
MIC Active learning strategies
As part of its project with MEXT’s Acceleration Program (AP) Grant, the Miyazaki International College Active Learning Working Group (MIC ALWG) compiled and defined a list of over 30 of what we came to term Active Learning Teaching Strategies. (ALTSs). These strategies are essentially the teaching techniques that MIC instructors employ in their classes to engage students in the learning process, encouraging them actively interact with the materials, the instructor, and each other and employ various levels of critical thinking. The list was compiled by researching strategies used at several American universities and through class observations and interviews with teaching faculty at MIC. The ALWG decided to organize the strategies in a logical fashion in hopes of determining how the AL strategies differ from each other, and how much of what kinds of activities are currently being employed at MIC. The group’s efforts resulted in a categorization heuristic that may be of use to other institutions wishing to clarify their educators’ preferred practices for AL teaching techniques. The first poster below (presented at SUTFL (Sojo University Teaching and Learning Forum) 2017 - "Active Learning in a Globalized World" in Kumamoto) includes a visual of the MIC ALWG’s “matrix” and the second (presented at the annual conference for the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL) in Calgary), shown some time later, reports on updates to the working group's progress.