Discussion on a Method of Team-Based-Learning Style Lecture for Graduate Students in a Research University

Abstract

The new graduate school education program Nitobe School was launched in 2015 as one of main education projects of “Top Global University Project” in Hokkaido University. This new graduate program is aimed to supply currently undermined skill-set to students from different home graduate or professional school. The scope of the Nitobe School program is to foster students to be a global leader who might contribute not only for local societies but also internationally by Team-Based-Learning (TBL) and Project-Based-Learning (PBL) methods. Since students have different expertise including the area of STEM and humanity, teachers cannot guide classes with their field, rather teachers need to educate students using a general topics. This general education program apparently requires different approaches from the conventional one. After completion of the first year of Nitobe School, we took place the survey that asked students how they felt about our new teaching methods. Overall, students appreciated with the new methods that we carried out, but there are some spaces for further improvement. In this report, we suggest potential ways to improve the Nitobe School program, which will be able to enhance further educating students, and at the same time educate teachers toward the TBL and PBL.