FY2018 National Institute for Educational Policy Research
International Symposium on Educational Reform (Brief Report)

On Wednesday, January 30, 2019, NIER International Symposium on Educational Reform FY2018 was convened at The Lecture Hall of MEXT building(Central Government Building No.7). In total, 220 people, including school officials and researchers who came from all around the country, participated in this symposium.

This year’s theme was “Schools as Creative Physical Work Environment for Teachers -Case studies of Singapore and Japan-”. The event kicked off with remarks by Mr. Yutaka Tokiwa, Director General of NIER and followed keynote speeches delivered by 2 Singaporean and 2 Japanese leading experts.

Lecture 1: “21st Century Education: Building Teacher Competencies and Ecology for Learning and Working Creatively” By Prof. Tan Oon Seng

Learners in the 21st century focus on problem solving, relationship building, international cooperation, and lifelong learning. Along with that, faculty also needs to change to facilitators, environmental designers, advancers of new paradigms. School facilities, which support them, are required to motivate learners, to be accessible, to be adjustable. The critical factors for 21st century education are MAD; Multiple perspective, Authenticity, Dia-logos. To achieve them, it is important to give enough time to students and teachers for that.

Lecture 2:“Learning Space & Design” By Mr. Ravi Chandran

ICT enables students to learn various contents on the website beforehand. Therefore, discussion and practical work become main activities in classroom. In order to support that, it is necessary to reconsider the space design of classroom. For example, setting up informal open spaces, colorful furniture and so on work effectively. However, it is possible to produce large learning effects even with small changes such as whiteboard, rotary chair and power supply rather than introducing costly advanced ICT.

Lecture 3:“Current Situation Regarding Japan’s School Education” By Mr. Akihide Osugi

Looking at the age composition of teachers, veterans and young teachers have a high percentage but there are few middle-ages who should have responsible to guide young teachers. Therefore, it is important to prepare the system to guide young teachers such as instruction courses. As in the case of the Graduate School of Teacher Education of Ehime University, it is possible to provide an effective guidance and consultation by building a collaborative system among university, education center, and school.

Lecture 4:“From Individual to Group - Case Study on Teacher’s Space” By Mr. Osamu Koizumi

When reviewing the way of teaching from the perspective of ICT utilization or PBL introduction, the demand of spaces also changes. In order to support teacher’s work, it is necessary to design spaces upon request of teachers, for example, teacher corners or spaces for communication. From now on, to rethink of teacher’s work, it is important to create spaces for teacher’s individual work, communication, and collaboration between school and local community.

Panel Discussion: “How can School Facilities be More Creative and Innovative Work Environment for Teachers?” Moderated by Mr. Masayuki Mori

After a short break, following short lectures by another guest speakers from Australia and the UK, the panel discussion was held by all speakers, which was moderated by Mr. Masayuki Mori（Director of Educational Facilities Research center, NIER）.

Short Presentation 1:“Creative technology enabled active learning environments(TEAL) in the 21st C” By Dr. Kenn Fisher

For alpha generations born after the 2010s, more creative and experiential learning is required. There are various examples of creative learning environments in Japan, the United States, and Australia, which are mainly open plan and biophilic design.

Short Presentation 2:“Learning spaces and working spaces” By Mr. Alastair Blyth

The focus of learning environments in the 21st century is changing from teachers to learners, and the education system is expected to help learners' growth in creativity, cooperativeness, and curiosity. Therefore, it is necessary to create spaces for new approaches such as interdisciplinary project based learning. In order to identify the needs, we should listen to the opinions from school users. That is why “OECD School User Survey 2018” has been created. It is expected that transformation of school facilities will be accelerated with this tool.

Dr. Kenn Fisher Associate Professor in Learning Environments, University of Melbour		Mr. Alastair Blyth Senior Lecturer, University of Westminster

 Based on each speaker's lecture, the following three topics were presented and discussed.

• 1) Change of role of teachers,
• 2) How can teachers create better learning environment?
• 3) What support can school leaders and policy makers provide to teachers?

For each issue, each speaker expressed their opinions, and the discussion was deepened with questions from the venue.
 From now on, it will be more important that a teacher become a facilitator as well as an instructor of each subject. In order to fulfill such a role, it is necessary that enough time is provided for teachers and students to create a place where they can collaborate with each other, local community, and parents.