Engineering English for the Growth Mindset in the Knowledge-Creating Classroom

2020 Fiscal Year Research-status Report

• Project/Area Number: 17K00482
• Research Institution: Shizuoka University
• Principal Investigator: V WILKINSON 静岡大学, 情報学部, 名誉教授 (40240626)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): Chandler Damon 静岡大学, 工学部, 准教授 (70765495)
• Project Period (FY): 2017-04-01 – 2022-03-31
• Keywords: English / Presentation / Experiential Learning / Project Based Learning

Outline of Annual Research Achievements

As an English teacher from Informatics with a focus in Behavioral Informatics, my specialty has been to engage various kinds of group work with students, experiential learning in community, team building, and human communication competences. When Dr. Chandler invited me to working with Academic English for EE Engineers for third year students, it gave me an opportunity to teach English to two large classes each week. This created a great platform for developing English and "people skills" as well as much needed presentation skills. However, the greatest advantage was that we could treat one class as the Experimental Class and the other as the Control. By the third iteration of our research, we were convinced that a team with a leader is the most effective PBL environment. The presentation is The Project! In 2020, we were compelled to combine the two classes into one super-sized class. At the same time, Novel Corona Virus (COVID) caused this pandemic situation in which we have to learn how to transmit classes online and continue to generate interactive classes to build English and communication competences. We have ZOOM and MOODLE to work with students. We also have a community of committed volunteers, willing to coach the students about presentation skills. We are learning new skills in this educational environment.

Current Status of Research Progress

3: Progress in research has been slightly delayed.

Reason

Because of Novel Corona Virus (COVID) online teaching has generated new problems.
This is the second time we have taught this online class to about 120 students. It is also the first time that I, Dr. Wilkinson, am in charge of the class. We need to administer assessment tests and a final exam to learn if the methods and organization is effective for EE students to learn 1) English 2) Presentation skills. We are getting more experience to do this effectively each time.

Strategy for Future Research Activity

We are getting positive results in our interactions with this online class. We need time to evaluate and discuss developments to continue to improve our online education environment.

Causes of Carryover

Expenses for research travel expenses and technical equipment. We hope to apply to a conference with our research paper, with all the connected fees. We hope to invite one of our partners to travel to Hamamatsu from Yamaguchi-ken with travel and hotel expenses for a conference about the development of our teaching model. I would like to get a Windows computer so that I can organize the records, manage the video memory and compile our reports.