Remote teaching/learning experience in Japanese Universities.

Abstract:

In Japanese universities, there have been almost no online classes in undergraduate education before the COVID-19 pandemic. The most universities decided to open full-online classes in April, 2020, and frequently distributed online workshops and manuals for both students and faculties since then. I posted video contents of the lecture on YouTube and shared the link with tools provided by the university. For the case of live classes with Zoom, most of the Japanese students would turn off the camera during the lecture, and I worried about the difficulty of interacting with students and troubles with the connection in live classes. In contrast, there were many tools necessary for shooting, Furthermore, I had to took many shots repeatedly, and took a lot of time for editing. I used this type of format (shooting) in two of the three classes, and used a video file based on PowerPoint slides with audio in one class. The time required for classes of video shooting was about 3 times longer for classes of PowerPoint slides with audio, but the degree of satisfaction and understanding of the students was much higher.

After the course, I conducted a simple anonymous questionnaire to the students. When asked whether traditional classroom course or online classes were better, 86% of students answered that online classes were better. The most common reason is that the time and preparation required for commuting are no longer needed. Some students answered that traditional classroom lessons are better because online lessons require more assignments. And over 90% of students answered that on-demand class was better than online live class. The most difficult part of all online lectures was lack of concentration and difficulties to ask questions. Finally, over 90% of the respondents would like to take online classes even after the pandemic has subsided. The comments from students include the following problems in online course; internet connection, no changes in tuition, difficulties to ask questions, eye fatigue, and many assignments. Good points in online course are; concentrating study at own pace, clearly visible slides, and time saving.