Instructor: Professor Hiroshi Suzuki
How many students took the course?
950 students
What was the class format?
Live and on-demand throughout the semester.
Student Feedback
Professor Hiroshi Suzuki's Zoom classes were very lively and great. He frequently asked for students' opinions, and it was wonderful to see students actively discussing in the chat.
I think it's great that they used Slido polls, which gave a live feel and made me feel like I was really participating.
I feel there were many lectures by guest speakers. Professor Suzuki's classes were good.
3. This class has nearly 1,000 students, yet it is praised by students for its live feel and energy. Did you prepare the class with this intention from the beginning?
I prepared for the class by imagining a radio talk show and making various arrangements. After the decision to move classes online, I had extensive discussions with Lecturer Kanasugi and my research assistant, Ms. Ikeda. With the cooperation of NEC Networks & System Integration Corporation, a Zoom agent in Japan, we were able to create an environment to use 'Zoom Meeting'—which emphasizes participant interaction—experimentally with 1,000 people. I believe it was a significant achievement that we could consistently implement this, along with the audience communication tool 'Slido,' from the very first class on April 30. Not everything went as planned; for example, contrary to Zoom's official information, we couldn't do breakout rooms for 1,000 people in a Zoom Meeting. However, to avoid a monotonous class, we pooled our wisdom each time with the lecturer, assistants, TAs, SAs, and student volunteers to conduct the class.
Were there any other creative measures you took when conducting an online class for the first time?
We clarified the necessary roles for class management, divided them among the faculty, assistants, TAs, and SAs, and held meetings before and after each class to repeatedly try and improve.
We ensured that providing individual support to students who couldn't access the class did not affect the progress of the lecture.
To maintain a good pace, tasks other than the PowerPoint presentation, such as operating the Zoom host controls and other tools like Slido, were handled by staff other than the instructor.
Based on the premise that it's natural for students to lose concentration if an instructor talks unilaterally for 90 minutes online, we divided the class into several segments to add variety to the flow.
We made sure that the three of us—Hiroshi Suzuki, Lecturer Kanasugi, and one SA student—were always in a conversational exchange. Furthermore, we aimed for a multi-person dialogue that also included the assistants, TAs, and other SAs.
We encouraged active posting to the Zoom chat and Slido's Q&A corner. We prioritized responding to student questions by answering them on the spot, setting up a 'Responses to Last Week's Questions' corner at the beginning of the next class, or recording separate response videos for on-demand viewing.
Since many first-year and upper-class students were taking the course, we thought we could help with their club recruitment activities. We solicited commercials for clubs and circles and aired them about an hour into each class. We collected about 35 commercials.
We improved security by setting it up so that only Zoom accounts created with a Keio University email address could access the class Zoom, and by changing the Zoom URL for each class.