Universities focus on basics

As more students find it difficult to follow lectures due to a lack of academic fundamentals, universities have moved to help them with new curricula and sweeping campus reforms.
One such university, Chitose Institute of Science and Technology, has tapped into the initiative of its students to make its own bespoke educational software.

"Can you make the graph more detailed?"

"No, I think it's better like this because students can understand it more easily when it's simple. Why don't we add some animation as well?"

This may sound like the kind of exchange one would expect during a meeting at an education materials firm, but it is an example of student-teacher interaction at the university in Chitose, Hokkaido, which was founded in 1998.

The university runs an E-Learning System through which students can learn subjects such as mathematics, science and English using Internet-based supplemental study materials.

Under the system, which it is hoped will enhance students' basic learning ability, students have access to about 8,600 software titles. These applications provide unit learning and scholastic exercises from the middle school level up to those taught during the first year of university.
Sophomore students develop the software--with input from juniors and seniors--mainly using the teaching staff's lecture notes.

Hiroshi Komatsugawa, an associate professor of the university who heads software development, said: "New students can improve their basic learning ability, while sophomore students gain experience of software development. This system kills two birds with one stone."
More than 98 percent of the university's students who wished to work after graduation landed jobs this spring, many getting jobs at manufacturers and information technology firms in major cities.

In the wake of the system's success, educators from all over the nation have visited the university.

This spring, high school students who had been educated according to the Education, Science and Technology Ministry's new official teaching guidelines entered university.

Compared with the previous guidelines, some subjects have had their content cut by about 30 percent. As a result, observers are concerned that students may lack the ability to follow first-year university lectures, a situation known as the "2006 problem."

According to Prof. Akira Onodera of Hokkaido University's Graduate School of Science, half of the students who enter science and technology faculties have not mastered high school-level physics.

"The number of those who can't keep up with university lectures is increasing," he said.
Prof. Hiroshi Ono of the National Institute of Multimedia Education said, "The disparity in the academic ability of students has become a serious problem in those universities that have pared down the subjects students need to study for entrance examinations and increased the admission of students based on recommendations."

To support students who are not academically able, many universities offer remedial classes in which students learn subjects they have never studied or those in which they performed poorly while at high school.

According to Kanto Gakuin University's College of Engineering in Yokohama, 34 students, or 4 percent of all the freshmen who entered the college in spring 2003, later dropped out.
Many of them quit because they could not keep up with the lectures.

Alarmed at this, the following year teaching staff introduced a curriculum that included the teaching of primary mathematics and physics topics.

The college opened a counseling room where teaching staff tutor students on a one-on-one basis. The staff also began taking turns writing in notebooks as a way of exchanging messages with their students.

As a result, the number of students who drop out has halved.

Prof. Toru Kanada said, "It's important for students to gain self-confidence when they're in the first year."

Matsumoto Dental University in Shiojiri, Nagano Prefecture, introduced sweeping changes in April.

It built a students' dormitory on campus hoping that students would get into the habit of studying. Currently, the dormitory is home to 113 newly enrolled students.

The new students have dentistry classes in the morning, but in the afternoon, they take classes in Japanese expression, physics, biology and mathematics to ensure the basics are drummed into their heads.

The university has been suffering as its students increasingly fail to pass the national dentistry examination.

The college's hope of improving its pass rate is one reason behind the reforms, but Hidehiro Ozawa, the university president, said he did not want to adopt measures that would result in raising the pass rate solely because knowledge had been crammed into students' brains.

"We reviewed our curriculum with the idea of cultivating dentists who had both extensive knowledge and great compassion. Looking at our reforms, it's definitely the most effective way," he said.

The university's plan is to offer various kinds of lectures to trainee dentists, and not regard primary subject classes as remedial.

Some long-established universities also have been trying to come up with ways to deal with similar situations.

Tokyo University introduced a new curriculum this month, in which liberal arts students are required to take more credits.

Hokkaido University, meanwhile, examined the new high school teaching guidelines and overhauled its liberal arts program. As part of the changes, the university introduced English classes grouped by ability.

The number of universities taking part in examinations to evaluate the basic academic ability of their students is expected to rise to 115 this academic year. Two years ago it was 42.

Prof. Ono of the National Institute of Multimedia Education that holds the examination said, "The disparity between universities working on improving basic academic abilities and those that don't will become greater in the future."

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/features/culture/20060424TDY03003.htm