overall feedback in an open-ended
question and identify the topics that they mentioned in

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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their responses. The topics are: coding, visualization(dashboarding), communication and team work. These
topics indicate four main students’ learning points.
The grades from the teaching team for all the teamsin this college hackathon are also extracted. The grades
are considered as one of the assessment methods in theparticular IT subject. One team gets A+ grade, two teams
get A, one team gets B and the last team gets B-.

namely: (1) mutual exploration of the issues/problems,(2) exchanging of ideas, (3) team formation, (4) social
interaction, and (5) communication. We use this researchmodel to evaluate the impact of college hackathon to
motivate the students to learn and refine their skill sets
and knowledge.
The results collected from observation, informalinterview and post-hackathon questionnaires indicatethat there is a strong relationship between the teamformation aspects with the students’ motivation to selflearning. It suggests that good team dynamic between thestudents and the staff would motivate the students tolearn new skill sets and knowledge to produce a decent
product or solution. The newly gained skill sets andknowledge
includescoding,visualization(dashboarding), communication and teamwork. Hence,the college hackathon would also provide a good
opportunity for the students to understand the working
team dynamic and work etiquette in the company.
Nonetheless, we see two possible extensions that wewould like to study in near future. First, we would like toevaluate our research model and hypotheses for students
in different schools. We would like to evaluate if thecollaborative learning platform can be developed in nontechnology college hackathon. Second, we would like toinvolve more companies in the college hackathon. It
would help us to understand the impact of company’senvironment and work etiquette to the collaborative
learning environment.

Discussion
The results show a significant correlation between
team formation aspects and student’s motivation to selflearning. It indicates that the college hackathon is able tomotivate students to form a team and interact with otherstudents and the staff. The interactions would thenmotivate the students to learn specific concepts (i.e.
programming or coding). This finding is aligned with theprior studies on collaborative learning aspects (Wessner& Pfister, 2001).
Our results from observation and informal interviewssuggest that the students engage in their team differently.
Some students were able to communicate in the teamwell. While some students may have difficulty tounderstand the problem and communicate their proposedsolutions. It is effecting their motivation to self-learningand eventually effecting their grades for the particularsubject. We summarize the observation and the grades inTable 4.

References

Table 4. Students’ Grade for the Subject
Team
1

Grade
A

2

A

3

A

4

B

5

B-

Aboab, J., Celi, L., Charlton, P., Feng, M., Ghassemi, M.,
Marshall, D., . . . Pollard, T. (2016). A “datathon” model
to support cross-disciplinary collaboration. Science
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Observation
Shown a very good teamdynamic and produced a wellthough solution. The staff also
complimented the students.
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Had a small misunderstanding
about the problem and thesolution. It can only be rectify
nearing the end of thehackathon.
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Anderman, E., & Dawson, H. (2011). Learning with
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Conclusion
In this paper, we focus our work on the dynamic of
the collaboration between the students and the staff incollege hackathon. We design the research model andhypotheses based on five collaborative learning aspects,
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Dillenbourg, P. (1999). What do you mean bycollaborative leraning? In P. Dillenbourg, Collaborativelearning: Cognitive and Computational (pp. 1-19).
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Pe-Than, E., & Herbsleb, J. (2019). Understanding
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college hackathons are perceived by student attendees
and non-attendees. Proceedings of the 2017 ACM
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Library.

Lyndon, M., Cassidy, M., Celi, L., Hendrik, L., Kim, Y.,
Gomez, N., . . . Dagan, A. (2018). Hacking hackathons:preparing the next generation for the multidisciplinary
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Wessner, M., & Pfister, H. (2001). Group formation incomputer-supported collaborative learning. International
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066e5907779d0604d08da.pdf

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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97

ASSIGNMENT CHATBOTW.S.K. Percy
School of Informatics & IT / Diploma in Big Data & Analytics, Singapore
percywon@tp.edu.sg
Abstract

Introduction

It is common for students to ask their lecturers or
tutors about the deadline for the assignment reportsubmission and other report related administrative
details repeatedly. The administrative type questions
can take up precious time from the lecturers/tutors,
which can otherwise be spent on students that haveurgent and non-administrative needs from the same
subject. In this paper, we explore the use of chatbot in
the context of student assignments and measure its
effectiveness in reducing the educator's load on
administrative questions. Our current approach isseparated into two phases. The first phase isidentifying the types of administrative queries thatare typical among a pilot batch of students that are
doing their assignments. The second phase is
implementing the chatbot to handle the queries withthe appropriate answers during the critical periods
for the assignment, which is typically about two weeks
from the assignment due date to the group of pilot
students. After the assignment deadline, we reviewed
the results of this pilot group of students using thechatbot. We started by examining the queries by thestudents for any other questions that might becommon but were not in the chatbot's database. These
are then added to our chatbot's database of queries
with the corresponding answers. Next, we look at the
number of administrative queries from the students
and compare that with the number of similar queries
that their lecturers received both before and after the
implementation of the chatbot. The results from thisexperiment clearly demonstrated the effectiveness ofthe chatbot based on this pilot group of students. In
the next experiment, the chatbot will be rolled out toa bigger group of students throughout the assignment
term in the semester. The research will be focusing on
validating the impact of the chatbot. This includes
reducing the administrative workload on lecturers
involved and providing just-in-time information forthe students.

Self-help implementations have become a common
thing in the recent decade, from automatic top-up kiosk
for metro tickets to fully autonomous flight check-in.
More recently, virtual assistants are found, not only on
mobile phones but anything from also in computer
systems all over the world. A scaled-down version ofvirtual assistants with specific purposes can also be foundanywhere from government services to library assistants;
these are typically known as chatbots. Chatbots are
becoming very popular not only in big organizations but
also in smaller companies. In our school, many of the firsttier advisories for subject/course choices provided topotential students are done through our chatbots. The
above, together with the drive towards reducing theadministrative load for educators, became the motivation
for the assignment chatbot project.
The assignment chatbot project aims to reduce theadministrative load of the educator without removing
meaning content-based interactions with students.
Within this context, the administrative load will bedefined as work that does not have a direct impact on thestudent's learning of the subject. Students with doubts
about the content of the topics would still be able to seek
help with a tutor face to face, thus not losing the humanelement in education.
In this paper, we will describe our Assignment
Chatbot, starting with the technology used, followed by
the process of implementation, a brief overview of its
setup using DialogFlow (Google, 2020), the outcomes,
and finally, the challenges encountered.
Platform Architecture
The Assignment Chatbot was implemented using the
DialogFlow platform (Google, 2020). The features thatare needed in implementing the basic Assignment
Chatbot are available in other chatbot platforms; thechoice of Dialogflow is because it is available, relatively
simple to use, and free for a small rollout with
unsophisticated requirements like the Assignment
Chatbot. However, DialogFlow does offer attractive
features for our future enhancement through its simple
integration with Google Assistant.

Keywords:
Chatbot,
artificial
intelligence,administrative assignment queries, DialogFlow

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
18-21 August 2020, Turku, Finland983. Publish – Once the agent has been created, it can be
published for use. Each time an agent is published, thesystem allows the agent to be published in a separate
environment. Multiple versions of your agent can be
published in different environments for different
applications.

The diagram shown in Figure 1 depicts the essential
chatbot components of DialogFlow.

Implementation Process of the Chatbot
While it is not difficult to learn the mechanics of thechatbot platform, trying to implement a chatbot
effectively is another thing altogether. Predicting the typeof questions from students and setting up the chatbot toanswer it is not an easy task.
For this purpose, an empirical study is done tounderstand the non-content-based critical questions thatare of concern for the students. These non-content-basedquestions shall be defined as administrative queries fromhence. Of the students surveyed, most agreed that thedeadline is of great concern to them as they do not wantto submit their assignments late and have marks
deducted. Besides that, they would also be quite
concerned about the format of the report. The reportformat is where most students could follow the rules andobtain "easy" marks.
With the basic questions needed, the prototype for the
Assignment Chatbot is built. Each of the questions
corresponds to an intent in the DialogFlow platform. For
each of the intents, a list of training phrases will becreated. Training phrases are different ways of asking thesame question. A example in this context would be,"When is the assignment due?", "When is the deadline
for the assignment?", or even "When do we need tosubmit our report?". When building the training phrases,
it was noted that people from different cultural
backgrounds tend to ask the same question differently;
their language preference and language ability also
contribute to the difference. To ensure that the students
of varying backgrounds were accommodated, thetraining phrases should not only capture the different
ways the questions could be asked in proper language but
include those colloquial equivalents as well. This would
prove to be useful during the chatbot pilot.
Another intent that was built in the initial phase was
the official report submission format. The intent build
around this is appropriately named AssignmentFormat.
Its purpose is to answer assignment format queries suchas the length of the report, font size, line spacing as wellas the presentation (if any) duration are included in the
training phrases to build the intent. The appropriate
entities containing the different variations of the
keywords are also created for this intent.
Once the initial group of intents is created, the pilot
stage of the Assignment Chatbot project is launched. The"Small Talk" agent - one of the Dialogflow prebuild
agent is also included to make the chatbot moreinteresting. The small-talk agent allows students to holda casual but probably innovative conversation with thechatbot; this eliminates the dryness attached to testing a

Figure 1. Basic DialogFlow chatbot components.
As illustrated in the diagram in Figure 1, central tocreating a chatbot will be the agent. The agent is thecomponent that handles the conversations with the endusers and interprets their utterances. Next, we would
describe the intent. This is the mapping between theutterance from the user and how the system response.
There is more than one way in which the user can ask thesame question. Training phrases allow the Dialogflow
engine to be exposed to different ways in which a query
can be requested. There is no need to list all the possible
phrases exhaustively; however, there should be sufficientnumbers to allow the machine learning capability of the
DialogFlow engine to train itself. Next would be theEntities, and these are keywords within the trainingphrases that can be matched to some actions. An example
of it would be "I want a T-shirt", the word "T-shirt" could
be matched to a particular entity for the clothing intent.
Based on the keyword/entity value, the DialogFlow
platform can activate the action and parameters segmentof the DialofFlow setup. The entity can be matched to aparameter value, which will, in turn, trigger a particularaction. Finally, the response section creates the chatbot's
response to the intent. Different responses can be set up
for one intent based on the output destinations. There isalso a default response is set up as a universal response
to all output destinations.
There are some other components/terminologies thatare useful in knowing this platform, and that includes,
1. Prebuilt agent / Small-talk – These are prebuilt
agents provided by Dialogflow for common use
cases. These agents can be used to establish a base forbuilding conversations for dining out, hotel booking,navigation, etc. "Small Talk "is a prebuilt agent that
handles casual conversation automatically, without
the need to add such intents to your agent, when it isenabled.
2. WebDemo – This application from the DialogFlow
platform provides the user with a simple text-based
URL for the chatbot user to interact with the agent. It
eliminates the need to set up websites just to test the
chatbot.

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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chatbot. Moreover, the prebuilt agent requires noimplementation effort other than enabling that agent.
The interaction with students begins with the students
being told its objectives. One of these objectives is to help
the students with the answers to their administrative
queries for their assignment. They are allowed to accessthe chatbot at any time during this pilot, and the chatbot's
response will be the source of truth. The students in thegroup were also excited to find out that they are notlimited to queries relating to the assignment, but are also
allowed to ask the chatbot other casual questions. The
novelty of the chatbot to answer their assignment
questions and the excitement of interacting with thesmall-talk agent propelled the students' participation rate
to 100% for this pilot group of students.
The queries from the students are recorded as part of
the history in DialogFlow. By reviewing the history panel
in DialogFlow, some excellent questions that have notbeen captured in the chatbot were discovered. This
results in more intents being created. The next few intents
were built as a result of these new findings.
One of these intents was built around the assignment
submission location/media. As part of the Polytechnic's
go green initiatives to discourage hardcopy reportsubmission, most assignment report submissions within
the school are made through electronic media. Typically,
reports are submitted through the Learning Management
System (LMS), where the students will log in to their
LMS account and submit their report via assignment
submission link. However, due to constraints such as
space availability, other electronic means such as CD oreven hard disks are used as alternatives occasionally.
These can create confusion among students as to whereor how to submit their assignment reports. The intent on
the submission location was established to answer thesubmission media/location question. The chatbot will
respond by providing the student with a textual answer tothe submission location.
Another excellent intent created from unanswered
queries of students was one of performance. The chatbot
was asked how a student could get an 'A' for theassignment. That was definitely a great question andshould be of concern to every student that wanted to do
well. However, it can be challenging to provide a
universal answer for such a query. The difficulty ofanswering such a question lies in that all assignments aredifferent, and there could also be potential moderation in
any assignments; thus, it would be tricky to provide astandard answer for the query. Assignments for somecourses can also have some level of subjectivity in
grading. This query was answered by providing students
with the marking rubrics for the assignment. There are no
better ways to give the student tips on doing well than by
showing them the marking rubrics. Marking rubrics
should be universal across all subjects and assignments
within the Polytechnic. To implement the solution, a pageon the LMS to display the rubrics for the assignment was
created. Next, an intent with the necessary trainingphrases is built. Finally, the default text response for theintent was created. The text response includes a linkpointing to the web page of the LMS that shows the
rubrics. Though most students know the rubrics as part ofthe institution's policy, the link to the LMS wasnevertheless a good reminder on the criterion for doing
well. Furthermore, the rubrics could easily have slipped
their mind amid the rush to finish the assignment. All
students welcomed this intent, although some prefer alittle more tips over and above the rubrics.
After describing the implementation process of theAssignment chatbot and highlighting some useful
insights in adopting chatbot to answer administrative
queries of a given assignment, the next stage is todescribe it was set up in DialogFlow, our chosen
platform.
Setting up the chatbot in DialogFlow
In the earlier section on platform architecture, we
mentioned that one of the reasons DialogFlow wasselected was because of the ease of setting up. In thissection, we will describe the process of setting up theassignment chatbot. There are several significant steps increating and deploying our assignment chatbot, and they
are listed below,
1. Create a login account for DialogFlow.
2. Create an agent, the highest level object in ourchatbot.
3. Create an entity of each of the keywords that wewill use in our intents.
4. Create an intent for each of the categories ofquestions that we plan to answer.
5. Create or include all other intents, including
prebuild agents, and default response intent.
6. Publish the agent in the deployment
environment.
7. Share the agent with the intended users/students.
8. Test the agent, enable Web-Demo app, andshare the Web-Demo URL with our intended
users.
9. Review the log frequently and look out for any
exciting findings, such as an excellent
unanswered question.
10. Collect some data for future studies into theAssignment Chatbot.
Step 1: Sign in to a DialogFlow account with your
Google account credentials. This can be done as
DialogFlow is part of Google.
Step 2: From the DialogFlow environment, thedropdown list below the DialogFlow logo has the option
to create a new agent, select this option, and create theagent.
Step 3: The left panel in Figure 2 shows the option tocreate new entities (marked with a red box). Each newentity created will allow users to create a list ofsynonymous keywords that will be used by thecorresponding intents. This intent will be defined at alater stage. For example, in the AssignmentDue entity,

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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keywords such as Assignment Deadline will be linked to"Deadline", "submission date", "Project Deadline" to lista few. As the new entities are created, the platform engine
will use its machine learning ability to train the agent torecognized these keywords and link it to other synonyms
found in its database. There is also an option to create
different sets of keywords for different parameters andactions within an entity; however, this feature of
DialogFlow is currently not used in our Assignment
Chatbot.

students. No additional actions are required to create ourassignment chatbot, as unless we need to modify its
default response or training phrases. On the other hand,the default fallback response is an intent created bydefault for every agent. The purpose of the default
fallback intent is to answer queries that do not match anyof the intents created. The example of the default fallback
response that is created in the assignment chatbot is,"That's a good question! Please email me atmyemailaddress@tp.edu.sg with the question and its
details, and we will discuss it in class". This default
fallback response would provide students that havequeries on the contents of the assignment an avenue toapproach the tutor for help. The default fallback intent
and small-talk are the only additional features that wereused for the current version of the assignment chatbot.
Step 6: When all intents are created, the chatbot isready to be published for deployment. Publishing isaccomplished by clicking on the setting button, followedby the environment tab, and finally clicking on the"PUBLISH A VERSION" button on the environment tab.
This can be found in Figure 3

Figure 2. Training phrases in DialogFlow
Step 4: Intents are created in this step by clicking on
the "+" option of the left panel in Figure 2 marked withthe blue box. As in Figure 1, there are three main
specifications to be defined when creating an intent.
Firstly, create the training phrases needed. Following
that, the actions and parameters section and finally build
the response for the intent. We will begin by exploring
the training phrases. Like the keywords in entities,
training phrases in intent allows the DialogFlow platform
engine to use its machine learning capability to training
the agent with the different ways in which the users may
ask the question. Though there is no need to exhaustively
mention all possibilities (as this might not be possible),
there should be sufficient phrases. The training phrases
in Figure 1 are what we use to train our agent for
AssignmentCriterion intent. When the training phrases
are defined for the intent, action, and parameters panel
can be populated with the appropriate information. As theassignment chatbot is a very simple chatbot, there is noneed to create a separate action for each synonym group;
thus, verifying that the entities are correctly assigned are
the only tasks needed for the actions and parameters
section. The final stage in creating the intent will be todefine the default text response for the intent. In the caseof AssignmentCriterion in Figure 1, we will define how
the students will be graded by providing them with the
URL to the rubrics.
All other intents in our assignment chatbot to answer
the assignment related administrative questions are donein the same way as above.
Step 5: Other intents, including the small-talk anddefault fallback response, will be discussed in thissection. The small-talk agent can simply be turned on byclicking on the small-talk option in the left panel of the
DialogFlow console, and this is just below the prebuilt
agent option. When turned on, our agent will be able touse its capability to answer casual questions from

Figure 3. Publishing the Chatbot
Step 7: Once the chatbot has been published, theaccess to the chatbot can be shared with the users. This isdone in the Share Tab, as in Figure 4. The email of eachuser will be entered into the system via this interface.

Figure 4. Sharing Chatbot Access and Testing
Step 8: The Chatbot is now ready for testing. Testing
can be done through the right panel, as shown in Figure
4. However, this option of testing the chatbot is only
available on the console. The chatbot needs to be
deployed on a web server if testing is to be done outside
the console. Setting up a web server can be a tedious task
both from the administrative and technical perspective.
On this front, DialogFlow has created a simulator for
deployment known as WebDemo. This application of
DialogFlow simplifies the process of the testing or even
implementation of a small scale chatbot deployment. The
WebDemo can be found in the Integration Option on the

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
18-21 August 2020, Turku, Finland101

left panel of Dialogflow, as indicated by the blue box in
Figure 5. To enable the application, scroll down to thetext-based section, and turn on the WebDemo app by
sliding the button. WebDemo provides an URL that canbe shared with any reviewer to test the chatbot. To
retrieve the URL used for testing the chatbot, click on the
WebDemo option. From the WebDemo applicationinterface, copy the URL provided, as depicted in Figure
5. This URL can be shared with users that need to accessthe chatbot.

4.

5.

Figure 5. Getting the WebDemo URL
Step 9: The log or history of our agent can be accessed
via the left panel of the DialogFlow console under the"History" option. It records all the interactions between
the student and the agent. The interactions are organized
into conversations and timestamped. DialogFlow also
provides an option to limit the output to those of theselected dates.
Step 10: Analytical information about the agent canbe retrieved via the "Analytics" option on the left panelof the DialogFlow console. Simple analytical data will be
provided, such as the distribution of sessions/queries overthe last 1-30 days, the distribution of the utilization ofeach intent is also available.

questions deemed by themselves as "stupid"
knowing that the chatbot will answer them squarely
without any added emotions.
The chatbot does not take away the ability to ask thetutor, given that we have set up the default fallback
response statement. Should there be a need for themto discuss their work with their tutors, they'll still beable to do so. The chatbot is not designed to prevent
tutors from interacting with them.
The chatbot is a fun and convenient way of getting
information about the assignment. The chatbot isanother window on their laptop, and as such, when
they encounter some administrative doubts whileworking on their task, they can get the answer rightaway on the same screen, for most of the users, thisis construed as very convenient. Further, the smalltalk agent allows users to get some fun interactions
when they are bored. It is evident in the high level ofinteractions that the students have with the small-talk
agent depicted in Figure 6.

Distribution of Request fordifferent Intents in Chatbot
100
50
0

Figure 6. Distribution of Request for different Intents in
Chatbot

By using the ten steps listed above, the Assignment
Chatbot can easily be set up on the DialogFlow platform.
These steps can also be adapted for any other chatbot
platform.

The data collected during the chatbot pilot also
highlight the potential of the chatbot. The pilot was rolled
out to a group of twenty-five above average students.
During this pilot stage, there were forty-two different
conversations with the agent. Each conversation has anaverage of 5.76 interaction from the students to thechatbot. Since the launch of the chatbot, no moreadministrative questions for the tutors were being asked
except one question on WhatsApp about thetrustworthiness of the chatbot – "Can I trust the
chatbot?".
Tutors typically spend five to ten minutes managing
a conversation with students, forty-two conversations
would imply that by using the chatbot, about 3.5-7 hoursof the tutor's time was saved. At first glance, this may not
be significant, but if the chatbot is deployed to an entire
cohort, it could be phenomenal. There are twenty classesof twenty-five students in each cohort, and each student
have to complete five assignments on average persemester over a two-semester academic year. By using
the chatbot, the potential savings could be over a
thousand hours of tutor time!

Results
The empirical feedback gathered from users indicatesthat the chatbot is well accepted by the students. The fivereasons stated were,
1. The chatbot is available all the time and the replies
are instantaneous. Without the chatbot, when thestudents query their tutors beyond certain hours, they
will only get a response the next day or after the
weekend. For the case of the chatbot, the students
can get their answers instantly at any time of the day.
2. The chatbot provides the source of truth. Unlike
checking with fellow students who may not haveaccurate information, the chatbot will always be able
to provide the source of truth information.
3. Chatbot has no emotion, and as a result, it is not
sarcastic, nor critical. Students can ask the chatbot
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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102

Besides the performance of our Assignment Chatbot,
another handy feature of the chatbot is that the entire
chatbot can be exported from the DialogFlow platform
and re-imported to another account created for a different
assignment. No additional training of setup of the chatbot
is needed except the default response, which is specificto the assignment required to be modified. The new agent
can be ready for its deployment to a different
subject/assignment within minutes. The transferability of
the agent is significant as the agent need only to becreated once and can be reused many times.

Google Inc. (2020, March
Documentation.
https://www.dialogflow.com

27).

DialogFlow
DialogFlow.

Vergadia, M. (2019, February 11). Deconstructing
Chatbots: Getting Started with Dialogflow. Medium.
https://medium.com/
Vergadia, M. [Priyanka Vergadia] (2019, February 5).
Getting started with DialogFlow (Deconstructing
Chatbots).
[Video].
Youtube.
https://www.youtube.com

Discussion
There were also some challenges in the chatbot pilot.
Firstly, this is the first time the experiment was
conducted, there was a significant number of unmatchedrequests initially, as can be seen from Figure 6. While thiswas to be expected, more could be done in creating moretraining phrases and entities to match the student queries.
There was also some significant drawback to the
DialogFlow platform; the analytics function of theplatform only works for data collected over the last 30
days, and it will not compute beyond that. As the pilot
was active over a month, the initial data will be excluded
should the analytics function of the platform be used.
Fortunately, there were only twenty-five students andforty-two conversations, and it was still possible tomanually entered the data into an excel spreadsheet foranalysis. Finally, the number of students participating in
the experiment could be increased to allow for moreaccurate statistical analysis. Increasing the size of thegroup will undoubtedly be the consideration for our next
operation for the chatbot.
Conclusions
The assignment chatbot experiment aims to answer
the administrative assignment queries from students that
often took up much of the tutor's time. From the resultsof the pilot, the potential for the chatbot looks promising.
Over a thousand hours of savings on the tutor's time isundoubtedly a significant figure. On top of that, theassignment chatbot can easily be deployed to different
courses/subjects by merely exporting it and re-importing
it for the relevant subject tutor. Only minimum
modifications are required to get the chatbot working forthe new course. Based on the first pilot, there is also
potential that administrative queries for tutors could be
eliminated and become historical.
More experiments are currently in the pipeline with abigger group of students, as well as adding more exciting
features. The results of these experiments will be sharedonce it becomes available.
References
Gannon, D. [ (2018, August). Building a "ChatBot" for
Scientific
Research.
Researchgate.
https://www.researchgate.net/
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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103

TOWARD THE NEXT GENERATION EDUCATION WHICH CONTRIBUTES TOREGIONAL REVITALIZATION WITH “KOSEN 4.0” INITIATIVE PROJECT
S. Toyama*,a, S. Akazawab, Y. Tawarac, F. Ikedad and Y. MurakamieaDepartment of Electronic Control Engineering,
National Institute of Technology, Nagaoka College, Nagaoka, Japanb
Department of Materials Engineering,
National Institute of Technology, Nagaoka College, Nagaoka, Japanc
Division of General Education,
National Institute of Technology, Nagaoka College, Nagaoka, Japand
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
National Institute of Technology, Nagaoka College, Nagaoka, Japane
Department of Civil Engineering,
National Institute of Technology, Nagaoka College, Nagaoka, Japan*toyama@nagaoka-ct.ac.jp
Abstract

air. Literacy education of AIR Tech has been begun
in all departments of our college.
Those threeeducation programs can lead our students to develop
their global awareness, entrepreneurship and AIR
Tech. This paper reports three good educational
efforts brought by those programs. The first example
is a venture company started by a student who makesa core technology useful for robot products. The
second example are some students who proposed an
AI business model, which is evaluated as the market
value of JPY 400 million in an AI business contest.
And the third example are some students who havedeveloped the creative equipment to solve a problem
of a Kenyan start-up company.

NIT (National Institute of Technology, Japan) is
expected to contribute following directions. The first
direction is development of human resource tosupport new industries. The second direction iscontribution to each region, such as education basedon distinctive industries. The third direction isacceleration and promotion of internationalization.
For those directions, the “KOSEN 4.0” Initiative,
which is competitive funds for strengthening of
education in each NIT college, has founded. NIT,
Nagaoka college suggested three education programs:
Vanguard engineer program for global engineers todevelop regional industry worldwide, NaDeC
Entrepreneur program to create new industry in our
region, and AIR Tech engineer education program.
This paper reports those three education programs
towards the next generation education. In the firstprogram, the new subjects “Global PBL I & II”
cultivate challenge sprits, communication ability andunderstanding of different cultures through problemsolving exercise with international students fromvarious countries. In the second program, NaDeC
means the concept of Nagaoka Delta Cone. Fourvertexes corresponding to the locations of four
universities and one college in Nagaoka City make ashape of delta cone on the map. These five institutes
arranged a consortium and named it NaDeC. The
consortium can produce various educational
opportunities for fostering of entrepreneur. In thethird program, the term “AIR” represents the newtechnologies of AI, IoT and Robot. This education
program aims to foster AIR Tech engineers who canfluently apply such new technologies like breathing

Keywords: Global Engineer, Entrepreneur, AI, IoT,
Robot Technology
Introduction
In a VUCA world, Japan's higher education hasentered a period of great change, as well as othercountries. As a higher educational institution, alluniversities and colleges in Japan are further required to
upgrade their functions, such as knowledge accumulation,
research promotion, cooperation with local industries andregional contribution (Japanese Central Council for
Education, 2018). Toward the next generation education,
National Institute of Technology (NIT) implemented the"KOSEN 4.0" Initiative in 2017 and 2018, aiming to
expand the strengths and characteristics of each NIT
college in the three directions of "human resource
development to drive new industries", "contribution toregional community" and "acceleration and promotion ofinternationalization".

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
18-21 August 2020, Turku, Finland104Each college of NIT is located in almost every
prefecture in Japan. NIT, Nagaoka College is located in
Nagaoka City, Niigata Prefecture, where it takes less than
two hours from Tokyo by the Shinkansen. Nagaoka Cityis the second largest city in Niigata Prefecture with about
270,000 inhabitants. With a successful oil exploration of
the Higashiyama moutain range in 1888, Nagaoka City
started its history as an industrial city. Because
electronics and precision machinery industries have also
accumulated in addition to the ironworking and casting
industries which have been cultivated by machine tools
for oil drilling, Nagaoka City is home to one of the largest
machine industry groups in Niigata Prefecture (Nagaoka
City, 2020). The Nagaoka area is the birthplace of afamous story of the "100 bales of rice" about theeducation of Mr. Torasaburo Kobayashi, who is asamurai of the Nagaoka clan in the late Edo period. This
story is often cited as a symbolic story of how patience inthe present can benefit in the future like education. Thatis the reason why Nagaoka City is very enthusiastic abouthuman resource development in techinical fields.
Therefore, the first technical high school in the prefecture,
Faculty of Engineering of Niigata University (moved to
Niigata City in 1980), and Nagaoka University ofTechnology have been established in this area.
Under such a historical background, NIT, Nagaoka
College was established by the strong demand andenthusiasm of the community as Nagaoka National
College of Technology in 1961. Initially, NIT, Nagaoka
College consisted of three departments: Department of
Mechanical Engineering, Department of ElectricalEngineering and Department of Industrial Chemistry.
Only Department of Mechanical Engineering had twoclasses, which means twice the number of students
compared to other departments. In 1968 during the periodof Japanese high economic growth, Department of Civil
Engineering was expanded. In 1990, one class in the
Department of Mechanical Engineering was reorganized
into Department of Electronic Control Engineering toaccommodate the spread of the Internet. In 2000,
Advanced Courses in Electrical and MechanicalEngineering, Materials Engineering and Civil
Engineering were established to provide more advanced
education for engineers. And NIT, Nagaoka College now
has five departments and three majors of the advanced
courses, which have been modified to meet the needs ofthe times.
For the “KOSEN 4.0“ initiative, the direction ofregional development in Nagaoka City was investigatedto deterimine how education reform of NIT, Nagaoka
College will proceed in the future. "Nagaoka
Rejuvenation Strategy" formulated as a comprehensive
strategy for Nagaoka (Nagaoka City, 2015) says that it isnecessary for young people, who will lead the future as
the main players, to develop a strategy of today's
Japanese society in which the population and vitality are
expected to decline in the future, with a long-term
perspective. Then, the basic action plans of thecomprehensive strategy were designed: (1) to create asystem in which young people themselves can participate,plan, and realize their own attractive city, (2) to create ahigh-quality educational environment to nurture children
who will be the future leaders of Nagaoka, and (3) tosupport the business development of present companies
and to promote new startups and attraction of enterprise.
Furthermore, Mr. Tatsuhiro Isoda, who is the mayor of
Nagaoka, says that it is important to revitalize theregional industry, retain young people and promote U/Iturnover. And he advocates "Nagaoka Version of
Innovation" that makes cross-disciplinary innovation bytaking advantage of the concentration of various higher
education institutions of four universities and one college
in Nagaoka City, and by adding new technologies suchas AI, IoT and Robot Technology (Nagaoka, 2018). It isalso recognized that it is necessary to develop a base for
globalizing Nagaoka's industry and to develop global
human resources, as well as to develop innovative humanresources with a background in technology, design andbusiness (Isoda, 2018).
In the direction of Nagaoka City, NIT, Nagaoka
College has proposed three projects as the “KOSEN 4.0”
initiative. Two of those proposed projects: the global
human resources development and the entrepreneurshipdevelopment, have been adopted in 2017. In addition to
those two projects, another new project of advanced
technologies that contribute to Industry 4.0 also has been
adopted in 2018. NIT, Nagaoka College has built ahuman resource development platform that fuses theseprojects to create and accelerate local industries andexpand globally. This paper reports on each project,which was established by NIT, Nagaoka College throughthe “KOSEN 4.0” initiative.
Methods
Prior to the “KOSEN 4.0“ initiative, NIT, Nagaoka
College has established "System Design Education
Program" to produce interdisciplinary innovator throughsolving various problems of regional companies(Tsuchida et al, 2015). The Education program is one of
the multidisciplinary education program of NIT,
Nagaoka College, which was established in 2013. The
multidisciplinary education program consists of the
Basic Course, which is completed in two years of fourand five years of the main course, and the Expert Course,which is an integrated four-year course from the fourthyear of the main course to the second year of theadvanced course as shown in Fig. 1. Since each course
program mainly consists of common classes to all
departments, students can take courses regardless of theirdepartment, and receive educational and researchguidance from multiple department staffs. "System
Design Education Program" is designed to develop
generic skills that enables students to derive solutions tomultidisciplinary problems. The core educational method
is JSCOOP (Job contents Search for local companies
based on COOPerative education). In JSCOOP, crossdisciplinary teams consisting of students from various
departments are organized and they visit local companies
for interviews. Through those interviews, students learn

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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about the history of local companies, consider what itmeans to work for local companies, and get informationon the problems of local companies. After the interview,
students formulate the problems and proposed theirsoluations in each cross-disciplinary team.
Through a series of learning experiences such as
information gathering, problem finding and problem
solving, students develop cross-disciplinary skills in the
Model Core Curriculum. The Model Core Curriculum
developed by NIT presents "Core", which is theminimum level of ability and content to be achieved by
all students of NIT, and "Model", which is a guideline forfurther advancement of technical college education. On
the other hand, the cooperating companies of JSCOOP
can get flexible ideas from students for their problems. A
good example of how collaboration can lead torecruitment activities has begun to emerge. Exactly, it isan educational program that can lead to innovation thatwill accelerate local industry. Under the direction ofregional development in Nagaoka City, NIT, Nagaoka
College discussed the direction of educational reform on
the occasion of the “KOSEN 4.0“ initiative. As
mentioned in Introduction of this paper, we decided tobuild a human resource development platform that
contributes regional revitalization by adding new
educatonal projects into the multidisciplinary education
program as shown in Fig. 2. The added new projects are
Entrepreneurship program to create local industries,
Global human resource development program to develop
local industries internationally and Education programfor new technologies such as AI, IoT and RT for realizing
an super smart society from the lower grades.

A new project PJ-1 shown in Fig. 2 is "NaDeC
Entrepreneurship Development Based on Nagaoka
Rejuvenation" project, which was adopted as a humanresource development program to create local industries
in the “KOSEN 4.0“ initiative. Based on “System Design
Education Program“ which aims to produce innovative
human resources, the entrepreneurship education
program adds education on commercialization and on
entrepreneurship. It is essential to secure teachers withdiverse expertise, experience and backgrounds forcommercialization education and for entrepreneurshipdevelopment. Therefore, the NaDeC (Nagaoka Delta
Cone) concept shown in Fig. 3 was established incollaboration with four universities (Nagaoka Universityof Technology, Nagaoka Institute of Design, Nagaoka
University and Nagaoka Sutoku University) and one
college (NIT, Nagaoka College) located within an 8 km
radius. In order to foster entrepreneurship, NIT, Nagaoka
College has entered into a comprehensive partnershipagreement with a prominent venture company, FULLER
Inc. as shown in Fig. 4. The president and CEO of Fuller
Inc. is Mr. Shuta Shibuya, who is an alumnus of NIT,
Nagaoka College. Since he and his colleagues organize alot of lectures and app development seminars under thecomprehensive
collaborative
agreement,
theentrepreneurial mindset has been gradually fosteredamong the students. For example, the entrepreneur Clubof NIT, Nagaoka College was launched in 2017.

Figure 3 NaDeC concept based on collaboration with Nagaoka
four universities and one college (The photo is provided by
Nagaoka City Office)Figure 1 Multidisciplinary education program

Figure 4 Comprehensive partnership agreement with aprominent venture company, FULLER Inc. (The photo isprivided by Nagaoka City Office)A new project PJ-2 shown in Fig. 2 is “Vanguard
Engineer Development Program for Driving theInternational Expansion of Regional Industries" project,

Figure 2 Platform of Human resource development tocontribute regional revitalization

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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106which was adopted as a global human resource
development program for the global expansion of local
industries in the “KOSEN 4.0“ initiative. The new
education program will produce global human resources
who will lead local industries in cooperation with otherinstitutes under the NaDeC concept and the overseas
academic exchange agreements. The students of NIT,
Nagaoka College are encouraged to establish "Nagaoka
Identity" and to cultivate international and diversified
perspectives. And they can form an international networkof the next generation engineers with the students of ouroverseas partner universities by making them "Nagaoka
fans" through the Vanguard Engineer Development
Program. In this project, new subjects "Global PBL I","Global PBL II" and “Global Debate“ have been
established. “ Global PBL I“ is JSCOOP with various
students under the NaDeC Concept and the overseas
academic exchange agreements. "Global PBL II" is heldin overseas as an international JSCOOP as shown in Fig.
5. “Global Debate“ is a debate class in English to promote
cross-cultural understanding as shown in Fig. 6. This
program is expected to produce engineers who love local
industry and play a leading role in the international
development of local industry.

technologies like breathing air. The curriculumorganization policy of this program is as follows: (1) To
introduce literacy classes for all departments in lower
grades of the main course as shown in Fig. 8 (a) to makeall students understand AIR technology as a familiar andindispensable technology. (2) To establish some PreLabs on AIR Technology for students in the middle
grades of the main course. The Pre-Lab system is one of
the extracurricular activities of NIT, Nagaoka College,
and the system can provide some opportunities of selfdirected practical activity to foster a spirit of inquiry forstudents. The established Pre-Labs hire some students
with outstanding skills of AIR Technology as teachingassistants. Candidates for such students can be foundamong those who have participated in some technicalcontests, such as NIT robot contests, NIT programming
contests and other events. Through such Pre-Labs, thefundamental know-how and skills for social
implementation of AIR Technology will be imparted to awide range of participating students. In the future, other
Pre-Labs for mathematical science and data analysys areplanned to open. And (3) To create some opportunities topractice AIR Technology for students in the upper gradeof the main course and the advanced course. Some
examples of such opprtunities are social implementation
projects by an interdisciplinary team based on the NaDeC
concept, or solving the local issues identified by JSCOOP
in collaboration with the IoT Promotion Lab of Nagaoka
City. In order to promote this educational project, the AI
room, which has 45 AI workstations, has been set up in
2019 as shown in Fig. 8 (b), and some IoT literacy
materials to provide a base for the above activities havebeen developed.

(a) Groupwork(b) Presentation of concept
Figure 5 Global PBL II in Guanajuato, Mexico (2017)

Figure 7 Registered trademark of AIR Technology

Figure 6 Glabal debate

A new project PJ-3 shown in Fig. 2 is "Developmentof AIR Tech Engineers who will be the source ofNagaoka Version of Innovation" project, which is a
literacy education of the lower grades for new
technologies such as AI, IoT and RT to realize supersmart society “Society 5.0“ suggested by Cabinet Officeof Japanese government. The purpose of the new projectis to train engineers who can naturally use AI, IoT and
RT to support the "Nagaoka Version of Innovation". NIT,
Nagaoka College calls AI, IoT and RT, which areessential for the next generation engineers, AIR
technology, whose registered trademark is shown in Fig.
7. Some literacy education and some social
implementation projects on AIR Technology develops
the next generation engineers who can naturally use such(a) Class on image recognition(b) 45 AI workstations
Figure 8 AI literacy class in AI room

Results and Discussion
This section reports three good educational efforts
brought by those programs. The first example is a venturecompany started by a student who makes a coretechnology useful for robot products. Fig. 9 shows the
opening event for the incubation facility "Tech Luncher"managed by the venture company. Mayor Isoda of
Nagaoka also came as a guest of honor at the press
conference of the opening event. Since “Tech
Luncher“ has a great facility with a good selection of

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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machine tools, they will pump fresh blood into theindustry of Nagaoka City. The second example are somestudents who proposed an AI business model, which isevaluated as the market value of JPY 400 million in the
NIT Deep Learning Contest 2019 (DCON 2019). The
students participated in a Pre-Lab Team, and they won
the Grand Prize as shown in Fig. 10. In the contest, NIT
students compete feasibility of their business plan withdeep learning technique. And the third example are somestudents who has developed the creative equipment tosolve a problem of a Kenyan start-up company in the new
subject “ Global PBL II“ as show in Fig. 11. Our students
proposed a machine that would solve a problem, which is
faced by a Kenyan local company, to sort insects by size
for livestock feed. They actually built the machine andtook the machine into the field to prove it in Kenya.
Thus, various ripple effects of the platform of humanresource development shown in Fig. 2 are beginning toappear. The next task is to design a curriculum that
fosters the ability to think and act more effectively in the
global era of the SDGs.

Conclusions
In this paper, we explained the direction of theeducational reform of NIT, Nagaoka College based on
the analysis of the current situation of regional
development in Nagaoka City. In order to build a humanresource development platform for creating, accelerating,and expanding local industries globally, the “KOSEN
4.0“ initiative has established a system that complements
the entrepreneurship and global human resource
development projects and education for new technologies
such as AI, IoT, and RT from the lower grades.
Acknowledgements
Those projects by the “KOSEN 4.0” initiative havebeen promoted with the cooperation of not only NIT,
Nagaoka College staff but also many other parties outside
the college. We hereby express our gratitude to all parties
involved.
References
Isoda, T. (2018). Nagaoka version of innovation, begins.,
https://www.city.nagaoka.niigata.jp/sangyou/
cate14/nagaoka-start.html.
Japanese Central Council for Education. (2018). Grand
Design of Higher Education for the Year 2040 (Report),
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science andTechnology (MEXT), Review of Japanese Central
Council for Education, No. 211.

Figure 9 Opening event for incubation facility "Tech Luncher"managed by Mr. Oishi, who started his own business while he
was a student of NIT, Nagaoka College

Nagaoka City. (2015). Nagaoka Rejuvenation Strategy FY 2015 - FY 2017 [Nagaoka City Comprehensive
Strategy for the Creation of Town, People and Work /Population Vision].
Nagaoka City. (2018). Challenges from Nagaoka Innovation -, News from Nagaoka municipal
administration.
Nagaoka City. (2020). Corporate location guide in
Nagaoka City, https://www.nagaoka-kigyoritchi.jp/nagaoka /history.html.

Figure 10 Pre-Lab Teams of NIT, Nagaoka College won theGrand Prize in DCON 2019 (Business contest with deeplearning technique)

Tsuchida, Y., Toyama, S., Murakami, Y., Akazawa, S.,
Kiryu, T., Ikeda, F., Iyama, T., and Tokoi, Y., (2015).
Cross-disciplinary education and research promotion
activities by System Design Innovation Center, Bullen of
NIT, Nagaoka College, Vol. 51, 87/96.
Tsuchida, Y., Murakami, Y., Toyama, S., Ikeda, F.,
Iyama, T., Tokoyama, Y., Tokoi, Y., Akazawa, S., Kiryu,T., (2017). Innovation Human Resource Education
through Regional Collaboration JSCOOP, Engineering
Education, Vol. 65, No. 4, p. 4_45/4_50.

Figure 11 An example of Global PBL II (JSCOOP in Kenya)
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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108

THE NATURE OF SCIENCE AND ITS IMPACT ON THE IMPROVEMENT OFSCIENTIFIC EDUCATION
J.A. Sánchez-Márquez*, a,aUniversidad de Guanajuato, CNMS, ENMS Salamanca, Salamanca, México
*ja.sanchez@ugto.mx , samj02@hotmail.com

Abstract

Introduction

This project focused on the study of the nature ofscience through readings described as historicallyaccurate narratives of great contributions andscientific developments in the fields of Chemistry,
Physics, Biology, Astronomy and Geology. The
introduction of the study of the nature of science had
an impact on the humanization of scientific work and,in general, on the improvement of scientific educationin students of the upper middle level. The phrase
Nature of Science (NOS, for its acronym in English,
Nature of Science) is commonly used to refer to issues
such as: What is Science ?, How does science work ?,What principles or foundations are Science supports?, How do scientists operate as a social group? And
how does society itself influence and react to scientificefforts? The answer to these questions is key in order
to eliminate the widespread idea that science iscomplex or exclusive to a single group of people.
Understanding the principles of the nature of science
allowed for a stronger scientific literacy in students
and motivated them to advance their scientificeducation. The study of the nature of science wascarried out through small readings developed in theform of historically accurate narratives about
scientific facts and developments highlighted in
multiple areas of science. These readings included
topics such as: The calculation of the age of the earth,the formation of the elements in the universe, thedevelopment of the Bing Bang theory, the conceptionof dark matter, the recognition of evolution, among
others. At the end of the project it was observed thata better understanding of the nature of science allows
students to understand that science can be recognizedas human behavior, increasing interest in science andscience classes and improving the learning of
scientific topics. It is important to note that the studyof the nature of science is the most importantcomponent of scientific literacy because thatknowledge is what citizens use when evaluating public
problems that involve science and technology.

Currently, in most countries we can see that a higher
percentage of students choose to avoid studying careers
in the area of science or engineering. This trend is linked
to the current belief that science majors are reserved fora select class of students. However, a less obvious cause
for this phenomenon may be linked to a null or
misunderstanding of the principles on which science isbased. In this sense, in countries like the United States,
the term Nature of Science (NOS) has been used to referto the concepts that allow us to answer questions such as:
what is science? How does science work? Are theirfoundations? Is it a human behavior, a set of knowledge
or a group of methods? How do scientists operate as asocial group? And how does society itself influence andreact to scientific efforts?
The answer to these questions is undoubtedly the key
to achieving scientific literacy and to attracting students
to the areas of experimental and exact science.
Knowledge of how science works will allow students torecognize science as a human effort; thereby increasing
interest in science classes; improving the learning of
scientific content; and promoting better social decision
making based on science and technology. The NOS
principles are the most important component of scientific
literacy because that knowledge is what citizens use
when evaluating public issues involving science andtechnology. Proof of the above can be found in recent
discussions about whether we should act on global
warming or whether we should do something about theanti-vaccine movement in various countries. Anotherimportant point to note is the fact that many brilliant highschool students choose to leave science as soon as
possible, in part because of misguided notions about thenature of science. Unfortunately, studies of students' andpublic's understanding of nature are extremely scarceand, in many cases, only limited to evaluating value
judgments about whether science is important or not, butnever delving into the People's idea of science and what
science really is.

Keywords: nature, science, scientific, knowledge,
narratives

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
18-21 August 2020, Turku, Finland109

Today, most people think of science as complex anddehumanized. This fact is not surprising given thatscience books, laboratory activities, and most audiovisualmaterials minimize the influences in the research
processes that eventually result in knowledge and portrayscience as a complex rhetoric of conclusions. Accurately
and effectively conveying the foundations of the natureof science plays an important role in making introductory
science courses more intelligible and meaningful to allstudents. Seymour and Hewitt (1997), in an extensive
study of why students drop out of science, wrote that "aserious cause of loss of interest was disappointment withthe perceived narrowness of their [science, math, andengineering] specializations as an educational experience... ". Tobias (1990) reported that several talented students
in his study reported that they were disillusioned with
science classes and chose different majors, in part,
because science courses ignored the historical,
philosophical, and sociological foundations of science.
Eccles (2005), summarizing several previous studies,
noted that we do a very poor job of accurately conveying
to scientists what scientists do. This lack of effectivenessin transmitting the foundations of the nature of science inthe curricular materials is due mainly to two reasons: thelack of bibliography referring to the foundations andprinciples of the nature of science and the little interest of
the editors incorporating these fundamentals into
textbooks for fear of losing market share.

on socio-economic interests and historical aspects, inaddition to being subject under permanent review. Thisimplies considering science beyond the static andunalterable body of knowledge contemplated in thescientific method. It supposes a conception linked to thesocial and epistemological, without neglecting theenvironment of the scientific community where their
hypotheses and theories are developed. It is essential toencourage students to ask themselves questions such as:
what is science? How does it work? What are its
foundations? Is it a human behavior, a set of knowledge
or a group of methods? How do scientists operate as asocial group? And how does society itself influence andreact to scientific efforts? The answer to these questions
will allow to achieve scientific literacy within institutions
and will attract students to the study of science.
Additionally, understanding how science works willallow students to recognize science as a human endeavor;
thereby increasing interest in science classes; improving
the learning of scientific content; and promoting bettersocial decision making based on science and technology.
Studying the nature of science will prevent many brighthigh school students from choosing to leave science assoon as possible, in part because of misconceptions about
the nature of science. Finally, the completion of thisstudy will contribute to support other teachers in theabsence of bibliographic material on the subject in ourcountry. This study should contribute to eliminating at
the root the idea that science is complex, dehumanized
and reserved for a select group of people. Given this, it isnecessary to build a broader vision of science that goesbeyond the static and unalterable body of knowledge
contemplated in the scientific method.

A solution to this problem would be in thedevelopment of materials that teach both the scientificcontent and the nature of science, so that they can be used
when and where teachers consider appropriate. It would
also be desirable for these materials to allow in-depth
analysis of important questions about how students
interpret instructional materials, and how they learn
aspects of the nature of science more generally. Thesematerials must emphasize that science and its
construction do not escape the historical context in which
the theories are generated and that, in fact, they areaffected by the values of the time. This is framed in thepremise that the teaching of the terms related totechnoscientific knowledge is not neutral, because theconceptions about the way science is constructed are
affected by ethical and moral factors of the scientists
themselves. In this way, values are present in pedagogicalpractice and in the way that concepts about the nature ofscience are adapted to a didactic dimension, to be taught.
It should be noted that for several authors, the term NOS
specifically alludes to the epistemology of science andrefers fundamentally to intrinsic values and assumptionsof scientific knowledge, while for other specialists, theconcept suggests broader aspects such as how science
works, what science is, how the knowledge it generates
is developed and built, and the methodology that used todisseminate and validate such knowledge, among otherissues. However, in both positions it is possible torecognize that the NOS seeks recognition of the implicit
values in the elaboration of theories and statements,
taking into account that science is not neutral, it depends

Materials and/or Methods and/or Pedagogy
During the realization of this project, four
methodologies were applied to incorporate the principlesof the NOS in the courses:
Methodology A
Take readings about the principles of the nature ofscience outside of class time. The students carry out thereadings at home and reflect on the principles on which
the nature of science is based on the questions includedin the body of the readings. It is important to emphasize
to students that it is important to carefully read thereadings and reflect on the questions posed. The teacher
can use two or three slides that refer to the reading and
key ideas of the presentation during the class in order toretrieve the content.
Methodology B
Do the reading at home and analysis in small groups
inside the classroom. Students take the readings,
individually, outside of class, but complete thecomprehension questions in small groups in theclassroom. In this methodology, the instructor has fewer
responses from the students to review and evaluate since
the reflection questions are agreed within the group.

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
18-21 August 2020, Turku, Finland
110However, this approach may be deficient in capturing
aspects of students' individual vision that are not includedin the final group responses. In order to reduce this aspect,
the teacher must ensure that all students participate in theactivity and that the point of view of each student is
considered in the group.

The concepts of the nature of science will be
introduced in groups of first, third and fifth semester ofthe bivalent program in three different geographicallocation (Salamanca, León and Guanajuato). The
readings will be included in the curriculum of subjects
such as Chemistry, Physics and Calculus.

Methodology C
Reading is done at home and the discussion is carriedout with the whole group in class. Students take the tasks
that the instructor directs during class time more
seriously. This approach allows the teacher to emphasize
the nature content of science in the readings. In thisapproach students share their ideas and the instructor canevaluate the contributions and interactions of the students
in order to improve their understanding of thefundamentals of the nature of science.

Results and Discussion
Fundamentally, the following aspects wereanalyzed in each methodology: the impact of eachmethodology on reading comprehension (reflection) andknowledge acquisition, the execution of the activity as
indicated, the impact on student learning, contemplated
when making the content retrieval by the teacher. Finally,
the observation was made by the teacher about therelational dimension student-student, student-teacher andstudent perceptions (Figure 1).

Methodology D
Reading and questions are done interactively in class.
The instructor reads a small section of the reading until
reaching the first reflection question embedded in the
body of the reading. At this point, he asks the group toreflect on the proposed question and gives them enoughtime to put their ideas into writing. The teacher canaccompany the reflection question with a practicaldemonstration associated with the element of the natureof the science under study. The key to the success of thisapproach is not to leave the entire document in advanceto the students and to have clear and instructional
activities ready that follow the same timeline of thoughtthat was modelled in the story. This approach is ideal tobe carried in demonstration classes or laboratory sessions.
Methodology to create effective class discussions.
Class discussion is one way that teachers candetermine how students process information. Under thisscheme students raise many misconceptions about thenature of science that can cause students to misinterpretthe readings and draw conclusions wrong about what
science is and does. In this sense, class discussion helps
students develop more precise points of view about
science. Here are some strategies to promote effectiveclass discussion:a) Use open-ended questions to frame the discussion.
IF your question can be answered with just a few
words or it is a Yes / No question, reframe thequestion so that it requires extended answers.
b) The questions included in the readings are all
examples of open questions. These questions can beused to provide a starting point for class discussion,
but you should be prepared to hear answers that
include misinterpretations of science.
c) Refrain from judging student response. If you want
students to share their thoughts and ideas, you
should avoid immediately evaluating the answers
as correct or incorrect. Instead, he recognizes his
ideas and works to get ideas from other students.
d) Build new questions from the students' answers toprevious questions.

Figure 1. A Conceptual Representation of NOS(NRC, 1996; Moss, 2001).

Methodology A
It consisted of students reading the principles of thenature of science outside of class time. For thismethodology, three readings were chosen, which were
provided to high school science students. The
introduction of the study of the nature of science (NOS),
was made with the following readings:
1. "Understanding Earth´s Age Early Efforts by
Naturalists and Chronologists"
2. “A Puzzle with many pieces Development of
the Periodic Table”
3. “Personalities and Pride Understanding theOrigins of Elements”
The students who followed the reflection questions
suggested in the reading by nature if science, showed agreater mastery of the knowledge acquired,understanding the contributions of scientists, vision ofscience, advances and importance of science in humanityand progress of technology. They were provided withcomprehension reading, also commenting that theinclusion of graphics made reading more enjoyable,
despite being in another language.

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
18-21 August 2020, Turku, Finland111

In addition, the students showed greater masteryand understanding of the subject, commenting that it waseasier to understand it and how the readings were left intheir classes. Students considered science readings
tedious, long, and heavy content. The articles provided
were not considered in this way, and the results
demonstrate this, as most of the students achieved a very
good knowledge acquisition and discussion from all three
readings. The students expressed that the scientific topics
shown in this way were more interesting for them, due tothe way the story was presented, as a talk as in their daily
life but with scientific data.

In carrying out this methodology, it was observedthat the students when expressing their opinions weremore critical and more eloquent when expressing theirreflections. The student-student interaction was good, assome completed the comment made by anotherclassmate. The advisor's direction was greater, and thatallowed for directing the reflections in a concrete way
and achieving more meaningful knowledge. The
opinions of the students about these readings were as
follows:a) The topics covered had already been seen insome of their UDA, and they did not avoid
making a comparison, the readings that refer tofundamental aspects of the nature of science
seemed easier to read and understand, comparedto the way in which information is traditionallygiven to them in class.
b) The moments in which they shared theiropinions encouraged the shy students to express
their opinions.
c) They found the readings of the nature of science
more interesting than looking for knowledge inbooks with specific scientific topics.
d) They identified this activity as a valuable
opportunity to practice their English whilelearning scientific knowledge.

Methodology B
This methodology consisted of the students doing thereading at home and the analysis of the questions in theclassroom in small teams. The introduction to the studyof the nature of science was made with the following
readings:
1. "Understanding Earth´s Age Early Efforts by
Naturalists and Chronologists"
2. “A Puzzle with many pieces Development of the
Periodic Table”
3. “Personalities and Pride Understanding theOrigins of Elements”
4. “The Realization of Global Warming”
By applying this methodology for the nature ofscience readings, a greater interaction between students
could be observed. They had very good discussions about
the topics presented in the readings. The English
language of the readings presented difficulties for somestudents, but when working as a team they were
supported by their peers and improved understanding of
the topics. Some practiced their English language skills
fluently. By working in work groups and sharing
experiences, they interacted to help each other andcomplete the reflections, showing respect for theopinions of others. Reflection questions included in thereadings made it easier for students to gain a better
understanding of the scientific topics presented. In thissense, the students showed a better understanding of thesubjects of science and the human nature of scientificwork.

Methodology D
In this methodology, reading and questions were asked inclass. Using this methodology, it was observed that thestudents showed less interest in the activity compared tothose methodologies where the students had previously
done the reading at home. It was also possible to observethat the time of the activity gets too long, and the rhythmof the class becomes slower. In relation to thefundamental concepts of the nature of science, it wasobserved that a more superficial understanding of thesesubjects was achieved and that the learning was lesssignificant for the students. The introduction to the studyof the nature of science was made with the following
readings:
1. "Understanding Earth´s Age Early Efforts by
Naturalists and Chronologists"
2. “A Puzzle with many pieces Development of
the Periodic Table”
3. “Personalities and Pride Understanding theOrigins of Elements”
4. “The Realization of Global Warming”

Methodology C
This methodology consisted of the students doing thereading at home and the discussion was carried out withthe whole group in the class. The teacher led thediscussion and reflections of each of the readings made,emphasizing the nature content of science in the readings.
The introduction to the study of the nature of science wasmade with the following readings:
1. "Understanding Earth´s Age Early Efforts by
Naturalists and Chronologists"
2. “A Puzzle with many pieces Development of
the Periodic Table”
3. “Personalities and Pride Understanding theOrigins of Elements”
4. “The Realization of Global Warming”

Conclusions
At the end of this project, the following conclusions
could be established:• The introduction of scientific concepts through thenature of science approach turns out to be more
efficient, entertaining and motivating for students.

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
18-21 August 2020, Turku, Finland
112

•
•

•

•

•
•

•

Effective Nature of Science Instruction. Science &Education, 15(5), 463-494.

By including reflection questions in the scientificreadings, the acquisition of more significant
knowledge by students is favored.
Do the reading at home and analysis the questions
in small groups inside the classroom allowed abetter student-student interaction that help students
with less command of the English language tounderstand and reflect better on the topics. The
student-advisor relationship was good and favoredthe learning and understanding of the students'
knowledge.
The inclusion of concepts of the nature of scienceenables students to achieve better scientific literacy
and a more comprehensive view of science. Science
was recognized as part of its environment and as an
essential element in understanding the world
around us.
Readings that included a nature-based approach toscience were liked by students; since the way ofrelating the facts in these readings seemed fun and"easier" to understand.
Students showed interest in these readings being
included in other courses.
When applying methodology C, the student-teacher
relationship was more effective and led tomeaningful learning of each of the topics of thereadings. It is clear from analyzing the results thatin order to carry out scientific literacy and awaken
scientific curiosity in the students, it is required thatthey follow directions and participate in theactivities.
When the methodology D was used, it wasobserved that the students showed less interest in
the activities compared to those methodologies
where the students had previously done the reading
at home.

Clough, M. P., Olson, J. K., Vanderlinden, D. W. &Bruxvoort, C. N. (2007). The Impact of Historical Short
Stories on Post-Secondary Biology and Geology
Students’ Understanding of Science Content and the
Nature of Science. Paper presented at the Association for
Science Teacher Education (ASTE) National Conferencein Clearwater Beach, FL, January 3-7.
Cromer, A. (1993). Uncommon Sense: The Heretical
Nature of Science. New York: Oxford University Press.

