Improving Students’ Diagram Comprehension with Classroom Instruction

The authors tested whether students can be taught to better understand conventional representations in diagrams, photographs, and other visual representations in science textbooks. The authors developed a teacher-delivered, workbook-and-discussion–based classroom instructional method called Conventions of Diagrams (COD). The authors trained 1 experienced teacher to deliver COD to two 10th-grade biology classes (n = 31) and compared gains in diagram comprehension from COD to those from a business-as-usual control condition (n = 30) in 2 classrooms taught by the same teacher. Students in the COD condition showed statistically significantly greater growth in comprehension of literal and inferential biology diagrams. The control condition in some cases advantaged high-spatial, high-knowledge students, whereas the COD condition for the most part did not. Entries in the COD workbooks were analyzed for amount of student effort. Students with a combination of low pretest biology knowledge and low effort showed much lower gains from pretest to posttest on the inferential biology diagrams measure than did other students in the COD condition.     

School education and development of gender perspectives and sexuality in Japan

This study aimed to evaluate changes in the attitudes of Japan’s post-war youth towards gender equality and sexuality, and to examine whether these attitudes bore a relationship to school education. Different generations were delineated based on changes in courses of study and year of birth, and semi-structured interviews were conducted enquiring about experiences and opinions during secondary school days. We examined sexuality education in both junior high school (ages 12–15 years) and high school (15–18 years), views on premarital sex, views on marriage and divorce, and views on gender roles. Fifty-three survey participants were involved in the study: 30 women and 23 men. The characteristics of each generation were examined in relation to corresponding courses of study and the textbooks available in junior high and high schools, identifying both homologies and differences between the messages courses contained and the expressed beliefs of different generations of informants.     

Academic libraries as learning spaces in Japan: Toward the development of learning commons

Since the beginning of the 1990s, new types of learning spaces at academic libraries have emerged mainly in North America. They are called “information commons” or “learning commons.” They provide various kinds of services, facilities, and materials in one location to support students’ learning. The idea of learning commons has been introduced to colleges and universities in Japan as well. The purpose of this study is to examine the present condition of learning spaces in university libraries in Japan. A questionnaire was sent to 755 main or central libraries at colleges and universities. The response rate was 69.4%. The results of the survey are as follows: (a) simple collaborative learning spaces with desk/desks and chairs have become modestly widespread, while advanced spaces with equipment for information and communication technology, such as computers or projectors, are not common; (b) many libraries provide computer clusters; and (c) cafés and/or beverage vending machines in libraries are still few in number. The survey also reveals that learning commons in Japan are in the early stage of development. Various types of learning spaces are recognized as learning commons. They range from a group learning room with Wi-Fi access to an entire learning commons, where several kinds of facilities, services, and information resources to support students’ learning in one location are provided. This diversification may be based on the confusion caused by the rapid introduction of learning commons in Japan. Many learning spaces may rebuild their own services in the near future because of their students’ needs.     

Learning cities in East Asia: Japan, the Republic of Korea and China

Lifelong learning cities emerged in Japan in the 1980s and 1990s; in the Republic of Korea in the 2000s and 2010s; and in China mostly from 2000 onwards. They were a countermeasure to the increasing challenges of global as well as post-industrial uncertainties at the turn of the century, when cities were trying to find governmental instruments to engage in cultural processes, community building and personal development as the new way of urban life. Learning was perceived to be a panacea to solve the social problems occurring in overwhelming processes of modernisation and industrialisation. The authors of this paper assert that the practice of and research on learning cities, especially in the East Asian region, need to go beyond the technical rationalities which are guiding government tools, and explain the realities to which they are meant to be applied. In order to do this, the authors investigated three separate but inter-connected scenes found in Japan, the Republic of Korea and China, revealing that the learning city is a phenomenon which reflects complex social dynamics and the interaction of many minds. While the cases in this region are distinctive, they do share some common characteristics. The authors place these within what they term a “community relations model”, which they contrast with the “individual competence model” which is usually found in initiatives of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and schemes implemented in the area of the European Union (EU).     

