(Kurita)Hello, everyone. Hello, everyone. (Student)Hello. (Kurita)This is “Interactive Teaching” WEEK 4. This week’s topic is “Let’s design a 90-minute class". In this session, we would like to talk about the basic structure of a 90-minute class. Before we begin the main topic, let me clarify the goal of this week: “Understand the design, significance, and methods of implementing a class that promotes learning”. The objective for this session is the third one: “Be able to explain the basic structure of a class based on Gagné’s nine events of instruction”. We learned about the ADDIE model in the last two sessions. I would like to explain what Gagné’s nine events of instruction are, which would be of help in the design phase. Here is the table of contents. We will begin with the basic structure of a class, then cover Gagné’s nine events of instruction, and finally wrap-up. This is our agenda. Let us begin with the structure of a class. Most classes are allotted 90 minutes per unit and a class can be divided into three sections: the introductory section, the main section, and the concluding section. This structure is common in many situations. Consider a meal. Have you ever had a course meal? Everyone? Thank you. A refined restaurant serves you with a course meal, which starts with appetizer, then moves on to one or two main dishes, and ends with dessert. The menu shown on the slide may be too simple, but it is structured like this. Another example would be a field day. It starts with warm-up as and proceeds to programs such as footrace, dance, and a cavalry battle game, and ends with cool-down. So, you could say that it is structured in three sections. If you apply this to a class, gaining attention, reviewing what you did in the last class, and showing an overview of the contents for today can be an introductory section for a class. Showing the table of contents is one of the methods of overview, so preparatory steps before the main topic come here (the introductory section). The main section includes main topic 1 and main topic 2. I think there can be several main topics. It may also include large-scale group works or peer instruction. The concluding section often includes the summary, advanced contents that lead to the next topic, and issues related to the topic. I assume that the classes you have had in the past mostly consist of these three sections. How long does each section take? It depends on the class, so the time shown on the slide is just for reference. The introductory section would take 5-20 minutes, the main section would take 50-80 minutes, and the concluding section would take 5-20 minutes. It depends on the section you would like to stress. I was in charge of statistics at the university when I worked as a part-time lecturer. At the beginning of a class, I always give my students handouts for reviewing what they learned in the previous class, have them solve the problems on the handouts, and check their answers among themselves. So, the introductory section usually takes about 15-20 minutes. I will be proceeding to a new topic after that, so the time allotment of a whole class will be something like that. You can allot time flexibly according to your own class design. Then, how should we design those sections specifically? Gagné’s nine events of instruction give us an idea regarding that. Nine events of instruction were devised by Robert Mills Gagné, a professor in psychology of learning and the founder of the instructional design theory. He proposed nine perspectives for an educator’s approach toward students. These perspectives are very helpful when working on a class design, so this is why I would like to explain them today. The nine perspectives seem to be too many when they are lined up, but let’s take a look at them: Gain attention of the students, inform the students of objectives, stimulate recall of prior learning, present the content, provide learning guidance, elicit performance, provide feedback, assess performance, and enhance retention and transfer. These are the nine perspectives. These events respectively correspond to the aforementioned introductory section, main section, and concluding section. How could I divide these nine into three parts? Where would the separating points be? What do you think, Mizukoshi-san? (Student)Yes. I think the first three are for the introductory section, the next four are for the main section, and the last two are for the concluding section. (Kurita)Yes, thank you. I divided them using different colors as shown on the slide. Yes, as Mizukoshi-san mentioned, the first three allude to the introductory section,the next four to the main section, And the last two to the concluding section. You can divide them into roughly three sections like this. Let’s take a look at them, one by one. The first one is the introductory section. This is the preparatory stage for the new learning contents. The first point is gaining attention of the students. This is for stimulating their curiosity and interest. An attention grabber can be one of the methods used to do this. For example, you can show a newspaper article or talk about recent news related to the course, or you can provide students with a topic that would interest them. These activities capture the students’ attention for learning. The second point is informing the students of objectives. I always outline what the goal and the objectives are in every session. This is to enhance the concentration, motivation, and expectancies of the students by telling them what they are going to learn today and what they are going to be able to do through this class. The third point is stimulating recall of prior learning. Students have what they learned in the last class or what they already know by themselves, so this is for linking their knowledge to the topics to be learned today. It means to remind them of their inactive knowledge, prior knowledge and skills, to prepare them for the new topic. These are all preparatory activities for learning new contents. Let’s move on to the main section. Now, students are ready to learn. What comes next is presenting the content. You remind the students of their prior knowledge and build new knowledge on that. You make them learn new topics by taking care of relativity and similarity between the new and prior knowledge. The next point is providing learning guidance. This involves informing the students of how they are going to learn. It entails telling the students in class that they are going to learn by attaching significance to the new topics and by being conscious of the relativity to other topics. The next point, “elicit performance”, has to do with practice and feedback, as we covered in the previous session. Students need to practice either in class or out of class in order to internalize what they have newly learned. It does not matter whether they fail or not. You need to create an opportunity for students to take in what they learned and not to forget them, or to link and apply the topic to other knowledge. The next point, “provide feedback”, has to do with supporting students in their completion and internalizing what they learn; it might be done in class or out of class. You need to design a feedback function to see whether or not the students really accomplished learning objectives. The concluding section is for evaluating learning outcomes, or checking if students internalized the newly learned knowledge and are able to apply it. This assessment might be carried out not in a 90-minute class, but at the end of the semester. The final point is to enhance retention and transfer. It is about whether students maintain what they learned and are able to apply it to other contexts and situations appropriately. These can be realized by making the students aware of the opportunity of using the knowledge in an advanced situation and possibility of application to other forms of learning. By incorporating those factors into the design of a 90-minute class, students will be able to stay conscious of linking what they learned to other contexts out of class. Now, let’s wrap up. We learned about the structure of a class. It has an introductory section, a main section, and a concluding section. Time allotment depends on the field of study and objectives, so be flexible about that. To consider the introductory section, main section, and concluding section from the educator perspective toward students, Gagné’s nine events of instruction would be helpful. I think these will help you in designing a class. That’s all for this session.