Acknowledgements
I would like to express my appreciation for the support
extended by the University of Guanajuato for doing the
research work.
References
Abd-El-Khalick, F. & Lederman, N.G. (2000).
Improving Science Teachers’ Conceptions of Nature of
Science: A Critical Review of the Literature,
International Journal of Science Education, 22(7), 665701.
Clough, M.P. (1995). Longitudinal Understanding of the
Nature of Science as Facilitated by an Introductory HighSchool Biology Course. Proceedings of the Third
International History, Philosophy, and Science Teaching
Conference, pp. 212-221. University of Minnesota.
Clough, M. P. (2006). Learners’ Responses to the
Demands of Conceptual Change: Considerations for
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
18-21 August 2020, Turku, Finland
113

ENHANCING LECTURER TEACHING COMPETENCEIN CDIO VIA WORKPLACE LEARNING
Sin-Moh CHEAH
Singapore Polytechnic, School of Chemical & Life Sciences, SINGAPORE
smcheah@sp.edu.sg
Abstract
This paper shares how the Course Management Teamof the Diploma in Chemical Engineering of Singapore
Polytechnic uses workplace learning based on the
70:20:10 Model of Learning and Development todevelop the teaching competency of its lecturers basedon the CDIO Framework to deliver its new spiralcurriculum course structure. The aim of the spiralcurriculum is to enhance student learning andretention of core chemical engineering knowledge,laboratory skills, and skills process operations (i.e.
skills in operating chemical plants). This paper first
briefly outlines what is meant by workplace learning,and explains why it is important for lecturers intoday’s context. It then shares the unique features ofour spiral curriculum, namely in terms of using“cross-cutting” modules that integrate with coremodules taught using “block teaching” approach.
This creates a unique learning needs for the teaching
team, because such a course structure requires that
more lecturers to be well-versed in teaching more
modules in a more intensive manner. This is a stark
departure from earlier teaching arrangement
whereby one lecturer teaches only 2 or 3 modules.
There is thus an urgent need to prepare our lecturers
in a timely manner to support the new spiralcurriculum course structure. The paper then presents
the 70:20:10 Model as an approach that portrays amore realistic approach towards learning, whereby
bulk of the learning actually took place in the courseof carrying out various jobs at the workplace (about
70% of the time). This is followed by an introduction
to the Adding, Embedding, Extracting Model(AEEM) to derive learning from work at each of thethree stages. The paper shares the author’s
experience with AEEM and provides examples at
each stage on how to develop lecturers’ competency toteach the “cross-cutting” modules and/or coremodules using “block teaching”. This paper
concludes with a discussion of main challenges faced
and key learning points gained.

Introduction
The Diploma in Chemical Engineering (DCHE)
course of Singapore Polytechnic (SP) adopted the CDIO
framework (www.cdio.org) as the basis for its 3-year
curriculum since 2007 to produce the next generation ofengineers. The framework provides students with an
education stressing engineering fundamental set in thecontext of Conceiving, Designing, Implementing,Operating real-world systems and products. Morerecently, we introduced a new course structure based on
spiral curriculum (Bruner, 1960) that took effect from
April 2018 for Semester 1, Academic Year 2018/2019(Cheah & Yang, 2018). It is an approach to education that
introduces key concepts to students at a young age andcovers these concepts repeatedly, with increasing degrees
of complexity. This approach is also known as a "spaced"or "distributed" approach. It contrasts with "blocked" or"massed" curricula, which do not introduce difficult
concepts until the student has reached a higher level of
education. The spiral curriculum course structure
requires a new way to teaching where lecturers need tobe more well-versed in several disciplines and also work
closely with other lecturers. This is important to ensurethat topics to be learnt are sequenced in a progressive
manner, so that modules within the same semester ofstudy can mutually support one another, and modules atlater semesters build on modules from earlier semesters.
Standard 10 of the CDIO Framework, “Enhancementof Faculty Teaching Competence” states the following:“A CDIO program provides support for faculty to
improve their competence in integrated learning
experiences (Standard 7), active and experiential
learning (Standard 8), and assessing student learning(Standard 11). The nature and scope of faculty
development practices will vary with programs andinstitutions. Examples of actions that enhance facultycompetence include support for faculty participation in
university and external faculty development programs,
forums for sharing ideas and best practices, andemphasis in performance reviews and hiring on effective
teaching methods.”
This paper shows how workplace learning is used toprovide continuing professional development to our

Keywords: Workplace Learning, Spiral Curriculum,
Teaching Competence, CDIO

114

team of lecturers to better prepare them to tackle thechallenges brought about by the implementation of the
spiral curriculum.
What is Workplace Learning?

section briefly explains the course structure for DCHE
and the special challenges in teaching that it presented.

Lee, et al (2004) charged that there is no singulardefinition or one unified approach to what “workplacelearning” is, what it should be, or who it is/should be for.
Bratton, et al (2008) noted that the term workplacelearning has become an established metaphor for
capturing formal, non-formal, self-directed collective
and even tacit informal learning activities. According tothese authors, it is an interdisciplinary body ofknowledge and theoretical inquiry that draws upon adultlearning, management theory, industrial relations,sociological theory, etc. Two other commonly
encountered words are: work-based learning, and workintegrated learning, which are sometimes usedinterchangeably with workplace learning. In Singapore’scontext, the Institute of Adult Learning makes thefollowing distinctions between workplace learning andwork-based learning (IAL, 2016):• Work-based Learning – prepares students for
employment. Examples include internship and traineearrangements, often undertaken in conjunction withclassroom learning.
• Workplace Learning – develops employees throughdoing the work. This development leverages onlearning that happens naturally in the workplace.
Our use of workplace learning is consistent with thedefinition provided by IAL. The next section explains theimportance of workplace learning for lecturer.

The DCHE Spiral Curriculum Course Structure forwas introduced in Semester 1, Academic Year 2018/2019
in April 2018l, starting with Year 1 students. A simplified
representation for Year 1 and Year 2 is shown in Figure
1. A key feature of the spiral curriculum is the use of“block teaching” and “cross-cutting” modules.

The DCHE Spiral Curriculum Course Structure

CrossCutting
ModuleCore
DCHE
Module

Core
Core
Other
DCHE DCHE Module
Module Module (Note 1)

Year 2
Sem 2

POS2

DCHE
2B-1

DCHE
2B-2

DCHE
2B-3

OthersYear 2
Sem 1

POS1

DCHE
2A-1

DCHE
2A-2

DCHE
2A-3

OthersYear 1
Sem 2

LPS2

DCHE
1B-1

DCHE
1B-2

DCHE
1B-3

Others

LPS1

DCHE
1A-1

DCHE
1A-2

DCHE
1A-3

Others

DCHE
Course(Stage 2B)(Stage 2A)(Stage 1B)

Year 1
Sem 1(Stage 1A)

Note 1: These include modules offered and supported by other (nonDCHE) diploma / school, e.g. chemistry, mathematic, etc.

Figure 1. DCHE Spiral Curriculum Course Structure
As can be seen in Figure 1, there are 4 “cross-cutting”
modules, one for each semester, shown as LPS1, LPS2,
POS1 and POS2. A “cross-cutting” module, in thecontext of our spiral curriculum, is one that integrate
topics covered in the other core modules and provide
students with hands-on experience that require them touse knowledge gained from these core modules. The
author is a member of the teaching team responsible fordeveloping a new 45-hr “cross-cutting” module
Laboratory and Process Skills 2, abbreviated as LPS2 in
Figure 1. The module is offered in Stage 1B (i.e. Year 1
Semester 1) and provides, in an integrative manner, thehands-on activities for topics covered in the 3 coremodules (60-hour each) within the same semester,
namely Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics, Heat
Transfer and Equipment, and Fluid Flow and Equipment,
shown as DCHE 1B-1, DCHE 1B-2 and DCHE 1B-3 ascan be seen in Figure 1. These 3 modules are taught using
the “block teaching” approach. Such coverage isconsistent with the horizontal integration of CDIO
Standard 3 Integrated Curriculum.
Figure 2 illustrate this for modules in Stage 1B (i.e.
Year 1, Semester 2\). The “cross-cutting” LPS2 moduleis taught over the full semester (15 weeks) whereas the 3
core modules, i.e. DCHE 1B-1, DCHE 1B-2 and DCHE
1B-3 are delivered in shorter duration. As such, “block
teaching” means a more “compact” teaching format. Thismeans that a 45- or 60-hour module now needs to becompleted within lesser weeks instead of over a fullsemester (15-weeks) which is traditionally the case. This

Why Workplace Learning for Lecturer?
Like many companies, academic institutions are
increasing turning towards workplace learning as a way
forward in continuing to hone the teaching competencyof its lecturers.
The challenges faced by academics in upgrading theirknowledge and skills are somewhat different from thecorporate world. Lecturers often find it difficult to taketime-off (say, 2 to 3 days) to attend training programs
during office hours, most notably because of clashes withteaching schedule, and the challenges of arranging for
make-up classes, that has to match availability of faculty,
students and classroom. On the other hand, school
vacation (which is fixed by the academic calendar) does
not offer much respite for lecturers either, as many aremaking use the time to catch up with a plethora ofadministrative work, module review, or serving as liaison
officers for students who are on mandatory internshipduring the vacation. Lecturers are also reluctant to makeuse of school vacation to attend training programs,
understandably because they want to use this time forfamily vacation or other short excursions.
SP therefore turned to workplace learning as a way toprovide continuing professional development for its
lecturers. This practice varies from school to school andfrom diploma to diploma, depending on each school’s
organization and the diploma’s course structure. The next

115necessarily means higher contact hours per week for themodule. Other modules such as chemistry, mathematics,
general education and stakeholder modules etc that areserviced by other schools are not integrated and aredelivered in the usual manner over the entire semester.

7
8

One of the main challenges in implementing the spiralcurriculum is the way teaching of modules will be carriedout. The combined impact of “block teaching” and“cross-cutting” modules is that more lecturers are now
required to be well-versed in teaching more modules in amore intensive manner. For example, a lecturer who had
been teaching DCHE 1B-1 in the past must now be
acquainted with the topics in DCHE 1B-2 and DCHE 1B3, in order to be able to effectively facilitate student
learnings in their learning tasks in LPS2; which containelements of all 3 core modules. In addition, a lecturer
must also be well-informed in how his/her module canleverage on student learning in earlier modules and also
how his/her modules can support later modules.
This is in contrast with previous course structure
whereby each lecturer tends to focus on teaching one or
two modules only. These lecturers may only haveacademic knowledge about the topics they are now
required to teach, acquired many years back during their
university days. More importantly, many of our lecturers
do not possess extensive working experience in chemicalplant operations, and as such will have difficulty relating
the topics in the spiral curriculum to real-world work
situations. Such condition necessitates the training of
lecturers in time for delivering the new spiral curriculum.
More importantly, due to the integrative nature of ourintegrated curriculum, it is highly unlikely that we canfind an external training program that can meet the needsof our lecturers. Even if there is one such training, it isunlikely that the entire teaching team is able to attend
such a training at the same time. The nature of training
required is therefore best delivered in-house using own
facilities in the laboratories. There is therefore a strong
need to consider lecturers professional development via
workplace learning, and the onus of delivering therequired training thus fall on the shoulders of the module
teaching team. This means we have to undertake

Other Modules

Core
DCHE1B-3

6

Core
DCHE1B-2

5

Mid-Semester Test

910

Term Break

11

16
17

Other Modules

15

Core
DCHE1B-3

14

Core
DCHE1B-2

13

Core
DCHE1B-1

12
Laboratory & Process
Skills 2

Stage 1B, Academic Year _________ : Week No.

4

Laboratory & Process
Skills 2

3

Core
DCHE1B-1

Challenges in “Block Teaching”

1
2

students also master core skills in chemical processing
technologies such as reading process flow diagram in
LPS1, interpreting piping and instrumentation diagram
and line-tracing in LPS2, and writing standard operatingprocedures for plant operation in POS1.

18
19
20

Semester Examination

Figure 2. Revised Course Structure for Stage 1B
Chemical Engineering Spiral Curriculum
The sequencing of core modules for “block teaching”
allows for better alignment with the various hands-on
learning tasks covered in LPS2. This is turn leads to more
effective student engagement and learning of key
concepts, and development of desired skills and attitudes(CDIO Standard 7 - Integrated Learning Experiences and
CDIO Standard 8 Active Learning) and student learning(CDO Standard 11 Learning Assessment).
Similar implementation of such “cross-cutting”
modules and “block teaching” in other stages of study
also enables the vertical integration of the curriculum.
Such a course structure allows better delivery of learning
outcomes based on the CDIO Framework. Using LPS2 asan example, in terms of a fully integrated curriculum(CDIO Standard 3), it can be seen that LPS2 is fully backintegrated with LPS1 in Stage 1A, and also forwardintegrated with POS1 in Stage 2A. An example would be
the integration of self-directed learning (SDL) skills in
DCHE, which started with enhancing students’ growthmindset in LPS1, explicit teaching of SDL skills in LPS2,
followed by applications in POS1, while at the same time

The 70:20:10 Model for Workplace Learning
Billet (2014) noted that over the past two decades,
through interviews with workers from a range ofoccupations about how they learn through and for work,
consistently they described it being premised upon: (i)engagement in work activities, (ii) observing andlistening and (iii) “just being in the workplace”. Working
is therefore highly intertwined with learning andconsequently as in the words of Michael Fullan:“Learning is the Work” (Fullan, 2011). Learning at theworkplace therefore mostly occurred through workrelated interactions, where skills were upgraded, andknowledge is acquired and is generally described ascontributing to the learning of both the individual116

employee and the organization as a whole (Cacciattolo,2015).
The 70:20:10 Model is a learning and development
model that arisen from the above observations. It statedthat 70 percent of learning happens in the workplacethrough practice and on-the-job experiences; 20 percent
comes through other people via coaching, feedback, andnetworking; and 10 percent is delivered through formal
learning interventions. It is a model that is easy tounderstand but equally easy to misunderstand. The
70:20:10 concept makes intuitive sense, as most of what
employees learn, they learn on-the-job during the courseof doing their work - that is where they spend most of
their time. Practical examples of 70:20:10 are shown in
Table 1.

It is important to note that the numbers 70:20:10
merely served as a useful reminder that most learning
occurs in the context of the workplace rather than informal learning situations and that learning is highly
context dependent. Despite the lack of empirical data
supporting the 70:20:10 distribution, it nonethelessremains the most popular percentages widely quoted andused by many organizations. As noted by Arets, et al(2016), it is not about the fixed ratio, but rather it is allabout the mix in learning approaches that can be designed
to bring about change. Blackman et al (2016) who studied
the model for its effectiveness as a model for middle
management capability development in the Australianpublic sector, cautioned that it is important the elementsin the 70:20:10 model should not be perceived to be
implemented in isolation. Rather, an integrated andcomplementary approach must be adopted. In practice,the 70:20:10 model is often implemented using the
Adding, Embedding, Extracting Model (AEEM) as will
be explained next.

Table 1. Practical Examples of 70:20:10
70 – Learn & Develop Through Experience• Apply new learning in real situations• Use feedback to try a new approach to an old problem• New work and solving problems within role
• Increased span of control• Increased decision making• Champion and/or manage changes• Cover for others on leave• Exposure to other departments/roles• Take part in project or working group• Coordinated role swaps or secondments• Stretch assignments• Interaction with senior management, e.g. meetings,
presentations• Day-to-day research, web browsing• Leadership activities, e.g. lead a team, committee
membership, executive directorships• Cross-functional introductions, site/customer visits• Research and apply best practice• Apply standards and processes, e.g. Six Sigma• Work with consultants or internal experts• Internal/external speaking engagements• Budgeting• Interviewing• Project reviews• Community activities and volunteering
20 – Learn & Develop Through Others• Informal feedback and work debriefs• Seeking advice, asking opinions, sounding out ideas• Coaching from manager/others• 360 feedback• Assessments with feedback• Structured mentoring and coaching• Learning through teams/networks• External networks/contacts• Professional/Industry association involvement or
active membership• Facilitated group discussion, e.g. Action Learning
10 – Learn & Develop Through Structured Courses• Courses, workshops, seminars• eLearning• Professional qualifications/accreditation• Certification• Formal education, e.g. University, Business School

AEEM for Workplace Learning
The AEEM (Adding, Embedding, Extracting Model)
for workplace learning (Figure 3) is a useful model thatcan be used for exploiting development opportunities in
the workplace and making informal learning more
effective (Jennings, 2014).
Implementation of workplace learning can beenhanced with the use of proper performance support(Arets, et al, 2016). Rossett & Schafer (2006) define
performance support as “a helper in life and work” thatprovides “a repository for information, processes, andperspectives that inform and guide planning and action”.
Performance support comes in many forms whether it isgetting guidance via a checklist, common time slot formeetings, help desk, access to experts, etc.

Figure 3. The Adding, Embedding, Extracting Model(AEEM) for workplace learning
Workplace Learning in DCHE using 70:20:10 Model
The 70:20:10 Model had been introduced by the SP
Management recently to build up staff capability using an
Individual Development Plan (IDP) where each lecturer
plans for his/her personal and professional development.
Consistent with the institution-wide initiative, the DCHE
Course Management Team (CMT) henceforth adopted

117the 70:20:10 Model to introduce workplace learning tobuild up staff capability in delivering the spiralcurriculum, in particular in the area of chemical process
plant operation, brought about by the use of “crosscutting modules” and “block teaching”. The DCHE
Course Chair formed three curriculum development
teams, one for each year of study led by one CMT
member.
Learning is built into the curriculum development
work using AEEM. Table 2 shows the work done in thethree stages of the AEEM, using the “cross-cutting”
module LPS2 as an example.

support for the rest of the teaching team. The first author
for example, conducted a 3-hour boot camp for the three
activities that he designed. To help the teaching team, healso drafted some brief guidance notes and preparedmodel answers for each activity. Similar performance
support was provided for the remaining eight activities.
On-going discussion was carried among team members
even after the LPS2 module was rolled out, where thelearning activities were finetuned.
At the conclusion of the semester, an After-Action
Review (AAR) of the module was carried out as part ofthe module review process. Items that worked and notworked were discussed; and areas of improvement
identified. Finetuning of support measures were notedbased on feedback from team members, and survey ofstudents on their learning experience in the module.
Lastly, it is worth noting that student feedback
indicated that students found the approach useful in
helping them learn better, although some initialadjustments were needed in keeping up with the more
intense contact (Yang, Cheah & Phua, 2021).

Table 2. AEEM Examples of Work Done in LPS2
Addinglearning towork

As members of the Year-1 Curriculum
Development Team to rationalize, streamline,
and sequence the content for “block teaching”
in consultation with Senior Academic Mentor
Time is set aside (Wednesday, 1 – 5 pm)
during the developmental phase so that all
involved do not have teaching duties during
this period, hence can meet up for discussions

Embeddinglearning
withinworkflows

Lecturer in charge of developing an activity
prepare suggested lesson plan for the activity,
model answers and sample calculations, alongwith brief guidance notes
Lecturer in charge of developing an activity
conduct a boot camp for the rest of theteaching team, at least 2 weeks before start ofsemesterOn-going consultation with lecturer
developing content: Just-in-time clarification(e.g. calculations or result analysis), updates
on errors previously not spotted

Extracting
learningfrom work

Carry out regular updates among teachingteam members via email, after every activity,
on new learning if any, or insights
Conduct After Action Review of entire
module at the end of the semester, identify
areas of improvement, prepare new
performance support resources, if any
Prepare facilitation notes based on teachingexperience during the entire duration of pilot
launch, to assist in the next run of the module

Reflections: Challenges and Learning Points
One of the key challenges in the development of themodule is that of coordination. During the earlier phaseof module development, numerous discussions werecarried out to scope and sequence the activities. This wasdone in parallel with the planning of how the “block
teaching” for the 3 core modules is to be done. The
development team also had on-going discussions withother colleagues who had the relevant industry/academic
experience for each of the activity being developed; andworked closely with module development teams for the
3 core modules in the same semester as well as module
development teams for core modules in the past andsubsequent semesters to ensure industry relevance,
proper integration and the right level of progression.
Scheduling these meetings become more challenging
when the semester got going.
Another challenge is to keep all team members
updated and abreast of the latest version of each activity.
This is because not all development work werecompleted before the start of a semester. The 11 activities
in LPS2 were conducted once per week over a period of
13 weeks within a 15-week semester – one week is taken
up for mid-semester test (MST) during which no classes
are conducted, and one week for make-up class in theevent of a public holiday (Figure 2). The module isdelivered to 7 classes each week. Despite the best ofintentions, and having cross-checked the design of eachactivity, not all mistakes were picked up before the startof the semester. As it turned out, several minor mistakes
were discovered during the delivery of the module.
The teaching team may not have been fully prepared
to deliver each activity exactly as intended. Simply put,the lecturer who designed an activity best knows exactly
how it is to be delivered. However, he/she may not beable to share every single aspect or insight required forexact delivery during the boot camps. Indeed, someinsights only came to us later, at the time of our own

The entire teaching team for LPS2 consists of 8
lecturers, whereby 5 lecturers (including the author) are
full-time staff and 3 are adjunct lecturers. The author andtwo lecturers (one from the teaching team and also a
CMT member) and another lecturer not from the teachingteam took the lead for the development work for LPS2.
The development of learning tasks was divided among
these 3 team members based on each member’s domain
knowledge. The rest of the full-time teaching members
are themselves leading the changes in other modules forexample DCHE 1B-1 and DCHE 1B-3.
Altogether these 3 team members designed a total of
11 learning activities (using the CDIO Framework) for
LPS2. Workplace learning takes the form of crosstraining among the lecturers. The lecturer who developed
an activity took the lead to provide proper performance118

delivery of the very activity itself. Due to timetabling
constraints, the authors’ own class is scheduled in the
middle of the week. Hence, it is not always possible toshare these insights in time with other teaching teammembers whose classes preceded our own.
Furthermore, to conduct numerous boot camps for alarge teaching team presents its own challenges due toavailability of all members, in particular adjunctlecturers. Lecturers who are full-time staff also had otherwork commitments. As a result, all boot camps had to be
conducted twice, with the hope that all members can be
briefed on what to do for each activity. Even then, several
one-to-one sessions still had to be arranged forindividuals who were unable to attend both sessions.
There was also an instance where an adjunct lecturer
pulled out at the last minute due to other commitments.
All these translated to more time and effort, to ensure allmembers were sufficiently prepared to facilitate thelearning process effectively.
Seen holistically, the most important benefit would be
the professional development of the entire teaching teamwithin office hours without incurring additional training
cost. The cross-training benefits everyone, working
collaboratively and growing professionally. Colleagues
who had the relevant industry experience and/or
technical know-how were able to develop as mentors,
and to help ensure knowledge transfer to younger
colleagues. The teaching team also learnt to step out of
one’s comfort zone and take on teaching of new module,of which some content could only be learnt “just-in-time”
before they had to teach students. The other benefit
gained was the enhanced understanding of the entire
course structure and contents of all related modules in thepreceding semester, current semester and subsequent
semesters, which is helpful taking on the teaching ofother modules.
Overall, team members expressed satisfaction withthe on-the-job workplace learning that was put in place.
The mutually supporting nature of our implementation of
70:20:10 model for workplace learning meant that every
lecturer had a role to play in training fellow colleagues
and in return be trained. Lecturers teaching some of thetechnical topics for the first time, in particular, reported
the usefulness of the boot camp. Everyone also
contributed positively to ways to improve the module in
the future.

learning and development to promote of a culture of
sharing among the lecturers, so as to further improve theteaching of chemical engineering using the spiralcurriculum course structure.
References
Arets, J., Jennings, C. & Heijnen, V. (2016). 70:20:10
into Action, 702010 InstituteBillet, S. (2014). Mimesis: Learning Through Everyday
Activities and Interactions at Work, Human Resource
Development Review, No.13, pp.462-82
Blackman, D.A., Johnson, S.J., Buick, F., Faifua, D.E.,
O’Donnell, M. and Forsythe, M. (2016). The 70:20:10
Model for Learning and Development: An Effective
Model for Capability Development? Academy ofManagement Annual Meeting, Aug 5-9; Anaheim, CA
Bratton, J., Mills, J.H., Pyrch, T. & Sawchuk, P. (2008).
Workplace Learning – A Critical Introduction, Higher
Education University of Toronto Press
Bruner, J.S. (1960). The Process of Education,
Cambridge MA, Harvard University Press
Cacciattolo, K. (2015). Defining Workplace Learning,
European Scientific Journal, Vol.1, pp.243-250
Cheah, S.M. & Yang, K. (2018). CDIO Framework andSkillsFuture: Redesign of Chemical Engineering
Curriculum after 10 Years of Implementing CDIO,
Proceedings of the 14th International CDIO Conference,Jun 28 – Jul 2; Kanazawa Institute of Technology,
Kanazawa, Japan
Fullan, M. (2011). Learning is the Work, Unpublished
Paper, from https://michaelfullan.ca/ (assessed Oct 11,
2018)
IAL (2016). Blending Classroom with Work andTechnology, Institute of Adult Learning Singapore
Jennings, C. (2014). Implementing 70:20:10, Inside
Learning Technologies & Skills, January Issue, pp.55-59
Lee, T., Fuller, A., Ashton, D., Butler, P., Felstead, A.,
Unwin, L. and Walters, S. (2004). Workplace Learning:
Main Themes and Perspectives, in Learning as work
research: Paper No. 2, Centre for Labour Market
Studies, University of Leicester

Conclusion
This paper presented an approach used to implement
workplace learning for lecturers teaching the Diploma in
Chemical Engineering based on the 70:20:10 Model.
While many of activities described in this paper are notnew, what is new here is the way professional
development for lecturers can take place, at least for theteam. The development work achieved via workplacelearning through development of the new module andpreparing colleagues for module delivery, we clearly see
the benefit of shifting from formal training that takes
place away from work to informal learning as part ofwork. The ultimate goal would be to use workplace

Rossett, A. & Schafer, L. (2006). Job Aids andPerformance Support: Moving Knowledge in theClassroom to Knowledge Everywhere, 2nd Ed., San
Francisco: Pfeiffer.
Yang, K., Cheah, S.M. & Phua, S.T. (2021). Evaluationof Spiral Curriculum for Chemical Engineering using
CDIO Framework, Proceedings of the 17th International

119

CDIO Conference, Jun 21-23; hosted online by
Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand

120

REPORT OF THE 2ND INTERNATIONAL HACKATHON
N. Shirahama*,a and T. FukudaaaNational Institute of Technology (KOSEN), Kitakyushu College, Department of Creative
Engineering, Kitakyushu, Fukuoka, Japan*E-Mail naruki@kct.ac.jp

Abstract

Keywords: Hackathon, Robot, IoT, Mobility,
Independent and collaborative learning, Competency
evaluation

We report on international hackathons conducted
at Kyushu Okinawa District College of Technology
and overseas partner schools. We mainly focus on
STEM education, producing many internationallycompetitive human resources adapted to IT andglobal societies. We have hosted international
ideathons and hackathons so far. The ITS Ideathon
was held in May 2018, and the disaster prevention
hackathon in November 2018. This paper describes
the mobility hackathon's detail in August 2019 and its
educational effects based on the background so far.
First, we introduce the management organization,
ProPolys (Progress Polytechnic Resources Growth
Consortium), as an industry-academia collaborative
organization to develop next-generation educational
engineering human resources.
Students from 8 KOSEN in Kyushu and fiveoverseas educational institutions participated in thishackathon. We created 11 mixed teams of students
from various backgrounds for interaction. The themeof this hackathon was mobility. Participating students
were required to solve problems and propose newvalues related to "mobility" with prototypes.
Students were able to freely use the Arduino-based
robot kit "mBot" and various sensors. Various
prototypes have been proposed.
Finally, we refer to the educational effects of thehackathon. To measure the effectiveness of education,
we made rubrics for the six skills of teamwork,
leadership,
problem-solving,communication,technology, and social contribution. Four levels wereset for these six skills for the participating students,
and they were asked to answer the level
corresponding to them. A, B, C, and D were givenscores of 4, 3, 2, and 1, respectively, the top threescores for each item would be "Teamwork" (3.17),"Social contribution" (3.08), and "Technology"(3.06). KOSEN students tended to score better thanthe previous hackathon. We can also confirm thetendency of Japanese students not to become leaders.
This international hackathon and its evaluation
method can be said as an example of advanced
engineer educational practices.

Introduction
In recent years, there has been a growing recognitionof the importance of fostering human resources intechnology through industry-government-academia
collaboration. However, in general, cooperation between
industry, government, and academia is still insufficient,and higher education institutions cannot always meet theindustry's expectations. In particular, there are still
various issues regarding the supply of technicalpersonnel to local industries. There is a severe shortageof engineering talent in recent years, and there is a strong
tendency for engineering talent who have studied at
technical colleges/universities to leave for the center. It
is essential to form a new community of higher education
institutions and local companies with various ideas andcreate value through cooperative research and joint
technology development to foster the next generation ofengineers and promote their employment in local
companies. We are working to build a network of higher
education institutions, human resources, and local
companies and create opportunities for human resource
development and hands-on learning through industrygovernment-academia collaboration.
We are engaged in educational activities at KOSEN(National Institute of Technology) in Kyushu (one of thefour main islands in the southwest of Japan), and weshare these problems. The percentage of graduates who
find jobs in their hometowns is low, and most of themfind jobs in metropolitan areas such as Tokyo, Osaka, andNagoya. Of course, it is not a bad thing for talented
people to be active in large companies. However, there
are also cases where people find jobs in major enterprises
and have a better life. What is essential is more
appropriate matching, and in order to halt the decline ofrural areas, we need a mechanism for engineers to settle
in rural areas through industry-government-academia
collaboration. In response to this situation, we haveestablished a general incorporated association,"ProPolys," (Progress Polytechnic Resources Growth

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland
121Consortium), to build a network between technicalcolleges and local companies, fostering human resources
and creating opportunities for hands-on learning. We areworking on the project to bridge human resources andspread awareness of manufacturing through industrygovernment-academia collaboration.
ProPolys aims to contribute to creating "Serendipity"
through the practice of "Planned Happenstance Theory."
The following is a list of specific goals.
••

asked them to work on a task in a short period. Instead ofcompeting by country or institution, have students fromdifferent countries and different schools form teams. In
the future, they will be working with a variety of people
from different nationalities and backgrounds. The mostpractical education for global engineers is collaboratingwith students from other countries on various issues
while still young. For example, consider problem-solving
for the SDGs. The ideas that the students come up withtend to be derived from their own lives and experiences.
Their ideas and thinking are highly dependent on the
country's social, historical, and cultural characteristics.
Team discussions can be a good opportunity forparticipants to understand that cross-cultural
understanding is also essential for engineers.

Establishing a network between engineering
personnel such as technical college students andlocal companies to foster excellent engineers andsecure human resources for local companies.
Realization of international exchange andinternship acceptance in cooperation with overseas
educational institutions similar to technicalcolleges.
Supporting the development of internationallycompetitive engineers based on STEM education
Realization of new insights through experiencesand encounters, and creation of opportunities forpurposeful learning and encounters with companies
that match our objectives

STEM Education Materials

We focus on STEM education to produce moreglobally competitive human resources that adapt to IT
and global society. In other words, it is about enhancing
various abilities such as initiative, creativity, judgment,
and problem-solving skills. IT, computers, andtechnology make this possible, and we will continue topromote a 21st-century educational system.

We adopted mBot as a prototype production material
for this hackathon. Hackathons require not only an idea
for a solution but also a prototype and a demonstration.
The students participating in this project have various
backgrounds, and it is desirable to avoid technical tasks
that require a high level of expertise and skills. Therefore
we decided to use Makeblock's mBot robot kit as it iseasy to realize ideas and has high scalability to present
various application possibilities. This robot kit can beeasily assembled with a single screwdriver, and its
functions can be expanded by attaching various sensors.
In addition, the robot can be controlled using a visualprogramming language based on Scratch, making it easy
to realize the idea.

Materials, Methods, and Pedagogy

International Hackathon 2019

This section will outline the reasons for adopting
hackathons for global engineering education and thematerials used in the hackathons.

This section describes the outline of the hackathon
that we conducted. The duration of the event is sevendays and six nights from August 18 to 24, 2019. The
participants will stay at the JICA (Japan International
Cooperation Agency) Kyushu Center venue to address
the challenges. The technical theme is "Robot x IoT x
Mobility." In addition to the mBot and various sensors
provided by us, there were no particular restrictions onwhat could be used, such as participants' smartphones
and servers that could be used openly. MOBILITY" heremeans "fluidity" and "movability." The teams willcompete to see what they can propose using "robot" and"IoT" to create a prosperous society. The teams will be
asked to think about why MOBILITY is necessary
according to the following flow.

••

Global Engineer Education and Hackathon
A shrinking population due to a declining birthratemeans a shrinking domestic market and a shrinking
workforce, including engineers, which will lead tochanges in the social structure. As the domestic market
shrinks, it will be essential to provide products andservices accepted in overseas markets. In order tocompensate for the decrease in the working population,
we will inevitably have to accept labor from overseas.
Therefore, it means more opportunities to work overseas
and with overseas engineers even when working in Japan.
Inevitably, engineers of the future will be required tohave global communication skills. We hope that byproviding as many students as possible with theopportunity to work on a single task in collaboration withstudents from overseas, they will acquire global
communication skills. To achieve this goal, we adopted
the Ideathon / Hackathon method that we use. We createda mixed team of overseas and Japanese students and

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Have a goal I want to achieve.
Need to move to achieve the goal
The destination is determined by the will
Choose the best means of transportation
Arrive at destination and achieve the goal
Participating students were invited from KyushuOkinawa area KOSEN and overseas partner schools.
Figure 1 shows the number of participants by country.
Since it was held in Japan, many Japanese students

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland
122The larger the number of participating countries andinstitutions, the more difficult it will be to manage, but
the more affluent the diversity of student learning will be.

participated. Many students from Hong Kong also
participated. The ratio of participants between Japaneseand international students was 1:1.38, with more
overseas students, which was a very favorable situation
as even students who were hesitant to speak English wereforced to speak in English. Figure 2 shows the number ofparticipants by the educational institution. The number ofparticipants from Hong Kong is higher because it wascounted as one campus. The participation of more than
12 campuses in 6 countries far exceeded our initialexpectations.

The flow of the hackathon
The progress of this hackathon can be divided into
four major sections. These are 1. factory tour, 2. idea
generation, 3. prototyping, and 4. presentation. A brief
overview of these sections is given below.
1. Factory Tour26

Before and after the event, we visited companies andfactories related to the technical theme of the assignment.
The purpose of these tours was to give the participating
students a first-hand experience of what technologies andproducts are needed in society by visiting robots
developed by companies and highly automatedautomobile production sites. Figure 3 shows a tour of the
Yaskawa Innovation Center of Yaskawa Electric
Corporation, one of the world's leading manufacturers ofindustrial robots. Figure 4 shows a tour of the Toyota
Motor Kyushu Miyata Factory. The students learned
about producing vehicle body colors and other parts toorder and quality control efforts. Also, we experienced
maintenance using VR at TOYOTA Production
Engineering (TPEC). All of these companies are in linewith the theme of "Mobility" and were selected for thetour to inspire the participants.

20

Count

20

10

8
4

3
1

0
Japan

Hong Kong

Singapore

Indonesia

South Korea

Monglia

Nationality

Figure 1. Number of participants per country

Count

20

10

10

Figure 3 Visit to the Yaskawa Innovation Center

8

6

6

4 4 4

4

2

3 3 3

2 2

1
a

Ka

go
sh

im

iro

e
m

su
sh
Ya
t

gj
in

Ku
ru

bo
se

Ye
un

O
ita

Sa

TP

G
M
U

YP
N

ot
o

hu

am
Ku
m

us
Ki
ta
ky

VT

C

0

Institution

Figure 2 Number of participants per educational
institution
Figure 4 Toyota Motor Kyushu Miyata Factory
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland1232. Outline ideas clearly

3. Prototyping

We did team building and idea generation at the sametime. Students' young sensibilities are full of potential togenerate new ideas, but they do not know how to generate
ideas efficiently. The first thing we did was to give each
student a practical exercise called "idea sketch. The idea
sketch is a process of expressing one's idea in a headline,
describing the details and supplementary explanations
underneath, and summarizing it as an article on a sheet of
A4 paper. Consideration is given to ensure that each teamcomprises students from as many different countries andeducational institutions as possible. Next, each teamworked on a "business design chart" to refine the detailsof their idea. This chart summarized the five aspects of
the idea: target, the value provided, benefits, the scope ofactivities, and success requirements. The work was donein parallel with the creation of a honeycomb map to
expand the ideas freely. Honeycomb map is a variant of
the Mind map. Figure 5 shows a scene of the exercise
using the Business Design Chart and the honeycomb map.
Finally, each team gave a presentation. The scene isshown in Figure 6. After completing the work describedabove, all 11 teams had their ideas and were ready for
prototyping the next day. Ideas such as "a guide robot that
can take the place of a guide dog," "a vehicle that can be
driven and controlled by voice even by people withdisabilities," and "all-weather bicycles and motorcycles"
were highly evaluated.

Once the ideas were firmed up, the teams worked all
day on prototyping. Once the ideas were firmed up, eachteam spent the whole day prototyping. The materials
given to each team were a mBot robot kit and various
sensors that could be attached. The robot can becontrolled by Makeblock, a visual block language like
Scratch, or programmed in C. Figure 7 and 8 show the
robot fabrication and programming and parameter
adjustment. We also assigned supporters familiar withrobotics to help them realize their ideas and solve any
problems in the fabrication process. Thanks to the
supporters, all the teams were able to complete theirrobots without any significant problems.

Figure 5 Generating ideas using honeycomb maps andsticky notes.

Figure 8 Robot operation check and parameter
adjustment by programming

Figure 6 Presentation of ideas

Figure 9 Final results presentation

Figure 7 Assembling the mBot, a robot kit.

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland124

4. Presentation

This self-evaluation rubric is identical to the one used in
the previous international hackathon.

The presentation contest was held at the Kitakyushu
International Conference Center on the last day. The
judges of this contest were selected from among thesponsors and experts in the field. The presentation
included a video demonstration. Figure 9 shows thepresentation.

Teamwork

Leadership

40

40

28
23

20

10

10

30

Count

Count

30

14

10

1

1

0

0
D

C

Results and Discussion

B

A

D

C

Level

Solv_probs

Communication

28

30

17

16

Count

Count

20
10

25

10

1
0

D

C

B

A

D

C

Level

B

A

Level

Social_Contrib
40

Technology
40

34

28

30

20

16

12

Count

30

Count

19

17

20

1
0

10
0

A

40

30

Teamwork
A. I can evaluate the activities of the team members.
B. I can mention my opinion or put out ideas actively andcan contribute to the team.
C. I can understand the importance of that work for theteam.
D. I could not do anything.

B

Level

40

We conducted a self-assessment questionnaire to
analyze the educational effects of the hackathon. The
format is a rubric with four levels (A-D) of achievement
for the six educational effects (Teamwork, Leadership,
Problem-Solving, Communication, Social Contributions,and Technology) that students are expected to obtain(Figure 10).

24

23

20

20

20

13

10

1

0
D

0
C

B

A

D

C

Level

B

A

Level

Figure 11 The histogram of self-assessment by six
competencies

Leadership
A. I can act with the leadership.
B. I can understand the way of better leadership.
C. I can understand the importance of leadership.
D. I could not do anything.

Teamwork

Leadership
0.6

Ratio

Ratio

0.6
0.4
0.2

0.2

0.0

Problem-Solving
A. I can understand several solutions and can narrow them
down.
B. I can describe with organizing and structuring theessence of the problem.
C. I can explain my proposal of solution.
D. I could not do anything.

0.4

0.0
D

C

B

A

D

Skill Level

Ratio

Ratio

0.6

0.4
0.2

0.4
0.2

0.0

0.0
D

C

B

A

D

Skill Level

C

B

A

Skill Level

Technology

Social Contributions
0.6

Ratio

0.6

Ratio

A

Communication

0.6

0.4
0.2

0.4
0.2

0.0

0.0
D

C

B

A

D

Skill Level

Social contributions
A. I can explain the possibility that our ideas can solve
world problems.
B. I can explain the possibility that our ideas can solve
regional problems.
C. I understand that our ideas do not contradict laws andmorals.
D. I could not understand anything.

B

Skill Level

Problem Solving

Communication
A. I can understand the process of consensus and can
improve if necessary.
B. I can present a keyword that triggers the idea.
C. I can present descriptions and figure correctly.
D. I could not do anything.

C

C

B

A

Skill Level
Country

InternationalJapan

Figure 12 The six self-assessed rates (compared to Japan)

18
56
43
2
1
12
47
48
60
34
8
58
55
22
40
50
26
11
17
3
57
14
46
38
25
4
16
24
13
27
42
30
44
53
61
52
51
36
7
32
54
41
39
19
31
49
59
5
28
21
23
33
15
35
10
20
37
29
6
45
9
62

0

10

Technology
A. I can propose an excellent prototype by combining
multiple functions.
B. I can create a prototype according to the technicaltheme.
C. I can explain the function of parts.
D. I could not understand anything.

20

Height30

40

50

Clustering by 6 compitencies

Students
hclust (*, "ward.D2")

Figure 13 Hierarchical clustering based on six
competencies

Figure 10 Four achievement levels of skill Rubric

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland
125Acknowledgments

For more information, please refer to the paper reported
at ISATE 2019. Figure 11 shows the results of the
responses to the self-assessment rubric in histogram
format. In the skill levels of A, B, C, and D, A is thehighest, and D is the lowest. Therefore, it can be seen that
"Teamwork" was the item that was rated the highest. If
A, B, C, and D were given scores of 4, 3, 2, and 1,
respectively, the top three scores for each item would be"Teamwork" (3.17), "Social contribution" (3.08), and"Technology" (3.06). This histogram shows that mostparticipants answered "B," the second-highest skill level,
for all items. Therefore, it was confirmed that theparticipating students had learned a lot from thishackathon. The item with the lowest number of responses,"A," is "Leadership." Since the number of leaders is
proportional to the number of teams, the small number of
responses is unavoidable.
The next step is to analyze whether there is any
difference in self-evaluation between Japanese andoverseas students. The results were tabulated forJapanese students and overseas students, respectively.
However, since the number of participants differed, thepercentage was determined. The results are shown in
Figure 12. There is no significant difference in the
distribution trend of skill levels A-D. However, more
overseas students are in Skill Level A and more Japanese
students in Skill Level B. Japanese students also gavehigh marks, but the self-assessment of overseas students
was even higher. The fact that Japanese students are notwilling to become leaders is consistent with ourimpression.
Finally, cluster analysis was conducted as an applied
analysis. In this case, we used hierarchical clustering by
Ward's method to conduct the analysis. The tree diagramof the clustering is shown in Figure 13. The hierarchicalclustering diagram shows that there were no clusters ofJapanese students of a specific size. We could not
identify any clusters with a high concentration ofJapanese students.

We would like to be deeply grateful to the Japan
International Cooperation Agency Kyushu for providing
the venue and many valuable suggestions. We would also
like to express our sincere gratitude to many companies,
including TPEC, effect, LAC, Ruby Development,
YASKAWA Electric Corporation, QTnet, ASKA
Corporation, YOU System, SEIKO Electric, Vintage,
DAICHI Koutsu Sangyo, Software Ryutsu Center, andNEC solution innovator and Toyota Production
Engineering corporation for supporting this hackathon asa sponsor. This work is partially supported by JST Sakura
Science Plan for the exchange program and Kitakyushu
Convention & Visitors Association. We would also liketo express our gratitude to the National Institute ofTechnology,
Kitakyushu
FoundationfortheAdvancement of Industry, Science and Technology,
Kitakyushu city, Kyushu Bureau of Economy, Trade andIndustry Fukuoka prefecture, Fukuoka Prefecture
Robotics & Advanced System Industry Development
Council for their support.
Finally, we would like to express our sincere
appreciation to ProPolys, the organizer of this hackathon.
References (Media)[1] NIKKAN KOGYO SHIMBUN (日刊工業新聞)(in Japanese)
https://www.nikkan.co.jp/articles/view/00529241[2] Report, FUKUKEI (福岡経済) October issue, 2019
(in Japanese)
References
N. Shirahama and T. Fukuda (2019). An International
Hackathon with the Theme of Disaster Prevention
Collaborating with Industry. Transactions of ISATE 2019,
The 13th International Symposium on Advances inTechnology Education.

Conclusions

N. Shirahama (2018). An International Ideathon with thetheme of ITS collaborating with industry. Transactionsof ISATE 2018, The 12th International Symposium on
Advances in Technology Education.

We conducted the second international hackathon
with 62 participating students from 6 countries and 12
educational institutions. The technical challenges were
IoT and Mobility, and 11 mixed teams created prototypes
and proposed concepts in presentations using mBot, a
STEM teaching tool. A self-evaluation questionnaire wasconducted with four levels of six skills required for the
next generation of engineers to analyze whether theylearned proactively from this educational event. The
results of the analysis confirm that they have learned a lot.
These are consistent with their free-text impressions. We
also received high praise from the participating faculty
members of overseas educational periods. Therefore, it
can be said that our main goal of providing opportunities
for future technical college students to be active on the
global stage has been largely achieved. We will continue
this effort in the future.

N. Shirahama (2017). An Approach to Introduction and
Improvements of Ideathon in ICT Education.
Transactions of ISATE 2017, The 11th International
Symposium on Advances in Technology Education,
pp.291-296.
N. Shirahama (2016). The practice of Active Learning by
Role-play of Start-up Companies. Transactions of ISATE
2016, The 10th International Symposium on Advances inTechnology Education, pp.275-280.
ATC21S (2017). Assessment & Teaching of 21stCentury Skills. http://www.atc21s.org/

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Collaboration of Educational Institutions and Industry in Kita-Kinki Region
Yasuo Utsumi*,a, Takuya Uenob, Kazuya Tamadac, Yoshinori Katoc,
Masanori Takahashid and Kozo ToshihiroeaNational Institute of Technology, Maizuru College/President, Maizuru, Japan
National Institute of Technology, Maizuru College/Department of Civil Engineering andArchitecture, Research Associate, Maizuru, Japanc
National Institute of Technology, Maizuru College /Department of Civil Engineering andArchitecture, Professor, Maizuru, Japand
PMI Japan Chapter/Adviser, Tokyo, Japane
Green Consulting Services/Delegate, Tokyo, Japanb* y.utsumi@maizuru-ct.ac.jp
Abstract
consists of nine steps in series, the problem finding,description of the whole problem and solution, thedescription of the relation between settlement andSDGs, targeting, raising the achievement, setting thevalue and KPI of the beneficiary, the construction the
project activities, ESG investment, and thecompletion and the report.

The decline of Japan's population and the birthrate have been making the society of aged people, andthe government is working on regional revitalization.
The population is decreasing in the Kita-Kinki region
as well, and 5 cities and 2 towns in Kita Kinki(Maizuru City, Ayabe City, Fukuchiyama City,
Miyazu City, Kyotango City, Ine Town and YosanoTown) have been responding individually or incollaboration. The following are considered necessary
to become a sustainable region for the future. 1) Buildthe system that can solve various problems in theregion by themselves. 2) Increasing the income of thepeople living in the region by promoting local
industry. Toward regional revitalization, domestic
cases in Miyagi prefecture for the recovery from EastJapan great earthquake and overseas cases in Spain
based on the project of EU Horizon 2020 are
introduced. According to the successful activities, theway of thinking of regional promotion is analysed interms of confronting problems, regional potential,
and the collaboration of stakeholders. The structureof four layers and how to weave the story to settle theproblem are indicated. Concerning to increasing theincome in the region, the current situation of KitaKinki region is analysed from the viewpoint ofregional economic flow analysis, that is, the value of
produce and sales, the distribution amount, and theexpended amount. Active companies clarified by the
influence coefficient and sensitivity coefficient may be
exploited to activate the region. As an example, theimplementation activities of the water levelmonitoring system in collaboration with Maizuru city,
KDDI, Omron and Maizuru College is described. It is
to prevent the disaster from the flood by small size ofrivers not always well covered by the government. To
make the above activities sustainable, the startup
methodologies related to SDGs are introduced. It

Keywords: aging society, region, economic analysis,
water level monitoring, SDGs, Startup
Introduction
Currently, the population of Japan is declining where
the birth rate is decreasing and the population is aging,and the government is working on regional revitalization.
The North Kinki region is in the same situation and has
many small settlements in the mountainous and coastal
regions. Self-help, mutual assistance and public
assistance are provided to ensure convenience in social
life such as securing transportation.
The 5 cities and 2 towns of North Kinki (Maizuru
City, Ayabe City, Fukuchiyama City, Miyazu City,
Kyotango City, Ine Town and Yosano Town) are also
responding individually or in collaboration. These local
bodies aim to be sustainable in common, considering; 1)
to construct mechanism to solve the problems bythemselves, and 2)to increase the income of the people
by the promotion of the regional industry.
The Concept of Regional Development
Experience of Regional Development in Japan:
Reconstructing activities after the Great East Japan
Earthquake in Higashi-matsushima City in Miyagi
prefecture are introduced. After losing infrastructure,industry and a large number of residents due to theearthquake, many coastal areas on the Pacific side had

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127

The problems and the Potential in the Region: Figure
4 shows the structure of regional potentials and issues
considered from the surveys. The local climate, culture,
infrastructure, public services, etc. are the first issues andchange slowly on a yearly basis. For example, the limitof renewable energy use can be estimated in advancedepending on the climate.
Problems common to developed countries such as
safety/security, declining birthrate and aging population,
environment/energy, etc. will become apparent as uniquefaced problems such as population decline and industrial
decline that should come 20 to 30 years later.
Local industry, academia including the author,
government, and private organizations responded tonational and local government policies and measures.
JASFA (2021) was established as an industry-academia
organization mainly by local companies. Taking
advantage of the community-based platform consistingof small and medium-sized enterprises, many projects aretaken interacting and cooperating with many habitants.
A hybrid pole with a self-sustaining power sourcefrom renewable energy was installed as night lighting in
the Hibiki Industrial Park where temporary houses were
installed (Figure 1). JASFA provided support for theestablishment of the Miyato area reconstruction andregeneration multipurpose facility "Aomina" (Figure 2)
conducted by local companies. "Smart disasterprevention eco-town" (Figure 3) is an example ofachieving sustainable living and energy supply. It
supplies housing and power from renewable energy
utilizing FIT, Feed-In Tariff.
Higashi Matsushima City was selected by thegovernment as an environmental future city in 2012 andas an SDGs future city in 2018.
Visit Survey in Spain: With the support of theGovernment of Japan and EU (JEUPISTE), theinvestigation was carried out to clarify the mechanism ofindustrial promotion in local cities in Spain and themethod of building smart communities during 2013 and2015. The cities visited are Barcelona, San Sebastian,Bilbao, St. Cugat, etc., and we interviewed stakeholders
such as industry, academia, government and the private
sector involved in the promotion of local industry.
Characteristics of activities in Higashi Matsushima
and Spanish cities: In Higashimatsushima City, thestandpoint of residents is considered, and the needs arematched with the seeds of the voluntary participants.
After grasping the resources necessary for thereconstruction project, individual projects were executed.
The unity of stakeholders and the participation ofresidents were effective.
Common things with all cities is that they wereinconspicuous and slowly declining areas and that there
were people aware of the serious situation. They carriedout planning and implementation by roughly following
the steps below.
1) Sub-leaders among stakeholders and members in asecretary position gather with 10 or less people. Theyclarify and share issues that were not manifested before,
but were implicitly known and worried.
2) They discuss the future for 3 to 5 years and make aplan. The overall direction and roles of each stakeholder
are shared.
3) In the plan, the division of responsibilities for eachwork content, cost in execution, and who takes the risk
are clearly described.
4) Even if things are not going well, they were
determined to continue working for about 5 to 10 years
with patience.

Figure 1 Self-sustaining lighting system in the area of
temporary houses

Figure 2 The regeneration multipurpose facility"Aomina"Figure 3 Smart disaster prevention eco-town

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issues related to each area situation, e.g. a landslide in themountains and a tsunami in the sea concerning to thedisaster. Organizations as stakeholders have individual
purposes and are influenced by economic trends.
Residents live as members of the organization.
The problems that can be solved are largely
determined by the combination of the region, thecapabilities of people and organizations. If solar power is
to be generated in the coastal areas of the Sea of Japan
where sunlight is difficult to obtain, it is necessary toconsider applications that require a small amount of
power generation in advance. If you try to solve a
problem using IT in an area where there is no IT industry,
the people concerned will come from outside the area anduse the local funds and resources, so the local resources
will flow out.
The ability of the entire region to solve problems
while supporting future life is considered to be thepotential of the region. If we can grasp this, we should be
able to predict whether or not the problem can be solved
and to figure out the concrete method to some extent, andat least can avoid fatal failures.
By describing the population, main industries, etc. foreach issue in Figure 4, the current state of resources,
energy, regional projects, etc. can be grasped, and thepotential of the region can be foreseen.
As a general procedure for solving regional issues,
according to the survey so far, the following procedurecan be considered.
1) Understand the needs and issues of the region.
2) Think of the region as a solution platform.
3) Plan a project based on the potential of the region.
4) Plan to procure the necessary resources.
Regional characteristics and strengths can beconsidered as seeds, and issues and weaknesses can beconsidered as needs. In order to realize the future image
that the residents envision, the facing issues are listed andpriorities are decided, but it is important to judge whether
or not the solution is possible according to the potential.
After deciding the problems that can be solved, it isnecessary to match the seeds to the needs and to connect
them with a story are necessary.

Infrastructures
life line, buildings, communication network,transportation, etc.
Company
Regional
Large, medium andnatureLocal
small scale
Education
infant, college, industry /economyetc.
Government /Local issues and needs
municipality- Safety and security,
Vital- Declining birthrate and aging
Local
statistics
population,
producNPO/NGO- Environment / energy
tion andMedia
consumption
Local
Financial
Citizens
ingredients
institution
and dishes
Culture, performing
Public services,
arts, festivals, play
medical care /education, etc.

Figure 4 Relation between regional potentials,
stakeholders and the problems
is decreasing faster than expected. Related concerns are;(1) The business of the company cannot be inherited.
(2) It is not possible to secure on-site humanresources in the area.
(3) There are few intermediate layers between
management and the field.
(4) Within 20 years, there is no place to work and few
people returning to their hometown to get a job.
(5) The age structure in the area and housing complex
should be considered.
(6) The population of depopulated areas is declining
due to the death of the elderly.
(7) There may be a problem with the structure of theJapanese social system, e.g. a flow of people from rural
areas to cities.
2) We need players who think positively about the future.
3) We should consider future activities that takeadvantage of the characteristics of the Northern Kinki
region.
4) There is a hidden waiting child for childcare.
Response to solve problems: The proposed efforts tobe taken by the participating members are;
1) Hiring and finding employment in the region.
(1) It is necessary to consider and explain the
difference between rural areas and cities, in terms of thesalary, living expenses, the housing and the charms.
(2) When employment, the school side considers thedifference in dealing with large companies / SMEs andparents / junior high school students.
(3) There are few opportunities for human resourcesin development and research to play an active role inregional companies.
(4) An internship for social experience and solving
problems at the company is effective.
(5) As a corporate issue, it is necessary to invest in
corporate public relations and human resource
acquisition.
(6) There is a wage gap between major companies
and local companies.
(7) How about trying to hire a business that solves
local issues?
2) Although there are subsidies from the Cabinet Officeand each ministry and agency, know-how is required for

The status of Kita (Northern)-Kinki region
The survey by Northern Kinki Regional Cooperation
Conference: ”Kita-re" (2021) is a platform operated by
University of Fukuchiyama, acting as "a base of wisdomand solidarity" between local communities anduniversities.
The theme “Proposals for building a compact city
based on SDGs in the Kita Kinki region" by Maizuru
College was adopted by Kita-re and the study was held
in FY2019. The purpose is to make concrete
recommendations to ensure the sustainability of thecommunity in the future.
Regional issues: The raised regional issues are;1) The biggest issue is that the population decline in the
Northern Kinki region will not stop. Between 2010 and2015, the number of people decreased by 15,000, which
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland129

application.
3) A list of efforts for regional infrastructure and regional
revitalization would be useful for information sharing.
4) I order to get a new way of thinking, a place to sharethe contents discussed here is needed, e.g. businessstructure, way of life in 100 years of life, collaboration of
local stakeholders on each issue.

⑤

head office, etc.

⑥▲

7.1% of GRP
83.3bJPY▲ ⑦

commutingincome1.0% of GRP
11.9bJPY

incomefinancial transfer(Government expenditures-Tax)
181.8bJPY

income④15.6% of GRP○⑧

Local inhabitant income

4263tJPY per person
national average 4181tJPY(767th/1,719 municipalities)

Distribution
1254.1bJPY

incomeincome⑨ consumption ○income①

Production/ sales

Regional Economic Cycle Analysis of North Kinki

income1167.5bJPY

Labor
productivity

Region Regional Economic Cycle Analysis: It is acomplex analysis centered on the inter-industry relations
table and the regional economy accounts for each local
bodies. Figure 5 shows the concept and an example ofNorth Kinki region based on the three aspects ofproduction, distribution and expenditure. It is positioned
as an "analytical method" that gives a overview of theflow of the industry and visualizes the actual state of theindustry (main industry / production spreading effect)
and the relationship with outside the region (import /export) (Development Bank of Japan, 2019).
The Ministry of the Environment has published aregional economic cycle analysis tool (2015). From theperspective of how to improve the income of residents
based on the local industrial and economic conditions, it
is possible to aggregate multiple local governments
together. The following uses the latest 2015 version.

▲②

7964tJPY/person
national average
9018tJPY/person

Energyproductivity○③

96.4mJPY/TJ
national average
79.0mJPY/TJ

income income
Energy price⑫ 0.1% of GRP(554th/1,719municipalities) (620th/1,719municipalities) ○ 0.8bJPY

74.6BJPY⑩ investment ▲Expenditure1167.5bJPY

6.4% of GRP

income6.8% of GRP

79.2bJPY⑪

current-account balance
7.0% of GRP

81.9bJPY▲

Figure 5 The concept and a regional economic cycle
analysis and an example of North Kinki area
these competitive industries, the possibility of solving
issues will be greater than in other industries.
Steps to promotion: Development Bank of Japan(2020) proposes possible steps as follows.
1) Activation of interregional trade: Labor productivity
can be expected to improve by shortening the timerequired to transfer goods in the neighborhood.
2) Activation of local procurement (clustering):
Strengthen the ties between sales and procurement
sources, resulting in improved labor productivity.
3) Fostering and strengthening industries that are the coreof regional transactions: It is expected that the
productivity of all industries in the region with which wehave transactions will improve.
4) Inflow of capital investment: If industrial activities in
the region become active, capital investment will occur
in the region, and labor productivity can be expected to
improve.

