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1. Evgeny Pyshkin and John Blake,
University of Aizu, Japan
Increasing inclusivity:
Catering to the needs of socially inactive learners

2. Abstract
02
In Japan teachers are required to promote active learning, which is usually realized
through group discussions. Although there is cogent support for a social constructivist
communicative approach, this approach is particularly stressful for a subset of learners:
the socially inactive. In fact, some Japanese undergraduates struggle to communicate
with their peers in either Japanese or English. The underlying reasons for the inability
to communicate vary, but include severe social anxiety, debilitating shyness, acute
social withdrawal (hikikomori), and autism spectrum disorder. Axiomatically, when the
lingua franca shifts to English, the struggle is more intense. This practical paper
describes how socially inactive learners were encouraged to participate more
interactively. Previously, course content was delivered as lectures, supported by
handouts shared on a learning management system. The current course is sequenced
as a series of activities that students complete individually or in groups. The dedicated
online platform harnesses the latest interactive features in web scripting, enabling all
learners to engage directly with the materials and tailor-made tools. Additional
guidance, definitions, explanations and answers are embedded into the materials and
can be revealed on demand. This encourages learners to create their own learning
paths at their pace. The transition to an online course allows students to choose to
interact with the web-based resources or work in teams face-to-face or virtually. This
dual approach gives all learners the choice to decide the type of interaction they prefer.
All learners may therefore be engaged with the content, interacting either face-to-face
or digitally.

3. Overview
03
1. Background
2. Active learning
– Theory, Practice and Reality
3. Socially inactive learners
– Issues and types
4. Increasing amount of active learning
– Process model
– Out-of-the-box thinking
5. Platform
– Pedagogy
– Design
6. Take-away tips

4. 1. Background
04
Context
• Small niche university in rural northern (and snowy) Japan
Courses
• Language-focused: writing, reading, speaking, listening
• Content-focused courses: logic, patterns
Learners
• Computer science majors,
• Over 90% Japanese and around 90% male
• Significant number of socially inactive learners

5. 2. Active learning
05
• Theory
– Cognitivism - Think and learn
– Behaviourism - Listen and learn (e.g. audiolingual)
– Social constructivism - Speak and learn (e.g. communicative approach)
– Connectivism – Connect to web and learn (Siemens, 2005)
• Practice
– Receptive learning  Productive learning
– Focus appears to shift from input to output
• Reality when teaching Japanese CompSci majors
– Questions answered by few students (class = 50+)
– Relunctance to speak (in Japanese but more so in English)
Siemens, G. (2005). Connectivism: Learning as network-creation. ASTD Learning
News, 10(1), 1-28.

6. 3. Socially inactive learners
06
• Severe social anxiety
– Difficulty coping around people
• Debilitating shyness
– Difficulty talking to people, especially in groups
• Acute social withdrawal (hikikomori)
– Prefer to stay in controlled environment, e.g. their room
• Autism spectrum disorder
– ? Difficulty reading people’s intentions/emotions
– ? Differences in use of volume, eye contact, etc.
– ? Focus may not differ 2x2, 3x3, 5, 17, 5, 6, 4, 2

7. 3. Socially inactive learners II
• Image of software developer
– Poor communicator
– Prefers to interact via interface
– Loner
– Excellent at maths
• Workplace expectations
– Daily huddles
– Regular meetings with team and stakeholders
• Needs
– Understand the necessity to communicate
– Develop communication skills both written and spoken
07

8. 4. Increasing interactive learning
08
• Lecture-led  Activity-based
– Individual work
– Collaborative work (pair, group, class)
– Interact with website and tools
• Interacting with technologies (connectivism)
– Dedicated website
– Tailormade apps
• Workplace expectations
– Daily huddles
– Regular meetings with team and stakeholders
• Needs
– Understand the necessity to communicate
– Develop communication skills both written and spoken

9. 5. Platform pedagogy and design
09
• Pedagogic design
– Underpinning teaching philosophy
– Core concepts
• Platform design
– Student-friendly
– Teacher-friendly:
– Developer-friendly

10. 07

11. 5. Platform pedagogy and design
11
• Active learning via Connectivism and Social Constructivism
• Accessible
– Open-access content (no password issues)
– Assessments submitted via university LMS
– Interact with website and tools
• Reader-friendly
– Content: HTML
– Styling: CSS
• Website interactivity
– Client-side (occurs in browser). e.g. JS
– Server-side
• Bespoke tools
– E.g. Feature visualiser
– E.g. Dynamic language assessment

12. 5. Platform pedagogy and design
12
Situation
• Infrastructure: smartphones and wifi
• Covid-19  Online tuition
• Active learning
Courses
• Tailor-made
• Hybrid platform ( web / LMS)
• Text-based  Online
Multimodality
• Reduce text fatigue
• Increase engagement
• Meet differing learning styles

14. 14

15. Tools to encourage interaction
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Students work in teams (although teams of 1 are allowed)
Teams bid, complete tasks and submit milestones
Four or Five online tools are used
Workflow (Trello) Communication (Slack) Coding (Codepen)
Prototyping (Github) Milestones (LMS)

16. Pronunciation Scaffolder
16

17. Computer Science Error Detector
17
Hover over emoticon to see advice.
Click on advice to watch explanatory video.

18. Question Generator
18

19. 6. Take-away tips
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• Clear rubrics
• Just-in-time and sequential
• Choices
• Default option plus two
• Open communication channels, e.g. Slack
• Group/individual; Spoken/Written; en/jp
• Move to multimodality
• Incrementally using ….
• Cline of creation:
plain text (txt)  webtext (html) + styling (css)
slideshow (pptx) with image (png),
+ audio (mp3)  movie (mp4) + subtitles (srt)

20. Any
comments,
questions or
suggestions?
https://u-aizu.ac.jp/~jblake