Instructor: Professor Akira Wakita
How many students took the course?
There were about 700 students.
What was the class format?
It was a course offered in the first half of the semester. Each class session consisted of a three-part structure: 'on-demand,' 'live,' and 'class review via a proprietary service.'
Student Feedback
I thought it was a wonderful approach to convey the main points on-demand in the first half and then have a live Q&A session in the second half.
The style of having the lecture part pre-recorded and the discussion part live.
From the perspective of creating a live feel in a large class, I felt that the use of YouTube Live in Environmental Information Studies was a good initiative. A key advantage is that, compared to tools like Zoom webinars, it provides a comfortable viewing experience for on-demand watching later.
Combining on-demand content with live streaming on YouTube (Environmental Information Studies).
The balance between on-demand and live sessions has been highly praised by students. Did you plan the course with this intention from the beginning?
I decided to prepare both on-demand and live content in advance. To allow students to learn at their own pace without being tied to a class schedule, I made the on-demand content the fundamental requirement (the minimum obligation). On top of that, for those who were interested, I conducted a live stream during the scheduled class time, focusing on a dialogue between a guest lecturer and the course instructor. The on-demand content was a video of about 20 minutes summarizing the guest instructor's research field. The live stream was based on that, focusing on interdisciplinary topics, philosophical discussions, and interaction with students. Considering the course objectives and the characteristics of each medium, I created a clear distinction by arranging different content for the on-demand and live sessions. As a result, many students chose to first gain foundational knowledge and a sense of the key issues through the on-demand content before participating in the live stream, which I believe produced a positive educational effect.
For your first time teaching an online course, were there any other creative approaches you took? Please tell us about them.
First, I created an intro video for each class. Building a sense of excitement is important. Also, in a large lecture with over 700 students, it's crucial to figure out how to create a learning experience that isn't one-way. I determined that neither a webinar nor on-demand content alone could achieve this, so I decided on a three-part structure: 'on-demand,' 'live,' and 'class review via a proprietary service.' For the live stream, I deliberately chose YouTube Live to create a sense of excitement and a live atmosphere. With both Zoom and WebEx, chat sharing becomes unavailable with over 500 participants, and server issues increase. Given that, I thought that by choosing YouTube, which is the most stable, user-friendly, and has a live feel, I could solve multiple problems at once. For the post-class review, I challenged myself to introduce a time for students' active learning that went beyond simple repetition of the course content. I did this by implementing a novel (?) system where students would impersonate the guest instructor and write what they thought that person would say.