More than 13,900 educational facilities canceled some or all of their classes due to influenza from Oct. 18 to Saturday, up sharply from the 8,534 reported a week earlier, the government said.
Most of the 13,964 facilities, which included schools and kindergartens, were hit by the H1N1 swine flu, according to Wednesday’s announcement by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry.
Today’s College Scene / ICU: Studying abroad at home (Oct 29 2009 Daily Yomiuri) This article allows you a peek at life on the International Christian University campus. Excerpt: “ICU, best known by its initials, modeled itself on liberal arts schools overseas, and offers its students a wide range of educational opportunities built around small-group teaching methods. The private school considers communication between teachers and their students to be an important part of the learning process. This philosophy also applies to the dormitories: On campus, there are six undergraduate dorms and only a few single-occupancy rooms … Bilingualism is expected at ICU, with non-Japanese teachers accounting for more than 30 percent of the faculty. Some courses are available both in Japanese and English–from an overview of Christianity to physics and chemistry–and Japanese students are required to take a certain number of their courses in English, and vice versa for non-Japanese students.”
Medium is only part of the message at Osaka school (Oct. 22, 2009 Daily Yomiuri) In traditional foreign language courses, the language is the subject. But with the immersion method, the target language is merely the medium through which other subjects are taught. An increasing number of the nation’s universities have been trying this approach, teaching specialized subjects in English. According to the Education, Science and Technology Ministry, 194 universities–or 27 percent of the nation’s higher educational institutions–offered a variety of non-language undergraduate courses taught in English during the 2007 academic year. Eg.Kwansei Gakuin University’s School of Policy Studies in Sanda, Hyogo Prefecture, offers more than 20 specialized courses in English, including international relations and organizational theory of global firms. This article is about the English immersion language program at Osaka Jogakuin College “which accepts only 150 students or so a year. They are taught by 37 teachers, 11 of whom are non-Japanese. Since its establishment, the school has fused its English programs with the specialized courses. Ninety percent of specialized courses for juniors and seniors are taught exclusively in the language. …About 60 percent of freshman and sophomore courses are conducted in English. In preparation for becoming upperclassmen, the younger students are encouraged to develop their English skills, while at the same time they learn in Japanese about the basics of their specialized studies. … “The college also aims “to develop their reading and writing skills in English through a variety of approaches, such as quizzes and academic writing,” the professor said. “We’d like them to have well-rounded English skills that enable them to express their own opinions in the language.” …The college’s inaugural class graduated last year. All 114 students looking for work landed jobs immediately after graduation.” Read more here
Elsewhere around the world:
Teaching kids how to soar
A kindergarten project at the Institute of Child Study offers a glimpse into neuroeducation, where kids learn by discovering rather than memorizing.
How to beat the boredom
For switched-on schools, there’s more to the final weeks of the school year than mindless DVD watching and teachers acting as child minders.
How a simple marshmallow can predict your future In the Marshmallow Test, a child can have one treat immediately, or two if he can wait 15 minutes. The ability to wait is called “executive function.”
Teach Your Teachers Well To fix our schools, the teaching programs need to be as dynamic as the young people we want to attract to the profession.
Download ‘Why Educate? A series of lectures addressing fundamental questions of education’
In 2008, the Learning Skills Foundation put on a series of four lectures based around the theme, ‘Why Educate?’ These lectures provided a platform for some of the leading academics to address fundamental questions about the nature of the education system in this country.
RTI differs from the traditional method of identifying students with learning disabilities by focusing on early intervention. Through on-going assessment and progress monitoring students are provided additional research based instruction in areas of need to address the identified concern(s).
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according to Wednesday’s announcement by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry.
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