Instructor: Professor Koji Takeda
How many students took the course?
105 students attended at least one class.
What was the class format?
The course was conducted as an online live lecture throughout the semester, featuring in-class discussions among students and between students and faculty.
Feedback from Students
"An official LINE account was set up for class support, and a follow-up system by SAs/TAs has been established."
"I feel that Professor Takeda's 'Information and Ethics' is a very high-quality class. It's a bit tough having to do research and write a medium-length report every time, but the class content is worth it, and we have group discussions using Zoom's breakout session feature. While the breakout session feature can't be used in every class, in this class specifically, I was able to hear various students' opinions and get just the right amount of practice speaking up, so I am very satisfied with it as an online class."
The use of tools other than Zoom for delivering the class is highly rated. Additionally, there is feedback that the group work sessions among students were good. Did you prepare the class with this in mind from the beginning?
Believing it would be difficult to handle connection issues and other problems on the main tools like Zoom used for conducting the class, I decided to provide support using LINE, which I assumed many students would be familiar with. I set up an official LINE account for the class and announced it on SFC-SFS.
In-class discussions in this course have always been lively and well-received, so I made efforts to replicate that experience online as much as possible, such as by utilizing Zoom's breakout session feature. To facilitate smooth discussions on Zoom, I also actively called on speakers and raised discussion topics. Furthermore, to avoid technical issues, I prepared a separate account for monitoring and constantly checked the connection quality.
In conducting your first online class, were there any other creative measures you took? Please tell us about them.
I made it a practice to play an opening and ending video at the start and end of each class. I believe this helped both the students and myself to mentally switch gears for the beginning and end of the class, making it easier to concentrate. To increase participation, I had everyone turn on their microphones and cameras at the beginning of each class to greet each other. At the same time, this allowed us to check for any audio, camera, or connection problems. To enable smooth communication similar to a physical classroom, I implemented a policy of requiring everyone to have their webcams on in principle. (We also held a discussion in class about the pros and cons of this policy.) After explaining how to use them, I also actively utilized Zoom's 'raise hand,' poll, breakout session, and chat features in class.
To facilitate more active discussions within the limited time, I set up a system to stream tweets with the class hashtag onto the broadcast screen. Attendance was confirmed by announcing parts of a keyword at several points during the class and having students submit the full keyword to a designated form within the class period.
By maximizing the advantages of the online environment, I believe I was able to conduct the class with a density of communication comparable to (or even greater than) that of a physical classroom.