|
1. What prompted you decide to participate in the “JSPS Science Dialogue” program?
I welcomed the opportunity to participate in the "JSPS Science Dialogue" for several reasons. First of all, if felt grateful for the opportunity afforded me by JSPS to visit Japan and I wanted to return the favour in anyway possible. Secondly, I was very happy to participate in a programme that I think is very important in relation to science education. Young people need to get more opportunities to see what science is about and to meet scientists from many fields. Thirdly, I was very interested to get to speak with Japanese teachers and students from a secondary school as part of my own research and I felt it was highly relevant for my stay in Japan as a science education researcher.
2. To what did you give greatest attention in preparing and giving the lecture?
The greatest attention went into making the presentation relevant and interesting for the students. Realising that without the opportunity to prepare the teachers and students before my visit, language barriers and difficulties in understanding technical language might be serious hindrances for understanding. So I opted for a very image intensive presentation using simple phrases and tried to make the presentation about the students rather than my current research.
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 difficult to give the lecture in English. Personally I have no problem with speaking English and by preparing the presentation as mentioned above I tried to avoid most of the language problems. It was, I think, still necessary to have the help of Yamanaka-san and Ogawa-sensei to ensure the students' full understanding and I recommend using native-speaking Japanese mediators in "JSPS Science Dialogues" in any case. Also, I think it is very important for the student's benefit of such visits by foreign researchers that their teachers can prepare the students before the visit through early contact with the visiting researcher. Especially for more "standard" science visits, where teaching students some of the key scientific concepts to be used in the presentation in advance can help student understanding considerably. Also this will allow teachers to be able to better use the researchers' visit as part of their own teaching plans and thereby making the visit a valuable learning resource for the students. This, I believe, is how foreign visitors from Hiroshima University is currently being used as part of science classes in Amagaki SHH and I think the science teachers there may be able to give more specific ideas about how to best utilize JSPS fellows in the programme.
4. Could you give your impression with regard to participating in this program?
5. Was it meaningful in terms of your fellowship activities?
I found it to be very rewarding and gratifying to get to visit a SHH high school and in particular the one in Amagaki.
My research is focussed on how to change science teachers practice through changing the school culture (or science teacher culture). In this sense the SSH was similar in some ways to the schools I have been studying in Denmark, which made the visit even more relevant to me. It was a great opportunity to hear what the teachers thought of the whole SHH project and what benefits and difficulties they had experienced. In addition, I was happy to get a chance to shortly experience the strong differences between primary and secondary school in Japan.
It also meant a lot to me personally to get to meet you and Takada-san as representatives of JSPS. I was honoured to have you both come and join us that day realising your very busy schedule.
6. In what ways do you think the students benefited from the program?
I hope that the students benefited from my presentation by getting some understanding of the importance of learning science regardless of school expectations and possible career choices. It is my belief that our most important task as science educators is to ensure that the science that students learn in school is useful to them on many levels and throughout their life and not just reserved for the few who choose to pursue science later on.
I think I managed to get that point across, but as any teacher will tell you, it is not easy to assess what students actually get out of any school activity, so I shall refrain from guessing.
Speaking more generally, I think that the students who get to be part of the "JSPS Science Dialogue" programme have a chance to see in detail what kind of discoveries science is producing today and what kind of people scientists are. Thereby they could hopefully get inspired to want to learn more about science and maybe form less stereotypical notions about who scientists are.
7. Could you give some overall advice or comments to future participants in the program?
I heard about your plans to include a professional mediator to assist with future JSPS fellows' presentation and I think that that is a good idea. I think it should be a person, who is very proficient in both English and Japanese and who has a scientific background in order to be able to understand the details of the research presented. In addition, I think it's important that it is a person with a good understanding of the age group being visited in order to ensure that the presentations don't become too technical for the students. For this reason a science education researcher or science teacher might be apt (or perhaps a student in these fields), because they would be able to help students understand difficult subjects.
As in all other aspects of science education the science teachers are key to students' learning. The students' own science teachers should therefore be involved as much as possible in any "JSPS Science Dialogues". Both before, during and after a visit. They are the ones who know the students best and can help immensely to overcome language and conceptual barriers by preparing the students for the visit and by asking the necessary questions on behalf of the students during the visit, if they prove to be too shy to ask themselves.
|