The Analysis in North Kinki: Given that there aremany other differences in production, distribution andspending, and it is necessary to reduce imports into theregion and increase transactions within the region, so thatthe all local bodies should work together. "Kyoto
Prefecture Northern Region Regional Cooperation
Metropolitan Area Vision" (2017) is appropriate forgrasping the current situation.
Specifically, regarding production, the industry thatgives the most added value by industry is public affairs.
In the manufacturing industry, ceramics and earth andstone products are followed by construction andchemistry. In the tertiary industry, next to public affairs,
there are housing leasing business, health and hygiene /social business.
Regarding distribution, the employer income of thetertiary industry is the largest. The income per capita atnight is 4.26 million yen / person, which is higher than
the national average.
Regarding spending, ceramics / earth and stone
products, public affairs, and electricity are earningincome from outside the region. Consumption is flowing
into the region about 10% of the consumption of local
residents. The investment has flowed out of the region
about 30% of the investment amount of local residents
and business establishments.
The core industries in the region are pulp / paper /paper processed products, chemicals, steel, non-ferrous
metals, electronic parts / devices, other manufacturingindustries, construction industries, Information andcommunication industry, etc. If resources are invested in

Examples of Activities of Maizuru College in Maizuru
City
Water level monitoring system for small rivers:
Maizuru City has been aggregated needs in society andresponding to them. Maizuru College collaborates interms of research / technology and developing a disasterprevention system by receiving feedback.
The contents of Maizuru College are analysis of theoutflow of the Shiraku River that flows directly into
Maizuru Bay and evaluation of the impact of tide level
fluctuations. If the river water level could be estimated ina few hours beforehand, residents could move to theevacuation center safely. Figure 6 shows the situation in
the eastern district of Maizuru City.
The Shiraku River has been flooded several times in
the past and is a second-class river with a length of 6.352
km, a basin area of 15.3 km². The analysis is performedin the middle basin. This is because there is pastmeasurement data and it is not affected by the tide level.
By using the amount of precipitation from the rain
cloud forecast of the weather forecast, a prediction of thewater level in a few hours is tried. Figure 7 shows anexample of the results of predicting the water level 1 hour

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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130

and 3 hours after the distribution of rain clouds at thepeak of typhoon No. 21 in 2017. Both results have an
absolute error of 0.79% or less and a relative error of
0.87% or less, therefore it can be used for prediction.
The developed system can be applied to another areathat has same inundation problem and also can be
implemented as an edge computing system withaccumulated data and expertise. North Kyoto PMS(Product Manufacturing Service) is being aligned to
produce such a system with a high performance PC called
AMATERAS (2020).
Cabinet Office Public-Private Partnership SDGs
Platform: The Cabinet Office started the public-private
partnership SDGs platform in 2019. The startup research
subcommittee, whose secretariat is the PMI Japan
chapter, is researching the method to economicallylaunch and sustain SDGs. Business startup are needed not
only to solve problems using existing resources, but also
to make the activities sustainable.
Maizuru College is exchanging opinions by reporting
the above-mentioned water level monitoring systemproject as an example in the advanced course. It is carriedout as the theme of graduation research, and it is desirable
that the next generation of young people be involved
under the situation of the declining birthrate and aging
population.
The scope of SDGs is broad, therefore it is usefulfor organizing regional issues. Problem-solving projects
require the cooperation of local stakeholders and havegreat significance to establish a methodology for starting
up in cooperation.

Figure 6 Activities regarding inundation in the easternarea of Maizuru City

Figure 7 Later Water level prediction 1 hour and 3 hours
in advance of Typhoon No. 21 in 2009
169 targets, according to the solution project, enables toclassify and organize the various issues and activities
obtained.
4) Set a solution goal: The list of the task and person in
charge allows to foresee the specific goals, necessary
resources and activity contents, activity period, etc. The
requirements as a project can be almost satisfied. Figure
9 shows a part of the target list examined.
5) List the results of activities: Organizing the results
obtained as a result of the activity and creating a logic
model make specific description of the relationships
between members involved in problem solving and whatto achieve.
6) Determine the value and evaluation index for
beneficiaries: After writing down short-term, mediumterm, and long-term outcomes for each target, a list of thebeneficiaries and benefits of the value can be obtained.
7) Assemble the activities to be performed: Each seriesof items will be reviewed and revised from time to time,
but a WBS (Work Breakdown Structure) will be createdfor implementation and then the structure of the entire
activity can be seen.
8) ESG (Environment Social Governance) investment:
Develop analysis and methods to fund project execution
and start-up. For example, consider the feasibility ofcorporate version hometown tax payment andcrowdfunding.
9) Implementation and reporting: Maizuru City isproceeding with some of the ongoing measures. Maizuru

Startup method associated with SDGs: From 2020,a basic course and an advanced course have been
provided. The former deals with the connection between
the basic matters of project management and the way of
thinking of SDGs. The latter is studying startup
methodologies based on actual examples. The steps to betaken can be described as below.
1) Discovery of regional issues through interviews, etc.:
Interviews and / or questionnaire surveys with local
residents are conducted. It is possible to get information
about the potential of the region and stakeholders, as wellas the background and past attempts that residents would
not know unless they lived for many years.
2) Draw an overall picture of issues and solutions: Createa lean canvas (2013) to realize a startup while solving
problems. Figure 8 shows an example of creating a waterlevel monitoring system for small rivers. First, write
down (1) customer segment, (2) issues, (3) unique value
proposition, (4) solution and so on. Exploring thepossibilities of a startup, all items are not to be writtenfrom the beginning. For example, (6) revenue flow and(7) cost structure require a survey of the regional
economic cycle, which can be postponed. If you can't
write convincing content in (1) to (4), there may be noregional potential, and (9) there is no overwhelming
advantage, the possibility of startup may be low.
3) Connecting problem solving and SDGs: The mappingof 17 SDGs goals, preferably the correspondence with
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland131College continues the above-mentioned activities as a
graduation research.
Firstly, it is important to carry out as much as possible
with self-dominant resources, and to provide information
through public relations, activities and open lectures.
Information would be shared with residents andstakeholders, and efforts will be made to acquire various
subsidies and resources.

【A. lean canvus】 Proof of Concept (PoC) of the construction of SDGs model project based on basic concept②Problem

・ It is necessary to predictfloods in small rivers.
・ It is necessary to disseminate
predicted river information.
・ Citizens need to handle
disaster prevention information
appropriately.
・ It is necessary to continuously
collaborate and share
information between the
research institute (Maizuru
College) and Maizuru City Hall.

Existence Alternatives

・ Flood prediction based on rain
gauge and water level gauge
information near rivers and pastexperience・ Water level measurement
method without communication
function (visual and wirelesscommunication)
・ Hazard map

Conclusions⑦ Cost Structure④Solution

A. Construction and operationof flood forecasting system(hardware)
B. Dissemination of disasterprevention information andmaintenance of system(organization / system)(software side)
C. Development of disasterprevention human resources③Unique Value Proposition ⑨Unfair Advantage(Company) Communicationsrelated companies, Local company(school) Elementary and juniorhigh schools in Maizuru City,
Maizuru College(Municipality) Maizuru City, Kyoto
Prefecture(Citizen) Maizuru and other area
citizens⑧Key Metrix⑤Channel・ Obtain information such as
water level and rainfall every
few minutes for 24 hours andvisualize it to concernedmunicipals.
・ Always inform the residents
of dangerous / warning waterlevel information when it
rains.
・ Improvement of citizens'
understanding of disasterprevention

Early Adopters

Self-help, mutual help + public ・ Local governments in areas
help
where disasters occur
・ Disaster prevention officer of frequently
the local government
・ Participants of the extension
・ Disaster prevention
coursepersonnel in national・ Elementary and junior highadministration
school・Workshop
・Open lecture⑥Revenue Stream

under discussion

Expected spillover effect: While there are many good
examples of solving regional issues at present, but it
seems that there is no established methodology that canbe applied to new issues.
The proposed method of organizing regional issues
from the perspective of SDGs and implementing the
project after grasping the regional potential and regional
economic cycle may analyse the success factors ofindividual cases and can be widely applied to regional
issues.
The next deployment: Continuing the current project,
the industry in Kyoto prefecture (Industry Association of
Kyoto, Creation Forest, etc.), the local bodies (5 cities, 2
towns, etc.), the academy (University of Fukuchiyama,
Kyoto Institute of Technology, etc.) are being involved.
More specifically, with the support of the Chutan
Regional Promotion Bureau of Kyoto Prefecture, theestablishment of PMS (Product Manufacturing Service)
is proceeded as a corporate alliance and the developmentof necessary devices and systems.
As the population continues to decline, we will aim
for sustainable Northern Kinki through the realization of
SDGs.

①Customer Segment

・ Communication and(Company) Communicationsrelationships of trust between related companies, Local
researchers, practitioners, and company
the community exists.
(school) Elementary and・ The track record ofjunior high schools in Maizuru
collaboration and earned trust City, Maizuru Collegeof stakeholders of Maizuru(Municipality) Maizuru City,
College has an overwhelming Kyoto Prefectureadvantage.
(Citizen) Maizuru and other・ This project can bearea citizens
implemented under the
existing system from thecontract research.

under discussion

Figure 8 Example of creating a lean canvas【C2.Target setting】 Extract keywords from SDGs business solutions and set target candidates by short, medium and long term
Solutionmeasures / goal

(A. from Lean Canvas)
A flood prediction system(Technology Seeds) will be
constructed to clarify theprediction accuracy.
A. Construction andoperation of flood
forecasting system(hardware)(From C1.ESG analysis)〇8. Both job satisfaction andeconomic growth◎ 11. Town development thatallows you to continue living○ 13. Take concrete measuresagainst climate change△ 17. Achieve your goals in
partnership✕ 14. Let's protect the richness ofthe sea✕ 15. Let's protect the richness of
the landKeyword extraction

Keyword expansion (target candidate)short・ Maizuru City, disaster prevention,
small rivers, safe living
・ Flood prediction, accuracy, rainfall
・ Maizuru City, disaster prevention,
gauge, water level gauge,
small rivers
communication system, data storage,
・ Flood forecasting, water level
big data, analysis, operation
gauge, communication system,
・ Stakeholder interest, community /data storage system
local government / company / school
・ Stakeholder interest
collaboration, sustainable partnership・ Systems and methods for launching
new businesses-

midium・ Big data, analysis,
prediction model, prediction
accuracy
・ Collaboration, development
and operation of residents /local governments /companies / schools

-

-

long

・ Safe living
・ Sustainable partnership・ Systems and methods forlaunching new businesses-

Figure 9 Example of target setting (part)
References
Study Tech (2013). What is lean canvas, Retrieved fromhttps://www.slideshare.net/studytech/ss-23454300
inJapanese
Ministry of the Environment, (2015), Regional economic
cycle analysis, Retrieved from http://www.env.go.jp/
policy/circulation/index.html in Japanese
Maizuru city, (2017). Kyoto Prefecture Northern Region
Regional Cooperation Metropolitan Area Vision,
Retrieved from https://www.city.maizuru.kyoto.jp/
shisei/msfiles/contents/0000003/3312/renkeibizyon.pdf
in Japanese

Acknowledgements
For activities in Higashimatsushima City and Miyagi
Prefecture, the authors appreciate Higashimatsushima
City (Mayor Hideho Abe, then), HOPE (Higashimatsushima Organization for Progress and Economy,
Education, Energy) (Chairperson: Yasutaka Iguchi, then),
JASFA (Japan Sustainable Free Powered Energy System
Exploit & Promotion Association) (Chairpersonn:
Yasutaka Iguchi, then), JEUPISTE (Japan-EU
Partnership in Innovation, Science and Technology, EUJapan Center for Industrial Cooperation), Ambassador of
Spain. Also the authors received the support and opinionsof Hasekura 2.0 project (Chairpreson: Renata Piazza) andother related parties. The development of the "water levelmonitoring system for small rivers" is based on anagreement between Maizuru City, KDDI and Maizuru
College, and we received various advice and support
from Omron and others. Regarding the promotion of theKita Kinki region, we exchanged opinions with
University of Fukuchiyama, “Kita-re”, “Regional
Techno Academia” of Maizuru college, and local
government officials in Kita Kinki region. We would liketo express our deep gratitude to everyone for their kindcollaboration.

Development Bank of Japan, Value Management
Institute, Inc. (2019). Methods and practices of regional
economic cycle analysis, Diamond Inc. in Japanese
Non-Profitable Organization AMATERAS (2020),
AMATERAS, Advanced Massive Architecture ofTechnology, Education and Research Accelerating
System, Retrieved from http://amateras.tech/wpa/wpcontent/uploads/2021/ 01/20201211- AMATERASv28.
pdf in Japanese
JASFA, (2021). JASFA, Japan Sustainable FreePowered Energy System Exploit & Promotion
Association. Retrieved from http://jasfa.info/ in Japanese
University of Fukuchiyama, Kita-re, (2021). KITAKINKI
Regional Revitalization Collaborative. Retrieved fromhttps://www. fukuchiyama.ac.jp/kitare/ in Japanese

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland132

Effectiveness and Improvement of Home Based learning:
What matters to my students?
Lim Choo Heang (Author)
Singapore Maritime Academy
Singapore Polytechnic, Singapore.
LIM_Choo_Heang@sp.edu.sg
Abstract

2. Based on the lecturer survey results, quantified
the lecturer opinions on HBL and theirsuggestion on HBL improvement.

Year 2020 was a pandemic year. Home basedlearning (HBL) was an inevitable mode of learning
due to the social distancing measures put in place.
For educators who have conducted HBL for a fullsemester, many wonder about students’ learning
experience and the effectiveness of their online
teaching; whether the students were learning moreor less the same ways as the physical in-classexperience, and if there were more effective means ofmaking the learning experience better for the
students.

The paper shares student’s and educator’s
experiences on:
 The positive or negative contributions of
HBL toward learning journey.
 The common problems faced by students
during HBL.
 The general expectation of students toward
HBL.
The paper also provide suggestions on: Educator preparation for HBL.
 The skills or competency requirements foreducators to prepare HBL.
 The software and hardware requirements toimprove HBL.

This paper shares the HBL experience of both thestudent and educator groups, through surveying
when both the groups have completed a full semesterof HBL in a diploma course within an institute ofhigher learning (IHL). The survey data collected on
their HBL satisfaction level, challenges faced andfeedback on areas for improvement were analysed
for the teaching team.

Keywords: Home-based learning, HBL, classroom,
virtual classroom, inevitable, student expectation,competency, software and hardware.

Analysis and comparisons between the perspectivesof the students and educators to be shared.
Suggestions for enhancing educators’ preparation,competency, software and hardware requirements
for future HBL experience to be included as well.

Introduction
Year 2020 was the implementation of full HBL within
IHL due to pandemic. In order for the IHL to better
understand the effectiveness of HBL on student
perspective, students survey has been initiated within
Singapore Polytechnic. I have a pleasure to review thesurvey result of a course and concluded my findings inthis paper.

Survey Method
1. Identified a group of students who hadcompleted a full semester of HBL to participate
in a survey. The survey to include questions on
students satisfaction level about HBL, theproblems they are facing during HBL andopinions on how to improve HBL?
2. Identified a group of educators who hadcompleted a full semester of HBL to participate
in a survey, to look for their opinion on
lecturing through HBL platform.

Students Survey and Results
There are 5 questions within the students survey. The
survey questions and data gathered are listed as follows:
Question 1(Multiple-choice) - The e-learning / lecturematerials in this module had been effective for mylearning?
Data gathered as follows:
Choices
Percentage
Completely agreed
17%
Mostly agreed
36%
Somewhat agreed
35%

Analysis
1. Based on the student survey results, quantified
the student satisfactory level, then analyst thefrequent problems faced by students, thensuggest improvement for HBL.

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland133Somewhat disagreed
Mostly disagreed
Completely disagreed

7%
3%
2%




The result shown that majority or 88% of the students areagreeing about the effectiveness of HBL.



Question 2(Multiple-choice) - The synchronous "live"
sessions in this module had been effective for mylearning?
Data gathered as follows:
Choices
Percentage
Completely agreed
15%
Mostly agreed
33%
Somewhat agreed
38%
Somewhat disagreed
8%
Mostly disagreed
4%Completely disagreed
2%

Lecturer – lecturer to pace his online lesson
based on student’s behaviour and mode.
Interaction – the interaction between lecturer
and student are in-sufficient.
Contents – clarity and ease of using the on-line
platform for contents searching to be further
improved.

Question 5 (Open-end) - Please share your goodexperiences about HBL in this module and tell us why?
Top 5 reappearing words gathered using word-cloud are
Good, Time, Experience, Lecture and Learning
Based on the top 5 words above, further reviews weredone on student’s feedback. It was found that the
improvement needed on e-learning as suggested by
students are:
 Good – The good parts of HBL are flexible
timing and learning under the comfortableenvironment at home. HBL is a very goodinterface period, for student to adapt the changes
from secondary school to polytechnic.
 Time - HBL required a lot of self-disciplines tokeep up with the HBL time-table.
 Learning – Book store and library are closed
during circuit breaker, and student unable to get
the necessary learning materials and stationary
for their lessons.
 Lecture – The lecture classes are recorded andability to replay for easier revision.
 Experience – Students are heavily depending on
e-social platforms (WhatsApp, Emails,
Telegram, FaceTime) for any discussion withclassmates and lecturers. It is a new experiencefor students.

The results shown that majority or 86% of the students
are agreeing with synchronous class are effective in theirlearning journey.
Question 3(Open-end) - Highlight the most important
areas of improvement for the e-learning / lecturematerials in this module.
Top 5 reappearing words gathered using word-cloud
software (aka. tag cloud or wordle) are Lecture,
Learning, E-materials, Clarity and Assignments.
Based on the top 5 words gathered, further review weredone on the feedback. It was found that the improvement
needed on e-learning as suggested by students are:
 Lecture – accessing and navigating the lecturenotes online.
 Learning – Opportunity to consult with lecturer
to further clarify the lesson and assignments
questionnaires.
 E-material – Time taken to complete thecomplex e-material.
 Clarity – Audio and visual clarity duringlecturing to be improved.
 Assignments – Assignments to help thestudents on examination preparation.

Educators Survey and Results
A survey question is done on educators about theirgeneral feedback & option about HBL. The data isanalysed using word-cloud, and the top 5 words gathered
are Students, Learning, Effective, Majority andAssignments.
Further reviews were done on lecturer’s feedback basedon the top 5 words above, and it was found as follows: Students – Lecturers are facing difficulties incommunicating and motivating the students
during HBL.
 Learning – HBL is done by simulating thelesson plan as it is physical in-class.
 Effective – HBL is effective on theoreticalmodules. However, modules involve workshop
practices,laboratory
experiments
andengineering drawings, the effectiveness islimited due to students unable to perform thetask physically and lecturer unable to gauge thestudent skills on site.

Question 4(Open-end) - Highlight the important areas of
improvement for the synchronous "live" sessions in thismodule.
Top 5 reappearing words gathered using word-cloud are
Live, Classmates, Lecturer, Interaction and Contents.
Based on the top 5 words above, further review weredone on student’s feedback. It was found that the
improvement needed on HBL are:
 Live - Clarity, duration & pace of the “live”
session.
 Classmates - Collaboration with classmatesduring class are missing.
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



case, the overall HBL experience is not as good as
physical class.

Majority - Lecturer found that majority of thestudents are actively engaged during online
lesson and HBL is generally effective duringlecture.
Assignments - Lecturers gauge the student’s
learning progress via assignments/assessment
received.

It is suggested that the lesson preparation for HBL to be
specifically planned as follows: The slides for each lesson to be graphic based,
and keep the explanation in words as extra
handout for student as reading material afterclass. Graphical based slides is better in drawing
student's attention during class. Then, thewritten notes may be distributed to students forfurther reference after class.
 Teacher to plan and utilise the breakout-room
function in the e-platform, so that the students
may experience better interaction with eachother during HBL.
 The teacher to uppgrade their audio system(microphone) to reason quality, so that the voiceclarity is improved for better understanding by
student during HBL.
 The teacher to upgrade their webcam to better
quality which is capable of 1080P and 60fps, sothat the student may see the educator's facial
expression, for better sychronising between
teacher and student dring class.
 During HBL class, the lecturer to dress instandard office wear, so that the educator appear
professional before the student.
 It is essential for the lecturer to appear in“dedicated-room“ for HBL. The room may be acorner of bedroom or living room, with plain or
decorated backdrop, as the view from thestudent's screen is never a complete room but a
portion of space. This is to create an conduciveclassroom ambient before the screen.
 During the class, lecturer to avoid all theunwanted background noise that may affect
HBL. Noise like door bell, bird chirping,laundry noise and background conversation to
be avoided as much as possible.

Suggestions of Improvement
Upon analysing the collected feedbacks, it is concluded
that the students are agreeing with HBL, however
following issues to be further improved: Clarity of contents
 Pace of teaching Collaboration with peers
 Opportinity for Q&A sessions with lecturer
 Ease of using the e-platform for accessing
module contents.
 Equipment supports (internet bandwidth,
computer, stationary, reference materials)
 Self-discipline (motivation to attend class)
While, the educators did agree that: HBL is effective for lecture class, however thethe effectiveness of tutorial and workshop basedclasses are limited.
 On educator perpective, the current HBLpractices are evolution of physical classroom;
only minority of educators carried out major
revamp to their teaching methods and lessonplan for HBL specified.
 HBL reduced educator interaction withstudents.
 Abilities for educator to observe the students
performance via facial expression or bodylanguage is limited during HBL.
Based on the conclusions above, educator are suggested
to further improve their HBL quality on:
 Lesson Preparation.
 Improving HBL skill.
 Software & Hardware requirements.

Improving HBL Skill Competency
In order to improve the HBL lesson skill, the lecturer tocarry out the following:
1. Professional look – educator to put up a proper
office wear and tidy look during HBL, as if they
are teaching in campus.
2. Familiar with the function of social platform(Zoom, MS Team, or Google Classroom) that isused for HBL class.
3. Test the audio and video equipment before
class, to avoid embarrassment.
4. Check the room ambient is suitably silent forgood audio recording. At the same time, use ear
phone for receiving voice feedback fromstudent, during class.
5. Teacher also needs to master the skill on
microphone handling, so that enhance voice
quality during HBL.

Lesson Preparation
PowerPoint slides are typically presented with bullet
points form during physical classroom teaching. The
pace of teaching physical class is specifically adjusted
base on observing the attending student's facial
expression and body language. At the same time, students
pay attention during physical class by observing the bodylanguages of lecturer, the slides displayed and the writingon whiteboard.
During HBL, the interaction between lecturer andstudents on facial expression, body language and whiteboard writing or sketching are limited, and caused theteaching and learning pace to be out of sync between bothend. In additional, audio quality during HBL may bepoorer due to resources limitation on hardware. In this
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6.

Educator to consider the lighting effect on video
capturing. Rule of thumb, the light source
should be facing the educator not behind theeducator.
7. A suitable backdrop at educator preference.
Else, a plain wall may serve the purpose as well.
When DSLR camera is used for video capturing,
the educator may consider using the correct len
for bokeh effect at his background.
8. Check correct presentation slide is shared before
class.
9. Educator to strengthen their skill in photos orvideo editing for best presentation effect inPowerPoint slides.
10. Teacher needs to enhance their skill inPowerPoint slides creation and utilise theanimation functions in the software for best
presentation effect.
11. During HBL, it is best to present the slides asmuch as possible in graphical forms. The
student is looking only at the screen during
HBL. When slides are only words, the student
may lost focus quickly. When the slides has lotsof graphical images (sketches, photos,
animation), then the slides may gain more
attention from students. When the graphicalslide is coupled with clear audio narrative fromeducator, the overall HBL experience shall
vastly improve.
12. The teacher need to master the operating skill ofwriting or sketching in e-tablet, for enhancing
lesson quality when mathemtical or chemistryformulas and/or any engineering sketches to be
demonstrated during class.
Whether the educator to stand or sit during HBL class, it
is up to individual preference. Some of the educators may
find that stand up lecturing is more effective.

Hardware are essetially required for improving HBL. The
hardwares include: a computer, good quality USB microphone. Microphonesuggested like Blue Yeti USB Microphone,
Audio Technica AT2020 USB, Rode NT-USB,or Shure MV5.
 webcam to capture high quality 1080p and60fps image. Webcam suggested like Logitech
StreamCam or Logitech Brio.
 Suitable backdrop. Backdrop may be just apiece of plain colour muslin cloth, plain or
pattern paper backdrop, or decorative wall.
 writing tablet (such as Wacom, Huion) for live
demonstrating mathemmical or chemical
formulas and any graphical sketching.
When the budget is permitted, the educator may further
improve their HBL hardware as follows: Teaching studio. Ideally a sound treateddedicated studio is best in performing highquality audio during HBL lesson.
 A good quality condenser microphone when adedicated studio is available, else a good quality
dynamic microphone like Shure SM7B with mic
activator.
 A good quality sound mixer and interface toadjust the gain, treble and bass of the educator's
voice for best audio effect. Suggested soundmixer cum interface like Creative Sound Blaster
K3+, Yamaha MG10XU or Behringer XENYXQ802USB.
 DSLR camera with interface to computer forhigh quality image capturing. When DSLR
camera is used, the educator may replace thestandard lens with large aperture type (belowf2.0) to create the bokeh (out-of-focus)
background effect. Camera suggested like Sony
A5100 or Canon EOS.
 Camera required a lot more light than humaneye for good quality image. The light needs tocome from the correct angle, to make theeducator look natural before the screen. The
most common setup for lights is called threepoint lighting. It consists of a key light, a filllight, and a backlight (aka. “hairlight”).

HBL class is similar to a movie. Nobody like to watch
a movie with poor audio, visual and story line. It isessential for educator to treat their HBL lesson as a live
streaming session to live movie. Attractive presentation
is essential for student to buy the product.
HBL is a three dimension (3D) presentation. First two
dimensions are the screen, and the last dimension is thevoice. All three dimension to work in harmony andquality, then the effectiveness of knowledge transfer may
be enhanced.
Software & Hardware requirements
Software requirements are latest Microsoft PowerPoint, Google searching engine for sources of photos,
short videos, and refence materials.
 MS Team, Zoom or Google Classroom for best
e-classroom experience and E-platform with ability for breakout-room.

Assuming the educator (subject) is at the center of aclock, with the camera is located at six.

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




Conclusion

The key light is located approximately at 4. It
should be the brightest of the three and provides
the bulk of light to your subject.
The fill light is approximately at 8, andeliminates shadows caused by the key light. The
fill light should be about half the intensity of the
key light so that it eliminates shadows, butdoesn’t produce a flat-looking shot due to thefill and key lights are matching too closely witheach other.
The backlight located somewhere between one
and two, separates the subject from thebackground. The light creates depth andprevents a flat-looking shot. The backlight canbe hard light (no diffusion), as it won’t create
shadows visible to the camera on the subject’s
face.

HBL lesson is an evolution of physical in-class teaching
due to advancement of IT technology, then it became themain trend during pandemic period.
Based on the preference of current young generation,
educator needs to master the live streaming skill at
professional level, so that their HBL lessons become
more attractive to improve the student’s learning
experience.
References:
For URLs:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2AlLG1iBBE (Online teaching) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwpi1Lm
6dFo&t=318s (Slides design) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKOx4h
ZKmOs (Which Mic?) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uHk4K
U1dZs (Webcam / DSLR)
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jiUpK0dhWTE (Video Lighting) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RCXfC
vh54I (Home Studio set up)
 https://www.techsmith.com/blog/get-perfectlighting-video/

Above shown the effect of lights on image's quality.

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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Effectiveness of Bite-Size Assessments on Students’ Performance
Cheng Sheau Chin*,a and Shella Tongba

Nanyang Polytechnic/School of Engineering, Smart Connected Solutions Centre, Singapore
Nanyang Polytechnic/ School of Engineering, Robotics & Automation Centre, Singaporeb*cheng_sheau_chin@nyp.edu.sg
Abstract

The study compares the outcome of bite-size
assessments against the traditional approach (closedbook, pen, and paper mid-term test and end-ofsemester examination). The study results showedstatistically significant improvements in the assessedlearning outcomes and students’ performance for thebite-size approach over the traditional high cognitive
load assessment approach. The failure rate decreased
from 7.9% to 3.6% and 30.8% to 12.5% for two
student cohorts from 2 diplomas involved in the
study. The number of students who scored grade B
and above increased by 6.8% and 12.5%,
respectively.

Teaching and learning comprise three crucialcomponents – curricular learning outcomes,
pedagogy, and assessment. Assessments play a vitalrole in fostering effective learning and provide
judgements of students’ work. This paper presents
the effectiveness of bite-size assessment on students’performance for Engineering Mathematics offered by
the School of Engineering at Nanyang Polytechnic. It
also highlights the guiding principles behind effective
bite-size assessment practices and gives insight into
how bite-size assessments affect the learning outcome.
In the bite-size assessments approach, evaluation oflearner’s progress is through continual assessments ofrelatively small learning units. The methodology
involves breaking a typical content-heavy assessment
such as year-end examination into bite-size pieces ofwork, such as class assignments, homework, quizzes,
and topical tests. Traditional assessment approachsuch as tests and examinations at the end of thesemester tends to direct students’ attention to grades
and marks.

The survey also reflects positive results on students’learning experience. The findings suggest that bitesize assessments enhance the learners’ retention ofknowledge and enable learners to monitor andregulate their learning. Students build a habit ofregular revision to become self-directed learners who
are responsible for their learning progress.
From the teacher’s perspective, bite-size assessments
provide useful feedback for intervention to improveand facilitate the students’ learning experience.
Learners receive timely and constructive feedback.
This helps them to firm up ambiguous concepts andbuild their confidence. The learners are motivated tokeep going on their learning journey.

The bite-size assessments approach integrates
assessments into the lesson plan. Lessons are plannedin the sequence of “learn-assessment-feedback”
cycles. A typical 2 hours lesson is re-organised into a
short lecture followed by related class activities suchas assignments and quizzes. Once the students havecompleted the tasks, the teacher will go through theanswers and wrap-up. Students will ask questions forclarification on any concepts that are unclear and theteacher will highlight common misconceptions thatthe students have. The bite-size assessments approachemphasises engaging and facilitating students in theirlearning and helps the students to achieve the learning
outcomes and attain better performance.

The study shows that the bite-size assessments
approach receives positive feedback from both thelearners and the teachers. This strategy could be usedby other modules and give insight to practitioners totransform their assessment method into bite-size
which is more learner-friendly.
Keywords: bite-size assessments, topical, feedback,performance, learning outcome, learning experience

Adaptation of ICT tools in assessment can facilitate
data capturing and analysis quickly so that theteachers can render timely intervention to close thegaps. The use of game-based learning platforms suchas Kahoot and Mentimeter makes assessments fun
and engaging.

Introduction
Teaching and learning comprise three crucialcomponents – curricular learning outcomes, pedagogy,
and assessment. Assessments play a vital role in fostering
effective learning and provide judgements of students’work. Most students tend to associate assessments with

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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stress and anxiety. For decades, formal assessments suchas tests and examinations are popular tools to determine
students’ mastery of a subject and serve as learners’
achievement indicators.
Traditionally, students learning was assessed throughhigh-stakes assessments such as mid-term and final
semester examinations. The bite-size assessment
approach aims to reduce heavily weighted testing tofoster deeper and more engaged learning. The tables
below show the assessment components for Engineering
Mathematics before and after the implementation of bitesize assessments.

solving, they can achieve the best learning outcomes. His
finding highlights the better learning experiences andmore effective and successful scenarios by having
focused “easily digestible bites” assignments related toeach mini-lecture.
Methods and Pedagogy
We experimented with the bite-size assessment
approach with a second-year Engineering Mathematics
module, “Differential Equations & Series”, which is acore module that has a relatively high failure rate of about
10%.

Table 1 Traditional Assessment Plan forEngineering Mathematics

Participants
The study on the effectiveness of bite-size
assessments was conducted on two student cohorts fromtwo diplomas: Diploma in Electronic Systems (DES) and
Diploma in Electronics, Computer & Communications
Engineering (DECC). A total of 92 candidates
participated in the study.
The intervention was made over 15 instructional
weeks. Pre-intervention data was based on 104
candidates from the previous semester using their finalscore. 8 students who failed and repeated the module took
part in both the pre-intervention (traditional assessments)
and post-intervention (bite-size assessments) observationand performance checklist.

Table 2 Bite-Size Assessment Plan for Engineering
Mathematics

MethodIn the traditional assessment approach, the syllabus isdelivered through a 2-hour lecture and 2-hour tutorial
weekly. The first term spans over eight weeks and wrapup with a mid-term test (closed-book, pen-and-paper).
The lessons resume after a mid-term break and continue
in the same manner for the remaining of the weeks. The
module is concluded with a final examination. Students
are given a week of study leave to prepare for the final
examination. On average, the failure rate of this module
is around 10%.

Many students struggle to learn more complex
concepts in Engineering Mathematics when their basic
concepts are still unclear. The problems compounded
conceptually and emotionally as complex questions are
impossible to solve without a good grasp of the basic
concepts.
Shavelson (2006) suggested that assessments aretools to provide active feedback loops that assist learning.
His conception is that assessments can be integral rather
than an add-on to teaching and learning. When thecontent is heavy and the pace of learning is fast, learners
may not have enough time to engage in the deeper
processes of organizing their thoughts. Cognitive Load
Theory suggests that our working memory is subject tocertain types of load and overloading working memory
impedes learning. From a cognitive load perspective, thebite-size approach will help to better manage working
memory than the traditional content-heavy approach(Clark et al. 2005). Wyer et al. (2004) suggested that it ispossible to allow learners to digest intellectually one
chunk of it, in tandem with topical assessments to provide
feedback about the students’ learning, make decision to
improve learning, before moving on to the next. He
presented in his research that when clinical learners areoffered mini-lessons assisted by clinical problem-

Figure 1 Traditional Assessment Approach

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139

The intervention was made over 15 instructional
weeks in the subsequent semester using a bite-size
assessment approach (see Figure 2). Lessons are plannedin the sequence of “learn-assessment-feedback” cycles.

Figure 3 Bloom’s Taxonomy for Assessment
Through bite-size assessments such as written or
practical tests, quizzes. mini projects, coursework
components and performance tasks, the teachers canidentify stronger students and explore the peer teachingstrategy – assign students with better performance toguide their weaker peers. Peer coaching is a win-win
strategy - students with poor performance benefit fromone-to-one coaching while the stronger students enhancetheir understanding of the subject from teaching theirpeers (A. Koh, 2018). Peer tutors tend to become more
confident with self-esteem improved.

Figure 2 Bite-Size Assessment Approach
Assessments are integrated into the lesson plan. A
typical two-hour lesson is re-designed with a shorter
lecture, followed by a related tutorial and assignment or
quizzes. After each assignment, the teacher will go
through the answers and give immediate feedback andclarifications based on the exercises. Stacey and Wiliam(2013) reviewed using Information and Communication
Technology (ICT) as an assessment and evaluation tool
to make it possible to collect instant feedback and analyse
individual competencies and needs. The findings basedon the data collected enable the teacher to diagnose andeliminate misconceptions, identify the areas that thestudents have difficulties understanding, and addressthese learning gaps before moving on to more complex
concepts. Teachers may also readjust the pace and finetune the lesson delivery based on feedback from theassessment results.
A topic could be taught over few weeks andconcluded with a topical test. The questions andassignments are designed with reference to various
cognitive complexity based on Bloom’s Taxonomy:
remember, understand, apply, analyse, evaluate, andcreate. (Bloom, B.S 1956). The use of digital tools andgame-based learning platforms such as Kahoot andMentimeter makes the assessment and evaluation process
fun and engaging.

Measures
There are two sets of data collected, of which both arequantitative data. The first set of quantitative data isbased on the final scores obtained using the two different
assessment approaches; while the second set ofquantitative data is a survey conducted at the end of the
fifteen weeks of lessons to gather the students’ andteachers’ perceptions on their learning experience using
the bite-size assessment approach.
Results and Discussion
The results show a significant improvement in overall
academic performance. Failure rate decreased from 7.9%
to 3.6% (DES) and 30.8% to 12.5% (DECC) 1 . The
number of students who scored grade B and above
increased by 6.8% (DES) and 12.5% (DECC) (see Figure4). This shows that the bite-size assessment approachproduces promising results and is applicable for adifferent cohort of students.

1 The module is common to a few diplomas that have a different profile of students and that it was happenstance that due to the

profile of DECC students, more of them face challenges in mathematics.
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Figure 4 Final score (Traditional vs. Bite-Size
Assessment Approach)
The survey reflects positive results on students'
learning experience. The findings suggest that bite-size
assessments enhance the learners’ retention ofknowledge and enable learners to monitor and regulate
their learning. Students expressed that bite-size
assessments provide an avenue to identify the areas thatneed their attention. Timely and constructive feedback
helps them to firm up ambiguous concepts. Knowing thegaps allows them to set constructive goals to excel.
Students build a habit of regular revision to become selfdirected learners who are responsible for their learning
progress. Learners become more confident andparticipate more actively during class discussions.
Learning becomes more enjoyable. As a result, thelearners are motivated to keep going on their learningjourney.
Figure 5 Survey on Bite-Size Assessments
From the teachers' perspective, bite-size assessments
provide useful feedback for timely intervention to close
the gaps. Students are seen to be more focused during thelessons. During class discussions, more students ask
questions and engage actively during class activities.

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland141

Challenges in Doing Bite-Size Assessments Approach

Third International Handbook of Mathematics
Education, Springer, New York, pp. 721-751.

Multiple bite-size assessments, in particular classtests, should be spread across the semester to provide
students with sufficient time to learn. Chambers (1992)
suggests that an appropriate workload is a key aspect ofsound studying and learning. Kember (2004) proposesthat students can be actively encouraged to work longer
hours to achieve the desired outcome if the assessment,teaching style, and curricula are well designed andmanaged. In view of these, we need to manage theoverall assessment load on students mindfully to avoid
raise stress for the students as students have to juggle
tests, homework, projects, and other activities during theweek.

Wyer, P. C., Keitz, S., Hatala, R., Hayward, R., Barratt,A., Montori, V. Montori & Guyatt, G. (2004). Tips forlearning and teaching evidence-based medicine:
introduction to the series. Canadian Medical Association
Journal, 171(4), 347-348.

Conclusions
The study shows that the bite-size assessments
approach offers many advantages over the traditional
assessment method. It is well-received from both thelearners and the teachers. The statistical improvement in
the final scores and the survey results both suggest thatthe bite-size assessment approach is more learnerfriendly. Although this paper is primarily based on
education experiences made within a mathematic
module, this strategy could be generalised to mosteducation courses.
References
Bloom, B.S., Engelhart, M.D., Furst, E.J., Hilland, W.H.,& Krathwohl, D.R. (1956).Taxonomy of educational
objectives, Handbook I: Cognitive Domain, New York:David McKay, vol. 19, pp. 56.
Chambers, E. (1992) Work-load and the quality ofstudent learning, Studies in Higher Education, 17(2), pp.
141–153.
Clark, R. C., Nguyen, F., & Sweller, J. (2005). Efficiency
in learning: Evidence based guidelines to manage
cognitive load. Pfeiffer.
Kember, D. (2004) Interpreting student workload andfactors which shape students’ perceptions of theirworkload, Studies in Higher Education, 29(2), pp. 165–
184.
Koh, A. (2018). The learning benefits of teaching: A
retrieval practice hypothesis. Applied Cognitive
Psychology, Vol 32, Issue 3.
Shavelson, R. J (2006) On the Integration of Formative
Assessment in Teaching and Learning: Implications for
New Pathways in Teacher Education
Stacey, K & Wiliam, D 2013, 'Technology andassessment in mathematics', M A Clements, et al. (Eds.),
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland
142

THE ROLE OF QUALITY ENHANCEMENT AND STAKEHOLDERS’ ENGAGEMENT
IN FACTILITATING STUDENT MOBILITY
S.T. Kwok*a and C.F. Yuenaa

Quality Enhancement and Accreditation Office, Vocational Training Council, Hong Kong
*stellakwok@vtc.edu.hk

Abstract

Introduction

Globalisation radically diminishes geographic
distance and increases cross-broader connectivity.
Engineers of the future workforce need to have aninternational outlook and competencies to collaborate
and work across both national and international
borders. To facilitate students’ mobility (bothinbound and outbound), different stakeholders havecontributed to quality enhancement of education
institutions and ensured that learning programmes
are academically and professionally recognised acrossboarder. This paper is a viewpoint article aiming toillustrate the ways different stakeholders have playedin enhancing student mobility. It also facilitatesreflection and discourse on quality assurance
practices with a view to enhancing the values andattractiveness of Vocational and Professional
Education and Training (VPET).

Since the introduction of Bologna Process in
European countries, mutual recognition of degrees andqualifications has been considered as an important part innational education reform, which based on principles
such as student mobility and equal access to higher
education. It also drives the move from top-down
reactive quality assurance to bottom-up proactive quality
enhancement in higher education. Since then quality has
been valued as an integration of institutional innovation,
academic tradition and social relevance, as well as
freedom of student choice in terms of individual mobility(Gvaramadze, 2008).
Amongst various disciplines, engineering plays apivotal role in the development of human society and is
not restrained by geography or artificial borders.
Multinational corporations, small and medium
enterprises and freelance engineers strive in the global
market to improve human living standards and create abetter future. Nevertheless, in the interest of public wellbeing and safety, not least professional standards,
engineers are restrained by respective national
regulations and licensure. To enable engineers to work in
the globalised market, education institutions need tonurture students with an international vision, and equipthem with knowledge and skills that are essential to the
future world of work, and internationally recognised
qualifications.

A variety of stakeholders is engaged to ensure
continuous quality enhancement of VPET
programmes, thereby cultivating high-calibre
engineering professionals who can excel in theinternational arena. Examples of key stakeholders
covered in this viewpoint paper are the government,
employers and industries, accreditation authority andprofessional bodies, education institutions andstudents. Instead of engaging in a bureaucratic
relationship, these stakeholders collaborate and go
through an ongoing review, discussion and capability
building process. This paper also discusses thedistinctive paradigm shift to workplace learning andassessment, and online learning programmes, as wellas the roles that they can play in facilitating mobility
across higher education systems in different
countries. The conclusions include insights to quality
enhancement so as to correspond to the ultimate goalof facilitating mobility of students and ensuring
graduates are equipped to work anytime in a
globalised workplace.

To support mobility of students and the workforce,the Education Bureau (EDB) of the Government of theHong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR)
and the European Qualifications Framework Advisory
Group conducted a comparability study of the Hong
Kong Qualifications Framework (HKQF) and theEuropean Qualifications Framework (EQF) (Joint
Technical Group, 2016). This study facilitates mutual
understanding of qualifications between Hong Kong andEuropean countries, thereby promoting the mobility ofstudents and the workforce for lifelong learning andcareer development.

Keywords: vocational and professional education andtraining, quality enhancement, student mobility,international recognition of qualifications, transnational
programmes

In Hong Kong, a number of transnational engineering
programmes are equipping students with practical skills

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland143

needed both in the local and overseas arena. For example,
similar to government-funded universities in offering
self-accredited engineering programmes, self-financing
VPET providers, such as the Technological and Higher
Education Institute of Hong Kong (THEi) and the Schoolfor Higher and Professional Education (SHAPE) of the
Vocational Training Council (VTC), offer alone orcollaborate with internationally renowned overseas
universities (e.g. Australia and the United Kingdom) tooffer accredited transnational engineering bachelor’s
degree programmes. At sub-degree level, a number ofhigher diploma engineering programmes offered by theHong Kong Institutes of Vocational Education (IVE),
operated and offered locally, are duly recognised byoverseas professional associations, thus providing
industry-recognised credentials to enhance student
employability overseas.

internationally, iii) offering workplace learning andassessment that promote students’ employability, notleast iv) online programmes that could expose literally all
students to the international landscape. This article also
facilities reflection and discourse on quality assurance
practices, thereby enhance the values and attractivenessof VPET.
Theoretical Framework
A stakeholder refers to any person or group that canaffect or is affected by an organisational action, strategy
or project (GPPAC, 2015). Stakeholder theory
emphasises that it is mandatory for an organisation toconsider and integrate needs of all its stakeholders inorder to maintain social responsibility and fairness, andcreate values to a common goal (Chapleo and Simms,
2010; Marić, 2013; Nwajiuba, 2020). In the higher
education of many developed countries, it is proven thatstructured cooperation among stakeholders is required
for effective performance of institutes (Danson andTodeva, 2016). In the current context, the government,
the employers and industries, accreditation andprofessional bodies, education institutions, and mostimportantly students, enable continuous enhancement in
the quality of VPET programmes provided, so that workready graduates are nurtured to meet the needs of
economies and international labour markets (HackPolay, Igwe, and Okolie, 2020).

As literature asserts, such transnational education andoverseas professional recognition enhance the cultural
capital of students (Zhang 2009), expand career
opportunities (Leung and Waters, 2013) and brought
students into international networks that enable further
mobility (Collins, 2014). Apparently, programmes of the
VTC do prepare students for a global and competitive
career in engineering. The development of online
learning programmes further enhances these
possibilities. With the use of technologies and virtual
communication means, online programmes go further tobreak the geographical barriers, overcome the constrainsof time and costs and facilitates flow of knowledge andinstant exchange of ideas.

Roles of Quality Enhancement and Stakeholders
Engagement

Notwithstanding a larger pool of engineers duly andmutually recognized across countries, the demand ofengineers still outpaces supply in many countries,
including Australia, United States, European anddeveloping countries (Scoy, K.V. 2021; U.S. Bureau ofLabor Statistics, 2014; UNESCO, 2021). Professionallyrecognised engineering programmes that provide
students with industry-demanded technical skills andtransferrable soft skills are essential to further enhance
students’ mobility. This certainly requires the shift from
quality assurance to quality enhancement within
education institutions to ensure that quality programmes
are always provided to nurture graduates for the global
engineering industry.

Quality Enhancement
The concept of quality is widely used in academic
institutions for many years. From “fitness for purpose”
to “effectiveness in achieving institutional goals”, quality
has been taken as a means to achieve intangible targets,inter alia, in terms of comparability, learning andsometimes in transformation of students or staff. Over theyears, higher education institutions have focused onbringing various learning and teaching related activities
up to a standard through close monitoring, objective
evaluation and rigorous review. Recently, quality
enhancement becomes a new focus to bring about
continual improvement in the effectiveness of learning
programmes (Elassy, 2015). In short, quality
enhancement refers to raising standard to a higher degree,
intensifying or magnifying it (Williams, 2016). To
achieve this goal, higher education institutions need totake the responsibilities for purposely develop and enact
a more holistic internal quality assurance system to drive
continuous improvement. Such structural enhancement
relies on the contribution and support from various
stakeholders in particular to enhance students’ education
experience,
knowledge,
skillsandattitudes(Gvaramadze, 2008).

Objectives
Consolidating literatures and the experience gained
from quality enhancing vocationally oriented
engineering programmes, this viewpoint article applied
the stakeholder theory to illustrate the ways different
stakeholders have contributed to enhancing student
mobility in Hong Kong. Such contribution includes but
not limited to i) creating a conducive environment to
student mobility through policy and funding support; ii)
developing and managing learning programmes that are
academically and professionally recognised locally and14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland
144

Quality assurance of the whole assessment cycle ofthe programmes being offered is essential but not
sufficient to guarantee student mobility. Hence, anintegrated team that comprises a variety of stakeholders
is required to establish shared academic standards as well
as joint quality assurance structure for achieving thegoalsofmobility,
qualityassuranceandinternationalisation of transnational programmes.

Employers and Industries
Multinational corporations, employers, professional
and industry associations demand and appreciate formore international experience from students.
International exposure diversifies students’ knowledge
and skills and often drives innovative ideas. It also helps
build important business and diplomatic bridges aroundthe world and bring positive impact to long-termcompetitiveness of companies. Alike the role ofgovernments, employers and industries serve as
resource-providers and engage in a variety of means tofacilitate student mobility.

Government
The Government is one of the major stakeholders inHong Kong. The HKSAR Government provides avariety of funding to VPET students to facilitate their
participation in different outbound activities, including
study tours, volunteer service projects and international
conferences. The support not only facilitates students’mobility but also fosters closer ties with internationalcounterparts. For instance, starting from the 2014/15, theGovernment provides annual funding for post-secondary
institutions offering full-time locally accredited
undergraduate programmes (including transnational
degree programmes) to subsidise financially needy
students of such programmes to participate ininternational exchange activities. The Government also
grants Reaching Out Awards to equip students with aninternational vision and broaden their exposure to
multicultural environment abroad.
In 2020, theGovernment furthered the effort by establishing theGreater Bay Area Youth Employment Scheme. This
scheme supports young people to work and pursue theircareer in the cities of the Greater Bay Area (GBA) of
China.

In Hong Kong, VPET providers signed a number ofagreements with corporations so as to enhancecollaboration and increase student employability andmobility through internships and visits. Employers andindustry representatives are also consulted and engaged
in programme development and curriculum design,learning and teaching activities, supervising students inprojects and internships, and contribute to programme
accreditation. For example, Training Boards whose
members come from multinational corporations, small
and medium enterprises, are established to formallyadvise the VTC on manpower trends and industry
development. Employers are formally engaged in thequality enhancement process, for instance, as external
examiners of specific programmes, members ofprogramme validation panels, and expert members of
external accreditation exercises to ensure that VPET
graduates meet industrial, societal and international
expectations.

Apart from the HKSAR Government, the ChineseCentral Government also provides supports to stimulate
student mobility. Recent examples included 18 newmeasures formulated by the Shenzhen Municipal
People’s Government in March 2021 to facilitate Hong
Kong youth to live and set up new business in Shenzhen.
These new and innovative measures included supporting
Hong Kong students in internship, traineeship, andemployment in Shenzhen, and enabling them to benefit
from the corresponding subsidies, residence permits andhousing securities policies in the fast-growing GBA.

With reference to the best practices and successful
experiences in many countries abroad, the VTC
introduced a web-based workplace learning andassessment (WLA) platform starting from 2019/20 tofacilitate the acquisition of professional skills among
engineering students. Through participating in WLA,
employers and industry trainers help engineering
students to integrate learning with job attachment. Since
the online assessment platform can be used to assess
students’ performance and skills real-time without thelimitation of geographic location, overseas employers
can also be engaged and help institutions to track student
progress and facilitate students’ mobility. The feedback
collected from the employers and industry trainers inthese learning and teaching activities can also enhance
the quality of programmes such that the curriculum andtraining contents are on par with the needs of the
globalised engineering industry.

While public funding has remained a pivotal elementof HKSAR Governments’ strategy to maintain andpromote mobility of talents, long-term policy support that
contribute to a cultural change in the VPET sector whereinternational student mobility becomes a natural andintegral part of all learning programmes deserve more
attention. Reference can be drawn from the recent White
Paper to the Norwegian Parliament. In this white paper,
a holistic approach to integrate mandatory student
mobility in higher education is described (Norwegian
Agency for International Cooperation and Quality
Enhancement in Higher Education, 2020).

Accreditation and Professional Bodies
Higher education has gone global than before.
Recognition of programmes by international
accreditation authorities and professional bodies plays a
key role in facilitating mobility of engineering students
and graduates. In Hong Kong, learning programmes must

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland
145be accredited by the Hong Kong Council for
AccreditationofAcademicandVocational
Qualifications (HKCAAVQ) to qualify for an official
recognition under the HKQF. Separately, the engineering
profession is governed by The Hong Kong Institution ofEngineers (HKIE), which also accredits programmes thatmeet the outcome standards criteria. Through mutual
recognition agreements, such as the 1989 Washington
Accord and 2001 Sydney Accord, signed between the
HKIE and other engineering professional bodies
overseas, graduates of local HKIE accredited
programmes can be assured in attaining substantial
equivalency of accredited engineering programmes
among the respective signatory countries. These
international accords also represent transnationalrecognition of accreditation decisions and ascertain that
graduates from accredited programmes in one country or
region are recognised in another (Accreditation.org,
2021).

New technologies, demographic shifts, rapid
urbanisation, resource scarcity and climate change will
create new engineering processes, giving rise to millionsof new jobs. At the VTC, a variety of transnational
programmes are developed to facilitate local students in
obtaining equal qualifications conferred by overseas
universities at their subsidiary campuses in Hong Kong.
Many existing qualifications (both local andtransnational programmes) are also recognised byoverseas professional bodies, for instance, the RoyalInstitution of Chartered Surveyors. Graduates of these
programmes apparently meet the professional
competence requirements overseas (i.e. hard skills), areable to enter global markets and articulate to international
higher education institutions. Apart from hard skills, theVTC also places a premium on developing students’ soft
skills, including their design thinking skills, problemsolving skills, teamwork, where they can continuously
adapt and acquire new knowledge (lifelong learning) andessential human skills. More importantly, these
initiatives cannot be achieved without the quality
enhancement culture and robust quality assurance system
in VTC, which rely heavily on a vigorous Quality Policy.
Such policy is driven by the Academic Disciplines,
programme leaders and teaching staff, who take chargeof the programme and curriculum development, not least
contextualisation of international practices during
learning and teaching.

To equip graduates with qualifications that arerecognised by both HKCAAVQ and professional bodies(e.g. HKIE, Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors),hence being mutually recognised by EQF, overseas
higher education institutes and/or professional bodies,
VPET providers in Hong Kong need to go through aminimum of two separate external accreditation exercisesin every cycle of validity period. This requires multiple
resources, inter alia, human resources, financial
resources, time, and repetitive involvement of various
stakeholders (e.g. employers, graduates, students,
institutional management, programme teams andteaching staff). To further facilitate the accreditation
process, efforts to define, integrate or endorse a set ofcommon criteria for the accreditations of HKCAAVQ
and professional bodies must be intensified at the highest
possible level. Corresponding organisations with the coretasks of quality assurance in higher education also needto expand their roles in developing an overarchinginternational as well as transnational universal education
standards. In this context, members of International
Network of Quality Assurance Agencies in Higher
Education (INQAAHE) and the European Associationfor Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA)
cooperate for concrete planning and implementation.
This better informs international recognition ofqualifications between international quality assurance
agencies.

Education institutions worldwide have now extended
their links of collaboration beyond student exchange, tostudent projects, industrial attachment, transnational
programmes and research. Apart from continuously
enhancing the quality standard of these activities andprogrammes, VPET providers have to strengthen
collaboration with international institutions andindustries in order to identify and formulate new strategy
to facilitate students’ mobility, in both formal
programme/module-level study and informal exchange
activities. An example was at the outbreak of COVID-19,
technology-enabled virtual exchange has paved the way
forward to massifying mobility among students andgraduates.
Students
The recognition of students as a key stakeholder ofhigher education first appeared in the literature in 1974
(Douglas, Mc Clelland and Davies. 1993). Nowadays,
students for legitimate reasons are the most important
stakeholders in the quality enhancement system. Their
feedback on learning and teaching, support services andenabling resources are essential. For instance, students
who completed WLA can help to identify the gap
between industry needs and actual running in on-campus
learning and teaching. Those who have had experience inoverseas training or placement can help to identify key
transversal skills that are most needed for international
labour market. Apparently, students’ feedback is a strong
driver to programme improvements.

Education Institutions
Education institutions bring a network beyond
regional boundaries and jurisdictions. Various supports
and infrastructures are in place for engineering students
to study and work abroad, including financial aids andsystem for credit transfer. International alumni network
is a source of rich opportunities within specificengineering sector, which are often missed where no
institutional strategy in place to tap into the network.
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland146

In the context of quality enhancement in the VTC,
students’ feedback is regularly collected through student
feedback questionnaires at module, programme andcampus level. Students are also always encouraged toshare views on their international learning experiences atvarious formal (e.g. staff-student liaison meetings,
committees and boards) and informal (e.g. seminars andworkshops) occasions. In future, taking Switzerland as an
example, VPET providers may consider providing
training to student representatives before engaging themin the quality assurance process (Schneijderberg andRisse, 2008; Elassy, 2013). Training ensures that students
understand their roles, express their insights andknowledge and bring even more valuable perspective toenhancing programme quality.

of students, functionality of software in terms of cheating
and plagiarism detection).
Although it may appear that a lot of issues areattached to the development of online learning
programmes, the perks of it cannot be ignored. There arealways solutions to fix these difficulties. For example, theHKIE can consider combining their accreditation for
online programmes with the existing system of the
HKCAAVQ. Technical difficulties can be solved
through training students’ digital skills, integrating andapplying different cheating and plagiarism detection
systems in the institution’s learning management system.
Through addressing these considerations and focusing on
ways to support learners, the transition to online
programmes can be seamless for all stakeholders
concerned, thereby facilitating sustainable mobility ofstudents.

Online Programmes – Mobility for All in Future
Recognition from professional bodies, especiallythose from overseas, is of paramount importance to
VPET. Earning overseas credentials means that students'
capabilities and job readiness are sufficiently evaluatedand recognised outside Hong Kong, thus facilitating
employability and mobility. Blended learning, thethoughtful fusion of face-to-face campus-based andonline learning experience, has been adopted by manyhigher education institutions to maximise students’learning motivation and effectiveness. Amid the COVID19 pandemic, apart from blended learning, online
assessment that could assess stated learning
objectives/outcomes is more crucial than ever as it allows
learners to demonstrate their competence and capabilities
without any limitations. However, in the current
education landscape, not all online programmes (i.e.
those with both online learning and assessment) provide
qualifications. Thus, even in the post-COVID era,
structured and rigorous online learning programmes that
continue to maintain standards of education and areinternationally recognised will offer more opportunities
for students to obtain overseas credentials without
actually travelling abroad.

Conclusions
The rise of the knowledge society has led to fierce
competition for talents worldwide. Students with skills indemand and ability to work anywhere will prosper.
Through quality enhancement processes, various
stakeholders of VPET can and should do much to help:
enhancing quality of programmes, easing the routes toand incentivising student mobility, and increasing
international recognition of qualifications. This paper
outlines experiences of the VTC with its impacts on
student mobility. Such experiences were created andshaped collaboratively by the Government, employers
and industries, education institutions, accreditation andprofessional bodies, and students. This paper also calls
for a keen and concerted effort among all stakeholders tomaintain global competitiveness of the engineering
students.
Acknowledgements
The authors are thankful to Dr Albert Cheuk, Directorof the Quality Enhancement and Learning & Teaching at
the VTC for sharing his pearls of wisdom during thecourse of their work.

Starting from 2018, the HKCAAVQ has provided
accreditation services for online learning programmes,
which are defined as those having more than fifty percent
of instruction delivered online. This allows local andnon-local online learning programmes offered in Hong
Kong to secure credibility of qualifications under the
HKQF. In spite of the availability of such accreditation
system, there is still much for VPET providers and otherhigher education institutions to consider as they movetowards blended teaching or fully online. These
considerations include requirement of professional
bodies issuing industry credentials (i.e. whether online
learning programmes can also be accredited), student
engagement (e.g. access to technology and interaction),pedagogical strategies (e.g. to facilitate collaborative
tasks and acquisition of relevant soft skills such as
teamwork) and technical difficulties (e.g. digital literacy

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On the road of Industrial Collaborative Project-Based Learning in Engineering Education
at THEi: A Successful Pilot Case
K.L. Pun, Simon H.F. Wong and Roger T.H. Ng*,
Faculty of Science and Technology, Technological and Higher Education Institute of Hong Kong
(THEi), Hong Kong, China*rogerng@thei.edu.hk
Abstract

Introduction

Project-based learning (PBL) is a teaching method
in which students gain necessary knowledge and skills
by working on a real-world project for a considerable
period of time to investigate and respond to a complex
problem. Adopting PBL in the tertiary education has
been proved beneficial to students. In the Vocational
Training Council (VTC) 3-Year Strategic Plan for
2020-2023, PBL is therefore promoted to be a major
learning and teaching strategy for effective delivery ofskills-based training across different disciplines. The
PBL defined by the VTC has four essential elements,
namely (i) student-driven, (ii) real-life, authentic andinter-disciplinary, (iii) collaborating with industry,and (iv) integrating with the quality assurance system.
THEi as a member institute of the VTC, which iscommitted to nurturing talents for today’s society byoffering vocationally-oriented and tailor-made degree
programmes developed with a strong linkage with theindustry, follows the direction of the VTC on adopting
industrial collaborative PBL in our teaching strategy.
This paper presents a successful pilot case of adopting
PBL, in close collaboration with the industry, in the
Final Year Project module of the THEi’s Bachelor ofEngineering (Hons) in Building Services Engineering(BEng-BSE). In 2019, a BEng-BSE student effectively
solved a real-world problem using his knowledge andskills learnt in the study at THEi with the full support
from the government and a private BSE company. It
is worth mentioning that the paper arisen from thiscollaborative project had obtained the Hong Kong
Institution of Engineers (HKIE) Outstanding Paper
Award for Young Engineers/Researchers 2020.
In light of the successive adoption of industrial
collaborative PBL in BEng-BSE, the curricula of theengineering programmes of THEi will be enriched in
the near future as PBL enables students to develop the
key competencies in Vocational and Professional
Education and Training (VPET) in the 21st century.

