Takasu: Until last year, there was one thing I realized as I watched past students in the Division of Pharmacy. Students who had taken the previous SGD Seminar often exhibited higher discussion skills later when they were appointed to their respective supervisors’ laboratories and had built learning communities in which they could share knowledge when they encountered things they didn’t understand. Therefore, for the recent renewal, I have been mindful to help students become closely acquainted with each other and, if possible, with the teaching staff as well.

On top of this, another goal is to help students develop the mindset of a researcher through discussions specifically between students in the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, such as a go-or-no-go discussion about animal testing.

Yamashita: The world has things that remain unanswered. It is important for students to develop a mindset for solving those things by themselves. They worked hard on things that had answers until they graduated from high school. However, issues present in society are diverse and each individual has his or her sense of value. I hope that students will understand this and have insights about their suitable behaviors.

Takasu: It became necessary to change the curriculum along with reorganizing the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences. As a consequence, it was agreed that the Academic Affairs Committee would develop the overall design, with the younger professors (Professor Yamashita and Professor Takasu) taking a leading role. Associate Professor Kakizawa, Lecturer Yano, and Lecturer Tsuda joined to form a working group of five members. These members from their respective fields of physical chemistry, organic chemistry, medical pharmacy, and life sciences were designated by the head of the Academic Affairs Committee. We spent over a year planning the course for first-year education to feature activities such as debates and visiting instructors’ laboratories.

The SGD Seminar required a total of ten and some number of teachers. As a general rule, the working group asked each instructor to be involved in the SGD Seminar for three years. I think it is difficult for the teaching staff to share a common awareness. The current year is the first academic year of the renewal. The preparation required very hard work. The renewal introduced totally new attempts. In addition, the classg size increased. From my viewpoint, there have been many problems, including coordination between lead teaching staff members. Nevertheless, after implementing the course and actually observing the responses of students and instructors, I feel that we have set up a better learning environment.

Yamashita: The working group provided draft ideas. The teachers in charge expressed their views about the draft ideas. Revised ideas were shared among the people involved, as a course of action to follow. We made these arrangements every week for one to two hours the evening before the class. On the day of the class, we gathered well before the class to check the handout.

Takasu: It is very hard on the planning side. Teachers in charge of the class need to understand the plan and figure out how to correct and best use it. They seem to be struggling.

Takasu: The fundamental goal for this course came from the idea of helping the students in the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences have a mindset oriented more toward self-motivated learning. The attempt was new to the teaching staff as well. I feel that the teaching staff have assigned more-than-appropriate tasks to the students. The teachers were accustomed to giving one-sided lectures. The course seems to have presented them with a good opportunity to learn the need for devices for assigning tasks. Kyoto University has a lot of settings for students to drive themselves in deepening their learning. For students to use those facilities, I’m planning to incorporate schemes for encouraging groups of them to be engaged in after-class learning activities beginning in the next academic year.

I hope the course serves as a way for students to form learning communities, such as study groups, in the future when they learn specialized courses.

Yamashita: Some students tend to often play a leading role in group work, while others don’t. Group work participants need not only to contribute to discussions, but also to encourage others to contribute to or join discussions. This is necessary in terms of leadership and teamwork. I want to reconfirm this in the next class. In this regard, I’d like to hold more teacher meetings to discuss matters such as what rubric is easy to use and what explanations should be given to students for peer assessment. At the same time, I’d like to do constant reviews even during the semester, with your help.

One difficult challenge emerging recently is that the way students take part in college classes varies depending on how much they have experienced active learning at high school. I really have felt tangible level differences between students who studied at a SGH (Super Global High School) or a SSH (Super Science High School) and those who studied at other high schools in terms of group work and using PowerPoint presentations in active learning activities at college. The teaching staff also need to learn how to manage active learning to successfully run group work, even with the above student differences I just mentioned.

Takasu: A large number of students in the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences tend to want immediate answers. However, considering drug discovery research, I hope students understand things remain unanswered in the world and that it is important to solve them one by one.

The members involved in running the course will not change for the coming three years. I’d like to steadily improve the class management and assessment by way of student questionnaires, for instance.

(Recording day: June 20, 2018)