Good morning to a special Monday which is so nice and cool kaaaa!
I was a speaker the other day and like most of the invitations, I had an opportunity to listen to the keynote speaker, Assoc. Prof. Yuto Kitamura, from University of Tokyo and a Fulbright alum:))!who talked about 'Education for Sustainable Development'.
Here are what I'd like to share ka:
- Sustainability is our common future with development that meets the needs of the present while safeguarding Earth's life-support system, on which the welfare of the current and future generations depends.
Having some common definition to work on is to ensure mutual understanding and easier implementation ka. I also think that this newly defined meaning only highlights several same issues about how human beings treat the earth, how much our awareness is, how serious our intention and implementation are to protect the earth, and how much we care of our future generations ka.
We seem to know them all but not having true sense of urgency to take enough serious actions ka.
I then think of competitions and a sharper sense of competitiveness with the race to be better economically, the careless urge for more convenient and comfortable living, etc. All could make us off balance about the nature and our existence! Sufficiency economy and Buddha's teaching about the middle path popped up right away loei la ka.
- Links of development have to be made and so transdisciplinary approach is called for, engaging stakeholders in our respective disciplines to share and learn while working with people across the disciplines becomes an integral part.
It led me to the term I coined, 'Lintegration'-- Link+ Integration ka...link disciplines to digest knowledge and experiences to further develop our own discipline and look beyond it.
- According to one Oxford University study, 40% of today's jobs will disappear in 2040.
What have we been trying to teach and offer to the students will be relevant and practical for them and their kids? If we stress on QA mainly the paperwork/report to fulfill rules and laws and to pass, are we going anywhere close to further improvement and development?
Unesco Director of Unesco Bkk put in his presentation, 'needs to be transformative changes in education,'
- University of Tokyo has seriously promoted 'Active Learning' using diverse modes of teaching and learning, e.g. student participation, PBL, and collaborative studies, etc. and for faculty members to be more of the supporters. It is hoped that the process will enhance analytical skills with more assessment and evaluation to get synthesis as the output.
It also widely introduces active learning in both liberal arts and specialized/professional education, as well as in international programs.
To make sure that the faculty in specialized/ professional areas have more time to offer their content, the University of Tokyo has implemented a project called, 'Plus 15'; adding 15 minutes to each of the session so the lecturers have more time to engage students in the active learning. Positive feedback has been given.
I came up with several questions ka:
A few universities and faculty members in Thailand may say that they've already used active learning....the answer contains the traditional 'yes' of QA to show that I too have done it?!?! Time to think more of the real systematic process to see results planned lae ka!
Would 'Plus 15' approach work in our universities? Would our faculty agree? Would our students be eager to try it with curiosity how they can increase their learning experiences?
For international programs, gaps remain to be around language proficiency and knowledge gaps of diverse groups.
- Learning outcomes should not be assessed by a satisfactory level of students but what they actually learn so self-report is what the University of Tokyo has been using. They also encourage more international experiences -- struck my passion loei!
One and a half hours ignited so many thoughts and more thoughts of what I can add or do in my own passion to promote internationalization ka.
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