Project-based learning (PBL) is a teaching method inwhich students gain knowledge and skills by engaging ina cumulative activity for a continued period of time toinvestigate and solve problems leading to a final practicaloutcome (BIE, 2014). Over the decade, PBL has been
widely used in kindergartens, primary schools, secondary
schools, as well as in the tertiary education, particularly
the sector of engineering education, across the world(Ruikar and Demian, 2013; Fernandes et al., 2014). PBL
provides students with valuable learning experience tointegrate classroom knowledge and the various skills, e.g.
critical thinking, problem solving, collaboration and selfmanagement skills, which are essentially required in thereal world. With so much evidence indicating that PBL
can effectively bring lots of benefits to students’ learning,
the VTC highlights in its 3-Year Strategic Plan for 20202023 the direction of applying industrial collaborative
PBL in the teaching approach. THEi is a member of the
VTC and thus strictly follows the instruction. Startingfrom AY2018/19, BEng-BSE of THEi has adopted
industrial collaborative PBL in the delivery of the Final
Year Project module. A research paper arisen from a final
year student’s project which was collaborated with thegovernment and a private BSE firm using PBL obtained
the HKIE Outstanding Paper Award for Young
Engineers/Researchers 2020. The experience gained inthis successful pilot case of adopting industrial
collaborative PBL in BEng-BSE of THEi is shared in thispaper.
Background
Being the largest vocational and professional
education and training (VPET) provider in Hong Kong,
the Vocational Training Council (VTC) is committed toproviding a valued choice to school leavers and working
adults of the city to acquire values, knowledge and skills
for lifelong learning and enhanced employability, as wellas providing constant support to the industries for their
human resources development. In response to the rapidly
growing demand of professionals who are equipped withtertiary education for continuously supporting the longterm development of Hong Kong, THEi was established

Keywords: building services engineering, engineering
education, industrial collaboration, project-basedlearning, vocational and professional education andtraining

149

in 2012 by VTC to offer vocationally and professionallyoriented degree programmes for nurturing local talents ofdifferent industries. With the significant industry inputs,
up to now, a total of 22 tailor-made degree programmes
have been launched at THEi. All the programmes provide
students with meaningful industry attachments in local
firms for them to gain first-hand experience of working
in the real world.
Launched in 2015, this 4-year BEng-BSE programmeaims to develop students to be highly skillful in designing
the building services systems and be problem-solvers tomeet the ever-changing challenges in the industry. It also
aims to equip students with the essential knowledge andskills of BSE technologies, with an emphasis on using“projects” as the main assessment method to reflect theactual industry practice. BEng-BSE is fully accredited by
the HKIE, recognised by the UK’s Chartered Institution
of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE), and recognisedby the Electrical and Mechanical Department (EMSD) of
the HKSAR Government as satisfying the academic
qualification requirements for the purpose of registration
as Grade C electrical worker. Figure 1 shows the block
diagram of the programme structure and curriculum.

module which aims to provide students with the chance
to gain professional experience and apply theories to reallife situations. It also aims to inspire students to analyseand provide constructive critique on industrial practice,and facilitate the execution of the Final Year Project inthe students’ last year of study. Currently, BEng-BSE has
over 80 industrial partners which provide every studentwith an at least 480-hour work placement opportunity.
Besides, the BEng-BSE of THEi also offers a module
called Final Year Project (Applied Research Project) inthe students’ last year of study, which is a module for
evaluating the effectiveness of the learning outcomes ofthe programme. This module enables students to develop
critical thinking skills and problem-solving skills throughdoing applied research projects, encourages students tocarry out critical investigation, analysis and synthesis in
the professional context and the integration of knowledge
and skills learnt, and promotes students’ creativity andability to generate new ideas. This module also aims toinspire students to keep abreast of developments in therelevant profession and pursue independent and life-longlearning.
In line with the VTC 3-Year Strategic Plan for 20202023 on the adoption of PBL in the teaching approach,starting from AY2018/19, BEng-BSE has extended theindustrial connection built up in the module of Industrial
Attachment to the module of Final Year Project (Applied
Research Project).
Project-Based Learning (PBL)
Project-based learning (PBL) is a teaching method inwhich students gain knowledge and skills by working foran extended period of time to investigate and respond to
a complex question, problem, or challenge (BIE, 2014).
There are many benefits of implementing PBL inteaching. For example, students can usually engage with
the PBL projects actively that provide real-life relevancefor learning. The skills that they learnt via PBL can solve
problems that are crucial to them and their communities.
PBL in nature leads to deeper understanding and greater
retention of content knowledge which facilitates students
to apply what they have learnt in new situations. Besides,
PBL allows to integrate real-life problems with content
knowledge and applied skills that can engage students insustained and collaborative real-life investigations. It is
known that a successful project can be transformative forstudents. PBL enables students to experience the impactof a real-life project that can in turn give them a sense of
purpose. How to take initiative, work responsibly, solve
problems, collaborate in teams and communicate ideas
are all the skills valuable in today’s workplace and in life.
Last but not least, PBL can help students to develop theseskills that every employer is looking for (VTC, 2020).
Currently, PBL is being widely adopted in different
education levels, from kindergartens to primary schools,
to secondary schools and to the higher education sector.
Despite its popularity, the rapid upsurge of interest in
PBL that possibly leads to a wide variation in the qualityof project design has arisen the concern of some scholars.

Figure 1: Block diagram of THEi BEng-BSE programme
structure and curriculum
Different from the typical degree programmes offeredby other local universities or institutes, the BEng-BSE ofTHEi uniquely offers a non-credit bearing module named“Industrial Attachment” for every Year 3 student during
the summer break. It is a work-integrated learning150

In order for teachers to ensure that PBL is done well,
BIE (2020) established a comprehensive, research-basedmodel for PBL, called “gold standard”, to help theteachers to measure, calibrate and improve their practice.
Having acquired the knowledge and understanding andsuccess skills through PBL for achieving the students’learning goals, seven essential project design elements
were included in the gold standard, namely “challenging
problem/question”, “sustained inquiry”, “authenticity”,“student voice and choice”, “reflection”, “critique andrevision” and “public product”. The VTC also defines
PBL of its version which contains four basic elements,
namely (i) student-driven, (ii) real-life, authentic andinter-disciplinary, (iii) collaborating with industry, and(iv) integrating with the quality assurance system.
Besides, for engaging students in PBL, the VTC provides
teachers with seven tips (VTC, 2016) where their mainconcepts are extracted in the below paragraphs.
1.

higher-order thinking skills for analysing the real-world
situation, proposing solutions and expressing their views
in both written and oral forms. While working on the
project in a team, students need to find ways tocommunicate and collaborate well with the teammembers. Meanwhile, teachers can provide guidelines tohelp students review their own progress, and encouragethem to take immediate actions for improvement andreflect on their critical thinking and problem-solving
skills. These records enable students to explain how the
project was designed and implemented to the public.
5.

In order to respond to the driving question, students
are required to ask questions, allocate resources, discoveranswers, and then ask more and deeper questions. This
process repeats itself until a satisfactory answer comes
into sight. The idea will then be tested before arriving at
a conclusion. The active and in-depth process of inquiry
marks the birth of a new answer to the driving questionor an innovative solution to a problem.

Entry Event

Student’s interest in learning can usually be arousedby launching a project with an “entry event”, which canbe a video, a seminar, a lively discussion, a field trip or apiece of correspondence that forms a scenario, in order toinspire students to realize why they need to acquire thelearning content and practice skills for them to perceive
the task as personally meaningful that they want to do it
well. An entry event enhances students’ motivation andinitiates questioning.
2.

6.

Driving Question

7.

Product Presentation

Presenting an idea publicly would definitely raise thestudents’ motivation to improve the quality of the projectwork. When students are asked to present or display theirwork to the public audience, they tend to strive for better
performance.

Student Voice and Choice

Towards PBL

The more student voice and choice are allowed; thehigher learning engagement can usually be obtained fromthe students. Allowing students to have a say in a project
can create a sense of ownership among them. Students
would therefore feel more committed to the project andare willing to work harder. A number of options can beprovided for students to select how to solve the problem.
They can also exercise their judgment in deciding the
project’s topic, writing a driving question, dividing work
among the team members and employing resources towork out a feasible solution to the problem.
4.

Feedback and Revision

Through continuous feedback and revision, work ofhigh quality can usually be attained. Students can seek
teachers’ direct feedback and ask peers for constructive
comments with reference to the rubrics. They can also
invite trade experts to provide critique from an authentic,
real-world point of view on the project work. Constantrevision can then be made to refine the idea if necessary.

A driving question is the heart of the project; a good
driving question can give students a sense of purpose andchallenge. It can be an abstract question that ties thelearning outcomes to an open-ended question of theappropriate difficulty level, challenging students’ minds
whilst not intimidating them.
3.

Inquiry and Innovation

In the VTC 3-Year Strategic Plan for 2020-2023, PBL
is promoted to be one of the major learning and teachingstrategies for effectively delivering skills-based training
across different disciplines. Since the PBL defined by the
VTC stresses the importance of industrial collaboration,
since AY2018/19, BEng-BSE has adopted PBL in themodule of Final Year Project (Applied Research Project)with industrial collaboration. The following paragraphs
describe the steps that were taken by the programme teamin delivering the module using industrial collaborative
PBL based on a successful pilot case.

21st Century Skills

Step 1: Engage an industry partner and generate projectidea together

PBL can equip students with problem-solving skills,
critical thinking skills and collaboration skills, which arecommonly known as the “21st century skills”. While
responding to the driving question, students need to apply

Before the commencement of the Final Year Project(Applied Research Project) module, the programme team151

sought opportunities from the over 80 BSE firms, whichhave long and good partnering relationship with BEngBSE in the Industrial Attachment module, for providing
real-life projects that could involve the BEng-BSE final
year students to work on as their final year projects. Oneof the BEng-BSE industry partners established by analliance of building services engineers, environmental
professionals, energy management specialists positively
replied the programme team that they wished to work ona real-world project with a BEng-BSE final year student.
A conventional double parabolic reflector is generally
made of aluminum that provides high specular reflection
but low diffuse reflection. This physical property would
cause uneven light distribution on the surfaces lit up by
the aluminum reflector, and thus reduce the efficiency oflight reflection. In 2018, the industry partner invented a
new nanotechnology optical reflective coating which has
been proved in laboratory that it has the ability to enhance
the wide angle reflection and therefore provide a better
performance of diffuse reflection of the incident light.
The company wondered if the lighting energy efficiency
and lighting quality could be improved after putting thenano optical coating onto the reflector surfaces of theluminaires. This idea was fully supported by the EMSD
of the Hong Kong Government such that they allowed thecompany to verify this proposition in an office of the Siu
Ho Wan Government Maintenance Debut office.
As THEi BEng-BSE final year students completed acore module called Lighting Technology and were wellequipped with the essential knowledge and skills of lightmeasurement in indoor spaces, they wished to have pilot
collaboration with BEng-BSE and provide a student witha real-world project, i.e. to measure the lighting energy
efficiency and lighting quality in the EMSD office using
luminaires with traditional aluminum coating and withnano optical coating respectively. This was also the scopeof work of the student's final year project. The industry
partner had a team of 4 coming from different professions
including a building services engineer, an environmental
specialist, an energy management expert and a research
manager. They were engaged in different checkpoints ofthe project to promote authenticity. It was needed for the
student to discuss with and report to the team the progressof the project regularly.

lighting-related and thus BSE-related. As the student hadcompleted the module of Lighting Technology, he could
make good use of his learnt knowledge and skills in themeasurements of illuminance level and lighting energy
consumption; however, there would still be challenges
for the student in measuring discomfort glare caused by
the luminaires. The student was also required to conduct
statistical analysis based on the measured data and apply
the knowledge and skills he had learnt in another BEngBSE module called Numerical Methods of Analysis. The
flow chart of the industral collaborative PBL project isshown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Developing procedures of the project
Step 4: Set Learning Outcomes
Since this industrial collaborative PBL project was
attached to the module of Final Year Project (Applied
Research Project), the learning outcomes of the project
were identical to those stated in the module syllabus, suchthat on completion of the project, the student is expected
to be able to:• critically analyse literature and research information
relevant to the project theme;• formulate a structured research methodology for theapplied research and inquiry into the project;• conduct investigations and generate ideas for the
project work through integration of fundamental andspecialised knowledge in wide domains;• manage the applied research project and formulate
solutions for investigative work with consideration of
the related issues, professional engineering practices,
ethics, and the need for sustainable development;• command professional standards in documentation/organization of information, and present deliverables
in a professional manner; and• reflect on commitment to engineering profession andthe needs for life-long learning.

Step 2: Consider project timing and duration
The industry partner planned to start their project on
1 November 2018 and end it on 13 March 2019, lastingfor 14 weeks or one semester-time, which was in perfectalignment with the normal duration of the module ofFinal Year Project (Applied Research Project) as statedin the syllabus and long enough to engage the student insolving this real-life problem.

The 21st century skills, e.g. critical thinking, problem
solving, communication, creativity, collaboration, selfmanagement, as well as global and culture awareness,were all taken into consideration in the rubrics.

Step 3: Consider project complexity and scope
The programme team discussed the complexity andscope of the project with the industry partner before the
kick-off. It was agreed that the scope of work would be152

Step 5: Define final product

Since this driving question was raised by the student
himself, it created a sense of ownership and engagement
inside him. The student reflected on knowledge and skills
that he had previously studied in the module of Lighting
Technology into his proposal. With critical thoughts, hemade sustained inquiries to the teacher and the team of
the company on his concerns of the project, such as thescope of work, the timeframe, the resources allocationand the development process. The teacher and the teamprovided a list of options for him to answer his questions.
The student drafted a schedule with milestones andsuggested the methodologies for the measurements oflighting energy efficiency and lighting quality in theoffice. “Student voice and choice” were listened andrespected and his proposal established the authenticity.
In this industrial collaborative project using PBL, thestudent had to deal with a real-life question of evaluating
the impact of the luminaires with nano optical coating on
the lighting energy efficiency and the lighting quality inan actual office together with the various specialists andengineers of the BEng-BSE industry partner. The process
involved problem-solving skills, critical thinking skills
and collaboration skills. All of them belong to the “21stcentury skills”. The process was weekly reviewed by theteacher as well as the team of the company based on theintended learning outcomes and assessment rubrics of the
Final Year Project (Applied Research Project) moduleand the internal guidelines of the company. The student
would record all the comments from the different parties
and take follow-up actions. He also jotted the key issues
down for explaining the design and implementation of
the project for his written report and oral presentation at
the end of the module.
The student originally proposed to divide the entire
measurements into two parts: (i) pre-retrofit, i.e. before
the use of luminaires with nano optical coating, and (ii)post-retrofit, i.e. after the use of luminaires with nanooptical coating. He selected to quantify the performanceof the lighting energy consumption by two metrics: (i)daily energy consumption using a clamp-on electricity
meter at the sub-circuit board of the lighting installations,and (ii) the LPD by dividing the total circuit wattage ofthe fixed lighting installations by the internal floor areaof the office. His proposal was discussed and accepted by
the teacher and the team of the company. He analysed thedata obtained during the pre-retrofit and post-retrofit. As
for the lighting quality, the student decided to measureilluminance and uniformity at the workplane level of 0.8
m above the ground as recommended in CIBSE (2012) at
27 locations of the office using a calibrated illuminancemeter. The student determined the measurement points ina rather systematic manner. He divided the office into 59
squares based on the false ceiling grid arrangement, andevery centre point of four ceiling grids was chosen as themeasurement points resulting in 27 measurement points.
Visual discomfort glare due to the luminaires is also
important in evaluating the indoor lighting quality. Glareis the sensation induced by bright areas in a person's viewand too much glare may cause visual discomfort to the

The student should write a comprehensive report andgive an oral presentation on all the details of the projectdelivered using PBL for his Final Year Project. Both theindustry partner and the EMSD would review and makecomments and recommendations on his written report. It
was expected that the results on whether the nano opticalcoating could have positive impact on lighting energy
efficiency and lighting quality would be revealed in thewritten report and presentation. Sufficient assessments
were provided to prove that the student had achieved themodule learning outcomes.
Step 6: Align with PBL Gold Standard
To arouse the student's interest in learning from thisindustrial collaborative PBL project, an “entry event” inform of group discussion among the project supervisor,
the team from the industry partner and the student was
launched. The discussion was about the significance ofimproving building energy efficiency, the contemporarycommon methods of reducing lighting energy use and themeasurement methods of lighting quality.
There is a rising call from the society for improvingbuilding energy efficiency and enhancing indoor lighting
quality. Some guidelines such as LEED in the US and
BEAM in Hong Kong stress the reduction of lighting
energy consumption in buildings by limiting lighting
power density (LPD) with lighting controls while otherssuch as WELL Standard specify requirements of indoor
lighting quality on illuminance level and discomfort glarecontrol for a healthy indoor environment. Technology for
improving lighting energy efficiency but simultaneously
does not yield visual discomfort or sacrifice the lighting
quality is in great demand,.
Currently, lighting energy efficiency enhancement isusually achieved by the technological advancement in thelamps of the luminaires, i.e. replacing the incandescentor fluorescent lamps with LEDs. While the increasing useof lamps with a higher efficacy has lowered the LPD of
the indoor lit spaces effectively, the maximum allowable
LPD in offices in multiple energy efficiency guidelines
has been further lowered by over 10% in the last decade,e.g. EMSD Code of Practice for Energy Efficiency of
Building Services Installations. Regarding the lighting
quality enhancement, it usually involves the continuous
maintenance of sufficient and uniform illuminance levelon the task area and the avoidance of visual discomfort
glare within the field of view (CIBSE, 2012).
The student was asked to explore the possibilities andhinted that both lighting energy efficiency and lighting
quality could be enhanced simultaneously by using newmaterials on the lighting reflectors during the discussion.
This entry event was used to let the student understandwhy he needed to conduct the project and propose a good
“driving question” – how can we verify using luminaires
with nano optical coating has positive impact on lighting
energy efficiency and lighting quality?

153

occupants. Discomfort glare is commonly quantified by
Unified Glare Rating (UGR) (CIBSE, 2012):
0.25

A paper prepared by the industry partner based on thestudent's Final Year Project report and arisen from thisindustrial collaborative PBL project was “published” inthe HKIE Transactions (Cheng et al., 2020) and had
obtained the HKIE Outstanding Paper Award for Young
Engineers/Researchers 2020.

L2 ω

UGR = 8 log � L ∑ ps2 �bwhere Lb is the background luminance (cd/m2) and Ls is
the luminance of the luminous parts of each luminaire in
the direction of the observer's eyes (cd/m2). The smaller
the UGR value, the less is the degree of discomfort glare.
As one of the lighting quality parameters, the student
concerned the impact on the degree of discomfort glarecaused by the luminaires after nano optical coating wasused on the reflector. He raised an “inquiry” in a weekly
meeting to the teacher and the team of the company, “Toestimate the degree of discomfort glare of an indoor space
using the UGR equation, there are two common methods:(i) to apply computer software to simulate the discomfort
glare level in the lit environment, but then the simulation
may deviate from the real environment, or (ii) to measure
the background luminance and the luminaire luminancephysically using a calibrated luminance meter; however,this conventional method is a time-consuming point-bypoint measurement, prone to random errors and suffersfrom some inevitable assumptions. It sounds that neither
method is the best. Which method is more preferable tobe adopted in this project?” In response to this student’s
deeper question, the teacher recommended the student tostudy the novel technique of high dynamic range (HDR)
photography (Jacobs, 2007) for obtaining luminance ofeach pixel across the visual field and learn to master thistechnique for doing the measurement of discomfort glare.
The student did a literature review on the application of
HDR photography for evaluating discomfort glare due tothe indoor electric lighting. He also did some trial tests tovalidate the reliability and accuracy of this technique inobtaining luminance. With the confidence in applying the
HDR photography in the discomfort glare measurement,
the student proposed this alternative solution to the teamof the company as well as to the EMSD. The details of
the measurement processes and results were recorded inCheng et al. (2020).
The student commented on the measurement resultsthat after using the luminaires with nano optical coating,both the daily lighting energy consumption and the LPD
of course remained unchanged, but the illuminance leveland uniformity on the task area increased and the UGRvalue slightly decreased despite yet above the standard
value. The results were given to the industrial partner aswell as the EMSD for comments. Some “feedback” wasreceived. The student was asked what the impact on thelighting energy efficiency and lighting quality would be
if one of the lamps was taken off after the luminaires werepainted with nano optical coating. The student conductedfurther measurements accordingly and made a “revision”
in his report so that the daily lighting energy consumption
and the LPD reduced, the illuminance on the task area
decreased but the uniformity increased. As for the UGR,
it further decreased, now within the standard.

Conclusion
This paper shares the experience of a successful pilot
case of adopting PBL, in collaboration with the industry,in BEng-BSE at THEi. How the industry was engaged for
implementing PBL was discussed. The delivery methodof this industrial collaborative student's final year projectusing PBL was also introduced. In light of the successful
adoption of PBL with industrial collaboration in BEngBSE, the curricula of the engineering programmes ofTHEi will be enriched in the near future such that PBL
could enable students to develop the key competencies in
VPET in the 21st century.
References
BIE (2014). What is project based learning (PBL)?
Retrieved from http://bie.org/about/what_pbl
BIE (2020). Gold Standard PBL: Essential Project
Design Elements. Retrieved fromhttps://www.pblworks.org/blog/gold-standard-pblessential-project-design-elements
Cheng, J.Y.C., Wong, N.C.Y, Ho, T.W.L., Kwong, H.F.,
Ng, R.T.H. & Cheung H. (2020). A case study of lighting
retrofit to improve building energy efficiency andlighting quality by using luminaires with nano opticalcoating. HKIE Transactions, 27(4), 156-165.
CIBSE (2012). Code for lighting. London: Chartered
Institution of Building Services Engineers.
Fernandes, S., Mesquita, D., Flores, M.A. & Lima, R.M.
(2014). Engaging students in learning: Findings from astudy of project-led education. European Journal ofEngineering Education, 39, 55-67.
Jacobs, A. (2007). High dynamic range imaging and its
application in building research. Advances in Building
Energy Research, 1(1), 177-202.
Ruikar, K., & Demian, P. (2013). Podcasting to engage
industry in project-based learning. International Journalof Engineering Education, 29, 1410-1419.
VTC (2016). Seven tips for successful project-basedlearning (PBL). Hong Kong: Centre for Learning andTeaching, Vocational Training Council.
VTC (2020). Handbook on conducting project-basedlearning. Hong Kong: Quality Assurance andAccreditation Office, Vocational Training Council.

154

STUDY PATH MODEL FOR IMMIGRANT ENGINEERS
A. Hartikainen*,a, M. Tauriainenb, a, M. Kivimäkic, P. Paukkalac, T. Hirard b and H. Kamppariaab

University of Turku, Turku, Finland
Turku University of Applied Sciences, Turku, FinlandcTampere University of Applied Sciences*anita.hartikainen@utu.fi

Abstract

Social Fund. This project began in September 2019 andwill be completed in December 2021.
Compared to original population, not least due tolanguage barriers, it has become evident that immigrants
often have difficulties in finding a job corresponding totheir abilities and possibly their own, earlier acquired
training or education. It is difficult for the target group to
network in Finland and supporting the formation of
networks is not self-evident in universities. Also,
employers do not know how to contact professionals with
an immigrant background (Busk, Jauhiainen,
Kekäläinen, Nivalainen & Tähtinen, 2016). In addition,compared to applicants with a Finnish background, there
are only few selected applicants with an immigrantbackground in the degree programmes.
Many of the higher educated with an immigrantbackground apply for a new university degree, or othertraining in Finland. In the project, the partners design a
new study path model for immigrant engineers who havecompleted a higher education degree in engineering
abroad, are required to supplement their qualifications,and would like to develop their professional Finnish
language skills to find employment in their own field.
The aim of the project was to identify the current
qualifications of the participants and to obtain
information on the current working life skills of
immigrant engineers, as well as to design precise training
and guidance to strengthen these skills. This avoids yearsof extra studies and allows a quick entry into workinglife.
In addition to designing the study path, the project
consists of pilot modules in which a group of immigrantengineers participates in preparatory studies and adiploma of higher education. During their studies in thepilot modules, the students increase their knowledge inthe Finnish working life, strengthen their mathematics,
Finnish and English language proficiency, andsignificantly increase their prospects for employment.
The progress of the pilot group is monitored, and theeffectiveness of the measures is assessed throughout the
project. With the experience from the pilot modules, theproject group develops a study path, which supports therecognition of immigrants’ expertise and accelerates theiraccess to employment. This study path model can also be
applied in other higher education institutions, as well as
in other fields of study.

Many immigrants in Finland struggle to findemployment that corresponds to their level of
education. The reasons can be the lack of networks,
insufficient Finnish language skills or the content of
their degree. At the same time, Finnish employers
have a constant need for experts in different fields oftechnology and engineering. In the Become anengineer in Finland project a new study path model isdesigned for highly educated immigrants who havecompleted a degree in engineering abroad, need tosupplement their qualifications, and develop theirprofessional Finnish language skills to findemployment in their own field. The project identifies
the existing competencies of the participants andstrengthens their working life skills. The project
implemented two pilot trainings, a preparatory
training, and a diploma of higher education. The
study path is designed based on experiences andfeedback collected from the students and teachers.
The model allows quick access to working life withoutcompleting a new degree. The study path model canalso be applied in other higher education institutions,as well as in other fields of study.
Keywords: engineering, education, higher education,
immigrants, qualifications
Introduction
Many immigrants have already completed auniversity degree before coming to Finland. However,finding employment and utilizing skills is often difficult.
International experts struggle to find employment that
corresponds to their level of education. The reasons canbe the lack of networks, insufficient Finnish language
skills or the content of their degree. (Busk, Jauhiainen,
Kekäläinen, Nivalainen & Tähtinen, 2016). At the sametime, Finnish employers have a constant need for experts
in different fields of technology and engineering(Hellgren & Marjanen, 2017). These challenges are being
tackled by Turku University of Applied Sciences,
Tampere University of Applied Sciences and Brahea
Centre at the University of Turku in the Become anengineer in Finland project, funded by the European

155

This paper focuses on describing the implementationof study modules, and the study path model, created by
students’ and teachers’ experiences and feedback.

companies where the working language is English, it iseasier to find employment, and integrate into Finnish
working life and society, when the applicant has anadequate level of language proficiency. (Juusola, Nori,
Lyytinen, Kohtamäki & Kivistö, 2021; Eronen et al.,2014)
Since all the training within the preparatory training
module were conducted in the Finnish language, theapplicants were submitted to participate in a Finnish
language test. The preparatory training entrance
examination was implemented in accordance with therecommendation on admission criteria for universities ofapplied sciences 2020 (Studyinfo, 2021), with a writtenpart and, as an oral part, a group discussion. The language
test was conducted entirely by Finnish language
professionals. The purpose of this is to ensure that thechosen immigrants would possess sufficient Finnish
language skills (B1 minimum). According to therecommendation on admission criteria for universities ofapplied sciences, proficiency level B1 in Finnish andeligibility for higher education were considered to affectthe student selection.
The first part of the training pipeline was preparatory
training. During the preparatory training the participantsreceive sufficient training in the Finnish language for thefollowing engineering studies implemented in Finnish,
and improve their vocational and technical vocabulary.
Additionally, the participants need to rehearse their basic
mathematical skills, which together with the enhanced
Finnish and English language proficiencies are bothneeded later during the actual diploma of higher
education studies. Conjointly, as the students participate
in the preparatory training, they come to enhance theiroverall learning skills, which makes for a lifelong asset
for them.
After the preparatory training is accomplished, forsome of the students the preparatory training has acted
simply as a path for acquiring improved Finnish language
skills, after which they continue their endeavours on
getting a job on their own. Some of the students may
carry on independently and apply in a nationwide
entrance examination to continue their actual engineeringstudies, as all those born in Finland would do.
If the student is interested in developing their skills
further, they also have an option to apply for the diploma
in higher education study module, which will be
rewarded with a university of applied sciences diploma.
The idea behind the diploma in higher education studies
is to verify any technical training or education that is
acquired abroad, and would be updated andcomplemented to correspond to Finnish engineering
education.
The preparatory studies were the first part of the pilots
and completed in one study term in spring 2020. The
studies consisted of Finnish and English language andengineering mathematics courses, as well as an
introduction course to Finnish university studies. The
whole module was implemented virtually as distancelearning, except for the orientation day in the beginningof the studies.

New path to Finnish working life for graduates with
an immigrant backgroundThe new study path model consists of a) preparatory
training, b) diploma in higher education studies and c)practical training (part of higher education diploma
studies). The education is for immigrants with a foreigntechnical degree, for example engineers and other higher
education graduates who have not yet found a clear pathto the Finnish working life. All the applicants had topossess a technical background, such as mechanicalengineering, information communication technology,
construction engineering, or similar.
The pilot module planning started in the beginning of
the project. The curricula had to be developed quickly, as
the call for applications was opened already in October
2019, only one month after the project began. In the
preparatory studies the results of another project, Getting
ready – A higher education preparatory program for
immigrants (Stenberg, Hirard, Autero & Korpela, 2019),
which aims to develop the national recommendations foronline training courses for immigrants who wish to apply
to study in higher education institutions, could be utilized
and further developed for engineering education.
Support services are offered to the students during thestudies. The support services included training inapplying for employment, student counselling on
different paths to higher education studies, andinformation on Finnish language certificates. Personal
study plans were also designed together with a teacher,
who is a professional in the field of engineering.
Preparatory training
The first pilot training implemented in the project was
preparatory training. The studies consisted of fourcourses: Study skills (5 ECTS), Finnish for engineers (15ECTS), Mathematics for engineers (5 ECTS) and English
language (5 ECTS).
Eleven students were enrolled for the training. They
had a background in various engineering fields such as
ICT engineering, mechanical engineering, energy andenvironmental engineering, and civil engineering. The
participants had to have independent user level B1 in the
Finnish language in The Common European Frameworkof Reference i.e., CEFR (Council of Europe, 2001). The
aim of the preparatory training was that the students
would increase their skills to level B2 for that they havesufficient proficiency in the Finnish language when they
participate in the diploma of higher education studies. In
functional language learning (Dufva, Suni, Aro & Salo,
2011; Lantolf, 2011), the focus was on learning thelanguage in real language situations and success incommunication (Hofstede, 2005; Hofstede, 1993).
Finnish language skills are extremely important infinding employment in Finland. Although there are156

Diploma of higher education

student in any situation during the diploma of higher
education studies. Such occasions may cover for instancespecific questions relating professional studies or getting
an internship place in a company in an appropriatetechnical field. In the beginning of the studies there werealso a student tutors for peer support and to provide
guidance in study-related issues.

In the second pilot module, the diploma of higher
education studies, which was completed in one academic
year, the immigrant engineers followed an individual
study plan, which enabled them to complement theirexpertise in areas where they had gaps or needs to update
their qualifications. This module was implemented bothas virtual and contact studies, depending on their choiceof courses.
The planning of the second pilot began in the springterm 2021, and the diploma of higher education waschosen as the best option for the implementation. The
Diploma of Higher Education consists of 60 ECTS
university-level studies building competencies needed bycustomers and work communities to develop theiroperations. There was a separate call for applications forthe diploma of higher education pilot. Seven students
were chosen according to the language skills andprevious education. From the seven students, five
participated in the preparatory studies, one has
participated in preparatory studies for a while, and one
student was new.
The training programme started in August 2020 witha common online orientation. The students chose theirstudies according to their personal curricula in their study
field. There was a common online platform, and teacher
tutor for the whole group, and in the beginning of thestudies also a student tutor.
To be granted access to the diploma of higher
education pilot, a participant must (again) demonstrate asufficient level of language proficiency (at least B1, in
the preparatory training requirement). As describedearlier, the language proficiency level of applicants wastested in a face-to-face engineer working life related,
simulated discussion. This time, the entire language test
was conducted by Finnish language professionals andengineering studies professional.
Once language capability has been proven, the firststep on the diploma of higher education studies was thata personal study plan will be composed for each studentwith the tutor teacher based on their strengths andpreferences. The personal study plan enables anindividual, more value-adding study path for eachparticipant. The objective of the second pilot training wasto improve the proficiency related to the industrial,
technological and other engineering area, and tostrengthen both working life skills and vocational
competence in the Finnish language.
The study plan and its coherence with the student’s
ambitions has tremendous importance personally for the
student, which is why it was shaped between the student
and a lecturer with technical insights from the same fieldthat the student has earlier knowledge from. The
professionals of the project team made a generalcurriculum, which allowed the students to make theirpersonal study plans. During the process they wereguided by teachers from their own field of study.
Once the study plan was perfected, the students had
been appointed a tutor teacher, who is meant to guide thePractical training
Probably the most important part of the second
educational pilot was the practical training period in andduring the last quarter of this module.
Since the practical training is meant to take place inan enterprise related to the student’s professional field,
and since the student is obliged to individually acquire
the training place, the students were prepared for theapplying during the diploma of higher education studies.
The preparation may cover subjects such as how to
update the curriculum vitae to comply with what it isusually accustomed to be like in Finland, successful waysof contacting the company and how one should represent
and pitch oneself to the target company.
The scope of internship is 10–15 ECTS. Students willcomplete internship in the summer of 2021. The study
rights for the diploma of higher education will last until
the end of August 2021.

Results
Once the diploma of higher education studies has
successfully surpassed, study credits cover the planned
60 study credits’ worth and the practical training has been
completed, the student will receive the diploma of higher
education. It is in the form of a study register,summarizing the surpassed study contents.
At the end of the preparatory part of the pilot, thestudents were asked to give feedback on the programmeby a survey and there were also feedback interviews inDecember 2020. Five students responded to the survey
and four of them were interviewed. The students foundthe studies well organised, and the atmosphere in the
preparatory studies to be good. Their language skills
improved. All respondents were not sure if the
preparatory training had increased their possibilities for
employment. Their professional skills had developed
moderately. It seems that the improvement of language
skills increases students' professional self-confidence.
Students mostly had positive experiences withpreparatory training, and they felt they benefited from it
in different ways. Extensive exercises in writing andreading as a part of the Finnish language training,
especially those related to the profession, wereconsidered necessary for later studies, and theircompletion gave self-confidence and confidence in theirown skills. The strengthening of language skills and a157

sense of competence was reflected, for example, in thegood grades of university studies.
Some of the students had excellent English language
skills, so they did not participate in the English language
teaching at all in the preparatory training. Others would
have more English lessons. In the diploma of higher
education studies, some of the courses are conducted in
English, and the development of language skills has been
useful in completing them. At the same time, perceptionsof the level of English language proficiency required inhigher education and students’ own development needs
have become clearer. Also, the mathematics studies felt
beneficial. For some students, using Excel and utilizing
it in various learning tasks were new things.
Online training taught a lot about e-learning andhigher education compared to the students' previous
experiences. In the preparatory training the participantslearned to use the same digital tools that were also usedin the diploma of higher education studies. Especiallyonline meetings and collaboration with others becamefamiliar.
The preparatory training developed teamwork skills.
Studying together supported everyone’s learning.
Students were motivated to perform better when they got
to know the outputs of other students and saw thecompetence of others and its development. It was ideal to
study in a small group where all students have the samelevel of language skills.
Feedback from the diploma of higher education
students will be collected in May 2021. Due to priorinformation from a previous interview collected in
December 2020, one of the challenges with the diploma
studies has been that the university diploma is not yet
widely in used in higher education institutions nor
generally familiar to the personnel. Students have often
had to explain to the teacher at the beginning of thecourse why they are on the course and what is their rightto study. Some felt that they had not been adequately

considered by teachers, and there was a lot of
independent work, while others felt that they were in thesame position as degree students.
The coronavirus pandemic and distance learning havemade it difficult to get to know teachers and students inthe same field. Peer support and sense of community
remained low. In addition, getting answers to questions
sent by teachers via email can sometimes take quite along time, which has increased students’ sense of
insecurity.
The students had the experience that the benefits of aprevious degree completed abroad are low in Finland,
and as such it does not help in finding employment in a
profession corresponding to education. Therefore, they
considered completing a diploma of higher education asa good opportunity to update and supplement their own
skills. The students thought that completing the diploma
would open opportunities for employment either directly
during the training, after it or through completing a
Finnish degree.
During the training, the students had begun to believethat employment in their own field in Finland was
possible, even though it had previously seemed distant,and some had already given up. Students are constantly
and actively looking for a job.
If the door to employment does not open even after
graduate education, students saw the possibility ofapplying for a degree and thereby strengthening theirskills and employment opportunities as another option.
Figure 1 describes study path options for engineers who
graduated abroad. The path described in the paper leads
the student through preparatory training to diploma of
higher education studies and then either directly toworking life or to complete the entire engineering degree.
Path studies and separate application for engineering
degree programs are options for applying for degreestudies, in addition to the general joint application.

158

Figure 1. Study path model for immigrant engineers to achieve qualification and personal study paths in Finnish Universities of Applied Sciences.

Discussions

Conclusions

Immigrants want to integrate into the Finnish working
life. They however need targeted competence forworking life needs and often additional Finnish language
studies (Juusola et al., 2021). A new study path works asa bridge to the Finnish working life and society.
Some immigrants may have worked as engineers orotherwise being employed on a technical field of theirexpertise in their home countries for a long time and thus
it is important to use their work contribution in Finland.
It is also economically wise to capitalize on the valueadded knowledge of the immigrants and not let e.g.,
prejudice or language barriers to hinder this.
The experiences of the students show that the
preparatory education has supported their progress tograduate studies and their success in these studies. A
diploma of higher education benefits students not only bydeveloping skills and strengthening self-confidence, butalso by increasing employment opportunities.
The study path developed in the project and the pilot
trainings provided information on the professional skillsof engineers and other similar graduates with animmigrant background in technical fields, proficiency in
the Finnish language, integration and employment
opportunities and aspirations, and other detailed
questions. The pilot training provided new information
on how to develop engineering trainings and available
courses to reach the labour force potential of engineer
immigrants with the aforementioned background. It also
underlined the bottlenecks and difficulties that the target
audience had experience when trying to become
employed.

Due to findings of the inquiry to pilot training
participants, the pipeline presented in this writing is
considered a novel way to enhance the integration of
immigrants into Finnish society. The model itself can andshould be taken into use nationwide and to improve theattractiveness of the Finnish labour market and GDP.
Higher education institutions must continue todevelop the study and career counselling, and personalize
study plans of specialists with an immigrant background.
Study path options, such as university diplomas should
be further developed. Thus, immigrants who are highly
educated or interested in higher education will have theopportunity to update and supplement their proficiency
and at the same time develop vocational language skills.
The study path model for immigrant engineers presented
in the paper is one solution to the problem. The Finnish
workforce is aging rapidly, and in this way international
experts can access the labour market.
Based on the pilot implementation of the study pathmodel, attention should be paid to the counselling ofstudents in the diploma of higher university studies. In
higher education institutions it is important to be awareof that the planning and implementation of the guidance
process requires allocated resources, and that it isworthwhile to define the responsibility for supervision
specifically for the unit implementing the training. At thesame time, it is important to provide information about
the diploma of higher education to the teachers of the unit
and the personnel of the entire organization.
Universities of applied sciences need to offer students
Finnish language teaching especially in the language of159

their own professional field. Access to internships
enhances the bridging possibility to working life.
Cooperation between companies and universities or otherinstitutes should be easy and flexible. Companies should
be provided with more information, for example on
language and cultural awareness and guidance on hiring
immigrants for work. Despite of all efforts made before,
experiences gathered during the training pilots prove that
immigrants nevertheless need active support andtrainings, and procedures need to be further developed.

working in Finland after graduation. Eurostudent VII
article series. Publications of the Ministry of Education
and Culture, Finland 2021:14.
Airas, M., Delahunty, D., Laitinen, M., Shemsedini, G.,
Stenberg, H., Saarilammi, M., Sarparanta, T., Vuori. H.,& Väätäinen, H. (2020). Background matters. Students
with an immigrant background in higher education.
Finnish Education Evaluation Centre (FINEEC) 2:2020.
Retrievedfromhttps://karvi.fi/app/uploads/2020/01/KARVI_T0220.pdf
Lantolf, J. P. (2011). Integrating sociocultural theory andcognitive linguistics in the second language classroom in
E. Hinkel Eds). Handbook of research in second
language teaching and learning. Vol 2. 303-318. New
York: Routledge.

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Stenberg, H., Hirard, T., Autero, M. & Korpela, E.
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Karinen, R., Kosunen, A., Laamanen, J-P. & Lahtinen,
M. (2014). Maahanmuuttajien työllistyminen –Taustatekijät, työnhaku ja työvoimapalvelut. MEE
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ttajien+ty%C3%B6llistyminen+10022014.pdf
Hellgren & Marjanen (2017). FITech Osaajatarvekysely.
Alueen yrityksiin syksyllä tehty osaamistarveselvitys.
Hofstede, G. (1993). Cultural Constraints inManagement Theories. Vol. 7 No. 1. University of
Limburg, Maastricht: Academy of Management
Executive.
Hofstede, G. (2005). Cultures and organizations.
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Juusola H., Nori, H., Lyytinen, A., Kohtamäki, V. &Kivistö, J. (2021). Foreign students pursuing a degree in
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came to Finland and whether they are interested in

160

CONSIDERATION OF THE SPECIAL COURSE FOR ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGYENGINEER DEVELOPMENT IN COLLABORATION WITH MEDICAL INSTITUTIONS
Mitsuhiro TANIWAKI *,a, Takashi YOSHIKAWA a , Mikio DEGUCHI b,
Yoshikazu MINAMOTO c and Masafumi IMAI caNational Institute of Technology, Niihama College, Department of Mechanical Engineering,Niihama, Japanb
National Institute of Technology, Niihama College, Department of Electronics and Control
Engineering, Niihama, Japanc
National Institute of Technology, Niihama College, Department of Electrical Engineering andInformation Science, Niihama, Japan* taniwaki@mec.niihama-nct.ac.jp
collaborating with medical institutions. As an
example of our efforts, we will introduce a proposal
for an efficient ventilation method in a rehabilitation
room using CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics).

Abstract
Manufacturing education in collaboration withmedical institutions is very important and useful.
National Institute of Technology, Niihama College(NIT, Niihama College) offers a two-year systematic
curriculum as the "Special Course for Assistive
Technology Engineer Development (AT course)".
This is the process of learning the basic knowledge ofMedical welfare engineering, and manufacturing
based on the needs of clinical field. In the AT course,
problems in clinical environment are given as themes,
and students take the initiative in working toward
solving the issues while receiving advice on fluids,
controls, sensors, programming, etc. from teaching
staffs. However, it is difficult to imagine the problems
in clinical environment, and multifaceted viewpoints,
ideas, and knowledge are required to solve theproblems. Also, in clinical environment, it doesn't
matter who made it. Furthermore, in order to create
products that can be used in clinical environment, itis necessary to have "technology" and "strategy" thatenable high-quality manufacturing as well as thefunctions required by users. It is not possible tonurture engineers who can make practical things only
by school education, and social implementation
education in collaboration with the local community
is necessary.
Therefore, as the AT course, we built an education
system in collaboration with medical institutions. In
addition, this system is designed to nurture engineers
who can "manufacture with care" and to create anenvironment where they can learn manufacturingfrom various perspectives.
This report provides an overview of the AT courseand examples of actual efforts. Also summarize
student efforts and feedback from clinical institutions,consider changes in student awareness before andafter taking the course, and describe the benefits of

Keywords: Manufacturing education, systematic
curriculum, social implementation education, Assistive
Technology, collaboration with medical institutions
Introduction
NIT, Niihama College has been providing social
implementation
manufacturing
educationincollaboration with these institutions based on the needsof medical and welfare sites, utilizing the long-term
holiday period since 2012. This education system was
rewarding and satisfying for the students, but it had twochallenges. One of them was to impose an excessive
burden on students amid time limitations. In addition,
contrary to the student's sense of accomplishment, theevaluation from the clinic site was that it was not possible
to complete the product to the satisfaction that "thank you
for your efforts.." That is to say, on a medical institutionside, they took time and cooperated in a number of ways,
such as requesting the cooperation of facility residents,
etc., but they eventually did not reach the level ofmanufacturing in which they could continue to use it, andit was becoming difficult to maintain their cooperation insocial implementation education.
Therefore, under the motto of "First, make one
person smile!", students with each specialized knowledge
gathered, learned basic knowledge of medical welfare
engineering, and newly opened the "AT course " as asystematic curriculum for two years (4th to 5th-year in
the regular course) in manufacturing based on needs fromthe clinic site.
Developed curriculum

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland161

(e) [Introduction to Medical Welfare Technology](second half of 5th-year)
Students will learn the "plan for conducting aclinical trial," "calculating the number of samples,"and "statistical evaluation methods" necessary
when they enter society.

(1) Direction
Rather than "finishing with an evaluation ofsomething (a work) produced in time," which is common
in previous manufacturing classes, the aim is to create
something that can be socially implemented by adding
improvement based on the voices after use in the field.
The curriculum was structured with the aim of the
training of engineers with a wide field of view which cansatisfy "design specifications", "product specifications",
etc., having various viewpoints as buyers, operators, andusers by practicing "craftsmanship that satisfies the target
people".
Furthermore, such human resource development
requires not only engineering, but also "knowledge"
about people and diseases, such as physiology and theaftermath of dementia and stroke, as well as "technology"
related to manufacturing, in addition to "strategy"
tailored to the target audience, and "mental" capable ofdealing accurately even when encounter a difficulty. For
this, "human power" such as "inquiry mind","recognition of diverse values", "belief (behavioral
philosophy and engineer ethics)" is indispensable. In thiscourse, by practicing and exercising these human abilities,
we aimed at human resource development in whichpeople can sometimes answer "give hope inmanufacturing to people" through fierce arguments,
compromises, and compromise proposals within the team.

Thus, it is possible to learn by stepping from thelecture of basic knowledge to the training and production
stage. In addition, the report through (a) to (d) is prepared,
and feedback is provided so that 4th graders can tackle it
as a new theme (in part as a continuation theme) in thenext fiscal year (in reality, from the second half of 4thyear).
Issues and Countermeasures(1) Basic Lessons
In order to proceed with manufacturing while
exchanging opinions between medical workers who aremaking various contrivances for the patient's top priority
and students who have little knowledge of medical andwelfare related matters and who do not know actual
patients, many students give up such as "impossible,""cannot be helped," and "cannot be done" due to thedifference of values, and it was considered important in
the classroom study that the contrivance would not be so.
And, in the problem solving, it was made to be a basic
classroom in order to be able to come up with an idea,
while conscious of contrivance of mistake operation
prevention and importance of the maintenance more than
the function which the user needs.
Specifically, [Introduction to Assistive Technology]
made use of the merits of a small number of classes totouch simulated experiences of elderly and lower limb
paralysis patients and accessible design products, etc.,
and to incorporate the experience of caregivers. As forthe feelings of actual patients, the "Technical College AT
Engineer Skills Standards Guidebook" (KOSEN-AT
Network, 2018) and other materials were used to provide
as much reality as possible to the feelings and approachesof people with illnesses and functional disabilities. Then,after finishing manufacturing, [Introduction to Medical
Welfare Technology] aims to acquire knowledge andskills useful in the field of research and craftsmanshipafter graduation by learning about "a plan for conducting
a clinical trial," "calculating the number of samples," and"statistical evaluation methods," etc., which arenecessary for evaluating the problem-solving works
produced.

(2) Curriculum
The students who have taken the courses are those
who wish to attend in the 4th grade regardless of thesubject to which they belong, and most of them have noknowledge of medical and welfare related matters.
Therefore, the curriculum structure was arranged asfollows.
(a) [Introduction to Assistive Technology] (First half of
4th-year)To learn basic knowledge such as physiology
and welfare tools.
(b) [Practice in Assistive Design] (second half of 4thyear)
Understand the needs of the field and consider
proposals for solving problems. At the same time,
incorporate the opinions of field staff and narrow
down suggestions for improvement.
(c) [Practice in Clinical Equipments Development](First half of 5th-year)
Actually make medical and welfare equipment.

(2) PracticeIn the one-year practice subjects for solving problems,
the following three major problems arise when actual
production is carried out. Therefore, it seems to bedifficult to actually take them as curriculums even if
many schools understand that they are useful.

(d) [Practice in Assistive Technology and Co-op] (5thyear summer holiday period)
Have the facility staff use the equipment they
have produced, receive evaluations, and make
improvements.
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland
162

hand, the production time is small for one classper week (90 minutes), but in order to avoid
excessive overtime burden on students, somestudents have secured production time by making
it a graduation research guidance teacher'sconsent and making it a graduation research
theme. And, The curriculum has been changed sothat AT course students in the Department of
Mechanical Engineering can perform tasks in the
AT course as tasks for the existing subject "Mechanical Design and Drafting". As a result, it
has become possible to finish the production
drawings (2D drawings) in the AT course to thelevel which can be ordered to the externalorganization, and to perform stress analysis using
3D CAD in parallel.

(A-1) Because students belong to more than one
department, some students do not have afoundation for how to proceed with
manufacturing, and there are students who havenot made practical applications even though theyhave
specialized
knowledge.
Therefore,
individually-tailored support is required, making
it difficult to secure time for such time andproduction (work).
(B-1) It is very difficult to secure time for work such as
handicrafts and programming and to explain the
progress to non-engineers such as hospitals. The
ability to explain to non-engineers is also an
achievement goal, and the materials that students
prepare are focused on what they have done, andthey try to convey the programs and particularmechanisms in detail, but the explanation that thefield requests is for the on-site staff to be able toexplain to third parties, such as patients, how to
confirm the accuracy and reliability, and whatkind of output will be produced if they do what
they do in a flow chart way. Therefore, it isnecessary to point out and improve theexplanatory materials prepared by the students
many times. In consequence, it became theinstruction time of those during the class, and the
production time of the product became the timeout of the class, and the burden of the student wasconsiderably increased.

(B-2) The production time was solved by ensuring thecooperation with the outside of the AT course as
shown in (A-2), and instruction on explanatory
materials, etc., which are important thought andskill in the AT course, was decided to be carriedout.
(C-2) In the production of AT course, it is necessary tosatisfy the standard which each seeks from thedifference of the standpoint of the three parties.
However, if you oversatisfy some specifications,
it becomes defective on the other hand, and you
cannot meet the required standards. Therefore, itis necessary to realize it and to give feedback in
the field. Then, a system was established tosupplement by opening a co-op practice as anintensive lecture, in which the preparation by thetraining subject for one year is done, and thesummer holiday period is utilized, and theimprovement proposal for evaluation andfeedback in the hospital is proposed, examined,
and improved.

(C-1) It is necessary to have the manufactured products
evaluated (used) by hospitals, etc., and to finish
them up to the products that can be used by
improving them based on them. However, even awell-conceived product, as shown in Section (B1), would be unfinished if there was no time toimprove it. Therefore, the feedback of theevaluation must be given until the product withsome improvement is shown, but it cannot be
done. This ended with "I tried, but it wasn't good"with only expectations for the hospital, making it
difficult to keep in touch with the hospital on an
ongoing basis.

(3) Performance evaluation
Regarding the evaluation of manufacturing, theDepartment of Mechanical Engineering has used
CUDBAS method (Mori, 1998), etc. to identify skills tobe acquired, etc., and has been evaluating the evaluation
by putting a weight on the items corresponding to thegrade. (Yoshikawa, et al., 2007) However, the AT course
is a problem solving according to needs from the field,
and the degree of difficulty also varies from group togroup, so the evaluation of skills, etc. is insufficient.
Furthermore, in evaluating the thinking, ingenuity, andefforts for "making things that are better for users," in the
AT course, in which students from multiple departments
are enrolled, the weight of what can be done for that task
within the group varies greatly from student to student.
Also, as for the evaluation of the result (production), if it
can be produced, it will pass, and if it cannot be produced,
it will be failure, so it will be concentrated only on thework.

In response to these issues (A-1)-(C-1), the following
are being implemented as of the third year of the AT
course.
(A-2) In the practices, the support system by threeteachers is always taken, one each from the
Departmentof Mechanical Engineering,
Department of Electrical Engineering andInformation Science, and Department ofElectronics and Control Engineering. By this,practical support of circuit design andmanufacture, program design and manufacture,and hardware manufacture of casing andequipment are carried out, and the realization ismade to be a system which finishes it. On the other14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland163

temperature difference between the outside air and theroom temperature, not only a large energy loss by giving
priority to ventilation, it causes a large variation in room
temperature. Variations in indoor temperature can be asource of discomfort, in addition to increased risk of heatstroke and heart attack. Therefore, it is required toventilate efficiently while adjusting the air conditioningby cooling and heating.
In this challenge, the efficiency improvement ofventilation with cooling and heating is examined for the
existing rehabilitation room under the cooperation of therehabilitation hospital.
Students' efforts include conducting numericalsimulations of the indoor environment, and proposing amethod that can minimize the temperature change in theroom and ventilate efficiently by examining the location
and wind direction of the circulator in the rehabilitation
room with cooling and heating. On the other hand,
medical institutions are asked to ventilate according to
the method proposed by the students, and evaluates theactual measurement of the room temperature and thecondition when using the rehabilitation room byquestionnaire, etc., and giving feedback. Based on theseresults, we are working to develop a system that caneasily propose the installation location and winddirection of circulators required for ventilation anddecreasing room temperature differences, even in avariety of rehabilitation rooms.

Here, in medical and welfare equipment, there are "A:
Patient: Evaluator of the main function of the device
through physical contact with the device" and "B: Person
who operates the device and interacts with the patient andthe device" as end users, and "C: Management: Buyer" aswell, and each position is different, so naturally, the value
standards also differ. For example, A makes theelimination of distress, fear, and anxiety an importantcriterion of value. B evaluates the ease of operation andmaintenance to prevent erroneous operation, and theshort start-up time. Then, C emphasizes the low runningcost, installation space, initial expenses, no special skill
staff, effects on patients by equipment introduction, etc.
rather than the operational ease in the maintenance.
These assessments are often a requirement for conflict.
Under such circumstances, no matter which solution thestudent makes emphasized, if there are any major
drawbacks in either A, B, or C, they will not be used.
Therefore, it is necessary to satisfy all the requirementsof the three parties, and discussions with the field areparticularly important at the stage of idea selection prior
to production. In addition, in the field as well,compromises for the selection of the idea of the second
point are required for all four parties based on thetechnical aspect, not the persistence of the initial request.
Based on the above, we set the target of attainment asfollows.
[1] Industrial design can be added to existing designs
that satisfy functions

Discussion(1) Evaluation on the clinical site

[2] Understanding and designing fail-safe and foolproof designs

This time, because the hospitals we are collaboratingwith are medical corporations rather than universities andother research institutes, no revenue other than medical
treatment was recognized, and it was very difficult for thestaff to secure time for verification tests because of labor
standards constraints. Then, the clerical procedure
method, etc. was pioneered in order to be able to receive
the commission from the joint research and the outsideorganization. As a result, in the hospital until now,
though it was negative for the labor except for thetreatment to the patient, the problem in the rehabilitation
technique surfaced, and it was possible to move toward
the possibility of the solution. Specifically, a device
development team (working group) was formed in thehospital, which led to awareness of medical
manufacturing for patients, handicapped people, andsociety. In addition, a system leading from evaluation by
medical research to commercialization was made by
medical-engineering cooperation shown in Figure1.

[3] Can produce actual machines and summarize themin a report
Regarding evaluation methods, by evaluating them insubmissions (briefing materials, etc.), reports, andportfolios (work reports for each class, etc.), it is notpossible to evaluate efforts within and outside of time andto rely on members, and a method in which differencesin evaluation occur even within the group is used.
Evaluation using these methods has been wellreceived by students, saying that it is fair as well.
Examples of Efforts
Examples of challenges based on needs from theclinics are shown below.
[Proposals for Efficient Ventilating Methods
Rehabilitation Rooms Using CFD]

in(2) Student evaluation
In indoors where many people are active, ventilationis required as appropriate to arrange the indoor
environment. Especially at present, it is required toventilate constantly as a countermeasure for theprevention of the COVID-19 infections. However,ventilation during midsummer and midwinter is large

The results of a questionnaire survey after attending
the AT course are shown in Figure 2. The questionnaire
is divided into three groups, namely "4th-year: 4th-year
students who conducted a manufacturing exercise for six
months," "5th-year (from 4th-year): students who

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland164

Figure 1. System that leads to established commercialization

4th-year

5th-year (from 4th-year)

5th-year[%]

4th-year

5th-year (from 4th-year)

5th-year

Figure 2. Post-class Questionnaire (Learning afterStudent Attendance)

Figure 3. Enthusiasm for post-course learningcompleted an AT course (all 6 credits)," and "5th-year:
students who did not conduct manufacturing exercises,
but students who learned the planning and evaluation of
medical device development for 5th-year students in
lectures," and it shows the results of evaluations with amaximum of three points at five levels in each question.
From Figure 2, those who completed the AT course(5th-year (from 4th-year)) rated lower than those in theother groups for "being able to make useful things in theworld." This is probably due to the fact that we were able
to recognize by feedback from the actual site that there
were deficiencies that would not reach practical use if we
had not devised them yet. Even in the free description of

the student questionnaire, there were several comments
such as "it is necessary to think about the user side, notjust the creator side" and "it is not something thateveryone is satisfied with, and it is important to makethings that meet the user's demands". From this, it can beseen that without feedback from the hospital, it becomesthe complacency state of the engineer. In addition, byreceiving feedback, it was pointed out that the experienceof manufacturing within the college, which had been
conducted in the classroom, etc. so far, would not be able
to be used in the real world, and it can be said that by thisexperience, the students were able to learn about theseverity of craftsmanship.

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland
165

the importance of specialized knowledge in otherdepartments.

Furthermore, the score for "I'm glad I took it"
exceeded 2.5, while the score for "I recommend taking it
to juniors" was low. When asked about this, they said,"It's pretty hard to complete, so if you didn't want to do it
yourself, it won't last for two years, so I wouldn't
recommend it to you." From this fact, it seems that further
contrivance and improvement of the curriculum arenecessary.

References
Kazuo Mori (1998). Development of CUDOBAS and its
Outlook. Research on Human Resources Development,
16 volumes, 109-128.
KOSEN-AT Network (2018). Technical College AT
Engineer Skills Standard Guidebook. 2-98.

(3) Curriculum and Systems
The curriculum is structured so that students can learn
from the lectures of basic knowledge through to thetraining and production stages. In addition, as describedin Section 3.2, collaboration with existing subjects has
enabled students to obtain outputs by compensating for
production time, etc., and to greatly encourage students'
growth through co-op education with hospitals using
intensive lectures as an outcome.
Questionnaire results asking changes in students'
willingness to learn after the course are shown in Figure
3. The questionnaire, similar to Figure 2, is organized
into three groups and represents the percentage of people
who answered "necessary" for each question. From
Figure 3, in the responses of students completing the AT
course (5th-year (from 4th-year)), the scores for "humanbody" and "expertise in other departments" are high asnecessary learning in the future. In order to solve
problems in assistive technology, knowledge such as "thehuman body" is required, and it is desirable that several
students from different departments of affiliation havesome "expertise of other departments" when working ingroups. Therefore, in the AT course, which aims to foster
engineers with a broad perspective, it is a very favorable
result that the graduated students felt the necessity forthese things, and it can be said that in the future, theyobtained a very valuable and important sense(experience) in carrying out manufacturing.

Takashi Yoshikawa, Yoshinobu Kamada, andYoshihumi Taniguchi (2007). Engineering Design
Education Method in the Department of MechanicalEngineering, Niihama College of Technology. Lecture
Paper College of Engineering and Industrial Education,
238-239.

