Research

Development of a teaching practice program for overseas educational facilities

The university’s “Kyoiku jitchi kenkyu (Fieldwork of Teaching Practice) II” will be newly taught at several overseas Japanese schools from 2020. In response to this, we are reviewing the teaching system and the program content. For the moment, we will conduct surveys of the needs of teachers at Japanese schools (Hong Kong and Bangkok) to consider the contents to be taught in practice and the position in the curriculum. (Yasuyuki Iwata)

Interrelation of subject content learning in teacher education: Between ‘science’ and ‘social studies’

Social studies and science are grounded in diﬀerent academic ﬁelds of social sciences and natural sciences, respectively. They are often positioned as complementary. However, they have a common aim: to foster learners’ competencies in discovering and understanding how the world works and to enable them to be involved in that world responsibly. By learning these subjects, what kinds of knowledge and competencies do learners obtain to live their own lives? From a comparative and an integrated perspective, we are pursuing this study. (Mariko Kaneko)

Training and treatment for people becoming mid-career teachers

Various measures are undertaken to bring people with working experience at private enterprises into schools. However, how to use experiences of those “people becoming mid-career teachers” and how career development after hiring should be conducted has been investigated only slightly. This study investigates the challenges in a precise manner through interviews with people becoming mid-career teachers and a questionnaire for boards of education. (Kenji Maehara)

Research on cooperation between schools and external organizations and the public nature of education

A prevailing premise since the establishment of public education is that school curriculum should be neutral in the quest for private interests. However, recent educational policies have urged schools to cooperate with external organizations, including private enterprises. In this project, to gain a perspective to relativize and analyze those policies, we elucidate what problems cooperative relations between schools and enterprises are recognized to carry with and under what rules they have been built in other countries. Ultimately, we aim to propose action guidelines that should be shared with Japanese educational administration, teachers, and external organizations, such as enterprises, to protect the public nature of schools. (Yoshimi Uesugi)

How the academic profession should be and organizational development in faculties and universities for teacher education

Faculties and universities for teacher education in Japan have educational science teachers, subject education teachers, and subject specialists. We regard the research orientation of subject specialists, which has long been seen as a challenge, from a broader context: first, from a historical background; second, through comparison with general universities and faculties; and third, how the academic profession should be. Deriving the characteristics of faculties and universities for teacher education from how the academic profession should be, we consider organizational development in faculties and universities for teacher education based on the real conditions. (Makoto Shimoda)

Consideration and guidance for experiment classes in fundamental practice in which affiliated schools’ teachers support students at universities

In science teacher education, fostering of teaching skills related to observation and experimentation is fundamentally important. Nonetheless, in general, observation and experimentation are less likely to be implemented at high schools. Many university students have not experienced a sufficient number of experiments during their high school days. In this study, particularly addressing the improvement of preliminary experiments to envision observation and experimentation before teaching practice, we provide an opportunity and an experimental environment to receive advice on how to perform and teach experiments and how to examine the effectiveness from affiliated schools’ science teachers at laboratories at a university during summer holidays. On that basis, we consider how universities should guide the practice of science experiments and how affiliated schools and universities should cooperate in guiding teaching practice. (Takuya Miyauchi)

Teaching Practice Project Team

The project team has done the following. (1) Guided teaching practice of students enrolled at Tokyo Gakugei University. (2) Made preliminary contacts with schools where students did teaching practice and shared information about student teachers. (3) Dealt with problems that occurred during a period of practice and provided on-site guidance. (4) Provided post-practice guidance for student teachers whose challenges were pointed out. (5) Conducted related investigative studies. It performed its duties as the Division of Teaching Practice Guidance at the Center for the Research and Support of Educational Practice until 2018. With the university’s reorganization in 2019, the team moved its stage of activities to the Research Center for Education in the Next Generation.

Issues for examination associated with teaching practice in recent years include the development of practical teaching skills capable of fostering competencies and support for students who have challenges. The project team will contribute to education of the next generation by creating a place to have more prospective experiences of teaching practice based on actual situations of students and schools where students do teaching practice. (Shinji Sakurai, Takuya Miyauchi and Naofumi Matsuzaki)

In addition to the points described above, we are working on the following research projects.

Research exploring the operations of practical programs in teacher education (Yasuyuki Iwata)
Research investigating the structural transformation of teacher education (Yasuyuki Iwata)
A historical exploration of teacher education curriculum: Based on interviews with Tokyo Gakugei University’s early graduates (Mariko Kaneko)
Development of science teaching materials adopted to the local environment of overseas Japanese schools (Shigeki Mayama)