Permalink : http://hdl.handle.net/2115/38790

JaLCDOI : 10.14943/J.HighEdu.16.77

In 2007, Hokkaido University made a change in the system of faculty-development activities. Before the change, the old system consisted of (a) a one-day course for teaching asisitants in April, (b) a one-day course for new teaching stuff members in June, and (c) a two-day workshop about education for teaching stuff members in November. In the new system the one-day course in (b) is replaced by a two-day workshop quite similar to the one in (c). The two-day workshop in (c) was introduced in 1998 to improve the education of Hokkaido University and it has been held once a year since. The purpose of this report is to explain what was done in the two-day workshops in 2007. The first two-day workshop (in June) had 39 participants from all over Hokkaido University, and the second one (in November) had 28 participants from all over Hokkaido University and 6 participants from 6 other institutions.The main theme of this year's workshops was to plan courses respecting the requirements for credits more rigidly. The reason for the choice of this theme was based on the observation that the traditional education system of universities in Japan did not strictly respect the convention that a credit corresponds to 45 hours of study by students, including lectures, preparations, reviews, assignments, etc. Each of the workshops had (1) three sessions about planning of courses, each of which consisted of mini-lectures, small group discussions and a general discussion, and (2) two lectures, one about the purpose of faculty development and one about the meaning of 'respecting the requirements for credits more strictly.' Furtheremore, the second workshop (in November) had an additional lecture about the spirit inherited from Dr. William Clark of the Sapporo Agricultural College. The main contents of this report are the syllabi of the courses worked out in the workshops.