Conclusions
The following conclusion was obtained as a result of
opening AT course of all 6 credits for 2 years from 4th
graders, regardless of the subject of affiliation, andcarrying out manufacturing curriculum by medicalengineering cooperation for 3 years.
(1) It could be proposed as one of the schemes andsystems for continuing cooperation with medical
institutions which are not research institutes such asuniversities.
(2) It was clarified that it could be carried out by carryingout the cooperation with the existing subject in orderto reduce the burden on the student by the AT course
adding to the manufacturing (PBL) subject of eachsubject.
(3) Students who have completed all courses can learn
about the severity of manufacturing and experience
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland
166

JOBITTI –COLLABORATION BETWEEN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTES AND
INDUSTRY WITHIN BIOSCIENCES -QUALITY MANAGEMENT AS AN EXAMPLE
A.E.E. Norström*a, T. Hovinena and S.L. SoinibabTurku University of Applied Sciences, Turku, Finland
Institute of Biomedicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland*anne.norstrom@turkuamk.fi

Abstract
Jobitti-project (https://jobitti.utu.fi) is a Finnish
government funded key project where the focus was
set to enhance the collaboration between the higher
education institutes (HEIs) and industry. In the
Jobitti project HEI personnel strives to develop theeducation in disciplines such as biotechnology,
biomedicine and medicine education, and quality
management systems within those fields. These goals
are planned to be reached by creating and enabling
effective collaborative networks between theparticipating Finnish HEIs providing education in
the field, as well as companies and international
collaboration partners. While E-learning is a key
element in Jobitti also the HEI personnel
participating in the project has been trained in thisfield. Although development of online courses beinga main topic since the project beginning, has thedevelopment work never been as motivating as
during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Multiple new online courses have been created inorder to increase the selection and flexibility in the
curricula of the participating HEI’s. Alternative
study paths within single curricula have been createdas the possibility to include courses from other HEI’s
is enabled. The collection of courses is presented on
an open website and the courses will be available
globally for all students and company employeesinterested in the field. The companies collaboratingin the Jobitti-project have expressed their need fori.e. online quality management training for theemployees. All participating companies have been
involved in the creation of the online courses by
providing input to the relevant content of thecourses. Due to the fast changes within the future
working life the education in the HEI’s must answer
to new and still unknown needs of different types ofengineering and expert profiles. Education andresearch within the field of bioengineering andbiosciences provide a potential source for new
innovations and a possibility for entrepreneurship.
In this paper we describe how our project hasestablished a close cooperation with bioengineering,biomedical and medical industries in order to lower

the barrier for internship recruitments and to
facilitate the students’ transfer to working life.
Keywords: University-industry collaboration, Quality
management, Job shadowing, E-learning, Curricular
planning
Introduction
Higher education institutes (HEIs) are preparing thestudents for the working life. This transition faces
challenges on how to fulfil the requirements ofbioscience industry. The pace of change in the required
skills and competences will increase. However, oureducation may not be able to respond to these challenges
in a timely manner. Therefore, effective thinking about
how to manage and respond to these challenges in our
educational systems is urgently needed. In order tobetter facilitate the transition of students to employment,
Jobitti, a project funded by Finland’s Ministry of
Education and Culture, with its consortium universities,
was set out to enhance the collaboration between the
HEIs and industry.
Specifically, the purpose of this collaborative project
was to improve the effectiveness of university-industry
collaboration by creating online training courses andproviding a platform for students and companies. The
Jobitti-project group consisted of four higher education
institutions, University of Turku, Åbo Akademi
University, University of Eastern Finland and Turku
University of Applied Sciences. Our project aims toprovide a good starting point in a form of one website
which presents the various new online courses on
biosciences created during the project for the Finnish
bioscience students and companies on the field. A partof the project focuses on courses in quality management,
discussed in this paper. We are looking for flexible
delivery, close relationship with industry and the needand ideas for specialized courses. Besides providing alist of new online courses available for the students, thepurpose of the website is to assist the students to increase
their knowledge about the industry. In addition, thewebsite helps employer and other stakeholders to gain a167better understanding of different study programs andtheir content as well as graduate degrees withinbiosciences. The site could serve as an information
channel between interested companies and stakeholders
and collects data about internships, summer jobs andopen position opportunities. The Jobitti project seeks toestablish collaboration opportunities and exploit
synergies between the HEIs and industry withinbiosciences and build up an educational resource thatwould enhance the students’ chances to successfullytransfer to working life.

for doing their daily job activities and duties. Preassignments of this course included read up about thecompany profile and managing confidentiality,
contacting the company, finding a receiving employee
for shadowing and finally signingof the Non-Disclosure
Agreement together with a responsible employee of thecompany. Interestingly, even despite the pandemic, allstudents (N=5) that were willing and able to pave their
way for piloting this course were international students.
According to their reflections in the learning diaries Job
shadowing provided a real-life experience of theworking environment in the corporate world. It also
helped to build connections with people of their interest
field and to get an idea about the requirements to be apart of the desired job in a company after graduation.

Curricular planning
The project formed a steering group that consisted ofrepresentatives from all four HEIs and five companies
active in the biomedical field and interested in thequality related topics. The purpose of a steering group
was to follow the ongoing activities and the progress ofthe project and to discuss and give feedbcak to theproject. Suggestions of further activities, opinions andwishes were registered and then discussed in theworking group meetings. The steering group met twicea year. For successful collaboration, communicationneeds to be regular, well implemented and progress
reports should be made available at many stages ofproject while communicating the benefits may lead tofuture collaborations (Avasthy et al. 2019).
The activity of the steering group has helped the
project to address interesting ideas and solve potential
upcoming problems. One important point mentioned by
the company professionals in the steering goup was thatinstead of learning outcomes favoured in higher
education, generic skills and competencies need to bealso acquired during the learning process also indicatedby Braun & Brachem (2017). The steering group
activities have also brought the representatives ofdifferent HEIs closer together and has led to a fruitfuland beneficial collaboration, where all HEIs have theirown field of interest and activity and no competition
within the activities were seen.
In addition to collaboration between the higher
education institutes and industry Finnish governmental
programme also highlights the importance of having theinternational students to remain in Finland after
graduation and to utilize their skills and expertise forthe benefit of our labor market. Based on the feedbackof the graduating students, especially that ofinternational ones, it is obvious that students do notknow well the companies of their potential career field.
Therefore, they are neither familiar with career
opportunities nor duties and responsibilities in different
positions in local companies. We took these comments
into consideration and engaged students’ opinions to our
curricular planning by designing the course for ‘Job
shadowing’ where student follows and observes a
trained and experienced employee of their chosen field

Company survey
The Jobitti project was initiated with a survey
targeted at companies working in the field of
biosciences. Its aim was to find out specifically what
quality related knowledge was required when hiring new
employees. The survey also asked about companies'
perception of the trends affecting the future of quality
management.
The content of the company survey:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

168

Company name
IndustryYour position in the company
Revenue of the company and amount of
employees
Quality systems used in the company*
Is quality education provided in the company(internal/external)
What kind of quality education is required fromthe new employees?
How do You think the required knowledge willchange in the following 10 years?
a. quality control
b. general knowledgec. attitude

quality issues and rquirements. If the company wasworking according to a collection of “Good Practice”
quality guidelines and regulations (GxP, where x
represents the Manufacturing/Laboratory/ Clinical) the
frequency of the education was specified by the system
requirements. The Consultant companies educated othercompanies and received their up-to-date knowledge byfollowing closely the recent development in the branch.
In most of the company answers (7) was the basic
knowledge of the GxP mentioned as well as the basic
understanding of quality thinking and quality standards.
Also, the understanding of the entire quality concept andthe certification principle was found to be important. The
knowledge requirements for the new employees were
naturally highly dependent on the tasks these persons
have in the company. Tasks such as documentation,
validation and continuous learning were mentioned. On
the other hand, some answers emphasized that quality
knowledge requires growing into the task and takes time.
In the planning work of the online courses the company
wishes were taken into account. The courses startdeveloping students’ quality thinking from basic
knowledge of quality management systems. Similarly,
developing of the quality thinking needs to start from themetrological quality point of view. The scope of thecourse syllabus is gradually widened by introducing
other quality management systems to achieve the whole
picture. Quality management systems discussed incourses include systems compliant with ISO standards(e.g. ISO 9001, ISO 14001), as well as systems based on
regulatory requirements such as Good Manufacturer's
Practice (GMP) and Good Laboratory Practice (GLP)
Quality related courses developed during Jobitti and theirrecommended order of progression are shown in Figure1.

Pedagogy
In Jobitti, each teacher chose the suitable pedagogicalmodel for their own course. The only prerequisite was to
do it online. However, at the beginning the teachers had
some hands-on training how to use the new digital tools
and platforms for designing and building the courses. Useof learning analytics to get feedback from the courses
regarding student participation and assessment of theirlearning was also highly recommended. Some of thecourses operate independently as stand-alone courses
without teacher guidance, and in others, the teacher ispresent regularly or their online presence is scheduled inadvance for specific time points only. Even normal,scheduled lectures were possible, but they were carriedout online. Previous Finnish projects concerning web
course designs were utilized (eAMK and Tasa-arvoinen
oppiminen 24/7 Hiltunen L. & Lattunen, P. (2017). Bothof these projects have produced materials to support
teachers to implement digital learning.
The course design and testing phase utilized peer review
by colleagues. A form, with 20 questions relating to thestructure of the online course, was used to aid the peer
review. The subjects to be evaluated included forexample clarity of the course structure, layout andinstructions of the online implementation, adapted to thelevel of the target group, copyright issues, visualappearance and easy accessibility of the course, the useof learning analytics, diversity and clarity of tasks, andstudent-teacher interaction in the course. Student
feedback was collected from each course andimplementation. In the feedback questions the students
were typically asked to give feedback of the clarity of thecourse as well as individual tasks and assignments. Also,a text form field was in use.

Table 1. The number of students who participated inquality courses during the project and estimation ofparticipants for autumn (*).

Results
The survey was answered by 17 companies. The
industries of the companies were mainly related todifferent phases of drug development and production, as
well as the diagnostic industry. Companies specialisingin consulting were also involved. Respondents included
CEOs, quality managers, managers and specialists. The
size i.e., employee numbers of the companies
interviewed varied widely. However, companies ofdifferent sizes were uniformly represented: there were
five companies with fewer than 10 employees, there were
six companies with 10-50 employees, and six companies
with more than 100 employees.
Majority of the companies (13) provided quality
training for the employees organized and the form of the
training was highly dependent on the size of thecompany. Most often, the supervisor was responsible forfamiliarizing the new employee with the company’s

As discussed above, the collection of courses designed,
built and piloted during the Jobitti project (Fig.2) are

169

presented on a website managed by Turku University(http://jobitti.utu.fi/). This website is an informative
frontpage, where the courses of interest can be accessedby the students in HEI’s as well by the companies. From
the frontpage the student will be guided to the actual
online learning environment, the joint learning platform(Moodle) of Finnish HEIs’ https://digicampus.fi.
However, individual HEIs may also use their own
learning platforms which may vary between theparticipating HEIs. Altogether, 421 students haveparticipated in the course so far (Table 1). In addition,

four more courses will start in the autumn 2021. A totalof 70-90 students is expected to participate in piloting thefirst implementation of the upcoming quality courses. In
the future, the student numbers are expected to increase
when there will be participants from outside the piloting
HEIs and study programs, such as summer workers, newemployees, the ones looking for continuing professional
development or career change.

Figure 1. Quality related courses developed during Jobitti and their recommended order of completion. The industrial
sectors mentioned on the right are the primary target sectors of these courses.
Discussion

unequivocal and can be completed in a timely manner.
Naturally, the challenge should be adequate for the
students, and also the teacher's time needed to teach theonline courses, should fall within the range of reasonable
workload expectations.. For example, real-timeassessment, such as peer review commonly used method
in classroom courses, should be created in a way that it ispossible to correct the peer reviews so that they are
sufficient but not incorrect, and steer the discussions on
the correct path. In online courses this method can bechallenging as the teachers are not attending all
discussions and the students are not experts and are stilllearning. The challenge in designing online/blended
courses is to find activities that have at the same time
appropriate technical solutions, are within thecapabilities of instructors, and satisfy the preferences oflearners. Coman et al. (2020) found in their recent study
that the coronavirus pandemic has generated changes inthe teaching-learning process in HEIs and has influenced
the interaction between teachers and students. They
reported issues with the student motivation, technicalissues, followed by teachers’ lack of technical skills andtheir teaching style improperly adapted to the online

The Jobitti project of creating web-based courses
within biosciences started already before the world in
spring 2020 was struck by the COVID19 pandemic.
Thus, the courses planned and generated within the
project have been to some extent available for the
students on the web during this challenging year. Thispilot phase of the Jobitti-project will be completed at theend of June, 2021and the rest of the courses will belaunched by the end of the year. However, the online
courses generated during the project will be available forthe next five years. Consequently, the collaboration
between the teachers in the participating HEIs willcontinue. The courses are either incorporated into
curricula or are offered as elective studies of the various
study programs in the partner HEIs. These decisions were
naturally made from the HEIs’ point of interests.
The web-based courses affect the students in several
ways compared to the traditional classroom courses.
Efforts had to be made in both planning the course
content as well as the pedagogical approach. The courses
and the tasks should be designed so that they are

170environment. These findings are directly applicable to theonline studies in general and when the inevitable
technical issues have been solved one after the other andthe final results have been encouraging. From thestudent’s perspective, the variety of courses has naturally
extended beyond their own study and/or campus areas.
Another goal for the project was to be able to generate a
set of courses that can be offered to the companies. The
courses can then be arranged according to the needs andtimetables of the companies. Another way for thecompanies to utilize the generated courses is to send theemployees in need of education to participate in the
degree program of Industrial Quality Management(IQM). The degree program consists of online quality
courses generated during the project. The participation in
the degree program can also be used as an update ofquality education for the employees.
In the survey, the interviewees were asked to envision
future changes within quality control aspects in their own
field of industry. The following topics would, according
to the answers be of considerable importance in the
future. First, the quality knowledge will in the future be
required from the entire company staff while other tasks
such as big data management will only be managed by

specified persons. Furthermore, the quality control in the
future may be specified more company wise. This will
challenge the content of general quality education. The
meaning of the risk-based approach in quality
management is also a growing trend. In the future, quality
by design and statistical analyses in quality control aredominant. The quality control methods are changing tocomputational methods to control and improve quality
when proactive quality management is needed. Also, it
seems that the requirements are getting more demanding
and it should be noted that all employees need knowledge
concerning quality. When the attitude towards quality
management knowledge was found out, the opinion wasthat the hospital pharmacies, universities, productdevelopment as well as the maintenance departments
should get involved in the GxP-thinking. As a generalcomment related to attitudes, employees should be
reliable, be interested in following the continuous change
in the field and be innovative. Finally, it was anticipatedthat the number of regulations and bureaucracy will
increase.

Figure 2. Courses developed in the Jobitti project
Conclusions

now approached and listened to the needs of companies
together. This is a meaningful way to foster crossinstitutional studies between multiple HEIs, universities
and universities of applied sciences. Over 20 online
courses were developed through a collaboration between
four Finnish universities, their international partners andwith the assistance of companies in bioscience industry.
The courses will be available under Digicampus.fi online
learning platform. As collaboration is something that
happens between people, we have built up an active

In this paper we have described means how governmental
funding has improved the collaboration of partner
universities
andfacilitateduniversity-industry
collaboration. As prompted by industry needs, quality
management courses were chosen to be developed. This
university – industry interaction has also helped theuniversities to focus on their own strengths on producing
the courses. In addition, instead of promoting their own
interests in collaboration with industry universities have171

productive network that will continue to pursue
sustaining collaboration.
Acknowledgements
Wewish to acknowledge
funding support
fromthe Finland’s Ministry of Education and Culture and wewish to thank our Industrial Partners for the fruitfulcollaboration, as well as all our Jobitti project’s HEI
partners.
References
Awasthy, R., Flint, S., Sankarnarayana R. & Jones R.L.
(2019) A framework to improve university–industry
collaboration.
JournalofIndustry-University
Collaboration Vol. 2 No. 1, 49-62. DOI 10.1108/JIUC09-2019-0016
Braun, E., Brachem, J-C. (2017) The labour market’s
requirement profiles for higher education graduates(2017). In Kyndt, E., Donche, V., Trigwell, K., &Lindblom-Ylänne, S. (Eds.). Higher Education
Transitions: Theory and Research (pp. 209-218).
Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315617367
Coman, C., Gabriel Triu, L., Mesesan-Schitz, L.,
Bularca, M.C. (2020). Online Teaching and Learning in
Higher Education during the Coronavirus Pandemic:
Students’
Perspective.
Retrievedfromhttps://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/24/10367.
Hiltunen, L. (2017). Verkko-opetuksen suunnittelu –webinaarisarja 24/7 Tasa-arvoinen oppiminen –hanke
Retrieved fromhttp://247oppia.azurewebsites.net/wpcontent/uploads/2
018/01/Oppia247_PEDA_tyokirja_2017.pdf

Retrieved form eAMK,

https://www.eamk.fi/en/frontpage/

172

Sustainable
Developmentin Education

INITIATIVES IN MARITIME EDUCATION CLASS FOR THE PURPOSE OF
IMPROVING MOTIVATION TO LEARN GENERAL SUBJECTSK. Yamada*,aaDepartment of Maritime Technology, National Institute of Technology, Toyama College, Japan*keisuke@nc-toyama.ac.jp

Abstract

Keywords: Maritime education, General and special
subjects, Knowledge utilization, Learning motivation

The Department of Maritime Technology trains
human resources who will be responsible for shippingin Japan in the future. In recent years, the Japanese
shipping industry has been facing a problem ofshortage of Japanese ocean-going seamen. It is an
important issue for Japan, an island nation, to secureand develop excellent seamen for the sustainable
development of the nation.
In recent years, the diversification andsophistication of skills required for seamen are
accelerating. On the other hand, it is also true thatmany students lose confidence due to the difficulty ofkeeping up with the skills required for them.
Moreover, most of them, during their lower grades,
give up their dream of traveling around the world
ocean. Against these backgrounds, this initiative aims
to produce as many students as possible who cancontinue the efforts necessary to become ocean-going
seamen. This report will provide some examples ofingenious exercises in special subject, Introduction to
Marine Engine, which is offered for first-year
students.
It is important to be careful when conducting
professional education from the age of 15, eventhough special subjects are based on general subjects,
some students easily make light of general subjects. In
order to be able to improve their abilities even after
graduation, it is necessary to make a foundation forlearning. Furthermore, to be active as seamen, they
are needed not only academic skills but also variety ofabilities, such as communication skills as a typicalexample. In this initiative, an instructor focused on
the following abilities; information gathering skills,
data analysis skills, and an international sense.
Exercises include group discussion, competition orpresentation. An instructor consciously creates
exercises that require knowledge utilization of both
special subjects and general subjects. Students havecome to understand that these subjects are closely
related. As a result, it is possible to suppress thetendency of students to easily select subjects. From
the results of the questionnaire, it was also confirmedthat students’ attitude toward learning generalsubjects improved.

Background
The Department of Maritime Technology is training
navigators and engineers who can play an active role inocean-going vessels. Japan relies on imports for much of
its energy resources with more than 99 percent by weighton sea transport. For these reasons, securing seafarers tooperate ocean-going vessels is an important issue forJapan that is indispensable to national economic security.
However, as shown in figure 1, the number of Japanese
ocean-going seamen was about 38,000 in 1980,
decreased to about 5,000 in 2000, and has recently
changed to about 2,200.
In Japan, an objective has been set to increase thenumber of ocean-going seamen by 1.5 times in the ten
years since 2018. The Japanese government, relatedorganizations and maritime educational institutions aremaking various efforts to achieve this objective. In
colleges of technology (KOSEN), faculty members teachstudents the attractiveness of the work of ocean-goingseafarers in classes, provide marine education for juniorhigh school students and younger. We have tried various
approaches, but it is likely that we will not achieve ourobjective without further improvements.
Fortunately, the author is in charge of all gradeclasses, and can watch students grow up in the five and a
Number of Japanese ocean-going
seamen40,00030,00020,00010,0000Year

Fig.1 Changes in the number of Japanese oceangoing seamen and future mid-term objective.

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
18-21 August 2020, Turku, Finland174

half years before graduation. I’m worried that, as theirgrades increased, many students give up their dreams tobecome a ocean-going seamen, even though they hadstrong aspirations at the time of admission. My
investigations revealed that the main reasons for giving
up their dreams are long boarding periods and lack ofacademic ability and qualifications. Looking further into
the reason of the latter, during the lower grades thestudents misjudged that general subjects were notnecessary and had neglected to study. As a result,students were unable to develop their basic skills, andmaking it difficult to accommodate specialized subjects
in higher grades.
Since I realized this fact, I have come to feel that it isimportant for students to study general subjects in lower
grades in order to complete higher grade subjects.
Therefore, initiatives are being made in the class for first
graders to enable students to recognize the importance ofgeneral subjects themselves. This paper reports on thestatus of this initiative.

Table 1 Outline of the three-year initiatives.
1st year (2017.4 - 2018.3)
Attitude survey on learning of generalFeb.
subjects
2nd year (2018.4 - 2019.3)
Sep.

Trial 1 - Estimation of operating costs, etc.

Jan.

Trial 2 - Japan's energy situation

Feb.

Attitude survey on learning of generalsubjects

3rd year (2019.4 - 2020.3)
Trial 1 - Understanding the composition ofApr.
the maritime industry
Jun.

Trial 2 - Free proposal for ships using newenergySep.

Trial 3 - Creation of cruise ship tour plans andestimation of operating costs

Dec.

Trial 4 - Propeller performance, stopping
distanceJan.

Trial 5 - Japan's energy situation

Jan.

Attitude survey on learning of generalsubjects

Overview of initiatives
In a class, Introduction to Marine Engines, the author
teaches first graders the following themes:-Composition of maritime industry-Basics of hull structure-Diesel engine-Boiler-Steam turbines and gas turbines-Pump-Propeller-Mooring devices and steering devices
These contents are considered to be highly
specialized for first graders. For this reason, students
were only required to understand the basic level, and theclasses were conducted with the aim of giving students
interest, responsibility and self-esteem in engaging in themaritime industry. As mentioned above, after noticing
the lack of motivation to study general subjects in 2017,
one of the objectives was to make students aware of therelevance of specialized subjects and general subjects,
and the range of activities has been gradually expanded.
However, the contents of this subject are restricted by the
STCW treaty and NIT’s KOSEN MCC. Therefore, theauthor carried out some initiatives as part of regularclasses.
In this paper, the word “related subjects” means
English, social studies (geography, history, economy,etc.), physics, and nautical science. It mainly conducts
exercises, and students output in various forms, such aspresentations, team competitions, and class discussions.
Table 1 shows the outline of the three-year initiatives.
The 1st year is the time when the concept of thisinitiatives began to be formulated. At the end of the year,
only the survey was conducted. In the 2nd year, two pilot
initiatives were carried out. In the 3rd year, fiveinitiatives were carried out as introductory education(Trial 1), coffee breaks after midterm exam (Trial 2, 4),
and homework during long vacation (Trial 3, 5).

Case study
Here, as an example of the initiative, exercise about
Japan's energy situation is shown in figure 2. This task
was given as homework for the winter vacation. As
mentioned at the beginning, Japan relies on imports by
sea for most of its energy resources. The energy situation
has changed dramatically in the last half century, andstudents need to know the past and see the future about
energy situation. Against this background, the concept of
this initiative (Trial 5) was set as follows.
Related subjects: Geography, modern history,
economy, international relations, nautical science
Required skills: Information gathering and analysis
skills, basic calculations for voyage planning and fuelconsumption.
The questions are as follows.
(1) When trading crude oil, the unit of "barrel" is usedinternationally. Find out how many liters a barrel equals,
and answer.
(2) Check the exchange rate (JPY/USD).
(3) What is the price of Brent crude oil (USD/bbl, yen/L)?
(4) Check the loading capacity of VLCC (Very Large
Crude oil Carrier).
(5) Calculate the price of crude oil equivalent to theloading capacity.
(6) Investigate the cruising distance from Sastanura Portin Saudi Arabia to Yokohama Port and calculate the14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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175

Fig. 2 Example of student’s answer (3rd year, Trial 5 - Japan’s energy situation)
number of days it takes to sail at an average speed of 14
kt. However, port calls on the way do not need to beconsidered.
(7) Fill out the top three Japanese oil import partners in2018 with a blank map.
(8) Explain the name of the strait on the way from thePersian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman, and the international
problems that are occurring in this strait.
(9) Figure shows the change in the ratio of crude oil
imports from the Middle East to Japan (Middle Eastdependence). Since 1965, Japan has relied on the Middle
East for crude oil at a high level of about 80% for mostof the half-century. However, from the late 1970s to thelate 1980s, dependence on the Middle East continued to
decline. This is the result of Japan's efforts to reduce
dependence on the Middle East as a national policy inresponse to major changes in the international situation.
Briefly describe the events that occurred during the 1970s
and 1980s and had a significant impact on the worldenergy situation.
(10) From which countries did crude oil imports increase,instead of reducing dependence on Middle Easterncountries? Answer two countries.
(11) In the 1990s, dependence on the Middle East grew
again. The background of the decrease in crude oil
imports from Asian countries is the common circumstances of each country. The graph which can understandthe situation is shown below. This graph shows theconsumption and import / export of crude oil in China.
Explain why oil imports from Asian countries havedecreased since 1990, using graphs and changes in
China's domestic situation.
(12) What do you think Japan needs to tackle in order toachieve a stable supply of crude oil in the future?
(13) Feel free to say whatever you think or feel throughthis homework.
First graders have a bit of knowledge about thesequestions, but they are not enough. Therefore, students
start collecting information from the books and theinternet. Some calculations are performed based on theobtained value. Here, basic calculation skills related tonavigation and fuel consumption are required.
Students will also explain social issues such as thedependence on crude oil in the Middle East, the energy
situation in Japan and other countries, and the issue of theStrait of Hormuz. In the last question, students were free
to write about Japan's future energy strategy (12) andhomework impressions (13).
Answers to these questions were given by designatedstudents during class after the winter vacation. In the last
question, students expressed various ideas. A lot of
opinions were drawn from students and shared in theform of a general discussion on this issue. The author
tried to explain the possible merits and demerits of thestudent's proposal and to promote the students'
understanding.

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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176

Attitude survey
Over the three years, a survey was conducted onawareness of the relevance and importance of specialized
subjects and general subjects. As mentioned above, thesubjects set as question items are English, social studies,
physics, and nautical science. Figure 3 shows the resultsof the questionnaire survey on each subject. A, B, C and
D described in the figure 3 have the following meanings,
respectively.
A: Strongly agree on relevance and importance
B: Agree
C: Disagree
D: Strongly disagree
The number of responses is about 40 in any year.

A

Survey result (English)
In the 1st year, few students were strongly aware of
the importance for English and its relevance tospecialized subjects, and half of the students didn't
recognize the importance. In the 2nd year, a growing
number of students strongly agreed or agreed on theimportance and relevance of English. On the other hand,very few students disagreed at all. In the 3rd year, most
students agreed with the importance and relevance ofEnglish.

ABCDEnglish

2017

2018

2019

B
C
D
Social studies

2017

Survey result (Social studies)
In the 1st year, few students were aware of therelevance and the importance for specialized subjects andsocial studies. In the 2nd year, pilot efforts wereconducted, and some agreement was gained thatmaritime industry was closely related to social studies. In
the 3rd year, most students agreed on the importance ofsocial studies.

2018

2019

A
B
C

Survey result (Physics)
Originally, I explained the relationship between hull
motion characteristics and physics. As a result, a
relatively large number of students agreed with theimportance of physics in the 1st year. In addition to thework on the table 1, the author has been conducting
exercises with a focus on the association with physics,
and awareness has been improving year by year.

D
Physics

2017

2018

2019

A

Survey result (Nautical science)In the future, in order for the engineer and navigator
to work together on a large vessels, it is necessary tounderstand each other's work. Therefore, knowledge
related to marine machinery, which are learned in thenavigation course, was adopted in the class to promotemutual understanding between the engineer and thenavigator. In the 1st year, many students questioned why
they had to learn nautical science. As a result ofcontinuing to improve the contents of this class, thenecessity of mutual understanding can be understood at
the first grade, and the results are shown in the 3rd year’s
survey results.

B
CD
Nautical science

2017

2018

2019

Fig. 3 Changes in students' awareness of eachsubject. (A: strongly agree, B: agree, C: disagree,
D: strongly disagree)

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
18-21 August 2020, Turku, Finland
177generations cannot be taken into account. In order toaccurately verify the effects of this initiative, it isnecessary to continue research on changes in student
learning and awareness.

A
B

Conclusions

C
D

In the class of specialized subjects for first gradestudents, efforts were made to raise awareness of therelevance and the importance of both special subjects andgeneral subjects. A three-year survey of students' attitude
has shown that their awareness of learning generalsubjects has improved as this initiative has become fullfledged. It is necessary to continue to conduct surveys on
the status of learning activities and the degree of retentionof each subject.
As mentioned at the beginning, the motivation for thisinitiative is to eliminate students who give up oceangoing seamen because of lack of learning due to incorrect
selection of subjects. The achievement of this objective
will be confirmed after 2023.
Through various initiatives, I will continue to teachstudents that both special subjects and general subjects
are needed to improve themselves as a seamen in the
future. Moreover, I want to contribute to the stablesecuring of excellent Japanese ocean-going seamen.

r = 0.59
2017

Deviation value

A
B
C
D

r = 0.23
2019

References

Deviation value

Agency for Natural Resources and Energy (2019).
Annual report on energy in FY 2018. Retrieved fromhttps://www.enecho.meti.go.jp/about/whitepaper/2019/

Fig. 4 Relationship between in-class deviation
values and students’ awareness.
Figure 4 shows the relationship between the in-classdeviation value and the students’ awareness. 2017 and2019 results are compared. The deviation value wascalculated from the comprehensive evaluation points ofthis subject, Introduction to Marine Engine. Although thenumber of students in the class is about 40, it is notenough to give accurete deviation values. So this value isshown as a reference for understanding trends. The
vertical axis indicates the level of awareness of therelevance of the marine machinery and other subjects.
The level is the average value of the four subjects
described above.
In the 1st year (2017), students with higher deviation
values tended to be more awareness of the relevance andthe importance for other subjects. It was confirmed that
there is some correlation between academic achievement
and awareness of the relevance and the importance forother subjects. On the other hand, in the 3rd year (2019),
this tendency became weaker, and the number of students
who became aware of the relevance and the importanceof marine machinery and other subjects increased
regardless of the their deviation values. From this fact, it
can be said that this initiative has achieved certain results.
However, the actual status of students' efforts in eachsubject and the transition of grades have not been
confirmed. Another issue is that the differences inacademic ability at the time of admission among

Agency for Natural Resources and Energy (2019).
Various statistical information - Oil and LP gas related.
Retrieved fromhttps://www.enecho.meti.go.jp/statistics/petroleum_and_lpgas/International Energy Agency (2019). Data and statistics.
Retrieved fromhttps://www.iea.org/data-andstatistics?country=WORLD&fuel=Energy%20supply&indicator=Total%20primary%20energy%20supply%20(
TPES)%20by%20source
Japan Maritime Center (2019). SHIPPING NOW 20192020 (pp. 44). Ocean-going seamen: Change in thenumber of Japanese ocean-going seamen.
Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism(2018). Further Initiatives to Secure Quantities ofJapanese Seafarers. Retrieved fromhttp://www.mlit.go.jp/maritime/maritime_tk4_000017.h
tml
Ogosi, T. (2019). Geographic Statistics Handbook
2019 edition Vol. 59. Ninomiya Bookstore.

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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178

OPEN CLASSROOM APPROACH ENCOURAGING INTEREST IN ENGINEERING
INSPIRED BY THE JAPANESE TRADITIONAL RIVER TRAFFIC "TAKASEBUNE"
K. Hosotani*,a and J. MorimotobaDept. Integrated Science and Technology, NIT Tsuyama College, Tsuyama city, Okayama, Japanb
Wake Museum of History and Folk Materials, Wake town, Okayama, Japan*hosotani@tsuyama.kosen-ac.jp

Abstract

local community are prescribed for the middle grades of
elementary school. In junior high schools, teachers
instruct on environmental and energy issues, which arefoundational for a sustainable society. PBL-styleinteractive lessons have been employed in many classes
to avoid a one-way medium of learning. PBL lessons,intended to foster innovative ideas leading to asustainable society, are also being attempted in the fieldof engineering education. In this context, community
learning has been combined with science and technology.
For example, lessons involving study of local windenergy and practical interactive lessons on therelationship between roads and industries have beenreported. Similarly, specialized lessons on disasterprevention in areas using virtual reality technology havebeen reported. As a unique local learning method, the useof advanced technology to teach about historic buildingsor the history of disasters in a given community has been
proposed (e.g. Fujii et.al., 2010). These lessons have thepotential to impress upon participants a sense of affinity
or attachment to their residential area. The combinationof history and science in a lesson considering the energybalance of a technology otherwise encountered only inhistorical documents may be especially effective forsustainable social education. However, some difficulties
remain in designing this combination lesson. Children
may be more or less oblivious to the existence of old
buildings in their area, and special effort may be required
to motivate them. Furthermore, although class activities
involving reading historical documents are widespreadfor general citizens and participants can get a glimpse ofpast local societies in medieval and early modern periods,
it can be quite difficult for children to read andunderstand such documents. Conversely, participantsinterested in local history may not participate as actively
in a component involving historical science, given that abasic knowledge of science is required. Perhaps for thesereasons, there seem to be few public courses that combinesocial learning and science and technology while
appealing to all ages. The aim of this study was to
identify a theme for an open lecture that could respond toa wide range of age groups while encouraging thedevelopment of a sustainable society. Accordingly, we
focused on the use of wind energy by traditional river
traffic in Okayama Prefecture, western Japan (Figure 1),prior to the early Showa era (1930s). Many documents ofTransportation by river traditionally relied on“Takasebune,” sailing ships with a length of 15 m that
played a key role in logistics in Okayama Prefecture
in Japan until the early Showa period (1930s).
Descriptions of these vessels in historical documents
describe the harnessing of wind for sailing upstream.
Records of past river traffic lead us to expect winds toblow stably from the estuary to the middle basinthroughout the year in Okayama. In our previous
research, the wind energy used by Takasebune was
evaluated by field surveys and numerical simulations,and its capacity to assist sailing was confirmed. This
result may also support educational activities
exploring the use of renewable energy in the past. In
this article, a public lecture on wind energy and its
exploitation by Takasebune was proposed. It was
expected to help address sustainability issues on aregional level by encouraging innovation. The open
lecture was delivered annually for five years toelementary school students and adults living inOkayama. During the lecture, documentary evidence
on the history of Takasebune was presented first,
after which the scientific principles underlying the useof wind power were discussed. Then, experiments
using boats and paper-cup windmills were conductedto consider the effective use of local winds. This
combination of lecture and activity was intended to be
applicable to a wide range of age groups.
Keywords: sustainable energy, educational program,social study, Takasebune, windmill design
Introduction
In elementary and junior high schools in Japan, social
education provides students with the opportunity to learn
local history and cultural features and, thus, to understandthe characteristics of their local community. Recently,
project-based learning (PBL) on the “innovation
ecosystem,” which focuses on local social issues and thecreation of new local industries has been developed by
local governments. In the standard school curriculum by
the ministry of education of Japan (2017), study of thenatural environment and the traditional culture of the
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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179

Tsuyama
Wake

Saeki

Hokkaido

Yo
shi
i ri
v.

Tawaraidam

Wake

Okayama

.

Yo
shi
ir

r iv

iv.

ahi
As

Mogami riv.
Yoshii riv.,
Asahi riv.,
Takahashi riv.

Tokyo
Okayama
Gonokawa
Osaka
Tone riv.
Fuji riv.
Inunaki
Kumanoriv.
Yoshino
riv.
riv.

播磨灘

0

10

20km

Setonaikai
sea

0

2

4

6 km

Fig. 1 Takasebune (reconstructed model) and location map of Yoshii River, Okayama, Japanthe period suggest that wind power was used for theoperation of “Takasebune” as shown in Figure 1 to
Figure 3. In a previous study, the use of wind by
Takasebune on the Yoshii River in Okayama wasevaluated by field surveys and numerical simulations,and the feasibility of exploiting this energy for sailing
was confirmed (Hosotani et.al., 2012). The report
showed, however, that windy areas and periods during
which wind could be used to help power Takasebune
were limited. For the purposes of a classroom activity on
sustainability, a focus on local and regional wind energy
might be a suitable example. Therefore, we developed an
open lecture that considers the history of the region andhow wind power was exploited to power Takasebune.
The interactive lesson had a historical science section andan experimental section that were combined toaccommodate a wide range of ages. This report firstdescribes the characteristic wind conditions encounteredby Takasebune on the Yoshii River in Okayama
Prefecture, Japan. Then, the method of the open lecturesdelivered in Tsuyama City in the northern area of
Okayama Prefecture and Wake Town in the middle basin
are described. Finally, the state of the class and the resultsof the class questionnaire are reported.

Okayamagaku Research Association (2005), Okayama
Pref.(1986)). One of the largest rivers in Okayama, theYoshii River has a stream length of 133 km and a basin
area of 2,110 km2. Water reaches the Okayama plain
along steep valley terrain from the Tsuyama basin in thenorth, surrounded by the Chugoku Mountains and theKibi Plateau, and then discharges into the Setonaikai Sea.
The distance between Tsuyama City and Okayama City,
the main logistical termini, is 72.4 km, with Wake Town
serving as a relay point between the two. River widthvaries from 100 m to 160 m, while the altitude difference
between Okayama and Tsuyama is about 100 m.
Regarding wind conditions in northern Okayama, an east
to west wind prevails in the Tsuyama basin, which isabout 30 km east-west and 10 km north-south. The wind
is usually calm but stronger local winds known as Hiroto
occur several times a year. Sea and land breezes are
generated in the southern Okayama plain (Mori, Y.
(1996), JMA report (2005)). The wind in the middle
basin near the sea is not strong, but in the river basin,surrounded by slopes, the wind is affected by the
topography.
(2) Documentary evidence on Takasebune
The 15 m-long Takasebune plying the Yoshii River
traveled the 72.4 km between Tsuyama City andOkayama City in one week during the 18th century. The
cargo capacity of the vessel was about 1 ton up river but
about 6 tons down river. Typically, daily items andmarine products were transported up river, while rice,charcoal, firewood, and tiles were conveyed in the
opposite direction. If it traveled from Okayama to
Tsuyama in three days, the boat’s average speed would
be expected to be 3 km/h. In the middle basin, where
Wake Town flourished as a relay base, the Tawarai Dam
was built for irrigation purposes. As seen in Figure 2, a
photograph of Takasebune taken in Wake Town during
the Taisho era, some boats were towed through a steep
channel called “Sedoushi.” Some boats terminated here,with their cargo being transferred to other boats anchoredon the other side of the dam. Although the magnitude of
the wind is not explicitly described in historical

Operation of Takasebune and Wind Conditions(1) Takasebune of the Yoshii River
Japan, being located in the monsoon area andsurrounded by the sea, has many rivers; therefore,transport by river was a major means of distribution until
the early modern period. In Okayama Prefecture, westernJapan, where there are three primary rivers with a widthof 100 m, a river transportation system using a boat
capable of sailing called a Takasebune (Figure 2 andFigure 3) was the main means of transportation between
coastal and inland cities. Takasebune of the Middle Ages
was small, but from early modern times a large, flatbottomed boat with a hull length of 15 m was used.
According to historical documents, as many as 200 boats
operated per river during the Edo period from the 1600s
to the 1800s (e.g. Wake Museum of History (no date),
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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documents, we can estimate both it and the human power
involved in the Takasebune’s operation using such
documents and memoirs. For example, as shown in
Figure 3, a drawing owned by a leading merchant“Okunike” depicts a Takasebune sailing upstream andshows boat crews gently pulling on a rope. According tothe old records, two boats were connected when traveling
upstream, and two men per boat pulled the tow ropes.
Some data suggest that sailing was possible from theestuary to the middle basin around Wake Town.
Conversely, it seems unlikely that sailing is possible inthe mountainous area north of Wake Town. In thenorthern area near the terminus, sailing may have been
undertaken in the presence of a basin-specific wind.
Although vessels similar to the Yoshii River’s
Takasebune travelled many of Japan’s rivers, (Figure 1),
the documentary evidence provides no direct information
on wind magnitude.

Fig. 2 Takasebune on the Yoshii River, photographed in the
Taisho period (owned by Wake museum of history)(3) Estimating wind power using historical documents
As shown in Figure 4, the resistance encountered bya ship sailing close to a riverbank, and avoiding turbulent
areas, is expressed by the following equation.
𝟏
𝑫 = 𝑪𝑫 𝝆𝒘 𝑨𝑽𝟐
𝟐
Here, A is the projected area (A = 0.6 m2, as estimated fora cargo load of one ton). Treating the hull as a rectangularparallelepiped, the drag coefficient CD was set at 2.0, andthe resistance of the hull encountering a flow of water ofabout 1 m/s, as obtained from flow data, is estimated to
be 600 N per boat. In contrast, the force of a boatman
pulling a tow rope can be estimated from the body tilt
angle (based on past pictures and photos, θ = 70° is
estimated). A pulling force per person of F = 428 N is
obtained from the rotational moment of the lower body.
The validity of this value can also be confirmed from thefrictional force F = μN = 434 N between the shoes wornby the boatman and the stone pavement (herein, friction
coefficient was estimated from student’s report on “thephysics challenge in 2015”). This pulling force may belikened to pulling a leveling roller and boatmen can pull
the boats without slipping. The assisting wind force
under sail is obtained by the following equation.
𝟏
𝑭 = 𝑪𝑳 𝝆𝒂𝒊𝒓 𝑺𝒖𝟐𝟐Here, CL is the lift coefficient, and the sail area S is 9 m2.
The lift coefficient with an attack angle of 10° is
approximately CL = 1.2. Thus, by working backward, thewind speed required to counteract the drag force of thewater flow can be estimated as u = 4 m/s.

Fig. 3 Takasebune sailing up river(Source: Okunike pictorial record (2002))
Wind velocity v
Wind power T
Angleθ

Pulling
power
L

mg

Drag force D
River flow V

F

Friction μmg(Straw sandals)

Fig. 4 Assisting force of wind and pulling force

5. Wind velocities of 2 m/s to 3 m/s of were obtained
throughout the year during the day, while at night thewinds tended to remain calm. The frequency of gusts was
similar to that found inland, despite the location of theobservation point in a valley. This wind behaviour can be
regarded as a density flow associated with thermal
circulation on land. The seasonal variation of wind flow
fields was estimated using the “Mass-consistent model,”which estimates wind speed between discrete observation
points. Estimated surface wind vector fields (south windand north wind) are shown in Figure 6. At Tawarai Dam,an inflow wind along the valley was observed. In the caseof southerly winds, the wind flows along the river easily.
Conversely, in the case of a northerly wind (typicalduring the winter or in the presence of a low-pressure airmass), the velocity in the valley is small. Inflowing winds
along the river line do not develop in the northern area ofthe middle basin. As aforementioned, although windenergy could serve as an auxiliary power source for the
Takasebune, wind energy in this area is unfortunately
unsuitable for commercial wind power generation. Using(4) Observed wind characteristics in the basin
Takasebune shown under sail in old documentssuggests the possibility of wind power generation invalley terrain. In our previous study, wind characteristicsof the Yoshii River basin were investigated by fieldobservation and numerical simulation. As an example of
the wind observation results, the time series of averagewind velocities observed on the roof of the gymnasium
in Wake Town in the middle basin are shown in Figure
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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181

micro wind turbines with a wind receiving area of 1 m2,
an average wind energy density of about 18.2 W/m2 was
obtained, at an average wind speed of 2.5 m/s. This yields
a power potential of 31.5 kWh. In any case, the annual
average wind velocity in the Tsuyama basin is also small,about 2 m/s, with correspondingly small wind energy.
Moreover, it is necessary to consider the gusts caused by
the Hiroto wind.

used to help propel Takasebune could encourage interestin sustainability. To propose effective use of the windrequires creative ideas, which can be used for educationthat leads to technological innovation. For this study, an
open lecture was designed, which aimed to combine
elements of history and engineering on Takasebune for awide range of ages.
(1) Class form
Lectures were held in public venues organized by the
Public Library and Board of Education in Tsuyama City
in northern Okayama Prefecture and Wake Town in thecentral part of the basin. Classes were recruited into two
categories based on age group. One group comprisedelementary school students, while the other was for
adults (mainly those aged 60 or older). Classes have been
held every year since 2013, with a total of 194
participants, as shown in Table 1.

Open Lecture “Takasebune and Wind Energy”
As aforementioned, wind characteristics in the Yoshii
River basin are not suitable for commercial wind power
generation, but the historical fact that local winds wereAveraged velocity (m/s)

4

At Saeki-gym(30m-height)

WinterAutumnSummerSpringAnnual3

2(2) Teaching materials
In each class, model ship and paper windmill kits
were distributed to provide the elements of a fluid
dynamics experiment. Figure 7a shows the Takasebunemodel used in the lesson. This craft model was made oflaser cut 5 mm thick styrene board and was 18 mm inlength. Participants attached paper sails and rudders tothe boat and their creations were then propelled by windfrom a fan. Figure 7b shows a paper-cup windmill.
Participants made a notch in a paper cup (7 oz) to makea windmill blade and attached it to the holder. The holder
is devised so that a vertical wind turbine can be converted
into a horizontal wind turbine.

1

0
0

6

12
Time

18

24

Fig. 5 Time series of average wind velocities
Apr. 30, 2010 [15:00]
N

9000
8000
7000
6000

(3) Classroom approach
The open lecture was entitled “Wind energy used by
Takasebune of the Yoshii River,” and it was organized asa three-hour class. In the first half, the wind power usedby Takasebune, as predicted from documentary
evidences, was explained in a lecture that included
discussion and quizzes. In the second half, participantsconsidered how local winds could be used effectively
through model boats and windmills. In historical science,
biases created by misleading information based on
speculation and hearsay can often present a serious
challenge. In this class, the objective evaluation of resultsby actual measurement was explained carefully.
Although the concepts of drag and lift required for saildesign were explained without using equations as muchas possible, it was emphasized that they are proportional
to the square of the wind speed. Participants, both adults
and children, made trial-and-error based sails and sailed
their boats in a water tank equipped with a fan. In theclass comprising elementary school children, thewindmill-making in the second half was omitted, and thestudents were given time to paint their sails and toparticipate in a relay competition. In the windmill design
session, participants built a windmill that matched the
local wind and tested it in front of the fans. The instructor
did not simply provide participants with typical answers
but encouraged participants to communicate actively

5000

4000
3000

2000
1000
00

1000
0

1

2000
2

3000

4000

3km

5000
6m/s
4m/s
2m/s

6000

7000

8000

9000

E

SW windFig. 6 Estimated surface wind in the middle basin(Hosotani et.al., 2012)
Table 1 Open lectures conducted and number of participants
Year
2013
2014
2017
2017

Participant

Number ofparticipant

Elementary school student

31

Adult (golden age)

15

Place / organizer
Wake town / Board ofeducation
Wake town / Board ofeducation
Tsuyama city/ Board ofeducation
Tsuyama city/ Board ofeducation

Elementary school student(6th grade)
Elementary school student(4th - 6th grade)

25
13

2018

Tsuyama city/ Central library Adult

60

2018

Misaki town/ Central library

Elementary school student

20

2019

Maniwa city/ Central library

Adult

20

2019

Tsuyama city/ Central
children's center

Elementary school student (- 4th grade)10

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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with student assistants and to develop their own ideas.
The resulting dialogue and discussion among theparticipants led to the creation of some unique ships andwindmills. At the end of the class, a satisfaction
questionnaire was conducted.

c

Sail

b

Wind

V

Classroom scene and questionnaire(1) Classroom scene
Figure 8 shows snapshots of the classroom scene. In
each class, the instructor and student assistants walked
through the classroom, using gestures and body language
to express the size of the Takasebune and the speed of thewinds they exploited. A quiz was used to explain wind
and traction, so participants could intuitively imagine theamount of energy involved while having fun in a calm
atmosphere. During a craft and experiment session, someparticipants were initially unable to move the ship andwindmill but were eventually able to complete the model
ship and paper windmill through trial and error. In theclass for children, imaginative sails and a variety ofwindmills were created. One child told the instructor that
he had made a unique windmill like a brush, conscious of
the wind blowing in the area. By contrast, there were few
original works in the classes for adults. Instead,participants eagerly talked about childhood memories of
Takasebune during free discussion.

(a) Takasebune model

VerticalHorizontal

BottleBottle(b) Paper cup windmill
Fig. 7 Craft kits(2) Questionnaire and results
A questionnaire survey was conducted to evaluate theclass and the possibility of using the local wind. The
results of the questionnaire are shown in Figure 9 that issummarized by age groups. Satisfaction levels among
both groups were very high, and the response “Neither”
was given by only a few percent. Regarding the use of
local wind, roughly half responded that it could be usedin both groups; however, a larger number of adults
responded “Neither.” Although we asked participants todescribe a novel idea for wind use, the number of
responses was small. The answers described in the freetext box included “Tourism resources,” “Wind power
plant,” and “Driving force for sightseeing pleasureboats.” Some comment pointed out the issues of this classthat deal with both history and technology: “I attended
this lecture after hearing about the history of Takasebune,
but I was surprised to hear the story of the wind.” Someanswers indicate that trial and error was effective in thislesson, such as “I enjoyed thinking and wondering.”
Additionally, some answers praised student assistants fortheir support.

(a) Crafted boat

Conclusions
Documentary evidence includes not only memories
of local culture and climate but also hints on energy
sources that can be used in modern society. An open
lecture that combined historical and social education with
science and technology education on wind energy usedby Takasebune in Okayama Prefecture was delivered toboth children and adults. Lectures, crafts, andexperiments that provide a physical example of the(b) Windmill test
Fig. 8 Classroom scenes

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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183

energy use described in historical documents were able
to appeal to both children and adults. However, as
demonstrated by the survey results, the lesson content did
not always exactly match the participants’ needs,
suggesting that improvement is needed. In the future, aclass will be held wherein child participants and adultparticipants are mixed in one classroom with college
Fem
ale
29%

Childrenstudents being invited to participate as well. This lesson
will also be held in other areas where Takasebune orsimilar vessels operated regularly.
References
Fujii, S., Karaki, K., Kudo, B., Ikeda, T., Okamura, M.,
Ogata, H., Takahashi, K., Taniguchi, A., Hibino, N.,
Horihata, Y., Hara & F., Matsumura, N.(2010),
Significance and potential of collaboration between civilengineering and societal education, Journal of Japan
Society of Civil Engineers, H, 2, 39-44 (in Japanese).

Adult

Fem
ale
49%
Mal
e
51%

Hosotani, K., Morimoto, J. & Noguchi, T.(2012), Studyon wind characteristics around midstream of the Yoshii
River in Okayama in which the traditional traffic systemcalled 'Takasebune' has operated, Journal of Japan
Society of Civil Engineers, G, 68, 4, 213-223 (inJapanese).

Male
71%

Participants (Children: 99, Adult: 95)
Children

Adult
Nei ther
6%

Neither3%

Japan River Association (2002), Handbook of River,
427pp (in Japanese).

No
0%

No
0%

Yes
94%

JMA (Japan Meteorological Agency) (2005), Retrieved
from http://dl.ndl.go.jp/info:ndljp/pid/1933714(accessed2020-04-29).

Yes
97%

Was the class fun?

Children

Ministry of education (2017), Curriculum guidelines"Elementary School", "Middle School" (in Japanese),
Retrieved from https://www.mext.go.jp/en/index.htm(accessed 2020-04-29).

Adult

No
29%
Yes
31%

No
69%

Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism(2008), Summary of the Yoshii River and basin, 90pp. (inJapanese).

Yes
71%

Mori, Y. (1996), On the relationship between land-andsea-breezes and the pressure field in the Central Part of
the Seto-Inland Sea District, Tenki, 43, 1, pp.33-41.

Did you know "Takasebune"?
Adult

ChildrenNei ther25%

Nei ther
32%

Okayama Pref. (1986), The history of Okayama, 7 (2) ,743pp (in Japanese).

Yes
48% No19%

No
20%

Okayamagaku Research Association (ed.)(2005) ,Rsesearch of Yoshii River 4, Kibito Syupan, ISBN-10：
4860690850 140pp (in Japanese).

Yes
56%

Can we use local wind?
ChildrenOkunike (2002), Okunike pictorial record (title inJapanese), 100pp.

Adult
Nei ther16%

Nei ther25%

The committee of Japan physics Olympiad (2015),
Report of the physics challenge in 2015, Retrieved fromhttp://www.jpho.jp/2015/2015-1st-chall-expreport/index.html (accessed 2020-04-29).

No
0%
No
8%

Yes
67%

Yes
84%

Wake Museum of History and Folk Materials (no date),(titles in Japanese).

Want to know more the science and technology used in the past?

Fig. 9 Questionnaire result

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland
184

Educational Program to Develop Global Engineers based on Nagaoka CO-CORE Vision
Y. Tsuchida*,a, Y. Ominato a, S. Toyama b, N. Aoyagi c, S. Nakamura d, H. Araki e and A. Suzuki eaNational Institute of Technology, Nagaoka College, Division of General Education, Nagaoka,JapanbNational Institute of Technology, Nagaoka College, Department of Electronic Control
Engineering, Nagaoka, Japanc
National Institute of Technology, Nagaoka College, Department of Mechanical Control
Engineering, Nagaoka, Japand
National Institute of Technology, Nagaoka College, Department of Electrical and Electronic
Systems Engineering, Nagaoka, Japane
National Institute of Technology, Nagaoka College, Department of Material Engineering,
Nagaoka, Japan*ytsuchida@nagaoka-ct.ac.jp
students’ language ability, thinking ability andcooperative ability through actual practice andinternational educational activities. In this program,students are supposed to acquire cooperative ability
through doing group works with people fromdifferent departments and attending PBL projects.
To realize this, several modules of general English
conversation class have reorganized into classes inwhich students can learn critical and logical thinking,constructive discussion, and the method of design
thinking. In this study, the educational program
development based on current state and needs
analysis in NITN is discussed. Our approach could be
used to enhance students’ key competence effectively
and efficiently involving international cooperationand new standpoints of module management.

Abstract
National Institute of Technology, Nagaoka College(NITN) has started the new educational program tofoster students as global engineers. As SDGs are
typical examples, there are various problems intoday’s world which could not be solved without
cooperation of diverse people. In order to work
actively in the world, not only the English language
ability but also the cooperative competence isrequired. According to the investigation we recently
conducted, students’ TOEIC L&R test score has been
increasing but there could be room for improvement:
The evaluation of thinking ability is relatively low
compared with the other abilities. Besides, the resultsof PROG test, which is one of generic skill assessment
tests widely employed at universities in Japan and canassess generic skills such as interpersonal relationshipmanagement and problem solving, indicated thatstudents in NITN have relatively low ability ofcooperativenessandindependentaction.
Furthermore, the survey we conducted on students’and teachers’ needs showed that students want toexperience the real feeling of success in English
communication and teachers need to have thecommon goal for effective education. These facts
gave us the insight that we could bring up NITN
students to the next stage by developing the program,which can enhance students’ abilities of thinking andcooperation. The thinking ability is very importantand should be the common, cooperative andcorelative core of the new curriculum so we named
our new target “Nagaoka CO-CORE Vision” andstarted designing the course which can improve

Keywords: cooperative ability, critical thinking, design
thinking, problem based learning, project based learning
Introduction
National Institute of Technology, Nagaoka College(NITN) has been making efforts to promoteinternationalization from an early stage of our school
history. We started accepting international students in
1985. Since then, we have established academic partner
schools overseas, and have developed mutual sending
and accepting projects. Currently we have about 20
international students, approximately 2% of all thestudents, and temporarily about 30 students from Asian
countries. In 2019, we started accepting fifteen-year-old
Thai students in our Kosen’s first year program. The
welcome atmosphere of international exchange is

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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185

increasing, and students' interest in foreign countries isalso increasing.
The English ability of students is
improving, however, it became clear that students want
the feeling of being able to use English. This was thestart point for us to improve our curriculum and develop
a new education program to foster students as global
engineers. In this research, we review our procedure toprepare, introduce the outline, then consider theeducational effect of our program.

R2
R3
R4
R5

Can locate and understand specific information in written
texts.
Can connect information across multiple sentences in a single
written text or across multiple texts.
Can understand vocabulary in written texts.
Can understand grammar in written texts.

Methods
In preparation for the program development, weanalysed the situation at that time based on some data: 1)
TOEIC L&R Test result to know students’ language
ability, 2) PROG Test result to know students’ genericskill level, and 3) Needs analysis on English education
for students and teachers.
In NITN, all the fourth graders (the same age as thefirst graders in the university) take the TOEIC L&R Test.
The change of the results is shown in Fig. 1.
Figure 2: Change in TOEIC L&R Abilities Measured in
NITN (2012-2019)
In Fig. 2, we can point out that R1 and R3 aregradually decreasing while L2 and L3 are constantly
increasing. R1 requires the ability to make inference andR3 requires the ability to connect information. This is thereason why we decided to provide a new course which
foster students thinking ability.
To analyse students’ generic skills, we have adopted
the PROG Test, which is one of generic skill assessment
tests widely employed at universities in Japan and canassess generic skills such as interpersonal relationshipmanagement and problem solving. The test has two
categories of the Literacy Test and the Competency Test.
In NITN, the first graders, the fourth graders and thesecond graders of the advanced course take the PROG-

Figure 1: Change in TOEIC L&R Test Result in NITN
(2012-2019)
In Fig. 1, Listening test scores improve steadily,
while reading test scores show little growth. To find out
the cause, we focused on “Abilities Measured” in TOEIC
Test results. In the test results, the percentage of correct
answers per ability type is indicated as Abilities
Measured. This shows the percentage of correct answers
for the five Listening and the five Reading abilities.
Details of each item are shown in Table 1 and the change
in Abilities Measured is shown in Fig. 2.
Table 1: Details of TOEIC L&R Abilities Measured
ID
L1

L2

L3
L4
L5
R1

DetailCan infer gist, purpose, and basic context based on
information that is explicitly stated in short conversations,announcements, narrations, and similar.
Can infer gist, purpose, and basic context based on
information that is explicitly stated in longer conversations,announcements, narrations, and similar.
Can understand details in short conversations,announcements, narrations, and similar.
Can understand details in longer conversations,announcements, narrations, and similar.
Can understand the goals and implied meanings of the
speaker from phrases or text. (since 2017)
Can make inferences based on information in written texts.

Figure 3: Change in main categories of PROGCompetency Test result in NITN (2016-2019)14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
18-21 August 2020, Turku, Finland186

Figure 4: Change in sub categories of PROG Test Result in NITN (2016-2019)
Competency Test. The change we found from the resultsin the PROG-Competency Test main categories is shownin Fig. 3. The change we found from the results in sub
categories is shown in Fig. 4. In the PROG test, theassessment is done at 7 levels and the average score of
the Competency Test for university students in Japan is
3.2.
From Fig. 3, Teamwork skills, Personal skills andSelf-confidence are lower than the Problem solving skills
in NITN. Fig. 4 provides more detailed information.
While Self-awareness is very high, Personaltransformation and Subjective action are relatively low inevery year. This means that students have a very strong
consciousness, but they have little ability to take actionand experience to do that. These data suggest us toprovide an opportunity to utilize the skills they got andlet them experience the achievement. From this point ofview, some kinds of practical exercises in various fields
should be prepared in our new educational program.
Just before starting the program design, we conducteda survey for students and teachers about English
education. 752 students and 47 teachers answered
through Google Form. In order to grasp our students’needs for English education, we asked them what kind of
lectures we should offer, and the answers are shown in
Fig. 5. For teachers, another question was provided
which asked what their ideal image of their students inthe future, and the answers are shown in Fig. 6.
In Fig. 5, almost 50% of the students requested theconversation class, and nearly 25% of them requested
TOEIC Test preparation. This result tells us that students
crave for the practical language ability to communicate
and the real feeling of success in English communication.

