
The Future of Sustainable Education
Post-Secondary Perspectives: A Commentary on the Future of Learning & Education
Perspectives on what the future of post-secondary/university education should look like through the context of sustainable classrooms and curricula.
The Group 3 Team
Meet group 3! A group of students from Bader College, Keio University, and Aichi University.
Our Research Results
Top : English form
Bottom : Japanese form
Analysis of the Survey Results
The most surprising thing for me is the different results of Q5 between Japanese students and students from other countries. Q5 is “What learning methods have worked for you in your educational experience?” The most answered option from the English version was “Flipped classroom” meanwhile it was “Kinesthetic” from Japanese version. Actually I didn’t know what flipped classroom is before we started the survey. Although reviewing is one of the common learning styles in Japan, flipped classroom is not. I think Japanese class operation style makes this situation. In Japan, it is common and perhaps normal in class that teachers speak most of the time and students listen quietly and carefully. If flipped classrooms were common in Japan, students would become more active, and it would be more helpful to learn something because it will encourage them to come up with their own opinion and questions. Learning style (Q3) is another interesting difference. In this question, “Reading” has the largest gap in all options between English results (1 answer) and Japanese ones (6 answers). I think the reason is due to the Japanese education style, which has predominantly focused on reading rather than visual and auditory. Textbooks that I used in senior high school have more words and sentences than visuals or QR codes which link to videos or audios, even for subjects such as History and Chemistry. On the other hand, there are some similar results between English and Japanese, which are Q1 and Q2. Especially regarding Q1, the keyword is “equal,” which is used in both English and Japanese answers. When I think of what “sustainable education” is, I think of “equality” as well. There are some kinds of equality about education such as gender, quality, rights etc. I think achieving these equalities is fundamental for achieving SDGs target 4.7, which we set out to investigate on our work. Sustainable developments and related education would become realistic after all people have rights and opportunities to receive enough education.
Analysis: Rira Tsuzuki
