The Necessary Shift Towards 21st Century Teaching Methods: Analog to Digital Teaching During the Corona Pandemic

The Necessary Shift Towards 21st Century Teaching Methods: Analog to Digital Teaching During the Corona Pandemic

Gregory Paul Chindemi

Chugoku Gakuen University

While my story will certainly echo the struggles that many university teachers have felt in Japan, I felt that this forum would be an excellent opportunity to share my experience. As a licensed American teacher, in order to receive accreditation after graduate school, it was mandatory to be versed in 21st Century teaching methods, and the use of technology in the classroom. However, as many foreign educators in Japan are aware of, even in the year 2020, the application of technology in the Japanese can often be non-existent.

Amid the confusion, fear, and helplessness of the peak during the 1st wave of the Corona virus in Japan, many universities, including my own, struggled to find solutions for providing students with suitable coursework in this time of social distancing. In many cases, it was left up to the individual, or the various departments, to meet the challenge of providing courses that would fulfill credit requirements.

I was familiar with Google Classroom, Moodle Software, and distance video meeting programs, but since it had been 10 years since I have used these kinds of interactive learning tools, their was a learning curve for both myself and my students. With the exception of video and audio aids, which I integrate into my syllabi for my courses, I had no experience with full distance learning in the Japanese classroom.

In retrospect, being forced to go from an analog to a digital classroom in such a short period of time, has been a tremendous benefit to my skill-set as an educator.

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