Figure 5: Questionnaire to students; “What kind of
lecture should we give?”
From Fig. 6, almost one third of teachers in NITN
also would like to require students to have theconversation ability in English. Also, they consider it
important to have the presentation and discussion
abilities as well. In addition, each teacher has their own
opinion or policy for English education from the freedescription of the survey. It was revealed that individual
teachers had strong interest in English education, but
their directions were not unified.

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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In the lower grades, the program was designed as apreparation step to develop a global mind that can play
an active role in the world, with an emphasis on basic
English ability and thinking ability. In the upper grades,
we focused on practical skills and challenging skills, andprovided many opportunities to output the knowledge
and information so that the program can enhance students’experience. By linking the lower grades programs andthe upper grades programs, we aim to develop "Kosen
students who can work collaboratively in English."In this program, students are supposed to acquire
cooperative ability through group works with people
from different departments and PBL projects. To realize
this, several modules of general English conversation
have reorganized into the essential thinking courses inwhich students can learn critical and logical thinking,constructive discussion, and the method of design
thinking. The framework of the courses is shown in Fig.
8.

Figure 6: Questionnaire to teachers; “What is your ideal
image of the students’ English ability?”
Results and Discussion
From the analysis of TOEIC and PROG Test result
and the needs analysis on English education, discussions
among Kosen professors were held on the image of the
global engineer required in the future society. In order tobe able to "use English" as an engineer, it was concluded
that a collaborative competency is essential in addition toa certain basic English language ability. To develop thiscollaborative competency, it is necessary to develop acurriculum that can develop the thinking ability and theability to take action to realize the collaboration andgenerate the output. The thinking ability is very
important and should be the common, cooperative andcorelative core of the new curriculum so we named our
new target Nagaoka CO-CORE Vision and started
designing the course which can improve students’language ability, thinking ability and cooperative ability
through actual practice and international educational
activities. 1) Language & communication ability, 2)
Thinking ability, 3) Ability to practice and 4) Ability tochallenge; these four main abilities are the bases of thecurriculum of our new educational program. In order tofoster students' ability to take action, the program wasdesigned to increase the amount of practical exercises as
their school gradeds progress. The outline of the programin NITN is showin in Fig, 7.

Figure 8: Framework of the essential thinking courses
Specifically, the essential thinking courses were
designed so that students could practice their criticalthinking, logical thinking, and design thinking abilities in
the activities of problem-solving learning, and practicallyacquire the ability to discuss in English throughout thelesson. We designed the framework and planned theclass procedure in 2019, then the new courses will startin the spring of 2020.
2019 was the first year of our new program. To
motivate students, we conducted specialized classes inEnglish by foreign teachers including teachers frompartner schools. For this purpose, we newly welcomed
two international teachers and they joined to design theframework of the essential thinking courses. To improvestudents’ abilities to practice and challenge, we
encouraged them to participate in overseas training andinternships actively. To cultivate the internationality ofstudents and encourage them to learn independently, we
promoted the internationalization of the campus with rolemodels of international students. We also provided anenvironment of e-learning and online English
conversation both for students and teachers so that they
could improve their skill to teach in English.
Table 2 shows the achievement status of theperformance indicators. In the lower grades, though thedegree of achievement is low in terms of students’experience of international collaboration, it is considered

Figure 7: The outline of the new educational program in
NITN

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188

that this project has increased students' interest in foreigncountries. In the upper grades, the number of students
who have experience to be abroad is very large. The
number of active participation in overseas internships
and participation in academic conferences andinternational conferences held overseas tend to increasesignificantly. The performance indicators have almost
reached the target values in 2019, and it is considered that
we have made a good start in the first year of the project.

References“Abilities Measured (Percentage of Correct Answers
per Ability Type), ”Official Score Certificate Format(TOEIC Listening & Reading Test), IIBC Official
English Site, Retrieved from https://www.iibcglobal.org/english/toeic/test/lr/guide05/guide05_01.html“Student image observed from PROG,” Materials for2015 PROG Seminar, Kawaijuku group Official Site
( Japanese ), Retrieved from https://www.kawaijuku.jp/
jp/research/prog/event/pdf/2015progtyo_4.pdf

Table 2: Performance indicator achievement
Indicator
Lower
grades(1st to
3rd)

TOEIC L&R Test Score(3rd graders)
Overseas experience(3rd graders) [%]International
collaboration experience(3rd graders) [%]Competency ofcollaboration
Upper
TOEIC L&R Test Score
grades(5th graders)(4th toTOEIC L&R Test Score
2nd of the (AC2)advanced Overseas experience
course)(AC2) [%]
International collaboration
experience (AC2) [%]Competency ofcollaboration (AC2)[ PROG Test score ]

Final
goal
in 2023

Goal
in 2019

450

310

16

6

100

20

4.0

3.4

510

410

615

425

24

16

100

20

4.2

3.8

2019
366
(+56)
6
(0)
8
(-16)
3.4
(0)
426
(+16)
410
(-15)
24
(+8)
26
(+6)
4.5
(+0.7)

Conclusions
Our new project organically positions the pastachievements of international exchange activities in our
educational program. The purpose of this project is to set
a place for practice and foster students' collaborativecompetencies. In order to plan this program, we had theopportunity to look back on our efforts and discuss the
future education with many teachers. We had many
discussions and examined what kind of education isneeded now and what kind of education is required intoday's society. In addition to having a common vision,
we were able to draw a new system diagram in ourcollege for the effective project management. These
support the realization of smooth start in the first year.
Our approach could be used to enhance students’ key
competence effectively and efficiently involving
international cooperation and new standpoints of module
management.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by Global Engineer
Development Project (promoted by National Institute ofTechnology）.

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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189

PRACTICAL EDUCATION OF BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY AND SUSTAINABLE
MANAGEMENT OF ENVIRONMENT USING SMALL WETLAND ON CAMPUS
S. Miyakoshi*,a, H. Sakuraoka b , N. Miyazato c, H. Ooka d, T. Sato b,
A. Horio c, K. Owada d and T. Aoi c
National Institute of Technology (KOSEN), Gunma College, Maebashi, Japana
Department of Natural Scienceb
Department of Humanitiesc
Department of Civil Engineeringd
Department of Chemistry and Material Science*miyako@gunma-ct.ac.jp
Abstract

students to understand sustainable management ofenvironment.

In recent years, the understanding for biologicaldiversity and environment is required fromengineering students of all disciplines. There is apond (wetland) called Shokanji-numa with an areaof 7,000 m2 on campus of Nationai Institute ofTechnology (KOSEN), Gunma College, whosebiodiversity had been reported by our previous
research on wild birds, plants and somemicroorganisms. We developed high school-level
biology classes focused on biological diversity andcollege-level classes of environmental engineering forsustainable society called “Satoyama-Satoike” classbased on “Satoyama Initiative (COP10, 2010)”.
Previous research on the diversity of this wetland
revealed that more than 90 species of wild birds areobserved and some of the species breed on the pond.
The study also clarified that the wetland occupied byreed or Phragmites australis is a good model ofwetland succession. Worksheets for counting of
avian species and higher plants around the pond
were prepared and used in the basic biology classes.
These tools helped students understand thebiological diversity and succession of the flora.
In the courses for upper grade students,
environmental assessment and “Satoyama-Satoike”
activities were practiced as follows. Environmental
assessment was carried out by continuous countingof wild birds and plants. In “Satoyama-Satoike”
class, reed cutting activity was practiced to preserve
the wetland. The effect of the bottom mud of thepond to stimulate growth of plants was evaluatedusing Brassica rapa var. perviridis, and the possible
utilization of the dredged mud was demonstrated.
By using the unique wetland on our campus as an
educational tool, we have developed basic biology
classes focused on biodiversity and its succession, as
well as “Satoyama-Satoike classes” for college-level

Keywords: biodiversity, wetland, Satoyama, wild bird,
sustainability
Introduction
Shokanji-numa is a small wetland with an area of
7,000 m2 on campus of NIT (KOSEN), Gunma College,
which is located in the center of Japan. This pond was
originally constructed as a buffer pond of Maebashi
Airport, and has been utilized as a reservoir for thesurrounding paddy fields.

Figure 1 Shokanji pond on campus of National Instituteof Technology (KOSEN), Gunma College, (after
renovation in 2012).

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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190

sustainable society which we named “Satoyama-Satoike”
class based on “Satoyama Initiative (COP10,2010)“ (Berglund B. E. (2014)). The term “satoike“,
literally “village“ (“sato“) and “'pond“ (“ike“), wasintroduced to denote ponds adjacent to the village as thewetland version of “satoyama“ (literally “village
hill“ (“yama“). In the “Satoyama-Satoike” class, reed
cutting was practiced to preserve the wetland.

Miyakoshi has been conducting research on thediversity of this pond as well as its surrounding
environment for 13 years and reported more than 90
species of wild birds on this small wetland. Several
heron species and common kingfishers (Alcedo atthis)are residents of the wetland, while several kinds ofducks migrate from Siberia to stay over the winter, andsome species including little grebe (Tachybaptus
ruficollis), black-crowned night heron (Nycticorax
nycticorax) and common moorhen (Gallinula
chloropus) breed in the reeds every summer. And
occasionally, goshawks (Accipiter gentilis) come insearch of prey (Miyakoshi. S. 2010, 2016). Diversitiesof plants, fish, and mammals have also been reported.
Weasels, badgers and some species of bats have been
observed so far.
We started to hold bird-watching parties open to the
local community twice a year. A total of more than 700
people have participated in the parties during the last
decade (Figure 2).

Materials and Methods(1) Educational tools for evaluation of biodiversity
Based on the results of our continuous research, wecreated a worksheet, a dedicated check list, forobservation of birds at Shokanji pond. Binoculars werelent to participants, if needed, and field telescopes werealso used to observe the details and habits of birds.
Birds were identified consulting the information panel
and field guides, and the appropriate cells on the checklist were marked. Date, time, weather and otherconditions were also recorded as shown in Table 1.
Table 1. Worksheet: Original check list for wild birds
on campus

The syllabus of “biology” for the high school level
education includes succession of flora. As a practicalexample of wetland vegetation succession, series ofaerial view of the wetland were shown to the students.
Six trail cameras with infrared vision were set up tomonitor nocturnal animals around the pond (Figure 5).
These cameras automatically take pictures when sensing
motion.
(2) Evaluation of plant growth promoting effect ofmud
The effect of the bottom mud to promote plant growthwasevaluated
using
Komatsuna(Brassica
rapa var. perviridis) grown in pots.
Figure 2 Wild bird information board, moohen family,
kingfisher, goshalk, and bird-watching party open to thecommunity .

(3) Survey of nocturnal animals using an automatic
cameraIn order to investigate nocturnal animals, trail cameras
equipped with infrared sensors and capable of automatic
shooting (VEAMA, 2.0 megapixel) were installed at four
locations around the pond.

Based on the results of the biodiversity research, westarted our educational program, i.e., high school-level
biology classes focused on biological diversity andcollege-level classes of environmental engineering for
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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191

Results and Discussion(1) Symposium on “Satoyama Initiative”
Prior to the development and application of
educational courses, we organized the Symposium on“SATOYAMA” in 2009 based on the results of ourresearch conducted on campus until then. Mr. YasuhiroOno, an executive producer of NHK (Japan Broadcasting
Corporation) who had been engaged in many TV
programs on nature, was invited as a keynote speaker. He
gave a lecture on “Satoyama-ism” and people’s sustained
efforts in relation to nature in their vicinity. After the
keynote speech, lectures by three professors of NIT(KOSEN) Gunma College, a poster session, and a panel
discussion, it became clear that participants deepened
their understanding on biological diversity and“Satoyama Initiative” (Figure 3 and 4).

(2) Consolidation of understanding of biodiversity
Questionnaire survey after the Symposium on“SATOYAMA” results showed that more than a half ofthe students were “impressed to know that so many kindsof living species inhabit this environment near-by” andsome of the students understood the role of reed bush andwater front as breeding grounds for some wild bird
species, thus contributing to the pond’s wide biodiversity.

Figure 3 Symposium on “SATOYAMA” (2009).
1 Interest
after
Symposium(Total)5 Effect of
Audiovisual
Materials

4 Effect ofPanel
Discussion

2 Effect ofLecture byNHK
Producer

Figure 5 Succession of the wetland from 1969 to 2018.
Some of the students answered, “our biology textbook
describes the succession process of wetlands, but it was
only after the observation on campus that I understood
the real waterfront species and changes of the flora.”
Continuous observations revealed that great egrets(Ardea alba) gather to form a roost at sunset from lateAugust to September. At peak, around 100 great egrets
get together and spend all night (Figure 6).

3 Effect ofPosterSessionFigure 4 Overall effect of the Symposium on promoting
understanding on “Satoyama Initiative”

In addition, COP10 was held in Nagoya, Japan, thefollowing year. This conference helped to promote theinterest and understanding on environmental issues
especially on “Satoyama Initiative”.

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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of spring wildflowers, of which some are toxic. Thenseveral three or five-membered groups went out forcollecting fresh plant samples on campus for about half
an hour. After collecting samples, they got together andidentified the species to know whether these plants wereedible or poisonous. Finally, all groups helped making
the collected plant samples into Tempura (deep frieddish), and enjoyed tasting the fresh spring harvests(Figure 8).

Figure 6 Great egrets returning at sunset to roost on thepond.

Trail cameras and visual observation captured somespecies of mammals including Japanese weasel (Mustela
itatsi), Japanese badger (Meles anakuma), racoon dog(Nyctereutes procyonoides) and an alien species,
common racoon (Procyon lotor). Some pictures weretaken by students with smartphone. The biological classseemed to improve interests of students for living things.
(1)

(2)

Figure 8 Workshop of Satoyama-Satoike activities.

(3)

As the second part of Satoyama-Satoike activities,
reed cutting was carried out in February or March, during
which time the effect of the cutting on the environment isminimum. Participants understood that this helps slower
the wetland succession, and sustain the environment(Figure 9).

(4)

Figure 7 A trail camera (1) and photographs of nocturnal
animals around the pond; Japanese badger (2), racoon
dog (3) and common racoon (4) .
(2) Satoyama-Satoike Activities
The college-level class which started in April 2017
and were concerned with environmental engineering forsustainable society were called “Satoyama-Satoike”
classes based on “Satoyama Initiative (COP10, 2010)”.
At the bigining of the class, a workshop was held inwhich the students learned to recognize common species

Figure 9 Reed cutting workshop in the wetland

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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(3) Possible Application of Educational Programs
As a model of environmental impact assessment
Before the Satoyama-Satoike activities were initiated,
continuous surveillance of wild birds had been carriedout. Annual and monthly changes in the number of wild
bird species observed in the wetland are shown in Figure
10.

Figure 11 Japanese honeybees nesting on the base of awillow tree.

60
50
40

As a model of recycling and sustainable society
Aoi has developed a novel bottom mud dredging
technology for conserving ecosystem and utilizing
dehydrated soil (Figure 12). The method was originallydeveloped on this pond and has been applied to many
fields in Japan.
In the present program, the effect of the bottommud, a by-product of dredging, to promote growth ofKomatsuna was evaluated (Figure 13).

30
20
10
0
2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014

40
30
20
10
0

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 101112
Figure 10 Annual and monthly changes in the numberof wild bird species on the wetland
When we compared monthly aggregation, the numberof species in winter was higher than in summer, becauseof larger numbers of migratory birds in winter. In annual
basis, the number of species has remained stable around50, except that it temporarily decreased in the latter halfof 2011, during which time the pond was dredged and thesurrounding environment was renovated. The resultshows that the renovation affected the habitat of wild
birds temporarily, but its impact was minimum and theenvironment recovered soon. From these results, thepossibility of applying the continuous surveillance as ameans of environmental impact assessment was proposed.

Figure 12 Bottom mud dredging technology forconserving ecosystem and utilizing dehydrated soil (T.
Aoi, 2015)

In addition, during our recent activities and biology
classes, Japanese honeybees (Apis cerana japonica)
were observed to nest in a cavity of a willow tree justbeside the pond (Figure 11). Possibility of providing apractical educational program on the topic of
beekeeping using Japanese honey bees was proposed.

Figure 13 Promoting effects of bottom mud on thegrowth of Komatsuna (Brassica rapa var. perviridis)
with (lower) and without (upper) the botton mud

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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The vegetative growth of Komatsuna in the pod(lower) with the bottom mud was promoted incomparison with negative control. The utilization of thebottom mud in horticulture shows the possibility of thiswetland as a sustainable field from the point of view ofSatoyama-Saoike Initiative.

environmental preservation on the biodiversity of thepond. The Gunma-Kohsen Review, 34, 1-7.

Conclusions
Using a small wetland on campus as a field ofpractical education, we have developed a couple ofeducational programs.
One is the high school-level biology class focused on
biological diversity, using wild bird worksheets, trail
camera and other tools.
The other one is the college-level environmental
engineering class with “Satoyama-Satoike” activities
based on “Satoyama Initiative (COP10, 2010)”.
Prior to the educational programs, the Symposium on“SATOYAMA“ helped deepen the understanding on
biological diversity and “Satoyama Initiative“.
Possible application models of “SatoyamaSatoike“ activities to the environmental impact
assesment and recycling of resources were demonstrated.
These programs are expected to help train engineers
so that they may contribute to the realization ofsustainable societies.

Acknowledgements
We thank the Wild Bird Society, Gunma, for its
cooperation in bird watching activities, and the staffs of
KOSEN for their efforts in maintaining Shokanji Pond.
We are grateful to City of Takasaki and National
Institute of Technology for their financial supports for thedredging of the pond and renovation of the surrounding
environment.

References
Aoi, T. (2015). Newly developed bottom-mud dredging
technology for conserving ecosystem and utilizing
dehydrated soil. Jiban Kogakkaishi (Journal of Japanese
Geotechnical Society), 63, 685-686
Berglund B. E. (2014). Traditional farming landscapesfor sustainable living in Scandinavia and Japan: Global
revival through the Satoyama Initiative. AMBIO, 43,559-578.
Miyakoshi, S. (2010). Wild birds on Shokanji Pond
(Lake Saiko, Gunma National College of Technology)
Biodiversity and its potential as a field for environmental
studies. The Gunma-Kohsen Review, 28, 1-6.
Miyakoshi, S. (2016). Wild Birds on Shokanji Pond
(Lake Saiko, National Institute of Technology, Gunma
College) (Part 2) Effects of the construction work for the
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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195

AN INTERNATIONAL GRADUATE-SCHOOL-LEVEL COLLABORATIVE PROGRAM
IN NIT AKASHI ON CUTTING EDGE RESEARCH AND PROJECT DEVELOPMENTS
H. Nakanishi*,a,b, S. M. Aspera a, R. L. Arevalo a,c, H. Kasai a,dabNational Institute of Technology, Akashi College, Hyogo, Japan
Institute of Industrial Science, University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japanc
University of San Carlos, Cebu, PhilippinesdOsaka University, Osaka, Japan*nakanishi@akashi.ac.jp
Abstract

in Indonesia and two students from De La Salle
University (DLSU) in Philippines under the Sandwich
Program. The first student-recipient of the program
already obtained a master's degree in ITB and iscurrently a under a doctoral program in Osaka
University, Japan.
In this paper, we introduce the evidences of oursandwich program, and discuss its advantage,
outstanding issues and its future.

The National Institute of Technology (KOSEN) in
Japan is a two stepped education program: the main
associate degree course, a five-year engineering
education course starting from 15 years old; and theadvanced course, a two-year higher education course
in engineering after the main associate degree course.
KOSEN has been responding to a strong demand
from the industrial sector to foster engineers who cansustain the high Japanese economic growth. Today,
interrelationship between science and technology is
becoming stronger and their distinct boundary is
becoming unclear. This accelerates technologicaladvancement. On the other hand, the eager and freshminds of the graduate students of the universities,
under the supervision of their Professors, could
contribute to relevant and promising research
activities. Therefore, it may have an advantage tosustain their high-level research and education.
KOSEN has no graduate-school-level system. To copewith this, we tried to construct a sustainable KOSEN
research-education program in harmony with
university research-learning environment, which wecall “Sandwich Program”.
In this program, started circa 2017, we fosteredexcellent graduate students from foreign universities
who have mastered the fundamentals in their major
field and are nominated by their supervising
Professors as Sandwich Program students. The
Sandwich Program students will study in ourlaboratory for one or two years where they can enjoy
the Japanese research environment. The duration of
their study in our college is sandwiched within their
university education. After which, they will go back totheir own home universities to finalize theirresearches under their supervisors for the completionof their doctorates. The presence of foreign Sandwich
Program students can provide an aura of global
education environment to our college. To date, we had
two students from Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB)

Keywords: International collaborate education,
Sustainable, Rapid technological advancement,
Research-oriented learning,
Introduction
The unique structure of the National Institute ofTechnology (KOSEN) of Japan curricula set it apart fromother technological school in other countries, particularlyin the neighboring Asian countries. The structured formof its 5-year courses, that starts from senior high school
to an associate degree in technology (which could further
be continued to advance course), exposes students at an
early stage to an enriched experience in field oftechnology. The aim of KOSEN is to provide students
with knowledge to carry industrial skills, developments,
and innovation (National Institute of Technology(KOSEN)–Views, n.d.). However, with the rapid
advancement in technology and increasing demand for
globalization, coping up with the world standards forinternationalization poses additional expectations for
future graduates of KOSEN. They are furthermore
expected to be/have: (1) trained as highly practical andcreative engineers in a wide range of fields, (2) trained
global engineers with experience in international
exchanges, (3) contributed to the local community andtechnological innovation of the local industry, and (4)prospective human resources that can contribute to therevitalization of the local industry (National Institute ofTechnology (KOSEN)–Views, n.d.). These additional
expectations further ensure that KOSEN produces future

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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engineers that could sustain Japan's advanced and rapid
economic growth. These also necessitate for KOSEN tohave programs that exposes students to: (1) a variety offields other than their own, (2) advanced studies
particularly in research, and (3) the relevance ofinternationalization and globalization. Students who areexposed to a variety of fields other than their own candevelop to be future innovators. The innovator’s ability
to integrate different concepts/ideas feeds the creativityof an individual to realize new and advanced
concepts/ideas/methods. Future innovators contribute
greatly to scientific and technological advancements. On
the other hand, being exposed to advanced studies,particularly in research, present students with pressing
relevant scientific and technological issues. These issues
are expected to be what they will face in the future.
Future innovative leaders should realize at an early stage
what will be relevant in the future and focuses ondeveloping that. And lastly, the future engineer’s ability
to integrate his/her own skills in a global platform isimportant to the growth of Japan’s economic
advancement. In this sense, being globally literate isimportant to globalization. One definition of global
education, as expressed by Peters (2009), is “teaching
and learning with global perspective by (1) able torecognize interdependencies and interconnection ofissues, regions, people, places, systems, and times; (2)infusing global issues into traditional subject areas; and(3) working towards active, responsible global
citizenship and building a more peaceful, just, andsustainable world.” The National Institute of Technology,
Akashi College (NITAC) realizes the need to support its
students with activities that promote globalization andcooperative learning as exemplified by different
programs that promote global literacy and interactive
tasks, e.g. Co+work, Tobitate Projects (Hirashi, Herbert,
Kajimura and Fujiwara, 2018), Hands-on international
workshop (Higashino 2018), etc.

Methods
The structure of KOSEN and introduction of the
Sandwich Program. The structure of the educational
system of Japan is depicted in Fig. 1. This figure shows
the branching paths taken by students after Junior highschool. Basically, majority of the students goes to theusual path of entering the regular high school programand about 1% of the graduating junior high school
students are accepted to the KOSEN program. The low
acceptance rate at KOSEN makes its students an elitegroup. At a young age of 15 years old, the students enter
the associate degree program for 5 year, where after
which, they can already join Japan's workforce.
However, students can opt to continue for another 2 yearsof advance course, which is equivalent to a university
bachelor's degree. The degree is conferred by the
National Institution for Academic Degrees and Quality
Enhancement of Higher Education (NIAD-QE). Just likeany bachelor student who graduates from a university oruniversity of technology, KOSEN graduates of theadvance course are also eligible to enter a master’s course
program.

In line with the KOSEN’s initiative to inculcate to its
students the relevance of globalization, cooperative
learning, and being updated with recent state-of-the-art
concepts/methods/techniques in science and technology,
NITAC introduced the Sandwich Program. The
Sandwich program aims at providing NITAC students
with an experience of a university-like research-learning
environment, and at the same time strengthen global
collaboration with partner universities with activities that
contributes to the advancement of science andtechnology and intercultural exchanges. In this program,
graduate students from different partner universities will
be given a chance to conduct their research at NITAC
under the supervision of a and NITAC Professor. The
progress of the Sandwich Program students will bemonitored by his/her supervising Professor in his/herhome country and by his/her host Professor in NITAC.
Details of the program, its first few student participants,
the activities, and some perspective about the programand comments to the possible next phase of the program
will be discussed in the succeeding sections.

Figure 1. The Japan School System. Illustration of the Japanese
school system. There are two paths taken after completion of the
Junior High School program: (1) the regular path to High School(right side), and (2) by going through the KOSEN program (leftside). Allowable transfers in between programs are also depictedby arrows. (National Institute of Technology (KOSEN)-

Education System, n.d.)To keep students up-to-date with the recent advancesin science and technology, and to equip them with thenecessary experience and knowledge in research,
particularly for advance course students, NITAC,
through the Global Education Center (GEC), introduced
a university-like research-oriented program called
Sandwich Program. The idea of the Sandwich Program

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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is to expose students in a university-like environment
where scientific discussions on latest pressing topics inscience and technology research are active. This also
provides a means to encourage students to conduct
research in their own field and integrate new ideas theyobtained from active discussions of researches fromdifferent fields.
Generally, university graduate students are at a stage
where they are encouraged and trained to do independent
research. Under the guidance of their supervising
Professors, they conduct their own investigation andexperimentation to answer posing problem, issues, or
generate new idea. Therefore, their fresh and eager mind
is a good venue for discussions on underlaying
information and concepts related to a topic, in this casescience and technology, and appropriate techniques andmethods to solve the problem. Recently, Japanese
universities have been proceeding to integrate theundergraduate education and graduate one. If KOSEN
students are exposed to these kinds of educations, it could
unconsciously instill a mindset that puts high reverence
to research. And it could contribute the sustainable fresh
research and education system in KOSEN.
Globalization is one important realization that
KOSEN finds relevant for student to be aware of. As acontribution to this cause, the Sandwich Program
prioritized to recruit international students under auniversity graduate course offered by partner universities
of NITAC as initial students of the program. The call forstudent candidates were sent to different Professors fromother countries with whom NITAC Professors havecurrent research collaborative activities. This will
somehow strengthen the current ties with the partner
universities and assure continuity of the current
collaborative projects. The program started around 2017with about 5 students that completed the program to date.
These students, are under a graduate school program of
their host universities with the following graduate
courses:- Master of Science in Engineering Physics- Doctor of Engineering in Engineering Physics- Doctor of Philosophy in Physics- Doctor of Philosophy in Quantum Engineering
Design- Doctor of Philosophy in Chemistry

students were under the supervision of Professor Hiroshi
Nakanishi of NITAC. Nakanishi laboratory (Fig. 2) of
NITAC conducts theoretical research on condensed
matter physics and trains researchers who are responsible
for the development of next-generation materials(Nakanishi Laboratory, n.d.). As depicted in Table 1,
there are two students from the Institute of Technology
in Bandung Indonesia, 2 students from De La Salle
University in the Philippines, and 1 student from Osaka
University. The Nakanishi Laboratory has strong
collaborative ties with the laboratories and supervising
Professors of the students. The students of the first batchof the Sandwich Program are doing computational
material design, which is the expertise Prof. Hiroshi
Nakanishi of NITAC. Each student stayed at NITAC foraround 1 year as seen the inclusive dates in the program.
The number of year spent doing research in NITAC isdetermined by their study plan in their respective host
universities and the progress of their research at NITAC,
as evaluated by the host professor in NITAC and theirsupervising professor in their home university. Afterevaluation of a completed study here at NITAC, they will
return to their host university to complete theirgraduation requirements. The results of their research in
NITAC can also be submitted for publication at highimpact journals and can be used as a requirement tosatisfy graduation.

Figure 2. Nakanishi Laboratory. The first batch of the
Sandwich Program students were under the supervision of Prof.
Hiroshi Nakanishi, which is a theoretical condensed matterlaboratory.
Table 1. Students of the first batch of the Sandwich Program.
The graduate student participants of the Sandwich Program areindicated by student number. Correspondingly, their homeinstitution and the inclusive dates they are in the program are also
included in the table.

Students of the first batch of the Sandwich Program.
The first batch of students accepted to the Sandwich
Program were chosen from several candidates nominatedby their supervisors. They were chosen based on theirresearch proposal, educational background, related
research activities, relevant basic scientific knowledge on
theories and method of the field, and previous researchbackground. They should also be under a graduate school
program of their host university and completed most of
their academic courses. And furthermore, they should behighly regarded by their supervising Professor. The
university affiliation of the students under the program
and the inclusive dates of their stay in the program is
depicted in Table 1. The first batch of Sandwich Program
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198

Student
No.

Home University

Inclusive dates in the
ProgramStudent 1

Institute of Technology
Bandung, Indonesia

2017.1.16 — 2017.12.28

Student 2

Institute of Technology
Bandung, Indonesia

2017.7.31 — 2018.7.31

Student 3

De La Salle University,
Philippines

2017.3.3 — 2018.3.31

Student 4

Osaka University,Japan

2016.10.24 — 2019.9.30

Student 5

De La Salle University,
Philippines

2019.4.1 — 2019.12.24

Table 2. Conferences and workshops attended and presented by Sandwich Program students. A part of the activities of the Sandwich
Program Students is to present the results of their research through discussions in workshops inside and outside NITAC. The details of
the conference/workshop and presentation title of the Sandwich program student is presented in this table.

Conference Name

Title of Presentationnd

The 72 Annual Meeting of the Physical Society of Japan 2017, Osaka
University, Suita Campus, March 17-20, 2017

First principles study of CO adsorption on Pd3Au(110)-(1x2)
missing row reconstruction surface

The Japan Society of Applied Physics, Kansai Branch, First Lecture 2017
“Frontiers of Materials Design and Green Devices”, Egret Himeji, Himeji,
May 26, 2017

HCHO dissociation to HCO+H on (111) surfaces of Pt and Rh

The Physical Society of Japan, Autumn Meeting 2017, Iwate University,
September 21-24, 2017

Ethylene Decomposition on Different Transition Metal Catalyst

National Institute of Technology 3rd Block Advanced Course Research
Forum, Nagoya International Center, Nagoya, March 2, 2018

Catalysis for Fruit Preservation: Ethylene Decomposition on
Transition Metal Catalysts (Oral presentation award)

National Institute of Technology 3rd Block Advanced Course Research
Forum, Nagoya International Center, Nagoya, March 2, 2018

A first-principles study of the antioxidant activity of dimer
resveratrol: Predicting the radical scavenging site

1st SMA International Workshop on Materials Design and Processes:
Research Trends Towards Low Catalyst Loading, National Institute ofTechnology, Akashi College, July 6, 2018

First Principles Study of Oxygen Atom Adsorption Induced Surface
Segregation and its Impact on Oxygen Reduction Reaction on
PtML/Pd(111)

1st SMA International Workshop on Materials Design and Processes:
Research Trends Towards Low Catalyst Loading, National Institute ofTechnology, Akashi College, July 6, 2018

Hydroperoxyl Radical-Scavenging Activity of Melinjo Resveratrol: A
First Principles Study

2nd SMA International Workshop on Materials Design and Processes:
Computational Materials Design for Energy Utilization, National Institute ofTechnology, Akashi College, October 5, 2018

First Principles Study of Oxygen Atom Adsorption Induced Surface
Segregation and its Impact on Oxygen Reduction Reaction on
PtML/Pd(111)

3rd SMA International Workshop on Materials Design and Processes:
Carbon-based Materials Design for Technological Application, National
Institute of Technology, Akashi College, March 26, 2019

Surface composition of Pt-Pd/Pd(111) alloys in the presence of O
and OH during the oxygen reduction reaction

Activities of the Sandwich Program students. Asidefrom doing research activities for the completion of theirresearch problems, other activities of the students under
the Sandwich Program includes: (1) promotion ofresearch discussion within or outside the laboratory they
belong, (2) dissemination of information from theobtained results of their research, (3) cultural immersion
with the students and faculty-community of NITAC, and(4) presentation of results through joining
conferences/workshops and a concluding (final)
presentation of their research results in NITAC.
Regular discussions on students’ research progress
were conducted. The regular discussions were under theguidance of their host professor in NITAC, incoordination with their supervising professor in theirhome universities. Apart from this, some students under
the Sandwich Program were able to present a part oftheir research in conferences and workshops inside andoutside of NITAC. The conference/workshop names
and the title of the paper presentation from the Sandwich
Program students are listed in Table 2. These
presentations, either oral or poster presentation,
provides a venue for the Sandwich Program students todiscuss their respective researches and its results to thecommunity. This allows for exchange of ideas andissues that are relevant to the scientific andtechnological community. The Sandwich Program
Students are also required to give an oral concluding

presentation about the research they conducted at
NITAC (Fig. 3). After the conclusion of their final
presentation, students of the Sandwich Program who
successfully completed their research will be awarded
with a certificate of completion (Fig. 3).

Figure 3. Final Presentation and Awarding of Certificates.
A final requirement for students under the Sandwich Programis having a concluding (final) presentation of their research
results at NITAC. After the satisfying the requirements of the
Sandwich Program, they will be awarded a certificate ofcompletion.

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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199

Results and Discussion
The conceptualization of the Sandwich Program wasdesigned to benefit both parties: the Sandwich Program
students and NITAC students, and the partner university(Professors) and NITAC (Professors). The mutual
benefit was for the advancement of science andtechnology, and at the same time promotion of
globalization.
All students under the Sandwich Program
completed their studies as exemplified by theirconcluding presentations and the open discussions that
followed. The presentation title of each student in the
concluding presentation is listed in Table 3. The
concluding presentation is open to all faculties andstudents of NITAC. This is a venue where students andfaculties of NITAC can further discuss with Sandwich
Program students the details of their researchpresentation. For all 5 concluding presentations, only alimited number of NITAC students attended thepresentation. This could be improved by more activities
that promote interaction between NITAC students andthe Sandwich Program students. Prior connotation on
the complexity of the topic, language barrier, andminimal exposure to them (Sandwich Program students)
could be some possible reasons. Nevertheless, these
activities somehow instill relevance of research to
NITAC students as observed some of the researchpresentation of NITAC students presented in the NITAC
festival. The detailed manuscript of the scientific resultsfrom the Sandwich Program students is being compiled
to be published as “NITAC Sandwich Program 2019
Final Report” whose proposed cover page is shown in
Fig. 4. The certificates that the Sandwich Program
students obtained and the research that they
accomplished in NITAC can be used for the completionof their graduate degree in their own home university.
To date, after Sandwich program, the Student 1 earned
his master’s degree at his home university, ITB, andcontinued his PhD degree at Osaka University. Student
2 became a lecturer in a University of Technology
similar to her home university and is expected to finish
her PhD degree soon. Student 3 is also a lecturer at a
Technological University in his country, the Philippines,
he is soon to graduate from PhD. Student 4 earned his
PhD and is now a Specially Appointed AssistantProfessor at NITAC. And
Student 5 went back to
his previous position as
an Associate Professor in
the Philippines and is a
final defense away fromobtaining his PhD. After coming back to their homecountry, several academic requirements are still needed
to be met. These probably are some of the factors that
lengthens the initial study plan they had. An improved
coordination with the supervising professor in theirhome country regarding the student’s study plan could
probably overcome this problem, which could be
improved in the future.
The presence of the Sandwich Program students is
assumed to contribute to the awareness of the current
scientific and technological research trend and promote
globalization through cultural immersion of NITAC
students. The presence of the international-nature of the
Sandwich Program graduate students creates an aura ofa university-like environment in NITAC. The activitiesof the Sandwich Program students are typical of
graduate students engaged in research-related activities.
Students of NITAC are aware of that and thus gain an
overview of the typical activities of a graduate student.
Apart from that, Sandwich Program students also
participated in student-related activities of NITAC, e.g.
NITAC festival, sports-related activities, and sometimes
they join in activities involving other international
exchange students. These venues are good for cultural
exchange and practice of communication skills between
Sandwich Program students and NITAC students. With
these benefits gain through interaction between
Sandwich Program students and NITAC students, wehope that activities related to these kinds of program will
be well promoted and well participated in the future.
Collaborative projects between Sandwich Program
students and NITAC students, on a minor part, could
also be good way to promote stronger impact of the
program.
Table 3. Concluding presentation title of the Sandwich
Program students. The graduate student participants of the
Sandwich Program are indicated by student number.
Correspondingly, the title of the concluding presentation isindicated in the cell across it.

Figure 4. Proposed
Sandwich Program 2019
Final Report cover. The
compilation of the scientificresults of students under the
Sandwich Program iscompiled and published as
Sandwich Program 2019
Final Report. In preparation

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
18-21 August 2020, Turku, Finland
200

Student No.

Title of Study

Student 1

First principle study of hydrazine N-N and N-Hbond cleaving on Ni (111) and (211) surface inpresence of co-adsorbed OH

Student 2

Dimer structure effects on the peroxyl radicalscavenging activity of melinjo (Gnetum gnemonL.) resveratrol: A first principles study

Student 3

Industrial Functionalities of Transition Metals in
Fruit Preservation Catalysis and Molecular
Switch Devices

Student 4

Surface compositions of Pt-Pd/Pd(111) alloys
in the presence of O and OH during oxygen
reduction reaction: A First-Principles(Chanteramolee et. al, 2019)Student 5

First principles study of oxygen evolution
reaction on Ru and Ru-Ir alloy surfaces

Conclusions

References

The National Institute of Technology (KOSEN) is auniquely structure educational system of Japan thattrains students at an early age as promising engineers tocope up with the rapid technological advancement of thecountry. In line with this, the National Institute ofTechnology, Akashi College (NITAC) introduced the
Sandwich Program. The Sandwich Program is asustainable KOSEN research-education program inharmony
withuniversity
research-learning
environment. In this program, highly talented graduate
students from different international partner universities
can conduct research in a Japanese research
environment of NITAC. After the duration of theirresearch study NITAC, they will go back to their home
universities to obtain a graduate degree. This program
creates an aura of global education in a university-likeenvironment in NITAC. There were 5 international
students in the first batch of the Sandwich Program who
successfully completed their research study.
The Sandwich Program, through the research-natureof its activities, contributes to the advancement ofscience and technology in NITAC, and at the same time
promotes globalization between Sandwich Program
students and NITAC students. It also strengthens therelationship between the partner universities through thecollaborative research activities. The success of the firstbatch of the Sandwich Program merits continuation of
succeeding similar activities. The impact of the
Sandwich Program students’ research activities on
NITAC students could be strengthened with continuousinteraction. With this, we hope that future collaborative
activities such as these will be supported.

Chantaramolee, B., Aspera, S.M., Arevalo, R.L.,
Arguelles, E.F., Kishida, R., Padama, A.A.B., Kasai, H.
and Nakanishi, H. (2019). Surface composition of PtPd/Pd(111) alloys in the presence of O and OH duringoxygen reduction reaction: A first-principles study.
Journal of the Physical Society of Japan, 88, 044802.
https://doi.org/10.7566/JPSJ.88.044802
Higashino, A.P., (2018), Culture as tool forinternationalization: Hands-on international workshop.
Proceedings of ISATE 2018, Retrieved fromhttps://www.kosen-k.go.jp/about/global/isate/
Hiraishi, T., Herbert, J.C., Kajimura, Y., and Fujiwa, S.,(2018), Developing competencies through Co+Work
and Tobitate Projects. Proceedings of ISATE 2018,Retrieved fromhttps://www.kosen-k.go.jp/about/global/isate/
Nakanishi Laboratory. (n.d.). Nano-design Lab,
Nakanishi Laboratory National Institute of Technology,
Akashi College [Blog post]. Retrieved May 29, 2020
from http://www.akashi.ac.jp/~nakanishi/index.html
National Institute of Technology (KOSEN)-Education
System. (n.d.). Educational System. Retrieved May 28,
2020 fromhttps://www.kosenk.go.jp/english/what/educationsystem/educationsystem
National Institute of Technology (KOSEN)-Views.
(n.d.). Increasing expectation for KOSEN (College ofTechnology) [Blog post]. Retrieved May 28, 2020 fromhttps://www.kosenk.go.jp/english/what/features/views.html

Acknowledgements
This work is supported in part by JST ACCEL grant
number JPMJAC1501 "Creation of the Functional
Materials on the Basis of the Inter-Element-Fusion
Strategy and their Innovative Applications", MEXT
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (16K04876), andJST CREST Innovative Catalysts and Creation
Technologies for the Utilization of Diverse Natural
Carbon Resources: In-situ atomic characterization of
catalytic reactions for the development of Innovative
Catalysts (No. 17942262). Some of the numericalcalculations presented here were done using thecomputer facilities at the following institutes: HighEnergy Accelerator Research Organization (KEK),
Institute for Solid State Physics (ISSP, University ofTokyo), Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics(YITP, Kyoto University), and the National Institute for
Fusion Science (NIFS). The Global Education Center(GEC) of the National Institute of Technology, Akashi
College for their support.

Peters, L, (2009). Global Education: Using Technology
to Bring the World to Your Students. Washington D.C.,
USA: International Society for Technology in Education.

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Human Resource Development of IoT Engineers for Disaster Prevention and Mitigation
Based on Remote Island Engineering
H. Fukuda*a, T. Itob, T. Masuzakic, T. Tabusac, M. Tadad and K. KuzumecaNIT, Yuge College/ Electronic Mechanical Engineering Department,b
NIT,Yuge College/ General Education Departmentc
NIT, Yuge College/ Information Science and Technology Departmentd
NIT,Yuge College/ Maritime Technology Department, Kamijima Town, Japan*fukuda@yuge.ac.jp
Abstract

In our projects, we applied IoT or ICT, which areimportant technologies, required for engineers in all
fields, and tried to solve the problems together withlocal residents. Most participating students tried towork and learn actively with people of the local
community of Yuge Island. According to the survey,
they were very pleased with their activities and had
many positive opinions. It was confirmed that the
PDCA cycle system could be built to promote the next
project, and our approach was very effective at
implementing the PBL teaching method.

In recent years, "Problem Based Learning (PBL)"
has attracted our attention as an educational methodfor developing "human power" such as autonomy,
activity, cooperation and creativity. Unlike
conventional classroom lectures, students take on thechallenge of acquiring knowledge on their own, andteachers become their supporters. In PBL, it isimportant to present the "what is the problem" task,
and the motivation of the students is greatly
influenced by the task tackled.
Yuge Island, where our college is located, has
problems peculiar to remote islands due to population
decline, aging and decline of birth-rate. However,Yuge Island is also a unique island where our students,
teachers and staff occupy about 20% of the town's
population. In the neighbourhood, our college is the
only higher education institution and is expected toplay an important role in solving the problems of
remote islands.
In this research, we utilize the engineering andhuman resources of our college to solve problems
from an engineering perspective in cooperation withthe local community and our college. We defined suchengineering as "remote island engineering". From theperspectives of education, energy, disaster prevention,
mitigation and environmental conservation, we
carried out several projects for developing humanresources using the PBL education method. These
could contribute to the "safety and security" of theisland based on remote island engineering. At thestart of the projects, a new organization wasestablished to facilitate cooperation between ourcollege and residents of the community and toevaluate the implemented projects. This organization,
composed of staff from Kamijima Town and facultyfrom our college, played a very important role inrealizing the PDCA (Plan Do Check Action) cycle forthe project. We implemented the following four kindsof programs:1) IoT application technology program2) Environmental and energy technology program3) Disaster prevention and mitigation education
4) programs5) ICT education support program

Keywords: PBL, remote island engineering, disasterprevention, mitigation, ICT, IoT
1. Introduction
In recent years, in order to cope with rapid change,
complexity and globalization in society, in addition tocertain specialized knowledge, education that fosters"human power" including autonomy, activity,
cooperation and creativity is required. PBL is attracting
our attention as a method for promoting this education.
Unlike conventional classroom lectures, students take on
the challenge of acquiring knowledge on their own, andteachers become their supporters. As a result, PBL is
considered to be an excellent class technique that
effectively improves "problem solving ability", "selflearning ability", "analytic ability", "teamwork ability","communication ability", etc. (Ichitubo et.al (2016)).
However, in PBL, it is important to present the "what isthe problem" task for participating students, and theirmotivation is greatly influenced by the task set in the field.
Yuge Island, where our college was established, waslocated in the centre of the Seto Inland Sea and hadvarious problems due to population decline, aging anddecline of birth-rate. However, Yuge Island was also aunique island where our students, teachers and staff
occupied about 20% of the town's population. In theneighborhood, our college was the only higher education
institution and therefore, it was expected to play animportant role in solving the problems of remote islands.
So far, our college had tried to solve the above
problems in the fields of disaster prevention, mitigation,
education and welfare, utilizing the knowledge andtechnology of our students and faculty members to

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collaborate with the local community, as part of PBL
education (K. Ise (2019) and T. Ito, S. Ishida (2019)). We
defined such engineering as “remote island engineering”.
From another perspective, "PBL education based onremote island engineering", in which students and faculty
members entered the area on a daily basis like amoeba
and worked with local residents to solve problems, was agreat opportunity to discover problems in PBL. Also, inthe process of problem solving in the PBL lesson,
students could experience that "our activities wereactually useful in society", so it could be expected thatthe motivation of participating students could be further
enhanced.
In this research, we focused on development of humanresources that could contribute in the fields of disasterprevention, mitigation and education on remote islands
with an approach based on "remote island engineering".
First, we established new organizations to facilitate thecooperation between our college and the residents of thecommunity and to evaluate the implemented projects.
These organizations, which were composed of staff from
Kamishima Town and faculty staff from our college,played a very important role in realizing a PDCA cycle
for the project. Next we implemented the following fourkinds of programs:1) IoT application technology program2) Environmental and energy technology program3) Disaster prevention and mitigation education
programs
4) ICT education support program
In Section 2, we outline the organization for
implementing PBL education based on remote islandengineering. Section 3 is devoted to introducing fiveprojects and evaluating their effectiveness from aquestionnaire and discussing the results of each project.
Section 4 describes conclusions and future work.

meeting, the problems and needs that Kamijima Town
currently had were explained in each field by eachdivision manager of the town office, and the faculty
members of our college discussed whether or not tocooperate with them. As a result of the discussion,
several kinds of projects were nominated. For each actual
project, the project staff individually made an
implementation plan and took charge of all tasks, such as
recruitment of students wishing to participate, requesting
cooperation from the local community and evaluation
after implementation. Each implemented project wasevaluated by two committees, the "Kamijima Town
Liaison Council" and the "Management Advisory
Committee." The "Kamijima Town Liaison Council" wascomposed of Kamijima Town and our college faculty
staff, and the "Management Advisory Committee" wascomposed of our college president, the Mayor of
Kamijima Town, a university professor, the president of
the chamber of commerce, a junior high school principal
and the alumni president. The evaluation was based
mainly on the results of questionnaires on things such as
the satisfaction and impressions of community, staff andstudents who had participated in the projects, and also
identified new needs through the projects. The evaluation
results would be reflected in the projects implementationin the following year.
3. Project based remote island engineering
In this section, we introduce five projects based on“remote island engineering” using the PBL method anddiscuss their effectiveness on education and developmentof human resources.
3.1 IoT Hands-on Seminar
An IoT hands-on seminar was held for the purpose of
applying IoT technology to disaster prevention andmitigation. At the seminar, a lecturer was invited from

2. Organization for implementing projects based onremote island engineering
In order to promote projects based on remote islandengineering, it was necessary to establish an externalorganization that played the role of connecting the oncampus organization and the local community to carryout the projects. Therefore, one or two faculty members
were selected from the Department of Maritime
Technology, Department of Electronic MechanicalEngineering, Department of Information Engineeringand Department of General Education as an internalorganization, and a leader for each project was appointed
from among them. In addition, there were administrative
staff on campus who were in charge of public relations
and coordination with external organizations. We
requested the cooperation of the Kamijima Town Office
as an external organization from where our school was
located, and the division managers of education, industry
and crisis management in the office participated as
members. (See Figure 1)
At the first meeting, about 10 members from both ourcollege and Kamijima Town Office attended. At the

Figure 1. Organization for implementing project basedon remote island engineering.

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Figure 3. Picture of clean up ashore.
Figure 2. IoT hands-on Seminar
Sakura Internet Co., Ltd., and the participants conducted
temperature measurement training using the IoT board
for about 3 hours (See in Figure 2). At the seminar, 39
students and 4 faculty members with basic knowledge ofembedded technology and the Web participated and took
a lecture on how to use IoT utilizing cloud technology.
When we conducted a questionnaire on the futureapplications of IoT technology to participants, thefollowing ideas were gathered.
1) Confirmation of safety of grandparents
2) Environment monitoring during disasters such as
landslides and high tides over the island3) Support for people with disabilities

Figure 4. Questionnaire survey results.

3.2 Environmental and energy technology education
program

In the event of a disaster, securing energy such as
electricity and gas is an important issue for several days
until the rescue team arrives at the evacuation centre. A
rocket stove is an efficient and hot burning portable stove
using wood fuel. It can be made easily from a pail and Lshaped metal tube. Therefore, it was used in the Great
East Japan Earthquake and caught our attention. Then,
we made a small eco-stove as a teaching aid forenvironmental and disaster prevention education. We had
lectured using it with elementary and junior high school
students and residents of Kamijima Town (T. Ito, Y. Ito,
S. Iwasaki, H. Ichimori, H.Okano, K. Tada, J.Yano,(2019)). The Stirling engine was an external combustion
engine that could convert the volume change of air in acylinder by heating and cooling to kinetic energy. Since
the structure of the Stirling engine was very simple, it
could be utilized in various fields. The Electricity
Business Law was amended in 2014 and regulation of
Stirling engine power generation of less than 10kW was
deregulated. Therefore, medium-scale Stirling engine
power generation was researched and developed. Thissection outlines how we tried to generate electricity by
combining a Stirling engine with a rocket stove using
flammable garbage and bamboo etc. as fuel, so that we
could secure power at each evacuation site during adisaster. First, we compared the PM2.5 concentration ofdifferent fuels using a compact PM2.5 measuring sensor.
We made a rocket stove using a pail, metal chimney andperlite (see Figure 5). The compact PM2.5 measuring
sensor used was jointly developed by Nagoya University
and Panasonic (see Figure 6), (Y. Matsumi1, T.
Nakayama (2016)). We burned firewood, bamboo, split
chopsticks, pine cones and driftwood as fuel using therocket stove and measured the concentration of PM2.5.

On remote islands, due to aging, it is very difficult forresidents to maintain their lifelines in the event of adisaster. The project was to provide students with anopportunity to investigate the possibility of utilizing
combustible waste drifting along the coast of remoteislands as fuel for emergency power generation in theevent of a disaster and to think about environmental
problems in the Seto Inland Sea. As a concrete activity,
we conducted coastal cleaning on remote islands andinvestigated stranded waste. Furthermore, we designed
and manufactured a Stirling engine that could use
combustible waste as fuel and considered the possibilityof using it as a generator in the event of a disaster.
3.2.1 Environmental education programFirst-year students of our college volunteered to clean up
the shore at Takai Kamijima, Kamijima Town, as part of
the “Regional Revitalization Exercise”. Takai Kamijima
was located about 20 minutes away using the school's
training ship, Hamakaze, and was a remote island with
about 20 residents. Our students collected about 100kg ofwaste plastic, 10kg of bottles and cans and a large amountof oversized garbage for about one hour, together withresidents of the island. 80% of participating students
began to have interest in environmental issues. (Figures
3, 4)
3.2.2 Energy education program in the event ofdisaster

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higher than firewood and chopsticks at 20-30µg /m3. On
the other hand, when pine cones were used, intenseburning was observed, and the concentration of PM2.5
was lower than that of chopsticks and firewood. By
combining bamboo and driftwood with pine cones andchopsticks, stable combustion was possible with arelatively low concentration of PM2.5, and they could be
sufficiently used in evacuation sites. After design of theoutline of the Stirling engine generator, it was
manufactured by ADMIEXCO Engine Design Co., Ltd.
(see Figure 7). It had a maximum speed of 1200 rpm anda power output of 300W. First, the generator did not work
due to the low thermal power of the rocket stove. Later,
the generator could run by surrounding the combustion
section with heat-resistant bricks. However, it needed to
be improved to operate the cooling part and transport
controlled using IoT. The embedded IoT system wasbeing developed by grade 5 as a graduation thesis. With
this system, some parameters such as the temperature andconcentration of PM2.5 of the Stirling engine could bemonitored on the Internet in real time.

When chopsticks were used, fast and stable combustion
was possible.

Figure 5. The rocket stove used in the experiment.

Figure 6. The compact PM2.5 measuring sensor.

3.3 Disaster prevention training workshop for student
leaders
An instructor was invited from the Kamijima Town
Crisis Management Office to hold a "Disaster Leader
Training Workshop". The purpose of this workshop was
to foster students' disaster prevention leaders who could
actively respond to evacuation of lives in the event of adisaster and to foster human resources that could
contribute to the community and society. A total of 27
students participated in this workshop, the breakdown ofwhich was student association officers, dormitory
association officers and club activity leaders.
First of all, the instructor explained about "Disaster
Prevention Measures in Kamijima Town" and thedamage situation in Kamijima Town from the previous
year's heavy rain disaster in western Japan and how todeal with it. Next, the students were divided into small
groups and conducted the following training (See Figure8). Most participating students were satisfied with thecontents of this seminar.
1) Assembling a simple tent
2) Assembling a cardboard bed3) Assembling a simple toilet
The students who participated in the workshop were alittle confused and nervous at first, but they seemed to getused to it quickly and cooperated with each other toassemble. After the review, the instructor said withexpectation to students, "In Kamijima Town, where there
are many elderly people, the cooperation of young people
is more and more necessary, so in the event of a disaster,
please cooperate with the community." That was thesecond time this workshop had been held. In the future,
we would not only raise awareness but develop practicaldisaster prevention leaders who are useful to society atlarge. Participants came to the following conclusion: In
the event of a disaster, I definitely want to cooperate withthe construction of evacuation centers. I would like to

Figure 7. Stirling engine for power generator.

Figure 8. Picture of disaster prevention training
workshop.
When switched to firewood, the burning area was
reduced for burning in case of disaster. We are now
comparing the power generation efficiency depending
upon kind of fuel and improving the equipment, andconstructing systems for power generation and lower
PM2.5 emissions. For firewood and chopsticks, theconcentration of PM2.5 was less than 10µg /m3, with nosignificant difference between them. When bamboo wasused, the flame became stronger than firewood, but theconcentration of PM2.5 was slightly higher thanfirewood and chopsticks at 20µg /m3 or less. Driftwood
has high moisture content, but it was able to burn. When
driftwood was used, the concentration of PM2.5 was
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develop an evacuation center management system forsupporting the lives of evacuees by cloud computing
using IoT.
3.4 A revival project of campus wells
Many lifelines were also damaged by the heavy raindisaster in western Japan in July 2018. For a long time,
Kamijima Town had been supplied with tap water fromthe Hiroshima Prefectural Enterprise Bureau, but the
Nuta River was flooded and the water intake damaged,
and about 3,300 homes cut off for 11 days. In response to
the damage, Yuge College provided support to local
residents using groundwater, but could not use it as
drinking water because the quality of the groundwater
was not tested. For this reason, drinking water was
supplied by the local government. Therefore, in thisproject, we researched the design and installation ofwater intake equipment, water intake capacity and its
applicability to drinking water in order to secure waterfrom wells that are not currently used in the college as
domestic water in the event of a disaster. As a result of
the research, it was confirmed that wells could supply 50㎥ of groundwater per day. In preparation for a power
outage in the event of a disaster, we installed a solar cellpanel and built a system that allowed real-timemonitoring of water storage and transparency by IoT. We
are currently discussing with Kamijima Town about"Effective use of wells during disasters" (See in Figure
9).

Figure 10. Picture of robot programming contest.

(a) Understanding

3.5 ICT education support program for junior highschool students by our college staff and students.
In recent years, social interest in programming education
has increased significantly. In Japan programming
education became compulsory at elementary schools
from 2020, so the number of private schools and events
where students can learn programming, especially inurban areas, is increasing rapidly. However, there are few
opportunities to learn programming in islands. As a result,the gap in programming learning opportunities between
urban areas and islands is widening. Therefore, since
2018, staff and students of the Department of Information
Engineering and the Department of Electromechanical(b) Satisfaction(c) Interest in programs and robots
Figure 11. Answers for questionnaire aboutprogramming support education.
Engineering of our college have been supporting
programming education using robots in junior highFigure 9. Revival of campus well for supply during
disaster.
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schools. In 2019, approximately 100 third-year students
from four junior high schools were supported in 2 to 6
hours of programming education. First, the mechanismsof measurement and control and the information
processing procedure and program were explained. Next,
students were divided into pairs and practiced
programming using robots (mbot, makeblock) (Figure10). The robot was controlled by a program using a visualprogramming language called Scratch. The robot had anultrasonic sensor, light sensor, infrared sensor,
microcomputer, motor, LED and buzzer. Therefore, bycontrolling the sensors and motors by programming, therobot could run, avoid obstacles and illuminate the LEDs.
Finally, students were challenged by assignments
devised by our students. Figures 11 (a)-(c) show theresults of the questionnaire after the programming
education support. As for the degree of understanding of
the support education, 78% answered that they could“easily understand” and “understandable”. As for the
degree of satisfaction, 94% answered "Extremely
satisfied" and "satisfied". 85% of the respondents
answered "very interested" and "interested" to thequestion, "Are they interested in programming or
robots?"In 2019, we held a robot programming contest at ourcollege for junior high school students who were
supported by us with programming education. A total of
16 junior high school students participated, consisting ofsix teams. The contest was about competing for thenumber of missions completed within a 60-minute time
limit, and our students were involved in its operation. The
junior high school students who participated said they
had fun programming and obtained a sense ofaccomplishment when they cleared the tasks. They were
eager to study more about computers. These results
suggested that this support education had the effect ofclosing the gap in programming learning opportunities
and increasing interest in programming and robots.

In the future, we plant to continue to develop PBL in
which we discover and solve local issues through local
activities. This time, projects’ themes were mainly
selected by faculty members, and some were carriedout as graduation research. The next step is to help
students discover problems and do everything fromplanning to assessment. We had opportunities to haveseveral meetings with Kamijima Town, such as with the
Town Liaison Council and the Management Advisory
Committee, to share the problems to be solved. It was an
added benefit to be able to construct a foundation for
consultation and communication with each other. In the
future, we will carry out collaborative research closelywith Kamijima Town to solve local issues discovered by
students based on this foundation.
Acknowledgements
This research was partially supported by 2019 Chuden
Education Promotion Grant (College of Technology) and
KOSEN4.0 Grant of National Institute Technology.
References
T. Ito, Y. Ito, S. Iwasaki, H. Ichimori, H. Okano, K. Tada,
J Yano, (2019). Teaching Materials of Rocket Stoves forEnvironmental Education and Investigation of
Educational Effect. Journal of Japanese Society forEngineering Education vol.67 (4) p86-90.
Y. Matsumi1, T. Nakayama, (2016). Development of acompact, simple and precise PM2.5 sensor and its
applications. Japan Geoscience Union Meeting 2016. AAS12.
T. Ito, S. Ishida, (2019). Activity of scientific experimentclub based on remote island engineering. The 13th
International Symposium on Advances in Technology
Education 2019(ISATE2019), p564-568.

