Our Philosophy and Our Driving Questions

PBL English 2A and 2B

Who? Facilitated by: Prof. Jonathan deHaan  

Who else? You. Maybe the whole world.

I want to do something AMAZING with you. :)

Together, we will:

• Understand our strengths and weaknesses then plan and work towards our futures

• Learn more about local and global problems and possibilities, and share our knowledge

• Plan and do and share a service project to help us/our community/the world reach the SDGs

Open your eyes: 女王の教室videos

Open your eyes some more: Banking model of education vs Problem Based Learning

My most common answer to questions: “I don’t know.”

How do you feel about that?

What does it mean to you?

→ You have power and the ability to make decisions.

And I will be patient and help you think and discuss and make decisions.

A rough outline: 

PBL English 2A: raise awareness

• Think about ourselves. Think about problems and potential. Make good plans.

• Learn about SDGs. What do we know? What should we know? Share what we have learned.

• Connect with others. What are other people doing? How can we support / learn more / share more with them?

• Conduct fieldwork, tell a story: raise awareness of SDGs. → video or photo blog   Find local problems / local situations / suggest solutions

• Propose a project for 2B. Archive all work. Evaluate our work

PBL English 2B - improve society and ourselves

• Think about ourselves. Think about problems and potential. Make good plans.

• Plan a SDG service project.

• Do a SDG service project.

• Tell your story: Share your project.

• Write an Exit Memo. Make suggestion for next year / sustain this project / leave things for others. Archive all work. Evaluate our work

Read and think before you join

You are not going to “do an SDG project” → We are going to build an SDG organization together. 

We are going to build something sustainable -- future students will continue to build this class and do SDG work.

Our work will help YOU.

Our work will help SOCIETY.

I will not be leading you through the project. You will lead discussions and you will make decisions.

We are going to build the class and the projects and each step together. We can change things. You will need to be very active.

We are going to build an organization together. You will need to be very active.

We are going to make something sustainable for our class, and future classes.

We are going to have to consider and find answers to these questions (and many more like them):

Difficult (and wonderful!) questions and problems

Impact

1. Can we really make any difference at all? Can we really help ourselves, our community and the world?

2. How big or small should our work be?

3. How do we assess our impact?

4. Is education the fundamental problem in society? Will fixing education fix society?

5. How do we promote our work? 

Partners

6. Who should we connect with locally? And also globally?

7. Who can help us accomplish our goals? The university? An NPO group? Someone online?

8. How can Prof. deHaan best support what you/we are going to do?

9. Which is the target in SDGs that we most focus on? 

Helping ourselves

10. What problems do we have that we can solve? Can we connect our problems to society’s problems?

11. Can we do things that build a foundation for our future?

12. What do each of you want from this class? And what are you prepared to give to others?

13. Where should we start from with our project?

14. How can we make this class “win-win-win” for everyone involved?

Collaboration and communication

15. How can we collaborate effectively between the 3 classes? (Imagine collaborating between Japan, Canada and France…)

16. Can we do most of our work in class and face to face in order to have good communication and to save time and effort? Or should we do most of our work out of class and use technology in good ways?

17. What habits and patterns should we make in the class?

18. What technologies should we use for our projects? What will support us? SNS? A website? Slack? Google Documents?

19. How should we communicate our work? A website? A blog? A YouTube account? SNS accounts?

20. How can we contact people in the most effective ways under COVID-19 pandemic?

Goals

21. What is our mission and vision?

22. How can we combine projects, SDGs, English and future preparation skills effectively?

23. How can the class effectively improve your English skills?

24. What is our main goal? 

Tasks

25. What materials and activities will we need to make and test and improve?

26. What roles and teams will we need?

27. When should we use Japanese and when should we use English? And how? And why? And where?

28. What requirements should each task/project have in order to make it: high quality / connected to other tasks that we do? E.g., the service project should be A B C D …

29. How should Prof. deHaan grade/assess your work?

Sustainability

30. How can we make things sustainable?

31. What’s the best way to take notes (for us / for other sections / for future classes)?

32. How should we help future classes continue what we have started?

33. How should we store/archive our work for other students to see?

34. Is there anything else we need to sustain this project?

Other questions and details  

35. What do we call our organization? What’s a good name or categorization? 

36. Should we be an NPO?

37. Would a contract help organize our group?

If you are ready to 

think about discuss       and act on questions like these

... consider joining the class = creating an organization = doing a meaningful project. 

We will build and do some amazing things together.

• If you have any questions: dehaan@u-shizuoka-ken.ac.jp | Room 3505 |

If you have a notebook PC or tablet PC, please bring it to class. We will be using various technologies to find, create and share information and media.

Be brave.
Think about ourselves and our futures (a deep reflection / some dreaming)

Learn about ourselves and the world regularly. (a diary)

Learn about SDGs - the world. Collect and share information (a website)

Connect with other people (SNS / social media / etc)

Think about small sustainable actions (a proposal)

Do some small sustainable action (a project)

Report the project (on a website / to other people on social media)

Leave an exit memo for future classes

Look at our mission on the front page? Do you want to add anything?