Enzymatic reactions in organic solvents

Bioconversions of lipophilic compounds are currently attracting much interest in both the academic and the industrial world. To carry out these conversions effectively, it is essential to introduce water-miscible organic solvents into the reaction Systems or to use water-containing organic solvents as reaction solvents in order to improve the poor solubility of substrates in aqueous solutions. However, biocatalysts are in general liable to lose their activity in the presence of organic solvents. It is expected that enzyme immobilization will be the most general and promising means of reconciling these opposing demands.     

Noise reduction based on iterative hybrid vector filter and detail correction employing correlation among RGB components

One of the important image processing tasks is to effectively reduce a noise from a digital image while keeping its features intact. In this paper, a new noise removal method for color images corrupted by the mixture of the impulsive and Gaussian noises is proposed. In the proposed method, firstly, a tentative output image, in which the noise is removed almost perfectly, is obtained by using the iterative robust switching vector median-based vector $\epsilon \mathrm{-}\mathrm{filter}$, which is realized by hybridizing the robust switching vector median filter and the vector $\epsilon \mathrm{-}\mathrm{filter}$ and is newly proposed here. Then the residual components between the input and the tentative output images are calculated, and image components constituting edges, corner and other image details are extracted from the residual components by using the correlation characteristic in RGB components. Consequently, a final output is obtained by adding the extracted image components into the tentative output image. The effectiveness and the validity of the proposed method are verified by some experiments using the natural color images.     

Why is school reform sustained even after a project? A case study of Bac Giang Province, Vietnam

This paper reports on a case study of schools in Vietnam wherein teachers are engaged in school reform activities known as professional teacher meetings (PTMs), which is based on an approach called lesson study for learning community (LSLC). The PTMs under LSLC were introduced in 2006, but the teachers involved are still conducting the activities despite scarcity of resources, particularly technical ones. This study addresses the following research question: Why have teachers continued to organize PTMs after the project ended? Three aspects will help address the research question. First, teachers had faith in the effectiveness of the PTMs. Second, enthusiasm and support of seniors and authorities such as school principals could have also helped sustain the PTMs. Third, the need to maintain a respectable reputation before external parties could also be an important factor.     

The classroom observations of Vietnamese teachers: mediating underlying values to understand student learning

This study uses the grounded theory approach (GTA) to investigate the value and characteristics of teacher observations, when used to understand student learning. Earlier studies have analysed the act of observation, defining it as a combination of joint observation and interpretation activities. By contrast, this analysis of 28 primary school teachers in remote areas of Vietnam reveals that the act of observation is mediated by underlying values. This study develops a discussion about the way in which the inherent ‘compliance-with-a-plan’ value restricts teachers’ ability to develop knowledge, as proposed in the literature, while the value of ‘exploration’ encourages teachers to develop a broader interpretation of classroom interactions. Figures and tables illustrate these GTA-based results.     

学力调查若干问题探析

自“日本学生学习能力降低了”这一问题提出以来,日本社会各界对实施学力调查的目的、方法等提出了质疑。基于真实性评价的观点,实施学力调查需要慎重考虑诸如学力模式、学力结构以及学力调查的社会环境等多种因素。通过比较分析可以看到,尽管“TIMSS2003”、“PISA2003”和“国研调查2003”三次学力调查所设计的学力模式有所不同,但都是为了更好地实现真实性评价目标进行的创新性尝试。究竟何种学力调查能更好地体现真实性评价,还需要在教育实践中进一步探索。     

Pneumatic active suspension system for a one-wheel car model using fuzzy reasoning and a disturbance observer

This paper presents the construction of a pneumatic active suspension system for a one-wheel car model using fuzzy reasoning and a disturbance observer. The one-wheel car model can be approximately described as a nonlinear two degrees of freedom system subject to excitation from a road profile. The active control is composed of fuzzy and disturbance controls, and the active control force is constructed by actuating a pneumatic actuator. A phase lead-lag compensator is inserted to counter the performance degradation due to the delay of the pneumatic actuator. The experimental result indicates that the proposed active suspension improves much the vibration suppression of the car model.