4. Conclusions and future work
In this research, we proposed novel engineeringdefined as “remote island engineering”. It aimed to solve
various problems that the local island had, utilizing
together both the human resources of our college and the
local community. In the first attempt, we planned fourkinds of programs and implemented five projects with
Kamijima Town Office. We evaluated the usefulness of
our projects by questionnaire survey. Most participating
students tried to work and learn actively with people ofthe local community on Yuge Island. According to thesurvey, they were very satisfied with their activity andhad a lot of positive opinions. Therefore, it seemed that
our attempts were very well suited to the challenges of
PBL. In addition, the results of each project were
evaluated by external organizations, the Town Liaison
Council and the Management Advisory Committee. As aresult, our projects received high praise and a PDCA
cycle system to promote the next projects based onremote island engineering was established.

K. Ise, (2019). Isolated Island Engineering Helps
Students Develop. Journal of Japanese Society forEngineering Education vol.67 (4) p33-3490.

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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Efforts at Education and Student Guidance with a Focus on
Comprehensibility and Diligently in KOSEN
Mitsuhiro Saito*aaDepartment of Civil and Environmental Engineering,
National Institute of Technology, Fukushima College, Iwaki city, Japan*E-Mail : mitsuhiro@fukushima-nct.ac.jp
Keywords: education method, student guidance, public
relations,
examination student acquisition, civilengineering, KOSEN (National Institute of Technology)

Abstract
This paper presents a method to help junior highschool students and their parents better understandthe civil engineering curriculum and see theattraction of entering the field. The method gets
students more interested the specialized field andallows them to regularly check their understanding.
Due to the declining birth rate in Japan, it has
become more difficult to attract candidates for many
specialized fields. The fact that students must choose
their academic specialization (and thus their future
career path) at the age of 15 makes recruiting
students even more challenging. To better attract
candidates to our program and to retain thesestudents after enrollment, we have made changes inour recruiting efforts and in our teaching approaches.
To improve recruiting, we redesigned ourrecruiting
materials
with
a
focus
on
comprehensibility and diligently, and regularlypresent these materials at college briefings and open
campus events. In these revised materials, we outline
what students can learn in the program and where
they can apply this training in the future. We haverecast the graduates of our program as "Machi no
Oishasan", which emphasizes the social andenvironmental mission of engineers working in thisfield. As a result of these change, the number ofcandidates applying to the department has recovered
a little in the following year.
To better educate students after enrollment, I havedeveloped a new feedback mechanism called the"Catch Ball Sheet", with which students can review
lesson content and ask questions freely. This feedback
sheet allows the instructor to check student
understanding as well as to better understand each
student’s personality and life situation. The use of thissheet has been effective for both students and teachers
to reinforce lesson contents and to communicate witheach other. Because there is a need forcomprehensibility and diligently as well as theattitude to get candidates, teachers are required tomaintain a consistent attitude toward students as"Machi no Oishasan".

Introduction
Japan is currently experiencing a seriously declining
birth rate, shrinking the pool of potential students for allacademic and training programs. This is especially thecase in technology education, where young people mustchoose their specialization and their future career path at
the age of 15. In such a situation, the field of civilengineering is at a disadvantage, since it evokes imagesof dangerous, dirty, and hard work, making it difficult to
attract students to this specialized field. Once enrolled,students are expected to master substantial knowledge
and skills in the field, which presents an additional
challenge to attracting engineering candidates.
The purpose of this paper is to present new methods
to help junior high school students and their parents
better understand the civil engineering curriculum, as
well as the attraction and benefits of entering the field.
And I want to show how to teach in a way that makes
students more interested the specialized field and how tocheck their understanding.
1.Present circumstances and problems facing higher
education institutions
1-1. Decrease in young population and influence tonumber of applicant for admission
The decrease in the youth population is a common
problem in Japan. In Iwaki city, which has a populationof about 350,000, the youth population aged 0 to 14
decreased from 46,776 in 2010 to 42,404 in 2015, a dropof 4,372 people. Under such circumstances, the number
of applicants for admission to Fukushima College has
decreased over this time. In particular, enrollment in thecivil engineering department has been declining in recent
years. In 2019 the number of applicants identifying civilengineering as their first choice department for theentrance examination fell below the admission capacity:
only 13 applicants selected civil engineering as their first
choice out of a capacity of 20, an application ratio of 0.7.
Looking at each department, electrical engineering had

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46 applicants with an application ratio of 2.3. But theapplication ratios of other departments were closer to one,
including mechanical engineering (1.0), chemistry andbiochemicalengineering
(1.0)
and
business
communication (1.1). The 2019 application ratio ofaround 0.7 in civil engineering shocked department staff
and suggested that action was urgently needed in thedepartment.

2. Efforts and achievements to attract candidates
2-1. Creating brochures and catchphrases
To attract candidates for civil engineering programs,
we primarily developed new materials that introduced thedepartment with a focus on comprehensibility anddiligence at college briefings and open campuses. In the
introductory material, we first explain that the
department of civil and environmental engineering iswhere students acquire the engineering skills to create
more livable cities for everyone's benefit whileconsidering the environment, and to do so requires a
substantial body of knowledge. Then we explain the needfor students to have a broad general education
background. In this section, we mention why we requirecourses in subjects from elementary and junior highschool, such as language, mathematics, science, society,and English. Table 2 lists the main general education
requirements and the rationale for students to study them.
For example, language is necessary to share our thoughts
and ideas and gather necessary information, andmathematics is necessary to understand various
phenomena occurring around us. We then present more
specialized subjects which build upon this foundation.
Further we mention to prospective students that it isnecessary to acquire specialized knowledge from otherdisciplines, as shown in Table 3. For example,
knowledge of the "Internet of Things" (IoT) has recently
become important in many applied fields including civilengineering; likewise many types of construction
machines and mechanical tools are used at actual
construction sites. So, to effectively use these tools, it isnecessary for the civil engineer to have specialized
knowledge about machinery, electricity, information
technology, and other related fields.
In this way, the civil engineer is a special engineer
who employs knowledge and skills from multiple fields,
and is expected to solve problems in our society throughthe creation and maintenance of a wide variety of
infrastructures. Our objective is to convey these
attractions of the civil engineering field to junior highschool students. Here, we strive to avoid difficult
expressions as much as possible, and we tried to

1-2. Current situation of KOSEN civil engineering
departments
To consider ways to improve this result, I surveyedcurrent entrance examinations done in KOSEN (National
Institute of Technology) colleges that have a civilengineering department. Nationwide there are 25
KOSEN institutions that have a civil engineering
department. Four of these colleges consist of a single
department and a multiple course system. In other words,
the entrance examination is conducted for the entire
college, and students are then assigned to a specialized
course after admission. This approach can attract
applicants to a KOSEN regardless of whether the
department is popular or not, so it is expected that ahigher application ratio can be attained.
Table 1 summarize published entrance examination
data from 2018 and 2019. The 2019 average application
ratios were 2.7 for all those taking the entrance exam and1.4 among candidates selected for admission at the three
KOSEN that consist of a single department/multiple
course system. In particular, the application ratio basedon those taking the entrance examination is high. On theother hand, looking at the data from the 16 KOSEN
where the recruitment is conducted by individual
departments, the average application ratios were 2.1 forall students taking the entrance examination and 1.8 forselected candidates. In fact, application ratios differ by
each KOSEN, with the highest ratio among selectedcandidates in 2019 being 3.8 and for all those taking theentrance examination being 4.1. On the other hand, theapplicant ratio for two KOSEN, including the Fukushima
KOSEN, has fallen below 1.0. In the same way,considering those KOSEN where the recruitment isconducted by individual departments in 2018, theaverage application ratios were 1.8 for both selectedcandidates and all those taking the entrance examination.
As a whole, it turns out that application ratios, whilesomewhat variable, have decreased every year. Possible
influences include the ratios of the previous year andthose of a highly-ranked school in the same region. There
are many regions where a large number of candidates
apply for both KOSEN and advanced schools and wherea large number of examinees decline KOSEN after
passing. Thus the situation is different by region.
Table 1. The application ratio of entrance examination
2018
A single department/multiple(3 colleges)
Civil engineering department(16 colleges)

Table 2. The rationale of learning general education
Main subjects
Language

Why this knowledge and ability are needed?
To share our thoughts and ideas and gather necessary information

Mathematics To understand various phenomena occurring around us
Science

To understand phenomena and environmental around us

Society

To understand current state of society and economy

EnglishTo work global challenges with people from all over the world

Table3. The rationale of learning other specialized fieldSpecialized field2019

Why this knowledge and ability are needed?

Machinery, Electricity, Information To use the latest technology

Selected

Examination

Selected

Examination

Power, Physics

To understand the energy that supports living

1.2

2.1

1.4

2.7

Biology, Chemistry

To understand the environment

1.8

1.8

1.8

2.1

English / Communication

To contribute to global environmental conservationand to be active in the world

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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209

100%

Are there any difficult or
dangerous places to use?

Is your town
livable?

90%
80%
70%
60%

50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%

Is it easy for animals
and plants to live?

Is natureprotected?

2018

2019

2018

Student

Will the land andbuildings don’t
break even if anearthquake occurs?

Mec.Eng.

Elec.Eng.

2019

Guardian
Chem.Biochem.

Civil.Eng.

BC

Figure 2. Evaluation for department in trial enrollments
Table4. Answer about impressive things
Respondent

Figure1. The title call on the front page of brochure
introduce and explain this specialized field in a way thatis appealing and easy to understand. To support thisapproach, we adopted the term "Machi no Oishasan", i.e.,
someone who solves social (Machi) problems throughstudying manufacturing and town development. We
encourage students to think of themselves as future"Machi no Oishasan" instead of a "civil engineer."
Therefore, we selected "You are Machi(Social) no
Oishasan" as a catchphrase for our recruiting, and raised
it as the title on the front page of our brochure.
Our recruiting materials also introduce descriptionsof student life and extracurricular activities, and details
on specialized sub-fields, with any comment on anotherpage. On the final page, we list the major career paths
followed by graduates over the past three years, andintroduce some of the graduate Machi no Oishasan who
are active in various regions, along with their commentson their selected fields. In this way, we present what thecandidates will learn and where they can be active in the
future. In particular, we reinforce the idea of the engineer
as "Machi no Oishasan", and emphasize that this courseof study will be enjoyable because students will be
exposed to a variety of subjects.

Student

Answer contents
The contents of the Department were good
( I was interested. Students were fine. Town model was good )I could see the friendship between students
I was convinced of the word "Machi no Oishasan"

Guardian

The presentation seemed most enjoyable( I felt like the participating students were having fun )The atmosphere of the Department was good
The female student was fineThe explanation of a wide variety of job of "Machi no Oishasan" was goodSome of the comments and impressions offered bysurvey participants are given in Table 4. The phrase"Machi no Oishasan" had a notable impact on bothstudents and guardians. And the explanation of the wide
variety of jobs open to civil engineering graduates
appeared to be very convincing. Survey respondents also
noted student's cheerfulness and the positive atmosphere
within the department. These impressions were formed
through daily lessons, experiments, and training thatteach students to design cities and work in cooperation
with groups of people, which are characteristics work incivil and environmental engineering.
To attract program candidates, it is necessary toclearly convey these characteristics to junior high school
students and their guardians. In particular, the students
around 15 years old who may be attracted to programs at
KOSEN are often interested in manufacturing technology
for robots, automobiles, and the like. In such a situation,in order to get applicants interested in fields dealing withcivil engineering and the environment, it is necessary todevise programs that incorporate these interests alongwith new discoveries. Also, it is necessary to introduce
these specialized fields to students who may beundecided about their interests and future course of study.
In that sense, the expression "Machi no Oishasan" waseffective in getting those students to consider the civilengineering field.
As a result of a series of efforts to attract candidates
including trial enrollment, the number of candidates
recovered a little in 2020. The number of applications forselected candidates increased from 28 to 41, and theapplication ratio increased from 1.4 to 2.1. The number
of applications for the entrance examination increased
from 13 to 45, and here the ratio increased from 0.7 to
2.3. The number of applications for entrance examination
for civil and environmental engineering was second only
to that of the electrical engineering department.

2-2. Efforts to acquire applicants and its results
We have adopted this approach at new student
recruiting events, such as the college briefing, where we
introduce the field of civil engineering and explain how
civil engineering departments train students for the field.
To start conversations with prospective students, we use
our catchphrase "You are Machi no Oishasan". These
recruitment efforts have continued at trial enrollments
and other opportunities in 2019.
We have carried out questionnaire surveys at trial
enrollment every year. In this survey, we have asked
students which departments they favor after trial
enrollment. Survey results are shown in Figure 2.
Looking at the result of 2019 compared to 2018, thepercentage of responses that approved of civil andenvironmental engineering programs increased. In
particular, the positive response by students’ guardiansincreased from 17.6% in 2018 to 23.9% in 2019, which
was the highest percentage among the five target
departments.
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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Furthermore, looking at the results of thequestionnaire survey conducted after enrollment (numberof respondents was 203), the most common reasons of"The opportunity to get interested in Fukushima
KOSEN" were "Recommendations from family andrelatives" (number of answers was 116), followed by"experience-based enrollment" (number of answers 99)
and "college briefings" (number of answers 65). Fromthese results, it appears that these new recruiting efforts,
including the creation of a brochure for attracting
applicants in FY2019, were very effective.
Our experience suggests that efforts to attract
program candidates during college briefings and trial
enrollments are important and necessary. Further, thenature and advantages of the civil engineering training
program must be diligently explained to prospective
students in a comprehensible fashion.
3.
Educatingstudents
comprehensibility and diligently

carefully(3) Although there are not many students who respondhonestly when I ask if they have understood the teachingcontent, many students submit questions and comments
when they are asked to do so on paper.
(4) Students tend to be more worried about exam
scores than whether they understand the essence of thelesson content. They are very concerned about exam
scores and evaluation scores.
(5) The lesson period is typically 100 to 120 minutesin length, which most students feel is too long, so more
effective lesson implementation and utilization of eachclass hour are required.
(6) Because the results of regular examinations
account for a large portion of their final grades, students
tend to focus on getting high exam scores rather thanworking on regular lessons. It is necessary to establish
the significance of completing the lessons, andinstructors should consider emphasizing the daily lesson
results in students’ final grades.

with

3-2. Development of the Catch Ball Sheet
Based on the above, after considering the problems ofboth teaching methods and students' attitudes toward
lessons, I developed a set of teaching materials called the"Catch Ball Sheet". Through the use of the "Catch Ball
Sheet", students can review lesson content and ask
questions freely. And similarly, teachers can check
student comprehension and gain a better understandingof each student’s personality. I have used this sheet at
every lesson except experiment and practice time.
Figure 3 shows the format of a sheet.
(1) The paper size is A3 sheet and uses both sides.
(2) This A3 sheet is divided into 8 sections, providing
space for 15 lessons of a half term using both sides.
(3) The feedback for each lesson consists of two
items: "B1: Point of lesson" and "B2: Questions andimpressions of the lesson". The sheet provides 13 lines
and 5 lines, respectively, for student responses to these
items.
I have been used this sheet as follows.
(1) Students complete the sheet during the last 10
minutes of a lesson.

3-1. Consideration of program lessons
Once enrolled in a program, students must be educatedcarefully and comprehensibly. In particular, as a position
to teach a specialized field, it is important to have interestand understanding in the field they learn for the first time.
With that in mind, we must develop and refinesustainable lessons.
In general, there are two methods for checking a
student's understanding of lesson contents: 1) talk tostudents at key points in the lesson and check that they
were able to understand the material; and 2) have students
complete a check test, and confirm the learningachievement from the results. Each of these methods
present advantages and disadvantages. Method 1) has theadvantage that it leads to an interactive lesson format andstudents can concentrate on the lesson without getting
tired of it. But it is not easy to check the understanding ofeach student in a class of about 40. When using method2), in preparing for the test, students may only work tomemorize specific answers, so it is difficult to properly
judge students’ understanding of the full content of thelesson. There is a clear need for a method that allows
instructors to efficiently check the level of understandingof each student about class content.
Based on the author’s teaching experience, thefollowing are typical characteristics of students as theywork to grasp each classroom lesson.
(1) During lesson time, there are not many students
who are likely to respond honestly when they are asked
if they have understood the material being presented. In
particular, there are some students who pretend to haveunderstood. They evidently care about what their fellow
students think of them, and do not say "I do notunderstand" since they believe that it is embarrassing tosay so.
(2) During a lesson, students are willing to work hardon solving calculation problems, but are less interested inlistening silently and taking notes during lecture.

Figure 3. The format of the Catch Ball Sheet
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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(2) I collect the sheets after completion, check
contents, and evaluate student feedback.
(3) In the next lesson, students complete a new sheet
in a similar fashion. At that time, they check the previous
evaluation and my responses.
By repeating this process, it is possible to carry out 15
lessons for a half term on both sides of an A3 sized paper.
I named this sheet the "Catch Ball Sheet" to emphasize
the interaction between the student and the teacher eachtime.
Utilizing this catch ball sheet has revealed thefollowing problems which appear to be characteristics ofmany students.
(1) Some students say, "I can't write," "I'm not goodat summarizing the point," and/or "I'm not good at
writing."(2) Some students write something but cannot fill the
given space, and leave one-third or nearly half as whitespace.
(3) Some students complete the sheet by copying
from the beginning of the notebook, so the given space isfilled up by the middle of the lesson and does not address
all the lesson contents.
(4) Some students’ writing has many typos or
misspellings, and does not form sentences that can beread by others.
On the other hand, some students have the following
abilities.
(5) They can summarize the contents of the lesson,and organize and summarize the points well.
(6) Some students are good at writing and can write
well in their own words.

the lesson content in a way that would be impossible towrite without closely listening to the lecture. Evaluations
and comments are written with red pen, to contrast withthe students’ black pencil.
On the other hand, the sheet includes the spacelabeled "B2 : Questions and impressions of the lesson".
This space is not evaluated; in it, students can provide
open feedback about their experience of the lesson, suchas pointing out portions they found hard to understandand/or contained unknown words, requests to modify theteaching methods, improvement of blackboard writing
and teaching materials, and so on. Since the comments inthis space are excluded from evaluation, I encourage thestudents to write whatever they want. Further, this is theexchange that is "Catch Ball" between myself and thestudent only; it emphasizes that the student’s feedback is
off the record and it is possible to write freely.
4. Effect of Catch Ball Sheet
4-1. Improvement of Teaching Methods
Through the use of this catch ball sheet, it has beenpossible to review the lesson every time for teachers,
enabling improved teaching methods as follows.
(1) The instructor can determine the degree ofstudents’ understanding of the lesson, and this knowledge
can be used to improve the next lesson. In particular, if
many students did not understand what the mostimportant point in the lesson, or if they generally
understood the lesson without getting the main point, I
can re-emphasize and explain it in the next lesson, by
creating additional materials and so on.
(2) The instructor receives constant feedback on the
speed of lesson progress and the legibility of black board
writing, which can lead to lesson improvement.
(3) As an instructor, I am aware of the main points forevery lesson, so I emphasize these points while covering
a wide range of topics, thereby deepening students’
understanding.
These effects of using the catch ball sheet appear in
the responses to questionnaires about the lesson
evaluation. In the questionnaire, there are questions about
lesson methods, such as, "Are the explanations andmaterials easy to understand?", "Are there areas that need
improvement?". In recent years, there have been nosuggested improvements in response to such questions.
This suggests that the lesson content and delivery has
improved based on student feedback, while confirming
the student's understanding of the material. In this way,
the development and practical use of the catch ball sheet
have achieved their purposes.

3-3. Practical Use of Catch Ball Sheet
The Catch Ball Sheet has been used in my classes tocollect student feedback for 15 years. Below are listed
some specifics of how the feedback sheet has been usedin the classroom.
(1) I evaluate each submitted sheet on a five point
scale (corresponding to letter grades from A to E) basedon whether on not the student could summarise the main
point of the day’s lesson, and whether they could express
themselves and write the result in their own words. Thenthe evaluation is treated as the score for each task and isreflect in the final grade.
(2) For the student who could not get an A grade, I
write comments on the sheet like "Check about○○!" or"○○ is an important point of the lesson, too!" In thisway, I explain to the student he additional points of thelesson they may have missed.
(3) For misspellings and Kanji mistakes, I makecorrections to the text and call attention to the errors.
(4) For the student who correctly summarizes thepoints of the lesson, I provide comments of praise andinclude symbols such as a flower circle.
(5) Further, for students who can not only summarize
points, but also provide their own explanation, I write
comments of praise with a circle and a flower circle. I
also offer strong praise for students who can summarize

4-2. Effectiveness in Student Guidance
The positive effects of using the catch ball sheet haveappeared not only in improving teaching methods but
also in better student guidance.
(1) Because the sheet will be evaluated, students tend
to work hard to complete it. And because they know thatthe feedback sheet must be completed at the end of each

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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lesson, many students diligently take notes listen intently
during class time.
(2) Each year several new students arrive in myclasses with very undeveloped writing skills. Through thepractice of completing the catch ball sheet, many
gradually improved their writing and have been able toachieve an A grade by around the end of the tenth lesson.
(3) The sheets capture descriptions of student andinstructor from the first lesson onwards, so throughlooking back on them, both the students and the instructor
can confirm their growth with each other. In particular, I
have found that the corrections of students’ errors and thepraise given to good work both serve to increase a
student’s motivation to do well in the class, helping tocreate an attitude to work hard for an A grade the nexttime.
(4) By pointing out student behaviors I may havenoticed during a lesson, I can make them aware of being
constantly watched and correct their attitude if needed.
(5) Student feedback has included comments byfemale students comments about poor physical condition,
it became possible to realize the need for consideration
for students. In the past, when there were students lying
down on the desk, I thought that they were sleeping, so I
alerted immediately. But I have aware of the effects ofpoor physical condition, I was able to ask about thepresence of poor physical condition and take appropriate
measures.
(6) By being better able to grasp the situation of each
student, it is possible to provide individual guidance bothwithin and outside of the class, including assisting withcareer guidance.
In this way, while speaking and teaching in front of
the whole class, the instructor can effectively speak andteach individually, making it possible to give guidance toall students and building mutual trust. In fact, thecommunication enabled by the catch ball sheet has
become a regular topic among students, and it has
become a standing conversation when passing in thecorridor, thus leading to improved overall
communication between students and teachers.

important for the instructor to check the submitted sheet
the same day.
Overcoming these problems is necessary to continue
our efforts in the future.
5-2. For Further Practical Use
The process of summarizing the contents of the lesson
and organizing the main points from their own viewpoint
and in their own words within a limited time (about 10
minutes) demands a considerable effort by students, andoften requires advanced abilities to respond. So it seems
like completing the sheet represents hard work forstudents. But going beyond the burden and dissatisfactionof these students, it is necessary to improve teachingeffectiveness, a significant task for the future.
In recent years, it has been pointed out that the
number of students cannot write well or organize ideas orconcepts. Under such circumstances, the use of the catchball sheet can help to train those skills. The author has
witnessed students gradually acquiring the needed skills
through writing the sheet 15 times in half a year. And
those skills can be used in various fields. For example,
the importance of being able to complete entry sheets in
job hunting is increasing; the ability to complete the sheet
has begun to function as a primary exam, rather than justa part of the submission process in recent years. It
requires a certain amount of description, such as 400 or
800 words for a given question. I have heard fromstudents that their experience in completing the catch ballsheet was helpful in those cases. In this way, the practicaluse of the catch ball sheet offers advantages in many
areas.
6. Conclusion
These my efforts is not necessarily desirable. There
will be pros and cons of implementing this feedback into
the KOSEN system. The daily work of KOSEN includes
research, education, student guidance, regional
contributions, and so on, and the demands on thetechnical training system are increasing. Moreover,interacting on paper using handwriting methods may be
outdated in an era when educational materials that utilize
electronic devices are becoming mainstream. But thewritten feedback sheet approach has been shown to havepositive educational effects and to be effective inproviding guidance to students.
In particular, in an educational system where many
students focus only on the success or failure of theiranswers or test scores, I suggest that it is import toimprove students’ ability to summarize complex ideas
and write clearly, thereby not only improving theiracademic prospects, but also helping to foster a richer
human experience. And above all, these efforts have led
to building trust between teacher and students. So mygoal is to improve implementation of the method andcontinue efforts at overcoming challenges andcontinually improving. It can be said that there is a needfor comprehensibility and diligently as well as the effort
to get candidates.

5. Future tasks for further utilization
5-1. Current Problems
There remain some challenges to its effective use,
and there are several potential areas for improvement.
(1) Because the sheet is assumed to be completed at
the end of each lesson, if the lesson does not proceed as
expected, in some cases, the lesson progresses makequickly or the explanation ends simply.
(2) In the same way, the end time of class may beslightly late, leaving insufficient time to complete thesheet.
(3) The feedback sheets from a class of 40 students
require about 1 hour or more to check each sheet andwrite comments. So while this method works well, it istime consuming. In particular, because the students who
wrote the sheet remember the lesson content, and it will
be a topic of discussion when we next meet, it is
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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213

DEVELOPMENT of a PROBLEM-BASED-LEARNING PROGRAM in ENGLISH to
FOSTER STUDEDNTS’ THINKING ABILITY AND COOPERATIVE SKILLSY. Ominatoa, Y. Tsuchidaa, M. Omoria, N. Fukudaa, S. Urabea, K. Ichimuraa, N. MaharjanbaNational Institute of Technology, Nagaoka College/Division of General Education (English),
Niigata, Japanb
National Institute of Technology, Nagaoka College/Department of Civil Engineering, Niigata,Japan*ominato@nagaoka-ct.ac.jp
Abstract

responses to the effective use of teaching materials
increased from the previous year. The combinationof English language learning with thinking skills is aninnovative and challenging approach. Working in agroup to solve problems while using English is anecessary experience for future engineers.

National Institute of Technology, Nagaoka
College (NITNC) has reorganized some English
courses with the aim of improving students' thinking
ability and cooperative skills, which are bothnecessary to work as an engineer in a diverse
international society. In addition to learning criticalthinking and logical thinking methods, we designed
new courses for students to learn problem-solving
skills based on the design thinking method, using
English, and started teaching them in 2020. In thispaper, we will introduce the basic design of thesecourses, and discuss the educational effectivenessbased on student evaluations of the six-month trial
and self-evaluation questionnaires regarding theirthinking ability, cooperative skills, creativity, andtheir English skills. Before preparing our course
design, we visited Singapore Polytechnic, which
provided us with the module of thinking methods used
there in all first-year compulsory courses. They gave
us great suggestions to consider the general course
framework, the assessment policy of students’achievement and the procedure for teaching. We set
four main categories in our course framework: 1)
Critical Thinking, 2) Logical Thinking, 3) Design
Thinking and 4) English Language. The courses
consist of 15 x 90-minute lessons or 30 x 50-minutelessons, and they are designed to help students
improve their thinking through the following steps:
topic explanation, individual thinking / work, group
discussion, and presentation to share their ideas inclass. This year, class topics incorporated two SDGs,
with students addressing the issues of safe urban
environments and marine plastic waste utilizing thefive steps of Design Thinking: Empathize, Define,Ideate, Prototype and Test. After the six-month trial,
we surveyed students about the classes.
Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, the first half of2020 classes were taught offering online and ondemand lectures. Despite this complex situation, morethan half of the students responded favourably to theclass. In particular, the number of favourable

Keywords: English language ability, critical and design
thinking, problem-based learning, SDGs

Introduction and Background
National Institute of Technology, Nagaoka College(NITNC) has worked on numerous international projects
to foster future engineers including sending out students
overseas to join exchange programs such as the Sakura
Science Exchange Program, TOBITATE! Young
Ambassador Program, International Internship Programsto Thailand, Malaysia, France, and Finland, as well asinternational students from overseas institutes in special
programs of NITNC from Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand,
Finland, and France. Moreover, NITNC students always
have opportunities to exchange ideas with international
students on campus since there are usually more thantwenty international students officially enrolled in ourcollege. This globalized learning environment in NITNC
requires the students to develop not only theirengineering knowledge and skills, but also more positiveand fundamental skills such as the ability to think,cooperate, create, and use English.
Before starting the problem-based learning programin our English classes, four different types of English
classes were offered to the students. Each class focusedon reading (90 minutes x 30 weeks), grammar (90minutes x 30 weeks), communication (50 minutes x 30
weeks), and extensive reading (50 minutes x 30 weeks)
for the first-year students to the third-year students. For
the fourth-year students, we offered an English Practiceclass which focused on preparation for the TOEIC® Test
(90 minutes x 30 weeks) and an elective English
Communication class (90 minutes x 30 weeks). For thefifth-year student, several elective classes were offered

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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so that students could choose one of them from a variety
of topics such as technical English, preparation for the
TOEIC Test, English presentation, and preparation for
university transfer examinations. From 2020, we havechanged the Communication Classes for the first-year
students to the third-year students and the English
Practice Classes for the fourth-year students to new
Essential Thinking Classes. In 2020, these classes havestarted for the first-year students and the fourth-year
students. In 2021, the second-year students were added,
and the third-year students will be added in 2022.
Therefore, the first-year students in 2020 will be the firststudents who will get four years of Essential Thinking
Training through this English class program. Before andafter the year of 2020, two different types ofquestionnaires were given to our students. In this study,
these new English classes will be introduced, and theresult of the questionnaires will be discussed.

Materials, Methods, and Pedagogy
Even though there was a plan to start our first trial onteaching these newly designed classes from April 2020,
we had to start our classes online due to the COVID-19
pandemic. Generally, in Japan, the school year starts
from April and ends in March, and in NITNC, an
academic year is divided into two semesters, the firstsemester (from April to September) and the second
semester (from October to March). Due to the huge
influence of COVID-19, just like other universities andcolleges in the world, our school did not have any otherchoice but to offer on-demand lectures online in the firstsemester. NITNC students downloaded all the document
files and video files they needed to study and worked on
their assignments independently. However, these online
course materials were evaluated quite positively by ourstudents (Refer to “Educational Program to Develop
Global Engineers based on Nagaoka CO-CORE Vision,”
written by Y. Tsuchida et al. in the same volume for moredetails about their analysis and overview of this project.)
In July 2020, we were able to gradually resume our faceto-face lectures on campus. Finally in the second
semester we started full face-to-face lectures in NITNC.
<What We Teach>
In our newly designed English class called essential
thinking class (English IC: English Communication classfor the first-year students), the students need to come up
with solutions for two different obstacles in a semester(15 weeks). There are basically ten groups of four or fivepeople, and they discuss issues and cooperate with one
another to create and present one solution. Generally, twoteachers are assigned to teach one class. One is a newly
hired teacher in this global engineering project who is a
non-Japanese teacher and the other is a full-time Japanesefaculty member of the English department.
INTERVIEW & RESEARCH: Some topics wereselected from 17 SDGs’ and then simplified to a level
more suitable for the age of NIT students of 15 to 16
years old. For instance, the GOAL 11: Sustainable Cities
and Communities was selected in the very first class of2020. Instead of asking what those cities or communities
would be, we prepared and asked the students to think
about the following question. “In your house orneighbourhood, there must be some unsafe or dangerous
spots. Talk to your family members or neighbours andidentify one such spot and suggest a solution.” Since
design thinking is a human-centered method, they needed
to start by collecting information from family members(users). Students needed to ask detailed questions todetermine what their family and neighbours’ experience
had been, where, when, how it had happened, and so forth.
EMPATHIZE: In the following week, students wereready to share the results of their interviews. We usually
utilize big poster-size Post-Its® to share ideas in groups.
They were asked to write as many ideas as possible on
stickies and place them on the Post-It®. At this stage,
they were asked to find out what the real problems were.
After choosing one problem in each group, they were

Literature Review
Ping, Chow, & Teoh (2011) mention that there are avariety of definitions of design thinking, however, theycited Brown’s (2008) design thinking definition as a
useful starting point as follows: “Design thinking can be
described as a discipline that uses the designer’s
sensibility and methods to match people’s needs withwhat is technologically feasible and what a viablebusiness strategy can convert into customer value andmarket opportunity.” The definition which NITNC
adopted and shared with all the teaching staff in thisproject is as follows. “Design thinking is a non-linear,
iterative process which seeks to understand users,
challenge assumptions, redefine problems and create
innovative solutions to prototype and test. The method
consists of 5 phases—Empathize, Define, Ideate,
Prototype and Test – it is most useful to tackle problems
that are ill-defined or unknown.” (Interaction Design
Foundation, n.d.).
Hasso-Plattner-Institute of Design at Stanford
University (the d.school) provides five phases of design
thinking: Emphasize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test.
Also, Ping et al. (2011) introduced their simplified design
thinking flow, which are Emphasize, Ideation, andPrototype. NITNC added an “Interview and Research”
phase to the d.school’s five phases so that younger
students would be better able to understand the humancentered design process with less or enough preparation.
The framework of design thinking has been applied
not only to business and product design, but also tovarious professional fields such as education. Lor (2017)
examined various settings of literature using design
thinking in educational field and pointed out that design
thinking is advantageous for those who are teaching 21st
century skills in schools. He has reviewed a total of 64
studies published from 2005 to 2016 regarding design
thinking and categorized those studies into three different
categories: (1) curriculum design, (2) teaching-learning
approach, and (3) teacher training and support. Therefore,
this study is focused on the second category.
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17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland215

asked to think about the “user’s surprising recognition ofreality.” For example, if a group said the problem wasthat people who walk while using a cell phone bump into
other people, students needed to realize and discover theuser’s assumption while doing so. Students learn thatusers believe that they would never bump into anyone on
the road. Through providing various examples, students
will find out user’s surprising recognition of reality intheir groups.
DEFINE: After analysing the problem and figuring
out what the surprising recognition of reality was, theyneeded to write a problem statement. This is one of thehardest steps in the design thinking process, because
students need to analyse all the data collected and noticewhat others have failed to notice including the users.
Then finally, students need to identify what the real
problem is.
IDEATE: Students need to come up with ideas tosolve the defined problem. In this step, they do not haveto come up with a perfect idea, but they need rather as
many ideas as they can. With other members in the samegroup, they need to brainstorm and come up with acreative idea. Usually, we have them draw a graphplacing existing ideas in the middle and have themconsider whether the solution is inexpensive andpractical.
PROTOTYPE: This is a hands-on activity stage ofthe design thinking which engineering students love. We
prepare many kinds of materials to create prototypes inour classroom such as markers, stickies, papers ofdifferent colors, origami, scissors, utility knives, scoth
tapes, glue, paper clips, rubber band, cardboard, and soforth. They will be given a limited amount of time tocreate a prototype, because in most cases a prototype
does not have to be in a perfect form. Students need tokeep in mind that their users will experience their ideas
with their prototypes, and if necessary, they willrearrange the prototype and fix their ideas to fit into theirusers’ demand.
TEST: In this step, a group will be divided into two;
one group makes a presentation about their prototypes
and the other join the other groups to listen to theirpresentations and to experience their prototypes andprovide feedback. Their presentations or explanations
should be very brief because it is essential to get somefeedback from the users such as inspiring points andpoints that need improving.
In addition to the design thinking materials, logicalthinking and critical thinking training and activities are
introduced in this course so that students can understandwhat is expected in a “thinking” class. Moreover, most of
the interactions taking place in this class are in English,
including teachers’ directions, their questions to students,
worksheets, and all the slides the teachers show.
<Organization>
All the teachers who teach this essential thinking
classes are required to use English, even though they all
understand the students’ mother tongue, Japanese. In
2019, two additional teachers were hired for this project.
The qualifications for this position were obtaining Ph.D.

degree in engineering and the ability to teach in English.
Several candidates came forward and we were able tohire two of them. One was from Nepal and the other wasfrom Sri Lanka. Furthermore, there are six teachers in our
English department, and every teacher taught at least one
or more essential teaching class together with newly
hired teacher. Thus, it was conducted by team teaching(TT) with one foreign teacher and one Japanese teacher.
<Questionnaire>
Participants of this study are the 209 students who
enrolled in the essential thinking (English IC) class in
2020. They took TOEIC Bridge® IP test both in October
2020 and in April 2021. The data of the students who
took both tests was analysed. Data from students who had
repeated a school year, who could not take the two exams,
or who had incomplete response was excluded. In order
to ascertain the effectiveness of this project, two different
questionnaires were administered. One of them wasadministered using six attributes attached with TOEIC
Bride® test, and the other one was distributed to thestudents on Microsoft Forms online at the end of theschool year in February 2021. The first one asked thefollowing questions with using four-point Likert scale:Do you think you have the following abilities? [Strongly
Agree, Agree, Disagree, or Strongly Disagree]. The
abilities we asked were, 1. Cooperativeness, 2. Creativity,
3. Thinking Ability, 4. English (Productive Skills[speaking & writing]), 5. English (Perceptive Skills[listening & reading]), and 6. Study Abroad Orientedness(Motivation for studying abroad). The questions in thesecond questionnaire were slightly different from the firstone. It asked, “Have you improved the following skills
through this English IC class?” The six items were
exactly the same as the first questionnaire. The total of
189 students’ date was analysed for the firstquestionnaire, and 183 students’ data was analysed forthe second questionnaire.
Results and Discussion
The Table 1 below shows the result of TOEIC
Bridge® tests taken in October 2020 and April 2021.
Since NITNC did not start the face-to-face classes from
April 2020, they only had six months to take their TOEIC
Bridge® test again.
Table 1. Students' mean score of TOEIC Bridge® Test
score in 2020 and 2021 and two-sided T-test (n=189)

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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2020

2021

T-TestTOEIC Bridge
Test Total

54.62

56.38

**p< .01,
p= .002

Listening

25.65

25.63

p=.977 n.s.

Reading

29.31

30.74

**p< .01,
p= .000

The culculation of the T-test showed that the students'
improvement on TOEIC Bridge® score was statisticallysignificant (p< .01), whereas their listening score did notshow any impromement between 2020 and 2021.
Although mean listening score dropped by .001 point, but
the difference between 2020 and 2021 was notstatistically significant (p=.97 n.s.). The mean readingscore increased by 1.43 point, and this difference wasstatistically significant (p< .01).
The first questionnaire asked students whether they
thought they had the following ability. Four-point Likert
was given to the students (4:Strongly Agree, 3:Agree,
2:Disagree, 1:Strongly Disagree). The result was asfollows in Table 2. Overall, very big differences in six
months were not obsserved from this questionnair. Only
two statistically significant differences were observed
from this questionnaire, which were Cooperativeness(p< .05) and English Productive Skills (p< .05). It isnoteworthy that the average point for English Productive
Skills in April 2021 had increased from October 2020,
and also cooperativeness had decreased.

negative feedback for their improvement of their six
different skills. The primary question was weather they
have improved the following skills through their English
IC classes. Please look at Table 3 for all the results. Morethan 95% of the students felt that they had managed to
improve their Cooperativeness, Creativity, Thinking
Ability, and English Skills (both productive andperseptive skills) through this class. However, 37% of thestudents were not motivated to study abroad even after
experiencing the new English IC class. Although thisclass is not arranged speciffically for persuading students
to study overseas, sutdents have more opportunities tointeract with teachers from other countries and discuss
some international issues during classes.
Table 3. The number of students who believed that they
have improved the six different skills through English IC
in 2020 (n=183)

Table 2. Students' mean response for the six different
abilities and two-sided T-test (n=189)

Cooperativeness
Creativity
Thinking
Ability
English[Productive
Skills: Speaking& Writing]English(Perceptive
Skills: Listening& Reading)
Study Aborad
Orientedness

2020

2021

T-Test2.97

2.86*p< .05,
p= .030

2.66
2.83

1.97

2.61
2.76

2.08

p=.372 n.s.
p=.249 n.s.

*p< .05,
p= .032

2.25

2.25

p=1 n.s.

2.55

2.52

p=.605 n.s.

Positive

Negative

Cooperativeness180 [98%]

3 [2%]Creativity

174 [95%]

9 [5%]

Thinking Ability

180 [98%]

3 [2%]English [Productive Skills:
Speaking & Writing]175 [96%]

8 [4%]English (Perceptive Skills:
Listening & Reading)

172 [94%]

11 [6%]

Study Aborad
Orientedness

115 [63%]

68 [37%]

Conclusions
It was and is quite a new challenge for all the NITNC
teaching staff to prepare and teach new essential thinking
classes in English, but in Japan it is urgent to foster global
engineers who can apply their skills using English to their
future jobs. From the results of the two questionnaires, it
can be said that students are slightly confident about theircooperativeness, creativity, and thinking ability. Though
we should always be careful about the drop in
cooperativeness value. Having a group work may not beenough for the students to improve their cooperativeness.
It is also clear that students are concerned about their
Enlgish skills, especially speaking and writing ability. It
might be possible to say that this new essential thinking
class program will enhance their opportunities to brush
up their English abilities and other skills at the same time.
Moreover, the direction to which their English
production skills are developing is also standing for theeffectiveness for this program.
This study has clealy some limitations. First, theinterval between the 2020 and the 2021 tests andquestionnaires is only six months, whereas it is usually
one year. The result might have been different if they had

Yet, it is important to focus not only on the changes
they made but also on the score itself. Cooperativenessshows a very high score for 2020 (2.97) and 2021 (2.86).
The similar is also true for Creativity and Thinking
Abilility. To the extent of this, the opposite is also true.
The students are not feeling confident about their English
Productive Skills (1.97 and 2.08).
In contrast to the result of the fisrt questionnaire, theresult of the second questionnairre showed a very
positive result. The students answered it only once at theend of the 2020 school year on Microsoft Forms, it is not
something comparable. Therefore, we counted thenumber of the responses of strongly agree and agree as
positive feedback and disagree and strongly disagree as
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland217

more time. It will be examined next year with new data.
Second, this study did not assess students' abilities
objectively. Hence, the result of this study is limited to
how the students felt about their development, whichmight be different from what they really are. Third,
NITNC students usually improve their English skills(TOEIC Bridge® scores) every year. Also they haveother English classes and they might try other English
learning materials on their own. Therefore, the reason for
the increase in the TOEIC Bridge® score cannot belimited to this class alone.
Most importantly, it was a very nice opportunity for
us to discuss a newly designed classes with all the fulltime and part-time faculty members in English
departments and newly hired teachers. We are sure that
this team work is the key to bring about a successfulproject in the future.
Acknowledgements
This project is supported by Global Engineer
Fostering Project promoted by National Institute ofTechnology Japan (KOSEN). I also would like to thankto Nayani Daranagama sensei, the former GE teacher in
NITNC, for providing tremendous assists to start our new
English classes, and to all the staff who supported us andshowed great understanding for this project in Nagaoka
Kosen.
References
Brown, T. (2008). Design Thinking. Harvard Business
Review. June, 2008.
Retrieved March, 15 fromhttps://hbr.org/2008/06/design-thinking
Interaction Design Foundation (n.d.). Design Thinking.
Retrieved March, 14 from https://www.interactiondesign.org/literature/topics/design-thinking
Lor, R. (2017) Design Thinking in Education: A Criticalreview of Literature. Proceedings of the Asian
Conference on Education and Psychology. Bangkok,
Thailand. May 24026, 2017. 36-68.
Ping, C. P., Chow, P., & Teoh, C. (2011). The Use of
Design Thinking in C-D-I-O in Projects. Proceedings ofthe 7th International CDIO Conference, Technical
University of Denmark, Copenhagen, June 20-23, 2011.
Retrieved March 12 from http://cdio.org/knowledgelibrary/documents/use-design-thinking-c-d-i-o-projects

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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218

ACCELERATING STEM EDUCATION THROUGH
VIRTUAL EXCHANGE IN THE DIGITAL ERA
Eva L.Y. MAK*,a, Jonathan K.F. LEE ^,b, Jimmy S.M. TANG#,a, Johnny N.F. KWONG ≥,aab

STEM Education Centre, Vocational Training Council, HKSAR, China
International Development Office, Vocational Training Council, HKSAR, China*evamak@vtc.edu.hk^jkflee@vtc.edu.hk#
tangjimm@vtc.edu.hk≥
johnnykwong@vtc.edu.hk

Abstract
In this paper, it will provide an overview of the VE
initiated by the VTC in Hong Kong with referencing
the programme of Erasmus+ Virtual Exchange inEurope and the case study of the ISSF 2020. The
paper will share the VE model developed by the VTC
and its objectives to pioneer the educational VE withacademic disciplines. It will also share the innovative
approaches of transforming students’ learning
experience while deepening collaboration withoverseas institutions. Moreover, it will cover what
elements to consider in designing VE activities among
the partnering academics.

The pandemic has changed everyone’s life andcreated the “new normal”, in which it highlighted theimportance of advanced digital infrastructure and theneed for nurturing STEM talent with a global
perspective in accelerating digital transformation andto solve global challenges in fostering smart city
development. In times of digital transformation andemergence of smart technologies, innovation is a
catalyst for smart city solutions and a robust STEM
skilled workforce is needed to fuel continued
economic growth, who have been required in fastgrowing industries and soon to be dominate in theemerging digital workplace.

Keywords: Applied Education, Virtual Exchange, STEM
Education, Innovation in STEM, Internationalisation

STEM education integrates diverse multidisciplinary
knowledge to solve global challenges and projectbased learning approach to embrace fundamental
STEM disciplines, which relies on individuals
possessing cross-disciplinary knowledge, problemsolving skills, creativity and foresight to the future.
Given the commitment to nurturing future STEM
talent with intercultural skills, and encouraging
students to adapt changing contexts with the rise of
new technologies, the STEM Education Centre(STEM Centre), Vocational Training Council (VTC)
took a decisive action to host the International STEM
Students’ Forum (ISSF) 2020 in a blended mode,
under the theme of “Innovation in STEM” – the firstever digital STEM student forum in Hong Kong –where provided a borderless platform to engage
students across the globe in STEM knowledge andcultural exchange amongst the new normal. Having
received
overwhelming
positive
responses,
particularly on transforming student learning
experience by new technology tools, it accelerated the
VTC to introduce a Virtual Exchange (VE) strategy
under the internationalisation in the Applied
Education.

Higher education institutions have been concerning withpreparing their graduates to be global citizens who need
to be equipped with knowledge, skills and interculturalawareness and competence in facing an ever-changing
environment that are increasingly global, multiculturaland even digital. Studying abroad has been one of the top
desires and an effective approach to prepare students withan international mindset and their “capacity to critique
the world they live, see problems and issues from a rangeof perspective” (Leask, 2015, p.17).
The pandemic has been an great impact into the heart ofevery education system across the globe and forced all
educators to explore innovation to transform education
systems and learning and teaching practices in preparing
young generation with knowledge and skills for a better
future, especially to the graduates from the Vocational
Training Council who advocates an applied learning
approach enabling students to apply specialised andtheoretical knowledge and skills to solve real-life issues.
Virtual Exchange (VE) is not a new form of learning in
education, which emerged more than a decade. The VE

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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refers as “application of online communication tools tobring together classes of learners in geographicallydistant locations with the aim of developing their foreign
language skills, digital competence and interculturalcompetence through online collaborative tasks andproject work (O’Dowd, 2017).

(iii) STEM Student Project Presentation and (iv) STEM
Graduates’ Career Development Sharing.
The virtual forum provided an innovative approach to
student learning experience via online collaborative
projects with overseas partner institutions. With the four
sub-themes in the session of the STEM Student Project
Presentation, namely Smart City Development, IoT
Applications, Green and Sustainable Development and
Health Technology, STEM students from different
countries in diverse cultural backgrounds connected
through digital technologies and work together for theirprojects online in different groups. The project
supervisors on each side collaborate to design the project
aims and expected learning goals to be achieved together
and project work allocation among local and overseas
students. Taking an example on the joint student project
between National Institute of Technology (Kumamoto
College), Japan and Institute of Vocational Education(Tsing Yi), Hong Kong – Development of Auto-Parking
System for 4-Wheel Vehicle, students employed two
different approaches by comparing Improved Dynamic
Window (I-DWA) and Reinforcement learning (RL) in
Japan and Hong Kong respectively to address the samechallenge. During the project preparation and discussion,
the project supervisors supervised the students in project
development collaboratively while the students
continued collaborating and discussing on the projectprogress autonomous towards the completion of the
project works and joint project presentation at the ISSF
2020 with a certain degree of supervision from the
project supervisors. Prior to the ISSF 2020, the STEM
Centre held a series of training and rehearsals withoverseas student and speakers online.

It has been highlighted as part of the higher education
studies in the programme of Erasmus+ Virtual Exchange
launched by the European Commission in 2018 while
many higher education institutions are looking into
Internationalisation at Home (IaH) was defined as “thepurposeful integration of international and interculturaldimensions into the formal and informal curriculum forall students within domestic learning environment,
according to Beelen and Jones (2015). In this article, wewill present an overview of the VE model rolled out by
the International Development Office (IDO) of the VTC
and its objectives collaborating with academic
disciplines.
Helm and O’Dowd (2020) argued that “Virtual Exchange
should not be seen as being in competition with physicalmobility”. Physical student exchange should not be
replaced by the VE. Instead, it would be part of the initial
preparation for physical student exchange programmes
and comprehensive integration of the blended student
exchange initiatives, which would be a new practice instudent exchange led by the pandemic. Students. It would
offer inclusive international experience for students who
are unable to study abroad or look for physical student
exchange in the future, as well as part of their academic
studies in their home institutions.
International STEM Students’ Forum 2020 and
Origins of Virtual Exchange at the VTC
STEM education has been highlighted as a curriculum
emphasis and important in finding innovative solutions
to our world’s complex problems. The STEM Centre
started hosting the International STEM Students’ Forum(ISSF) since 2016 to promote STEM education withbelieve that project competitions and international
exchange programme are the key elements and effective
channel to promote STEM Education (LEE, 2016).
While facing the global challenges of the pandemic, the
STEM Centre made a decisive action to host the ISSF
2020 in a blended mode. The STEM Centre presented thespirit of innovation and connected with STEM and nonSTEM students for promotion of STEM education by
hosting the ISSF 2020, the first digital student forum in
STEM education in Hong Kong with the support of the
Education Bureau of the HKSAR Government. Themed“Innovation in STEM”, the ISSF 2020 was successfully
held with local and overseas participants from ten
countries, including Australia, Finland, Japan, Russia,
Singapore, the United Kingdom, etc., featuring (i) STEM
Students’ Chat with Entrepreneurs: Trends, Challenges
and Opportunities for Start-ups, (ii) Panel Discussion
with Industry Leaders: Skill Shifting for a Digital Future,

IVE students, Hong Kong and NIT (Kumamoto College),
Japan discussed the project presentation flow for the
ISSF 2020 online with the supervision of project
supervisors from both sides
At the ISSF 2020, the students shared their project
outcomes and reflected their findings by adopting
different approaches while establishing an interculturaldialogue among students from different parts of theworld. Apart from offering students with international
experience, it was an opportunity to equip students withthe 21st century employment skills, including digital

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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competences, problem-solving skills, teamwork andmost importantly, confidence in working in a diverse
cultural environment and leading innovation in preparing
them to be global citizens. Partnerships with overseas
institutions were further strengthened with the positive
responses from the local and overseas students and it also
demonstrated their innovation spirit in the international
arena.

model in the changing contexts of vocational education
at the VTC is established as follows:
Objectives:
1. To engage students in a diverse culture environment
and foster mutual understanding via student-tostudent interaction in intercultural dialogue throughtechnology-enabled communication under teacher
facilitation with specific learning outcomes;
2. To strengthen partnerships and international
collaborations.
Workflow:
1. To match school calendars among institutions to set
the timeline;
2. To guide students to achieve learning goals in any
forms of learning activities (e.g. case discussion or
innovative educational projects or student
activities);
3. To establish student groups with counterparts topursue common goals (up to 10-15 students pergroup);
4. To use digital tools or skills for project
development;
5. To supervise students continuing collaboration on
project development; and6. To do project presentation or demonstration bywebinars or physical exchange.

VTC STEM graduates hosted a panel discussion in Hong
Kong with overseas STEM graduates from Finland,Hong Kong and United Kingdom joining virtually toinspire young generation by exploring emerging careersand encourage female students pursuing STEM studies
and careers at the ISSF 2020
Overview of the Virtual Exchange Model at the VTC
The pandemic created the largest disruption in education,
especially in student exchange. The IDO anticipated thatthe number of physical student exchange would drop
significantly in the coming years and a blended mode of
student exchange would be emerged as a new practice ininternational learning contexts. According to the Digital
Education Action Plan adopted by the European
Commission, it involves eleven action items to support
the use of technology and the development of digitalcompetences in education, including 1) making better useof digital technology for teaching and learning, 2)
developing digital competency and skills, and 3)
improving education through better data analysis andforesight.

The VE should make a valuable contribution to theinternationalisation strategies at the institutional level
and internationalise learning and teaching activities
locally. Moving forward, there should be a need toreview the impact of the VE in student learning, thus
planning for upcoming physical student exchange
programmes offering a comprehensive international
learning experience to students from multiple disciplines
at the VTC.

Since the new practice to the joint student project withoverseas partner institutions, the VTC took up the VE as
an innovation pathway to foster academic and cultural
exchange for the VTC students in light of the current
pandemic and travel restrictions. As such, the VE
emerged as one of the effective and importanteducational tools connecting VTC students to the world
for academic and cultural exchange via technology
platforms under the guidance of the IDO and academic
disciplines. With an aim of developing an innovative
form of constructive communication and interaction
without boundaries and geographical constraints, the VE

Support in Virtual Exchange Implementation
Support to Teachers’ Engagement
In the VE Model, the students should be guided by theacademic staff, in which it required to devote significant
efforts in the design of the learning outcome from its VE
activities or joint project aims with overseas partners.
Technological infrastructure and academic recognition

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221

should also consider in encouraging academic staff whoplay a vital role in the VE initiative.

Retrieved from https://www.unicollaboration.org/wpcontent/uploads/2020/09/Position-paper-on-BlendedMobility.pdf

Funding for the VE Initiative
On the other hand, the VE Funding provided by the VTC
has been seen as an another approach to motivate
academic staff to integrate the VE into morecomprehensively in part of their curriculum design,
which covers the accommodation expenses at the VTC
Halls of Residence, if the students find themselves indifficulties looking for a place for small group discussion
and project development with overseas students with amore stable network infrastructure, and other reasonabledirect related expenses.

Digital Education Action Plan (2021-2027), European
Commission

Conclusions
The VE is not an immediate solution in solving the
education issues in the face of pandemic. Integrating VE
into physical student exchange programmes should be
emerged as a new form of student exchange programme.
The impacts of the VE and the relationship between the
VE and physical student exchange activities should
further investigate among stakeholders. Senior
management and academic staff, deemed as a driving
force, heavily involve in developing the VE strategy
collaboratively for diverse programmes with its features.
Implementing without institutional commitment, VE
would remain low-scale, dependent on individuals andinfluencing
many
students
toexperienceinternationalisation at home.
The VE should be a well-recognised activity in education
institutions with developing an in-depth intercultural
understanding among students across the world. The
integrated approach of student exchange programmes
should be highly promoted to nurture our young talent tobe a new generation of globally and culturally aware
citizens and give students a new window to the world at
lower costs.
References
Leask, B. (2015). Internationalizing the Curriculum.
Routledge.
O’Dowd, R. (2017). VirtualInternationalising the Classroom.

Exchange

andBeelen, J., & Jones, E. (2015). Redefining
internationalization at home. In A. Curaj, L. Matei, R.
Pricopie, J. Salmi, & P. Scott (Eds.), The European
higher education area: Between critical reflections andfuture policies (pp. 59-72). Springer International
Publishing.
K. F. LEE & S. L. LIU (2016), Promotion of STEM
Education in Vocational and Professional Education andTraining (VPET).
Francesca Helm & Robert O'Dowd (2020). Virtual
Exchange and its role in Blended Mobility Initiatives.
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NEW CHALLENGES FROM TEACHERS’ PERSPECTIVES IN VOCATIONAL AND
PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING (VPET) DURING PANDEMIC
K.M. Chung
Vocational Training Council/Centre for Learning and Teaching, Senior Project Officer, Hong Kong
gloriac@vtc.edu.hk
Keywords: online teaching, blended learning, teachingmode, VET, VPET

Abstract
The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic has caused asuspension of classes in Hong Kong, and online
teaching has been widely adopted as a major mode ofdelivery across different levels in the local education
sector. Together with the unpredictable social
situation, the swift change in teaching practices hascaused the biggest challenges faced by teachers. As
the largest vocational education and training
provider in Hong Kong, the Vocational Training
Council (VTC) provides a full range of preemployment and in-service programmes to 200,000
students each year. Responsive actions are necessary
and the mode of teaching has to be revealed timely.
When the lockdown and work from home policy
prevailed, VTC member institutions switched most of
the classes online in early 2020. Some classes wereresumed again in the 2nd semester in 2020 understrict safety measures, others were conducted online
and the Council was in blended learning mode. For
practical training/ laboratory/workshop sessions,class sizes were significantly reduced to maintain asafe social distance for face-to-face learning andteaching. For the theoretical sessions, classes weredelivered online via Moodle and Microsoft Teams. As
such, the Centre for Learning and Teaching (CLT),
which supports VPET teachers to strike for excellence
in learning and teaching practices, decided to collectfeedback from teachers and CLT facilitators toinvestigate their needs and challenges for providing
recommendation on enhancing the support andtraining services to VPET teachers. The data wascollected via an online teacher survey, focus groupinterviews, and members’ feedback from the learning
committees; and CLT online facilitators’ interviews
from June to July 2020. By analyzing the data
received, this paper will profile the phenomenon andchallenges encountered by VPET teachers at the earlystage of the COVID-19 pandemic, and propose
remedial actions and suggestions to institutions,departments, support centers, and teachers for
uplifting the VPET teachers’ readiness to conduct
online teaching and blended learning in the newnormal.

Introduction
The covid-19 pandemics come of a sudden to Hong
Kong in early 2020. Since then, society has to be
lockdown including work from home policy, closure ofrestaurants and public facilities, school suspensions, etc.
to keep social distancing. As the largest vocational
education and training provider in Hong Kong, theVocational Training Council (VTC) provides a full rangeof pre-employment and in-service programmes to
200,000 students each year. Responsive actions arenecessary and the mode of teaching has to be revealed
timely by government policy. VTC officially announced
the suspension of face-to-face classes in February 2020.
They are ranged from lecture, tutorial, practical lab, andhands-on workshop. The delivery of subject knowledge
and skills can only be done via an online platform. VTC
adopts Moodle as the official Learning Management
System (LMS) and which is incorporated with Panopto,
the Lecture Capture System for video/lecture recording.
In the meantime, VTC launched Microsoft Teams, one of
the crucial elements in Microsoft software, to all staff forlive communication including meetings and live classes.
The newly teaching mode was changed comprehensively
to both teachers and students. Given this, the Centre forLearning and Teaching (CLT), which supports VPET
teachers to strike for excellence in learning and teachingpractices, decided to collect feedback from teachers and
CLT facilitators to investigate their needs and challenges
for providing recommendation on enhancing the support
and training services to VPET teachers.
Methods
During the suspension of face-to-face classes, online
teaching was widely used. To provide better support toteachers, CLT collected feedback from teachers andfacilitators from June to July 2020 via the following
methods: 1) online teacher survey, 2) focus groupinterviews, 3) learning committee's feedback in various
member institutes; and 4) CLT online facilitators’interviews.
1. Online teacher survey

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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223

From November 2019 to May 2020, CLT provided
six seminars/webinars in the areas of online teaching
including e-pedagogy and IT skills in using Moodle andMS Teams aiming at responding to the switch of teachingmode. The frontline teachers are voluntarily enrolled inthis training. As of June 2020, there was 1,394 VTC
teaching staff who attended one of the following CLT
training, and they were invited to fill out an online
questionnaire to address their feedback on the training, as
well as the support from CLT.

