2021 Fiscal Year Research-status Report
Integrated Programming English Education
Project/Area Number |
20K03068
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Research Institution | Akita International University |
Principal Investigator |
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Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
荒木 直子 国際教養大学, 国際教養学部, 准教授 (50454939)
GAYDOS Matthew 国際教養大学, 国際教養学部, 助教 (50866944) [Withdrawn]
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Project Period (FY) |
2020-04-01 – 2023-03-31
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Keywords | Integrated education / Unplugged programming |
Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
The main research question of our project is: How can effective programming curriculum materials 1) be co-designed while embodying creative pedagogy, and 2) be adapted to rural areas to support teacher professional development? Our main goal was to offer professional development workshop targeting educators, young learners, and their parents, to reposition their agency in their expertise regarding programming education. An innovative idea was developing a teacher's-based co-design process to develop materials, but we had to completely redesign our research plans to adapt to the online environment and new pedagogical challenges that all schools are facing with new and sudden demands by the government caused by the Covid-19 worldwide pandemic. Educators in rural areas in Japan have been especially influenced by these catastrophic shifts as the IT environment isn't usually adapted to an online environment. As a consequence, willingness and allocated time for new trials such as our research proposal and for attending professional development workshops have dramatically decreased. Face-to-face communication became strictly regulated. Despite the new restrictions and limitation in this pandemic, we were able to offer an online workshop on February 27, 2021. We also published a journal article establishing the theoretical framework of the project.
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Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
4: Progress in research has been delayed.
Reason
As mentioned in the previous report, our original plan needed a lot of rearrangement. As school teachers became extremely busy, and funds for associations dried up, we were not able to proceed with our plans. The teachers we contacted didn't have the time or human resources, and the discussion with members of the Board of Education of Yokote city to offer to "community school" to children and parents didn't succeed as their budget was slashed.
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Strategy for Future Research Activity |
We are still in the process of handling the major changes to our initial plans due to the pandemic, but also due to one of the co-investigators leaving the project. Our plans to add to potential open workshops targeted on-demand workshops from broader community centers look overwhelmingly challenging, so we shifted the focus to the development of pedagogical (in English and Japanese) for unplugged programming activities, to popularize the genre and provide educators resources to choose their class material from, and attract more school teachers partners.
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Causes of Carryover |
The difference between the budgeted amount and the actual expenditure was due to the pandemic, as previously explained. Any budget related to travel expanses, conference participation or organization has to be reported to next year.
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