|
1. What prompted you decide to participate in the “JSPS Science Dialogue” program?
I wanted to help encourage more students to consider careers in science, or to at least take an active interest in and educate themselves about scientific issues. I also wanted to help encourage more girls to consider careers in science and engineering because women are so under-represented in this area.
2. To what did you give greatest attention in preparing and giving the lecture?
I gave greatest attention to finding material that I thought high schoolers would find interesting and could understand. For example, I had very little information about my actual research project because it is hard to explain to a non-engineer. I instead explained why optical communications and optoelectronics have significant effects on everyday life. I also avoided a presentation that was 100% PowerPoint slides. I also included a brief movie about semiconductors, showed several of my actual lasers by projecting a microscope image onto the projector screen, and passed around a tray during my lecture containing pieces of semiconductor the students were requested to practice "cleaving", or breaking into smaller pieces in a controlled manner, using a cleaving tool and tweezers I had brought from the lab. I explained some properties of lasers by comparing the beam of a red laser pointer and a blue LED keychain light, and passed around an actual fiber and a fiber connector from my lab as well.
3. Did you find it difficult to give a lecture in English to Japanese students? Could you give some advice to future lecturers on how to facilitate communication with Japanese students?
I did not find it hard to give a lecture in English because I lived in Japan as a child and speak some Japanese. I explained everything in English first and if there were difficult words would repeat what I had said in Japanese. My translator (a Masters student from my lab) helped with the more difficult translations. Having a translator who can explain things very simply would help with translations.
4. Could you give your impression with regard to participating in this program?
I enjoyed it but next time would like more guidance on what subjects related to my field have been studied already by the students. I tried to keep my talk at a level I thought high schoolers would understand. I made an effort to ask several researchers in my lab what they understood and did not understand in high school. But I discovered later that several topics my co-workers assured me every high schooler knows were not understood even after the explanations I thought were simple.
I was also a little disappointed that the high school was a boy's school. I think it is important that all students are encouraged to study science regardless of gender but I would have preferred to have some girls in the audience because my impression is that girls in Japan are given less encouragement to become scientists, or take an interest in science, than are boys.
5. Was it meaningful in terms of your fellowship activities?
Assembling basic information about why my field is important gave me enthusiasm about my own research.
Sometimes researchers get so wrapped up in the details of our day-to-day work that reminders about why
what we do is good for society are quite nice.
6. In what ways do you think the students benefited from the program?
The students got to practice their English and meet several science researchers. Meeting researchers in real
life helped show them researchers are ordinary people just like themselves and hopefully made the idea of a
career in science more realistic.
7. Could you give some overall advice or comments to future participants in the program?
Please provide a handout on the background knowledge of the students as it relates to the researchers field.
A list of related classes taken or in progress, and topics covered in class would have been nice.
|