June 2020. 22 interviewees were being randomly selected,
including frontline teaching staff and management staff,
to share their online teaching experiences and training
needs. They were from various disciplines including
Applied Science, Business, Childcare, Elderly andCommunity Services, Design, Engineering, Hospitality,
Information Technology, Languages, and Student
Development.
Each focus group interview was hosted by CLT andlasted for around one hour. There were up to six attendees
in each group. They were invited to share good practices
and one burning issue during online teaching in the classsuspension period at the warm-up session. It was
followed by eight open-ended questions for them to freeflow the views. The questions are shown in Table 2:

The online survey was conducted from 17 June 2020
to 8 July 2020, which lasted for three weeks. There were
95 responses with the response rate at 6.8%. The
questionnaire is shown in Table 1:
1.

2.

3.

4.
5.

6.

7.

8.
9.
10.

11.
12.

13.

Are you comfortable to use Moodle, Microsoft
Team and Panopto to do online teaching withstudents?
Do you think that students accept online
teaching using Moodle, Microsoft Team andPanopto?
Do you agree that e-learning tools and platforms
could help students with Special Education
Needs (SEN) and Non-Chinese-Speaking
students (NCS) enhance their learning
motivation and efficiency?
How often do you use the following online
learning tools in AY2019-20?
Please rate the teaching effectiveness of Moodle,
Microsoft Team and Panopto. (1= the least
effective; 5= the most effective)
Please rate the effectiveness of Moodle quiz toassess students’ ability. (1= the least effective;
5= the most effective)
Have you ever used other e-learning tools otherthan Moodle, Microsoft Team and Panopto andyou think that they are useful and would
recommend them to others?
Have you encountered any problems when you
use online teaching?
Have your students raised any problems when
they attend the online lessons?
How much extra time do you need to spend on
e-learning lesson design, preparation andrecording and communication with students
online every week?
Which item(s) take up much of your time when
you prepare for your online lessons?
Do you have any request(s) for CLT training
course to better equip you for online learningand teaching in the future?
Do you need any other assistance from VTC tobetter equip you for online learning and teachingin the future?

1.

2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

Do you think there is sufficient support on online
teaching? What kind of support and training do
you need to facilitate effective online teaching?
What essential skills do you think are required fordelivering online lesson?
What is the most difficult part of delivering online
lesson?
What kinds of resources do you need for planning
an online lesson?
Do you find it difficult to foster students’ selfdirected learning and reflection?
How would you promote group interaction,
collaboration and teamwork?
What kinds of online assessment do you currently
use?
What kinds of challenge do you face when you
conduct e-assessment?

3. Learning Committee’s Feedback
Each campus in VTC has its local committee on
learning and teaching to identify the educational
development needs of staff and students in theoperational unit and to make provisions andarrangements for them. In June 2020, qualitative
feedback was collected from the various committees
regarding online teaching.
4. CLT Online Facilitators’ Interviews
During work from policy prevails, CLT has changed
the mode of training to online via Panopto or MS Teams.
All CLT facilitators were involved in online teaching andat first hand to experience the merits and demerits of
online teaching. In July 2020, twelve face-to-faceindividual interviews with CLT colleagues, who
facilitated online training from February 2020 to June
2020, were conducted to collect qualitative feedback
from teachers’ perspectives.
Results and Discussion

2. Focus Group Interviews
From the participants of the CLT training, four focus
group interviews via Microsoft Teams were conducted in
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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224

Data collected from the four above-mentioned
channels were summarised as quantitative and qualitative
findings.

The following data comes from online teacher
surveys, focus group interviews, learning committees'
feedback, and CLT online facilitators’ interview. It wascompiled as areas of “support on using online teachingtools”, “support on online delivery”, “Online classroom
management, effective communication, and efficientadministration”, “Instructional design for online lesson”
and “Content selection and focuses”.

Quantitative
The following data comes from the online teacher
survey.
Readiness for online teaching
Most teachers (89.4%) are comfortable using Moodle
and Microsoft Team while less than a quarter of them
(22.3%) are comfortable using Panopto. Most students(81.9%) welcome using Moodle and Microsoft Team andnearly one-third (29.8%) welcome Panopto, reported by
the teachers. As for the online learning tools andplatforms, more than half (56.4%) of teachers agree thatit can enhance the learning motivation and efficiency of
Non-Chinese-Speaking students (NCS) while more than
one-third (38.3%) agree that the same effect happens on
Special Education Needs students (SEN).

Support on using online teaching tools
Moodle, as the official learning management system
in VTC, serves the key platform for sharing teachingmaterials and students’ assignments. Thus, teachers werekeen on learning the practical tips and hands-on ofvarious Moodle activities and functions. They would liketo have Moodle practical workshop in small-class sized
and from basic to advanced level, small video sessions
with different quiz elements, workshop on “How tocheck students’ view time on video”, workshop on “Howto receive assignments and send marked scripts andfeedback”, Veri-Guide Accuracy Issue, and Moodle
plug-in functions.

The usage of Moodle, Microsoft Team and Panopto
The highest daily usage rate of an online teaching tool,from high to low, goes to Moodle (43.6%), Microsoft
Team (23.4%), and Panopto (0%). About 65% ofteachers heard of Panopto but never used it. A quarter ofteachers (47.9%) agree that Moodle (23.4%) andMicrosoft Team (24.5%) are effective. Only 4.3% ofteachers agree that Panopto is effective, with 63.8% ofthem heard of Panopto but never used it.

Microsoft & Microsoft Teams, VTC provides licenseon the use of Microsoft including Office 365, one drive,
and Teams. These online tools were very useful tofacilitate online teaching. The Microsoft Teams wereintroduced to VTC teachers in 2019, it was a relatively
new tool for teachers to use as an online communication
tool for conducting live teaching. The e-manual and etutorials were provided to teachers, but still, moreadvanced and in-depth use of the tool was expected.
Teachers want to learn how can Microsoft help online
teaching and collaborative group work, how to integrate
EdTech tools with Microsoft Teams, using a whiteboard,
notes, PowerPoint, how to upload documents to
Microsoft Teams and let students see it by students’account with limited functions, batch enrolling ofstudents, how can they access Microsoft Teams via dialin number, the privacy issues of Teams, such as how tostop students disturbing others via Teams and stop
students video recording the lessons, and online
attendance, like how to know if students physicallyattend video lessons and check their view time.

The effectiveness of Moodle Quiz to assess students’knowledge and skills
More than one-third of teachers (35%) agree that
Moodle Quiz can assess students’ knowledge and skills
but still, one-fifth (20.2%) of them heard of but neverused it.
Problems encountered by teachers and students
Almost all of the teachers (80.9%) reflected that bothteachers and students encountered problems when they
do online teaching. One-third (31.9%) of them spent
more than 15 hours weekly on preparation for online
teaching. Most of the time spent on developing teachingmaterials(65.1%), recording video (59.6%),
coordinating with students (56.4%), learning tools
functions (36.2%), and giving instructions to students(35.1%).

Support on online delivery
Most of the teachers concerned much about online
teaching in terms of interaction and way of deliveringcontent knowledge, such as how to interact with students
online and encourage them to ask questions, skills, andtechniques to make PowerPoint narration more attractive
and interactive, skills of developing online video lessons,and video making & trimming, with questions embedded.

Other comments
Teachers suggested the following online teachingtools for future use, such as Zoom, Google Meeting,Loom, Cisco Webex, WizIQ, Powerpoint narration, OBS
video recording, Google classroom, Google doc, Google
drive, Undemy, Zoho showtime, Kahoot, Nearpod,
Padlet, Whatsapp business, Skype.

Online classroom management, effective communication,and efficient administration
The classroom management, logistics, andadministration of the online lesson were one of theconcerns by the teachers. The concerns could beclassified into three sections, including before the lesson,

Qualitative
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland225

during the lesson, and after the lesson. Before the lesson,
teachers want to learn how to enroll students on
Microsoft Teams at a time, how to send Microsoft Teams
hyperlink to students effectively, and how to remind
students of the online lesson schedule. During the lesson,
teachers want to know about online teaching skills,
online classroom management, application of Microsoft
Teams and Moodle with hands-on practice, how toengage & motivate students, encourage them to ask
questions & give feedback, how to check students’learning progress? After the lesson, teachers want tolearn how to remind students of assignment & projectsubmission and to receive an assignment and give
feedback online effectively.

preparing words used for ‘copy & paste’ to save time;procedural videos of tools to avoid internet breakdown;using infographic, table and chart to accommodate
massive information; presentation & convincing skills,
good intonation, decent appearance, and eye-catchy
PowerPoint. In sum, they reflected that theory, factual
information, a procedural demonstration can be put
online in the modes of videos, while pre-tasks and posttasks; hands-on, practical & application sessions; openended, deep-thinking discussions, and generic skills
training were better to be conducted in face-to-facelessons.

Instructional design for online lesson
Regarding the instructional design, some teachers
need supports on how to identify and select whichteaching items are suitable for the online curriculum. Not
all topics can be conducted online. The whole TLPshould be revised completely. They concerned with thedetails of blended learning, such as what is blended
learning, and how to make effective blended learning.
Some would like to know about e-Pedagogy, delivery,and lesson plan of blended learning. Many of them areconcerned with assignment elements, such as how toinitiate an in-depth discussion, how to make role-playassignments, scenarios, and discipline-based designed
workshops. Moreover, some would like to have goodpractice sharing and teaching materials samples.

The outbreak of covid-19 pandemics made thingschanging of a sudden forever. In the vocational andeducation professional and training sector, the mode ofteaching was mandatorily converted to online andeventually to become a “New Normal”. Frontline
teachers, who had been familiar with face-to-faceteaching, need to uplift their skills both the e-pedagogy
and technology literacy in shifting to online teaching. In
the early stages of switching to online teaching, CLT
collected the feedback from frontline teachers via various
channels, including survey, focus group interviews,
feedback from regular meetings and individual meetings
to review the impact and more importantly, to understandthe needs of teachers to adapt in an online teachingenvironment. With the quantitative and qualitative
findings from the above-mentioned methodology,
teachers were positive in facing new challenges and tried
their utmost effort in adapting the new mode of teaching.
Nevertheless, it is concluded that more supports were
essential from member institutions, supporting units, andcampuses, to facilitate online teaching in VTC. The
readiness on hardware, software, and staff capability
could be enhanced through the purchase of equipment
and licenses, and also the provision of new training. The
recommendations to various stakeholders would befurther illustrated below.

Conclusions

Content selection and focuses
In the aspect of content selection for online teaching,teachers revealed that the digital gap among teaching
staff is great especially on a small campus. Therefore,
some basic courses on online tools have to be included.
Some reflected that smooth delivery of lesson depends onthe content nature. As such, teachers who teach soft andpedagogical skills have encountered the problems ofinitiating deep-thinking discussion, pedagogy application,teacher’s feedback on students’ instant responses in their
online lessons as those teaching units make up a large
proportion of their lessons. Students’ engagement was
unsatisfactory. Teachers need lots of time to wait for their
response and sometimes we're forced to do “mono-talk”.
Although teachers have applied EdTech tools, somestudents left the Teams virtual chatrooms. Also, lowparticipation leads to unsatisfactory peer support andlearning and thus some intended learning outcomes (ILO)
cannot be achieved. In addition, teachers who teach
EdTech tools or informative theory feel better. In general,
the time used on the document preparation before online
lessons would be much more than face-to-face lessons
since online lessons need concise and smooth delivery.

Support from Member Institutions. Equipping on
hardware and technology infastruture would assure thequality of online delivery in techincal aspects. From theinsititional level, we could purchase some latest
computers and devices, Edtech Tools’ licenses, andcopyright-free images and videos for both teachers andstudents, to offer them sufficient resources and easy
accessibility. More measurements could be done, suchas replace the old laptops with new ones, use of iPad or
Mac computer to assist or program the online teaching,providing licenses of Zoom, Adobe, Kahoot, Mentimeter,
etc., and offer a bank of images and videos which arecopyright-free. Moreover, quiet locations for teachers torecord videos and conduct online lessons could also be
provided.

Good Practices
Nevertheless, several good practices were shared by
the stakeholders in the interviews, such as reminding
students of using desktops; putting PDF of detailed tool
instructions in the chatbox for students’ easier to follow;

Support from Supporting Units. As an in-house training
provider, CLT could conduct face-to-face workshops on

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland226three levels: Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced withtheme-based content description, such as Moodle,
Microsoft Teams, Panopto, PowerPoint Narration, andVideo trimming, in small class size (20 at most) with
sufficient practice time. To cater to diverse needs, the useof Moodle, Microsoft Teams, and Panopto could bedelivered via bite-size videos for viewing at any time andanywhere. In a training programme, theory, factual
information and procedural demonstration can bedelivered via online mode; while practical & application
sessions; hands-on practice, and generic skills could bedelivered in face-to-face mode. Furthermore, sometraining topics were identified to be delivered online
including but not limited to new Edtech tools (explaining
pros and cons, and its key functions), good practice
sharings from all disciplines, the concept of blended
learning, including pedagogy, delivery, instructional
design and lesson plan and topics selection for online
teaching, classroom management, and effective online
communication, including students’ engagement andattention, teacher-student interaction, student-student
discussion and instant feedback from students; andefficient administration including students’ enrollment in
Microsoft Teams, student’s attendance checking,marking and receiving assignment online, reminders forstudents to check online lesson schedule and submissionof project & assignment. As IT supporting units, thetechnical issues, such as slow video uploading speed of
Moodle and Panopto, a platform with large storage space
for teachers to upload VAR videos in One-drive, thetraffic to Moodle platform for Moodle Quiz for common
modules, and access right to Teams/Moodle by students
could be tackled. Other supports including an accessible
hotline by various channels, online technical support, andQ&A session on using Microsoft Teams, Moodle &Panopto as references on the official webpage could be
provided.

collecting feedback from teachers. We thank Ms. Chantel
Fan for collecting and compiling the data.

References
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Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 1(2), 2.
Bigatel, P. M., Ragan, L. C., Kennan, S., May, J., &Redmond, B. F. (2012). The identification ofcompetencies for online teaching success. Journal of
Asynchronous Learning Networks, 16(1), 59-77.
Callo, E. C., & Yazon, A. D. (2020). Exploring thefactors influencing the readiness of faculty and students
on online teaching and learning as an alternative delivery
mode for the new normal. Universal Journal of
Educational Research, 8(8), 3509-3518.
Covington, D., Petherbridge, D., & Warren, S. E. (2005).
Best practices: A triangulated support approach intransitioning faculty to online teaching. Online Journalof Distance Learning Administration, 8(1).
Downing, J. J., & Dyment, J. E. (2013). Teacher
educators' readiness, preparation, and perceptions ofpreparing preservice teachers in a fully online
environment: An exploratory study. The teacher
educator, 48(2), 96-109.
Mahmood, S. (2021). Instructional strategies for online
teaching in COVID‐19 pandemic. Human Behavior andEmerging Technologies, 3(1), 199-203.
Mishra, L., Gupta, T., & Shree, A. (2020). Online
teaching-learning in higher education during lockdown
period of COVID-19 pandemic. International Journal of
Educational Research Open, 1, 100012.

Support from Campus. As a local campus, students’
online learning habits and attitudes (mindset, selfdirected learning, time management, self-checking)could be addressed and better catered for. Physically, allclassrooms could be equipped with online learning
hardware, e.g. webcam, Bluetooth connection to acomputer for the microphone, or other devices, e.g.
drawing pad. These measurements could facilitate thesmooth operation of online lessons.

Orr, R., Williams, M. R., & Pennington, K. (2009).
Institutional efforts to support faculty in online
teaching. Innovative Higher Education, 34(4), 257-268.
Palloff, R. M., & Pratt, K. (2013). Lessons from thevirtual classroom: The realities of online teaching. John
Wiley & Sons.

With the collaboration of various stakeholders andexperiences gained at the early stage of shifting to online
teaching mode, it is expected that both teachers andstudents could better adapt to the new normal of learningand teaching, and also benefit from the blended learningmode and environment.

Scherer, R., Howard, S. K., Tondeur, J., & Siddiq, F.
(2021). Profiling teachers' readiness for online teachingandlearning
inhighereducation:
Who's
ready?. Computers in Human Behavior, 118, 106675.

Acknowledgments

Young, S. (2006). Student views of effective online
teaching in higher education. The American Journal ofDistance Education, 20(2), 65-77.

We thank Dr. Albert Cheuk, Dr. Kitty Wong, and Ms.
Elita Lam for supporting us to conduct this research. We
thank the chairpersons of various learning committees for
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland
227

THE IMPACT OF KOSEN VOLUNTEERS ON CHILDREN’S STEM EDUCATION
Kaori Tsukazaki*,a, Takeshi Shintokub and Takaaki Fukuzoe caNational Institute of Technology, KOSEN, Academic Affairs Section, Tokyo, Japan
National Institute of Technology (KOSEN), Kagoshima College, Department of Information
Technology, Kagoshima, Japanc
National Institute of Technology (KOSEN), Kagoshima College, Department of Electric Control
Engineering, Kagoshima, Japanb*tsukazaki@kosen-k.go.jp
Abstract

From these results, we may be able to conclude
that this project received a good evaluation from theparticipants and the society. However, this is an ongoing project and the college student volunteers willkeep working until the number of female students intheir college increases up to more than 30 %.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce female
college student volunteers’ significant impact onchildren’s STEM education over a four-year period.
Female student volunteers of a national college oftechnology (KOSEN) in Japan have been teaching
ICT skills to children for four years in order to foster
interest in STEM and introduce them to female rolemodels in this field through workshops. This isbecause the number of female students in STEM,
especially engineering, is extremely low in Japan
compared with other countries, as UNESCO Science
Report (2015) points out, for example. The female
college student volunteers of the national college oftechnology (KOSEN) decided to impact girls inyounger generations to change this situation. They
have visited local elementary and junior high schools
with computers and robots to teach programming
since 2017. As a result of their efforts, they influenced
both local children and children’s STEM education tosome extent. In this short paper, we will look at someexamples of their impact. First, this project was so
innovative that it was introduced in the White Paper
on Gender Equality 2019 published by the Japanese
government (2019). Second, the good reputation that
the KOSEN student volunteers had built up makes it
possible to receive support from industry and theboard of education in the local government when theyhold workshops in elementary and junior high schools.
Third, judging from the feedback of the participantsin a workshop, the college student volunteers weresuccessful in teaching ICT skills to junior high school
students in an enjoyable way. As a result of working
for four years, this project was introduced in a
supplementary resource book for teaching social
studies to junior high school students as an example
of realising gender equality (2021). Lastly, but mostimportantly, the college students seemingly
contributed to increasing the number of new female
students who entered the college.

Keywords: gender equality, STEM education,
programming robots, volunteering, children

Introduction
As UNESCO Science Report (2015, p. 86) points out,
‘Japan still has the lowest proportion of female
researchers of any member of the Organisation for
Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)’. On
the other hand, ‘In Asia, Malaysia, the Philippines andThailand have all achieved gender parity’. The report
also states that in Japan, the percentage of female
researchers in engineering and technology was only at
5.3 %, which was lower than any other field in 2013;
natural sciences (12.6 %), medical sciences (30.8 %),agricultural sciences (21.5 %), and social sciences andhumanities (31.9 %) (p.87).
Furthermore, the number of female students who
major in engineering in higher education is also low
compared with other fields in higher education in Japan.
In 2018, the percentage of female undergraduate students
in engineering was only at 15% (p. 4) (The White Paper
on Gender Equality 2019). As for the national college oftechnology (KOSEN) to which the student volunteers
belong, the percentage of female students who haveentered the college year on year has been around 10 %.
In this way, the female college student volunteers
decided to impact girls in younger generations to change
this situation. The purpose of this paper is to introduce
some of their achievements over a four-year period.

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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228

Some Achievements of Female College Student
Volunteers in Four Years

Furthermore, it is a great honour that one of theleaders decided to work with us to foster interest in
STEM in children. His company offered us robots which
can speak as programmed, VRs, and a game app in which
you can experience the latest technology of facialrecognition. In addition, a team of engineers from thecompany help student volunteers set up the tools every
time they hold a workshop.
It should be also added that the student volunteers
started to work with the board of education in the local
government. Since the Japanese government decided toteach computing skills from the early stages ofcompulsory education, the local board of education
wanted the female college students to be mentors forchildren in ICT education which was supposed to begin
at all elementary schools in 2020. This is because schools
lacked resources such as computers and robots andteachers did not have necessary skills in teaching ICT
skills to children.
In this way, the local board of education highly
appreciated the college student volunteers’ efforts to hold
STEM workshops for children. As a result, the local
board of education contacted every single school in someareas in order to analyse its needs of our STEM
workshops, which made it easier for the students toorganise their workshops and enabled them to visit theexact school whose pupils wanted to participate in theirworkshops.
Figure 2 depicts the collaboration among the college
student volunteers, the local board of education andindustry. Working together enabled us to teach ICT skills
to children efficiently. Furthermore, it should be notedthat more junior high school students from the areas
where the college volunteers had workshops applied totheir national college of technology (KOSEN) the nextyear.

1. The White Paper on Gender Equality 2019
Figure 1 is an excerpt from the White Paper on
Gender Equality 2019 published by Gender Equality
Bureau of the Cabinet Office in the Japanese government
in June in 2019 (p. 9). This volume features enrichededucation and learning which enables diverse choices (p.
2). Our project of teaching ICT skills to children was
introduced in a column page in the section which
introduces ‘initiatives to enable diverse career choices’(p. 9).
This is because the project was evaluated as one of
the most leading and innovative projects to balance thegender gap in the STEM area in higher education in Japan.
The national college of technology (KOSEN) was one of
the three institutions in higher education in the column
pages of this governmental document. The college
volunteers teach ICT skills to children with the use of arobot, whereas the other two institutions provide
recurrent education for women on business or healthsciences in their graduate schools (p. 14).
This project can be a good model of how we foster
interest in STEM in children and introduce them tofemale role models. These are some of the key factors of
influencing children in choosing their path in the STEM
area, as the White Paper points out (p. 9).

Figure 1. A Column Page in the White Paper on Gender
Equality 2019
Figure 2. Three Organisations Work Together to
Empower Children in STEM

2. The Collaboration with the Local Board of
Education and Industry
This project has had a reputation in providing
interesting workshops for children, which led to financial
support from leaders in industry who appreciated theimportance of educating female students to be engineers.
Moreover, they were provided opportunities to visit theirfactories to experience some of the latest technologies inJapan to empower themselves.

3. Feedback from the Participants
Here is feedback from 39 participants who attended
one of the workshops in 2019 that we collaborated withindustry and the board of education. This workshop washeld at a junior high school in October in 2019.

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland229

Their feedback was analysed based on the method which
Olmedo-Torre et al. (p. 294, 2018) used in their
qualitative research on gender equality in STEM (Table
1).
Table 1 shows phrases which were found repeatedly
in their comments. Judging from their comments, it
seems that the workshop held by the college student
volunteers was a success in teaching ICT skills in an
enjoyable way.
For example, most participants mentioned that it wasinteresting to programme a robot with the computer.
However, for five students, it was difficult to programmea robot by adjusting the numbers on the computer, and soon. Four students programmed a robot for the first time.
Three students were amazed how fantastic it was toprogramme a robot with the computer in the workshop.
It can be interpreted from the two words ‘fantastic’ and‘interesting’ that participants had positive attitudes
towards the workshop. Moreover, two students would
like to attend a programming workshop again. Finally, a
student mentioned a teamwork in programming a robot,
and another student said that the student learned muchabout programming.
However, it remains a challenge for future research tocollect a certain amount of data to discuss the relationshipbetween STEM experiences like this workshop and theirmotivation to choose a STEM path in more detail.

This is a great opportunity for us to introduce our
project to junior high school students as well as teachers
who are working at junior high schools. The project was
introduced in the section of gender equality in the book.
It says, ‘Robogals Kagoshima is an internationalorganisation of students to increase the number of female
students in STEM. They hold workshops for children’.
Under this, the terms ‘gender’ (socio-cultural
viewpoints) and ‘sex’ (biological traits) are defined andsome stereotypes concerning gender are explained; oneof them is that men are better at learning STEM.

5. The Number of Female Students in Their College
Lastly, but most importantly, the college students
seemingly contributed to increasing the number of new
female students who entered the college. The number offemale students who entered their college started toincrease in 2019. Figure 3 shows the proportion of female
students who entered the college from 2013 to 2021.
Since they launched this project in May in 2017, they
have been holding workshops for elementary school
pupils and junior high school students. The percentage offemale students who entered the college increased from
12 % to 19% in 2019. Although the percentage slightly
decreased in 2020 and 2021, it is still higher than before;
it was only around 10 % every year, as Figure 3 shows.
A possible reason is that as a result of being reported
in local media reporting, the college volunteers became
so famous that they impacted other junior high school
students in addition to the ones who they met in theworkshops. It should be noted that some of theparticipants in the workshops entered the college. In one
case, this project impacted a female student who entered
the college in 2019. Although she had had no opportunity
to join a workshop before, a newspaper article on thisproject made her a student volunteer to teachprogramming a robot to children when she entered thecollege.

Table 1. Repeated Phrases in the Feedback
PhrasesNumber

Programming was interesting.

29

It was difficult to programme a robot.

5

It was my first time to program a robot.

4

It was fantastic.

3

I want to attend this workshop again.

2

I worked in a team to control a robot.

1

I learned much about programming.

1

4. A Supplementary Resource Book for Social Studies
Published in 2021
In addition to the White Paper on Gender Equality
2019, this project was introduced in a supplementaryresource book for teaching social studies to junior highschool students. This book was published in April in
2021. It referred to a newspaper article on the college
volunteers and their workshop to teach programming toelementary school pupils in September in 2019.

Figure 3. The Percentage of Female Students WhoEntered a College of Technology (KOSEN)

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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230

Discussion

References

It is probable that the student volunteers willcontribute more to STEM education for children. Whenthey launched this project, it was necessary for them totake computers and robots to schools when they
organised workshops. However, ‘the GIGA School
Initiative’ by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports,
Science and Technology (MEXT) in Japan will promote
the use of ICT at elementary schools and junior highschools in 2021 in the following way:

Tsukazaki, K., Shintoku, T., & Fukuzoe, T. (2019).
Teaching ICT Skills to Children and the Empowerment
of Female College Students in STEM in Japan, IOP Conf.
Series: Materials Science and Engineering 551 (2019)012036 doi :10.1088/1757-899X/551/1/012036
Online: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1757899X/551/1/012036/pdf
UESCO Science Report Towards 2030 (2015).
Online: https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000235406

Under the GIGA School Initiative, MEXT has
been developing the ICT environment at schools,
beginning with the preparation of one ICT
terminal per student at the compulsary education
stage with the aim of achieving optimal
personalized learning for each child andcooperative learning among multiple children
through enhancing education fully utilizing ICT.
(p. 10)Gender Equality Bureau Cabinet Office (2019). The
White Paper on Gender Equality 2019 Online:
http://www.gender.go.jp/english_contents/about_danjo/
whitepaper/pdf/ewp2019.pdf
Hamajima Shoten (2021). Atarashii komin shiryoshu, p.
49. [In Japanese]
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science andTechnology (n. d.). Overview of the Ministry of
Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Japan.
Online: https://www.mext.go.jp/en/content/20210325mxt_kouhou02-200000029_1.pdf

In this way, MEXT considers‘ICT terminals such as
smartphones, tablets, and PCs are must-have items in thesame manner as pencils and notebook’(p. 10). It was
fortunate that the unexpected covid-19 pandemic
promoted this educational policy and that schools wereready to provide one device per child by the beginning ofa new school year in 2021. It follows that it is important
how to familialise children with their device. The college
volunteers may be able to play this important role in theirworkshops and compensate for teachers' lack of skills inteaching ICT .

Olmedo-Torre, N. et al. (2018). Do Female Motives for
Enrolling Vary According to STEM Profile? IEEE
Transactions on Education, Vol. 61, No. 4.
Online: https://ieeexplore-ieee-org.queens.ezp1.qub.ac.uk/
document/8338160

Conclusions
We had a look at what the student volunteers in acollege of technology (KOSEN) in Japan had achieved
over a four-year period. They seemingly contributed toincreasing the number of new female students whoentered the college. This project received a goodevaluation judging from the following facts: (1) it was
introduced in the White Paper on Gender Equality 2019by the Japanese government and a supplementaryresource book for teaching social studuies to junior highschool students in 2021; and (2) the student volunteers
received support from industry and the board ofeducation in the local government. However, this is an
on-going project and they will keep working until thenumber of female students in their college increases up
to more than 30 %. We would like to visit more schools
and work with other colleges of technology (KOSEN)and industry so that we can reach as many girls in yourger
generations as possible.

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland231

Development and operation of Chinese language teaching materials for science students
Manabu Hatamura*
NIT,Ube College, Ube, Yamaguchi, Japan*hatamura@ube-k.ac.jp
In terms of foreign language education, Chinese is thesecond most important after English, and it iscompulsory in four out of five classes in the fourth year.
One Chinese class was also offered in the fifth year
(from 2021, it will be optional with English classes, andabout 80 students in two classes in the fourth year are
taking Chinese).
A unique feature of the Chinese language classes at
NIT,Ube College is that students from two Taiwanese
partner schools are accepted as teaching trainees andparticipate in Chinese language classes for about amonth from late June to late July every year. They areproviding support to the school's faculty and alsoteaching the classes.
In 2015 and 2016, we accepted four students from the
Department of Chinese Language and Literature at
NUU. Since 2017, we have accepted four students: twofrom NUU and two from the Department of Applied
Chinese Language at WZU.

Abstract
This paper describes online Chinese language
learning practice in cooperation with other technicalcolleges and overseas partner universities from
August 24 to September 30, 2020. In this initiative,
students watched the videos for class preparation inadvance and learned the contents of the videos
practically online from the students of the Applied
Chinese Department of Wenzao Ursuline Universityof Languages(WZU) in Taiwan.
Since 2015, National Institute of Technology, Ube
College has accepted students from the Departmentof Chinese Language and Literature of National
United University(NUU) in Taiwan as Chinese
language trainees every year. The trainees provide
support to the teachers in charge of Chinese classes
and conduct the classes themselves. However, in
2020, due to the pandemic caused by the coronavirus
pandemic, we will no longer be able to accept
Taiwanese interns. So, instead, we had students fromWZU conduct one-on-one Chinese classes online.
As a result of the 26 classes given by WZU of
Foreign Studies students for about one month, theJapanese students' ability to understand Chinese
improved compared to previous years, especially inpronunciation. An evaluation questionnaire showsthat the classes were significant for both students.
This paper will explain the process leading up to
the implementation of the online class, classimplementation, and the innovations in the class.
Finally, this paper will discuss the points forreflection and future issues.

A Taiwanese student teaching Chinese classes as a
trainee teacher.

Keywords:Chinese language,teachingmaterials,science students,overseas partner
schools,cooperation

The acceptance of Chinese language education
trainees from Taiwan is done in cooperation with othertechnical colleges. In 2015, four students were assigned
to NIT,Ube College and two students to NIT, Anan
College in Anan City of Tokushima Prefecture as
Chinese language and literature trainees. NUU is one of
the Taiwanese universities in which the NIT has acomprehensive exchange agreement (Five universities
in Taiwan have a comprehensive agreement with the
NIT. The other four are National Taipei University ofTechnology, Chung Chou University of Science andTechnology, National Kaohsiung First University of
Science and Technology, and Cheng Shiu University. In

1.Background to accepting Taiwanese educational
trainees
National Institute of Technology, Ube College(NIT,Ube College) in Ube City of Yamaguchi
Prefecture is one of Japan's first 12 technical colleges tobe established. It has five departments: MechanicalEngineering, Electrical Engineering, Control andInformation Engineering, Materials Science andEngineering, and Management Information Science. In
the area of foreign language education, we are focusing
on English.
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland232

addition, NIT each college can interact with NUU even
if they do not have individual agreements with eachother. Currently, NIT,Ube College is the only one thathas an agreement with WZU.
NIT,Niihama College (in Niihama City, Ehime
Prefecture) has been participating in this project since2016, and NIT,Tsuyama College(in Tsuyama City ofOkayama Prefecture) has been participating since 2017.
In 2020, NIT,Hakodate College(in Hakodate City,
Hokkaido) was also scheduled to participate in thisproject but has been canceled due to the coronavirus
pandemic.
NIT,Ube College has accepted Chinese language andliterature, science and technology, and business students
from NUU in June and July every year since 2015.
Students from NIT,Ube College also have been doing
practical training related to the Chinese language andspecialties at NUU during the long vacation in Augustand March. In terms of accepting students from WZU,
we started accepting students from the Japanese
language department in February 2016, and in 2017 westarted accepting Chinese and English (foreign language
pedagogy) education trainees until now.
In 2020, we had planned to accept interns from two
Taiwanese partner schools as before, but we decided tostop sending and accepting students in April when the
new school year in Japan begins. Therefore, they started
working on the implementation of an online Chinese
language program to replace them.

second-year students, five third-year students, threemajors, and one faculty member.
As a result, we decided to implement the project in
the following way.
(1) The implementation period was about one month,from late August to late September. The project colled
Project Study will be conducted during the project
learning period of NIT,Ube College. The Project Study
will be described later.
(2) Online classes will be conducted using the Teams
meeting system of Office365.
(3) The textbook will be "Chinese for Science" (Japan,
Kobun Publishing, 2017).
(4) Twelve groups of 12 students from Japan andTaiwan will be formed as pairs, and online classes will
be conducted one-to-one.
(5) Japanese students will watch a video for preparation
before attending the online class.
(1)First, we will explain project-based learning.
Project-based learning is a cross-departmental PBL that
NIT,Ube College has been conducting since 2019. It is alearning process to implement "Collaborative Practicefor Enhancing Students' Basic Social Skills" in the latter
half of the second semester (about one month from earlyJuly to early August) to strengthen students'
competency. This is problem-based learning (PBL)
course offered in the second grade through fourth years.
The topics covered are diverse and include genericskills, liberal arts, extracurricular PBL, mechanicalengineering, electrical engineering, control engineering,materials engineering, business administration,community problem solving, SDGs, and a combinationof these fields.
In 2020, 29 themes were prepared, and wereconducted online. Students selected themes based on
their interests and worked in teams that transcended theboundaries of grade and department. The older students
in the team are expected to lead the younger students
based on their own experience, knowledge, and skills,
while the younger students are expected to work withthe guidance of the older students and their supervisors.
The students from NUU and WZU who visited theschool for practical training in 2019 were assigned toteach face-to-face Chinese language classes.
Apart from learning Chinese, each of the Japanese
students decided on their theme related to Taiwan and
China, interviewed the trainees on that theme or
researched on the Internet to prepare materials, andfinally gave a presentation.
(2) The platform for the online class was Teams from
Office365. Because the entire technical college isaffiliated with Microsoft, so all faculty and students canuse Office365. The students have been familiar with
Teams through online classes since April, and weshould be able to implement it without any problems in
August. Fortunately, Office365 is also available at
WZU, so we decided to use Teams for our first attempt
at online Chinese.

2.Preparation for Online Chinese
Every year, the school accepts 10 to 20 short-term
international students from Singapore, South Korea,
Malaysia, and other partner universities. These students
come to our school for laboratory experiments, practicaltraining, and research purposes. However, for the year
2020, the school decided to stop accepting all short-term
students in April when the new semester started.
Immediately after the decision was made, we
contacted Professor Lu Xiuman(盧秀滿) of the
Department of Applied Chinese at WZU to see if itwould be possible to offer Chinese language online
classes. Professor Lu readily agreed, and we decided toproceed with preparations for implementation in
August.
When we requested WZU to recruit participants,
contrary to our expectation, 12 students participated in
the class. Initially, we thought there would be about four
students, and we requested NUU to recruit trainees aswell. However, in the end, we decided to decline therequest from them (the students from the NUU gave
online Chinese lessons to the students of NIT,Niihama
College and NIT,Tsuyama College).
The 12 students consisted of 9 third-year students, 1
fourth-year student, and 2 master's students. In addition
to these 12 students, several other students wereinvolved in this project as administrative staff. On
NIT,Ube College side, there were 13 participants: four
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland233

(3)"Chinese for Science" (Kobun Publishing, 2017) isused as the textbook. This textbook was compiled bytechnical college teachers involved in Chinese language
education in the Chugoku and Shikoku regions and iscurrently being used in six technical colleges
nationwide. As the title says, "for science majors," thebook aims to help science and engineering students
learn Chinese. It contains many examples for sentences
and columns on each topic, such as numbers,
calculations, scientific terms, and element symbols.
Graduates students of technical colleges often go on
business trips and assignments to countries in the
Greater China region as engineers in the future. The
content of this paper is designed to meet such needs. In
order to guarantee the quality of the Chinese language
skills of technical college students, we are also
conducting public relations activities to make thistextbook become the standard textbook for Chinese
language education in NIT.

students could watch it at any time. The video was also
uploaded to a team created by the WZU Institute ofForeign Languages so that WZU students could checkthe video and then create Power Point materials for the
online class and design the actual class.
The above preparations and communication werecarried out until just before the implementation of the
project in late August, and the online class finally
started on August 24.
3. During the implementation of the online Chineseclasses
The following four things were done after the start ofthe online class.
(1) Managing the schedule of each pair(2) Collecting the daily class questionnaires(3) The students submit a weekly record sheet on
weekends(4) The students submit their schedule for the following
week on the weekend.
Regarding (1),WZU students recorded each online
class, we could check that the recording had started.
Therefore, we checked whether the class wasappropriately conducted by checking whether therecording was started at the time it was scheduled to be
conducted. The recorded video is automaticallyuploaded to Teams after the class over to be checked.
However, it is practically impossible to watch 13 pairsof 30-60 minute classes every day, so all pairs werechecked to see if they were held and watched 2-3 pairsof video recordings of the classes every day.
Regarding(2), end of the online class each day,
NIT,Ube College students were asked to submit aquestionnaire for each class. The questionnaire consistsof items related to the online environment, theinstructor's teaching style, and the Japanese students'
attitude toward the class. The questionnaire also related
to whether the students could communicate with eachother and their satisfaction with the class.
Dr. Lu from WZU acted as the contact person if thestudents had any enquiries or claims regarding the wayof the classes. The enquiries could also be discussed
directly with the instructors’ students through online
messaging application such as Microsoft Teams. Someof the claims were mentioned by the Japanese students
in a questionnaire was that some instructors wereteaching without showing their faces on the screen. In
response to this matter, Dr. Lu informed all the
Taiwanese students that the Japanese students requested
the instructor to show their faces on the screen.

"Chinese for Science" (Japan, Kobun Publishing, 2017).
(4)The first step for pairing the Japanese and Taiwanese
students, Japanese students have to write a selfintroduction in English and send it to Professor Lu.
(5)In order to take the online class, the Japanese
students are required to watch a video for preparation
beforehand. The videos were produced by Professor
Akira Sugiyama of NIT, Tsuyama College, who playeda central role in compiling the textbook "Introduction to
Chinese for Science Students." Professor Sugiyama has
produced class videos of all 14 sections from the
textbook for the Chinese online classes at NIT,
Tsuyama College. The videos are around 20 to 30
minutes and include explanations of grammaticalmatters and essential information for each lesson. With
the permission of Professor Sugiyama, we decided touse this video as an introduction for the class this time.
The video was uploaded to Teams on Office365 so that
14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland234

(1)Recording of online classes
We made it mandatory to record online classes. The
instructor, a WZU student, recorded all online classes.
The recordings remain on Teams after the class to beviewed by the students or by the reporter.
The advantage of recording the class is that Japaneseand Taiwanese students can look back later on the classcontent and teaching methods. Japanese students will beable to review the class by watching the recorded classvideo. The Taiwanese students can re-check theteaching methods and the level of Japanese students
understanding by watching the videos. By recording theclass, the students will be able to work on the class witha sense of urgency since they will be able to watch thevideo later.
(2)The policy of face-to-face communication
In the online class, the pair in a class which consistsof the learners (the Japanese students) and instructors(the Taiwanese students) are required to show theirfaces during the class.

Class Survey Form
Regarding (3) , the students were asked to write thecontents and impressions of the class on a record sheet
after each day's classes and submit a weekly summary
after class on Friday. This is a record of learning, and it
is related to evaluating the NIT,Ube College students'
grades and checking attendance. Each class lasts for 90
minutes for 30 times in total. The 90 minutes included
the time spent in the online class and the time spent on
watching videos for prior learning and reviewing.
Finally regarding (4), at the end of each week, thestudents were asked to submit a schedule for thefollowing week's online class. Basically, they were
instructed to conduct online classes about the same time
every day, but if they could not do so due to mutual
business, they were asked to adjust the time in pairs. In
addition, since the new semester started on September
14 at WZU and online classes could not be held during
the day, most of the pairs had to hold their classes after
school. The created schedule was uploaded to Teams sothat students in Japan and Taiwan could check it. The
time in the schedule is in Japanese time, and the time in
Taiwan is one hour minus the time in Japan.

Showing up and participating face to face in the online
class

4. Rules and innovations for online Chinese classes
Showing up and participating face to face in the online
class

In order to encourage Japanese and Taiwanese
students to actively engage in this project, two rules andtwo innovations were implemented. The two rules were
(1) recording the online class and (2) showing up andparticipating face to face in the online class. The twoinnovations were (3) assigning task in the class and (4)role-playing the conversation at the end of the class. I
will explain them in turn below.

Sometimes after the class started, some Taiwanese
students were not showing their faces during the online
classes. They were only using Power Point materials
and their voices in the explanation. The recorded videoof the class shows that the Japanese students in that
instructor's class seemed to have a darker expression
compared to other classes. Moreover, their

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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235

pronunciation did not seem to have improved much. It
seems that maybe the reason for this was that they weretaking an online class without seeing the other person's
face.
There may be a difference in the improvement oflanguage skills between (i) taking a class with only theslides and the instructor's voice and (ii) taking a classwith the instructor's face on the screen. In contrast,some Taiwanese instructors closed the Power Point
screen when practicing pronunciation. They instructed
the students on how to pronounce the words with theirface enlarged on the screen. The Japanese student in thispair had better pronunciation than the other students.
Therefore, there may be a difference in pronunciation
improvement between practicing pronunciation while
watching facial expressions and mouths movementcompared to just listening to the audio. Compared toJapanese pronunciation, Chinese pronunciation requires
the use of various parts of the mouth, from the lips tothe back of the throat. However, it is not known if thiscan be visually understood to affect pronunciation
improvement. In overall, the students' pronunciation
was much better than in the previous years. Whileonline classes were being held throughout the school,
there was one school day per week, and I used that day
to call the students to check their pronunciation and givethem a simple oral test to confirm their understanding of
the content. As a result, we confirmed that all students
in the course could pronounce the words moreaccurately compared to the previous years. The main
reason for this is that the students took one-on-oneclasses five days a week and concentrated on theirstudies. However, we also believe that the students who
were too shy to speak out loud in face-to-face classes
before could pronounce without hesitation in one-onone online classes, so it may be the reason why theirpronunciation improved.

In online classes, students tend to be passive.
However, as an initiative, the students must take anactive and proactive role in the class by completing the
given task.
Another purpose is to encourage communication
among students. In a class, there are two sides, theinstructors and the students, and both sides are students.
Therefore, we assigned the above task to the Japanese
students to allow them to interact with each otherthrough the class.
The online class recording showed that two-way
communication was relatively active during theactivities related to the task.
(4) Creating conversation scenarios and role-playing
There were 26 lessons in total, all the contents of the
textbook were completed in the first 20 lessons, and theremaining six lessons were group activities based onwhat was learned. The activity was to form a group offour people (two Japanese students and two Taiwanese
students) and have a five-minute conversation in
Chinese using the syntax and vocabulary learned in theclass.
Concretely, the work proceeded as follows:・Two pairs of students joined together to form a groupthat consists of four students, two Japanese and two
Taiwanese.
・The two Japanese participants created a scenario (inJapanese) for the conversation. The conversation can be
about anything, but the four students should participate
equally in the scenario.
・This rule is to avoid having Taiwanese students speak
more than Japanese students.
・The students must use syntax and vocabulary learned
during the class in the conversation.
・The Japanese students can use Google Translate totranslate it into Chinese if they do not understand theChinese word. Then, the Taiwanese students willcorrect it.
・The point is to speak as if Taiwanese students aretalking. They will practice once before the real roleplay.
・Record the conversation on the last day of the class.
・They are required to submit the scenario’s
conversation after the role-play.

(3) Assigning task in the class
From the second week of the class, a task was
assigned to the Japanese students. They were instructedto complete the task during the class. The given task is
simple such as greetings, reviews of the previous lesson,or something related to the content of the day's
textbook. An example of an actual task is calling out thename of their Taiwanese partner in Chinese at the
beginning and the end of the class. An example of atask instruction is as follows:(i)At the beginning and end of the class, call out thepartner's name in Chinese.
(ii)Write the questions you asked the Taiwanese
instructors and their answers in Japanese and Chinese.
(ⅲ)Use the Chinese words you have learned to
introduce yourself.
(ⅳ)Listen to your partner's self-introduction and write it
down in Chinese.
(ⅴ)Note that in the online class, students are required towrite down their answers in Chinese.

After watching the scenarios and videos, all groups
were able to converse using the Chinese syntax they hadlearned in about five minutes. As for the speaking style,none of the students were able to reach the level offluency, but thanks to the dedicated support of the
Taiwanese students, all groups were able to have aconversation.
5. Impact of the classes(1) Questionnaire results from Japanese students

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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After each class, the Japanese students were asked tofill out the questionnaire. As a result, we were able toconfirm that all contents were highly evaluated.
The overall average rating for the teaching method of
the instructor (a student from WZU) was 4.97 (out of 5),
and the rating for the materials used in the online class
was also high at 4.95.
As for the satisfaction level of the class, it was 4.83,
which was a little lower than the other evaluation items,
but this was not necessarily due only to the teaching
methods of the Taiwanese students, as their own efforts
and understanding were also included in the evaluation.
Other results of the survey on which language theonline class commentaries showed that 8 out of 12classes were all in English. The other two classes were
all in Japanese (the same Taiwanese student was the
instructor for two Japanese students), and the other twoclasses had the same ratio of Japanese and English.
Of the 12 Japanese students, three had studied
Chinese before, and the rest were all new to thelanguage. Therefore, the explanations given by the
Taiwanese students in the class were either in Japaneseor English. Since all the Taiwanese students in WZU
can speak English and some of them can speak
Japanese, the Japanese students were able to understandthe explanations given by the Taiwanese students from
WZU. Since the explanations were given in English, thestudents were able to study English while learning
Chinese.

term foreign students is a very good opportunity forJapanese students to improve their cross-cultural
understanding.
Although we will not be able to accept students foreducational training as we have done in the past years
due to the pandemic caused by the new coronavirus, wewill continue to conduct the program online. Last year,
the content of the training was focused on Chinese
language classes. However, this year, based on thereflections from last year, we would like to brush up thecontent to include elements that will deepen crosscultural understanding and make preparations so that thetraining will be beneficial to students from both sides.
References
Manabu Hatamura. (2015). Exchange between Taiwan
National United University and National Institute ofTechnology, Ube College. Journal of the Japanese
Association for Colleges of Technology (journal of
JACT), Vol. 20, No. 4.
Manabu Hatamura. (2020).Short-term foreign student
acceptance program to foster "global technical college
students". Journal of Japan Association for Abrasive
Technology, Vol.64, No. 7.
Yoshihiro Noda. (2021). An attempt of AL type class in
Chinese and international understanding class. National
Institute of Technology, Niihama College. Bulletin, No.
57.

(2) Questionnaire results from Taiwanese students
After all the classes were over, a questionnaire for the
students in WZU (7 out of 12 students responded) was
conducted.
(i) The satisfaction level of teaching this online class
was 4.14.
(ⅱ) The effort to prepare materials was 4.86, andeveryone worked very hard to prepare for the class.
(ⅲ) "I would like to teach Chinese in online classes
again if I have the chance" was 4.14, and most of thestudents hoped to teach online classes again next time.
When asked about their efforts in teaching, they said
that they tried to keep students interested with various
methods, such as by changing the structure of eachPower Point presentation and used Quizlet (an online
learning support application).
In the questionnaire, we asked for requests and issues
regarding this project, and several students answeredthat information was not relayed well and they had totake urgent action. This needs to be addressed by the
management staff so that the students can excel in theirstudies and practice smoothly.
6. Conclusion
Accepting Chinese language trainees is an excellent
opportunity for students to learn Chinese directly from
native speakers while they are on campus. It is possible
to interact with the trainees not only in class but also
after school and on weekends. The acceptance of short14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland237

Development of wildlife survey system by industry, academia, government, and residents
Yasuyuki Hirose*,aaNational Institute of Technology, Gifu College / Department of Civil Engineering,
Associate professor, Motosu city, Japan*E-Mail hirose@gifu-nct.ac.jp

Abstract

In addition, infectious diseases such as Bird-flu andCSF (Classical Swine Fever) have occurred in wild birds
and animals. They have become infection routes forpathogens that causing serious damage. Therefore, there
is an urgent need to promote efforts such as securing andtraining catchers, developing catching techniques, habitat
management, damage control, and wide-areamanagement.
On 7 September 2018, a pig farm in Gifu Prefecturereported an increased death of breeding pigs. A swift
investigation was carried out, and the antigen particular
to the CSF virus was confirmed on the next day. Hence,
CSF patients since 1992 were identified. Further
investigation based on Infection confirmation tests onwild boar groups revealed that CSF from dead wild boars
is recovered within 10 km from the outbreak farm.
Fig.1 shows the infection status until 7 May 2021. At
present, the positive cases of CSF have been confirmed
at pig farms in 12 prefectures and wild boars in 24
prefectures [1].

In recent years, the dangers of ecosystems
disruption and the spread of pathogens by the wildlife
have become a major social problem in Japan.
On 7 September 2018, a report was made by thepig farm in Gifu Prefecture that the number of deadpigs has increased. For the first time in 26 years since
1992, the occurrence of CSF (Classical Swain Fever)was confirmed in Japan. Then, by 7 May 2021, thepositive cases of CSF from wild boars were confirmed
in 24 prefectures. For wild boars, which areconsidered one of many routes of transmission of CSF,
several measures such as confirmation of infection,
installation of protective fences, and administration oforal vaccines to wild boars have been performed.
However, there are still many unclear points about
the ecology of wild boar.
Therefore, it is necessary to understand theecology of wildlife in each region. The Gifu
Prefectural government, Gifu Construction ResearchCenter, and NIT, Gifu College have joint-developed
the wildlife ecological information systems using
WebGIS. By integrating information on sightingsfrom residents, the habitat can be identified, andeffective countermeasures can be considered.
Developing educational tools about this issue has
become a good practice for students to deepen theirknowledge, facilitation, agreement formation, andtechnological suggestions. This program has been
evaluated to have a significant impact on education
about sustainability and engineering.

Fig.1 Infection status of CSF
For wild boars, which are considered one of the main
infection routes of CSF, measures such as infection
confirmation tests, installation of protective fences, andvaccination to wild animals have been executed. These
measures are the first-ever attempt in Japan. However,there are many unclear points about wild boar ecology inindividuals or groups, such as the range of movement andcontact between individuals and groups. Therefore, awildlife survey system has been developed in Gifu
Prefecture to maps the status of infection based on
confirmation tests, traps, food (vaccine administration),
information on the location of sightings, etc., on the Web
GIS.[2][3][4]This research reports on the development, verification,
and awareness of this system with student participation.

Keywords: Collaborative education, Sustainability
education, Engineer education, GIS
Introduction
Since biodiversity is at stake in Japan, wildlife
conservation has become an urgent and important issue.
In recent years, the distribution of wild birds and animals
such as wild deer and wild boar has expanded nationwide.
The damages to ecosystems, the living environment ofresidents, agriculture, forestry, and fisheries havebecome more serious.

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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238

Overview of the Wildlife Survey System(3) The vaccine company distributes the vaccine
based on the registered capture and trap information
based on the location where they are likely to appear.
Then, the information in the system is updated again.
(4) Prefectural staff and researchers are then analyze
the ecology of wild boars from all the information.

Agricultural Administration Department of Gifu
Prefectural Government (GPG), Construction ResearchCenter of Gifu Prefecture (CRCR), and National Instituteof Technology, Gifu College (NITGC) have cooperated
and discussed how to develop a wild boar survey
system.[2] The relationship between the threeorganizations is shown in Fig.2.

Fig.2 Management of Development Process

Fig.3 System overview

Regarding the system, (1) wild boar information, (2)trap information, and (3) vaccine information must be
registered by the hunting association, government
officials, consignment businesses, etc., as part ofcollective users. The information is shared according toeach user, as shown in Table-1. Besides, there is a
decision on the authority for viewing and editing.

Development and verification of the system"Prefecture integrated GIS Gifu" provided by CRCR
is used as the base of GIS. The wildlife survey system isdeveloped by Computer Club under the management ofHirose laboratory at NITGC in cooperation with CRCR
and GPG.
After a demonstration version of the system wasreleased, surveys based on meetings and questionnaires
have been conducted. These surveys help evaluate
whether the system was functioning properly, including
its operability and readability.
A questionnaire survey conducted from January to
March 2020 pointed out that the map display is slow, andthere are problems with the screen behavior. Hence,
further improvements were needed.
Focus group meetings were conducted from 9 June
2020 to 6 January 2021 for the persons in charge of GPG
and CRCR regarding the current status of apps andsystems. Their opinions are noted and considered forfurther improvement.
The system under development in 2020 is shown in
Fig.4, Fig.5.

Table.1 Access rights of classifications

At the initial stage, there were more than 170
registered items reported by Gifu Prefecture.
As many users will use smartphones and tablets
outdoors, there is a possibility of many input items thatwill burden the system and other users. Consequently,
discussions between the three organizations are held, andthe implementation of the items shown in Table.2 isdecided.
Table.2 Stages of GIS

Fig.3 shows the expected function of the wildlife
survey system from the registered items.
(1) The hunter will register the information of thewild boar, whether captured or dead, in the Web GIS.
(2) From the initial information on wild boars
obtained by Web GIS, traps are set at the places where
they are likely to appear. Then, information in the system
is updated.

Fig.4 Login and System Screen (2020Ver.)

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17-20 August 2021, Turku, Finland239

Hearings of actual users' opinions were conductedfrom 9 June 2020 to 6 January 2021 with the cooperationof GPG and CRCR. The important opinions and requests
for repairs regarding the system based on the hearing
survey are shown below.
(1) The icons and layout are easy to understand.
(2) Several images can be registered at once.
(3) Information registered by self-confidence can be
added and edited.
(4) Addition and change of several registration items
according to the business.
(5) Addition a list up function to search by date, user,
affiliation, etc.
The improved and upgraded system is shown in Fig.
7, Fig.8, Fig.9. This system is from the results of thesurveys.
Fig.5 Data Input Screen (2020Ver.)A subsequent questionnaire survey was also
conducted. About 160 students participated, and all ofthem are 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades of the Department
of Civil Engineering, NITGC. Eighty-four responses
were collected from the survey from 15 January to 31
January 2021, as shown in Fig.6.
This system has been evaluated to operate stably. It
has significant future potential as the total of theevaluations of "Strongly agree" and "Agree" exceeded
80% for the question of "Useful for understanding theecology." However, regarding the question "Would you
like to use it?", the total of the evaluations of "Strongly
agree" and "Agree" is just about 45%
Other opinions or requests received in the commentbox of the questionnaire included favorable opinions
such as "icons, maps, and markers are easy tounderstand.". However, there are also unfavorable
opinions about the communication environment, such as"poor image quality" and "it takes time to log in.
The target of this questionnaire survey is the young
people in the science field. Even though there is a biasthat they might well be accustomed to electronic devices,
the system is proven to have sufficient operability.

Fig.7 Login and System Screen (2021Ver.)

Fig.8 Data Input Screen (2021Ver.)Fig.6 The NITGC students questionnaire result

Fig.9 List up function Screen (2021Ver.)

14th International Symposium on Advances in Technology Education
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240

Enlightenment activities

Conclusions

Students and teachers have organized awarenessactivities (Enlightenment activities) using the proposed
educational tools. The following activities accomplish
the disaster prevention education to the regional residents.
Before the activities are carried out, there are several
considerations. The considerations include themagnitude and duration of the event and the expected age
range and number of visitors. This is to ensure theappropriate educational tools elaborated in the previous
chapter are selected and prepared for the delivery class.
(Fig.10)Substantial activities in 2019-2021;⚫ Gifu city library "Gifu Media Cosmos," 12 January
2020. Participants 200⚫ Kitagata town Seiryu-Heiwa park, 1 September
2019. Participants 150⚫ Gifu city culture center "Gifu Science Festival," 16October 2019. Participants 200⚫

Students involved in the system development will
participate every year in the "Forum on Information
Technology" of the Information Processing Society ofJapan. Currently, they have won the FIT Encouragement
Award twice in 2019 and 2020.
In the development of educational tools, one of the
proposals won the patent contest. The proposal was
granted, and a patent was obtained.
The student group involved in the delivery classparticipates every year in "Project to solve regional
problems by students" of "Gifu Network University
Consortium" [7], composed of universities and collegesin Gifu prefecture.
Developing a wildlife surveying system becomes agood practice for the participated students for deeper
knowledge, facilitation, agreement formation, andtechnology suggestion. Also, dialogue with otherorganizations becomes a good practice for practical skills,
presentation, and communication. Therefore, this effort
can be highly evaluated as education in collaboration,
sustainability, and engineering. Lastly, considering the
expansion of the educational program in the future, it isgood to verify the educational effect of the participating
students.
Acknowledgements
This research is funded by Gifu Prefectural
Goverment, The OGAWA Science and Technology
Foundation and the Association of Regional Alliances of
NIT, Gifu College.

Fig.10 Various awareness activities
Students also actively collaborate in making radio
programs and broadcasting with one of the radio
programs on urban planning in the citizen media,"Teniteo Radio" [5]. They recorded a 15 minutes talk on
Sunday, 14 April 2019, and 14 January 2021. (Fig.11)
The radio program is repeatedly broadcast at 78.5 MHzof community FM [6] from Monday to Saturday, one
week after the recording.
The contents of the talk are as follows;・Characteristics of the educational system
・Risk of large-scale disasters
・Educational activities
・Thoughts through activities

References[1] Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, about
CSF,
http://www.maff.go.jp/j/syouan/douei/csf/(7.May.2021).
[2] Yasuyuki Hirose, Taskumi Niwa, Hiroyuki Enomoto
and 6 others, Development of Gifu Prefecture
Wildlife Research Information System, Information
Processing Society of Japan, FIT 2019, C-034, 2019.9.
[3] Hiroyuki Enomoto, Taskumi Niwa, Yasuyuki Hirose
and 3 others, Development and Verification of the
Wildlife Research System in Gifu Prefecture,
Information Processing Society of Japan, FIT 2020,
CO-008, 2020.9.
[4] Hiroyuki Enomoto, Taskumi Niwa, Yasuyuki Hirose
and 2 others, Wild boar Survey System Using Web
GIS in Gifu Prefecture, Japan Society of Civil
Engineers Chubu Branch, 2021.3.
[5] Citizen
media
group
"TeniteoRadio",
http://teniteo.net/ (7.May.2021)[6] Community FM "FM WATCH 78.5MHz",https://www.fm-watch.jp/ (7.May.2021)[7] Gifu Network University Consortium, Project tosolve
regional
problemsbystudents,
http://www.gifu-uc.jp/daigakusei/chiiki_kadai/(7.May.2021)

Fig.11 Radio program recording

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