Class
Critical Thinking
"Critical Thinking" is a class that focuses on learning how to make and evaluate arguments. It does so by emphasizing both general aspects of arguments (clear: concise, consistent, concrete) and by looking more specifically at both deductive and inductive arguments.
Philosophical Ethics
This class is a required core class at Fordham University. As freshmen, students take "Philosophy of Human Nature". As sophomores, they take this class where they encounter the main ethical theories (especially, utilitarianism, virtue ethics, and Kant) and develop their ability to think about ethical problems in light of these theories. In the process, students write summaries of the arguments they encounter in key texts such as Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals.
Philosophy of Human Nature
This class is a required core class at Fordham University. As freshman, students take this course and encounter the arguments of Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, and Aquinas. Through this, they learn the basic canons of Western philosophy and how to engage with and summarize arguments.
Environmental Ethics
"Environmental Ethics" was an interdisciplinary course taught as part of the CENSUS Program at Hokkaido University. The course looks at several different dimensions including ethical theory, applied ethics, and basic reasoning.
English Communication
This class gives students the chance to produce English and interact in English. For an EFL environment, chances to speak and interactive with spoken English are few and far between.
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (Moral Imagination)
This course uses The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to help students improve their ability to read a story with a critical eye. Focusing on how characters changed throughout the book, this class helps them to identify and characterize moral transformation in literature.
Academic Writing
This class prepares students to write academic papers centered on a thesis and the argument for that thesis. It covers core concepts like structure, brainstorming, anticipating and responding to objections, and properly using citations.
Academic Reading
This class gives students the basic skills to read texts from an academic (in contrast to leisure or language-learning) standpoint. As such, it focuses on how students can identify the arguments in academic writing and summarize and condense the arguments for these theses
Intercultural Understanding
This class focuses on helping students learn the idea of "culture" and the manifold ways that culture impacts our lives. For Japanese students, this can be especially challenging since the country is mono-lingual and the educational system focuses on students seeing themselves as part of a larger national culture than on valuing differences and recognizing multi-cultural values.
International Understanding: Descartes and Locke
This class helps students better grasp differences between countries and how people in those countries engage the world through assumptions about freedom, rights, and determinism (or their absence).
Introduction to the Humanities: Plato and Aristotle
This is a general education class open to students of all majors. In this class, I introduced the basic thought of Plato and Aristotle, focusing on the earlier dialogues and practical philosophy.
Presentation
Presentation classes focus on writing a good presentation that has a clear thesis, supporting argumentation, and delivering it in a dynamic way.
Business Writing
This class focuses on the fundamentals of business writing looking at normal types of letters, language for interactions, and interacting online.
Teaching Methodologies for English-mediated Instruction
This class teaches students about English-mediation instruction and the second language acquisition principles at work in creating an environment where English is used productively to accomplish teaching objectives other than just teaching language.
A Christmas Carol
In this class, I guided students through Charles Dicken's A Christmas Carol with an emphasis on moral and ethical issues that occur in business.
Education and Technology
This class looks at the relationship between technology and education. In the first part, we will learn several different approaches to relating technology and education. In the second part, we will gain practical familiarity with several different technologies. Finally, we will look at problems in technology and develop/defend our own views on how technology and education should be related.
Presentations, Publications, and Ethics in Research
Students in this course will improve their writing skills for academic purposes. Students will be encouraged to use their own research and writings as a basis for assignments and activities. Students in this course will review the basics of English for academic writing, gain an understanding of the structure and organization of research papers, theses, and dissertations in the environmental sciences, improve their use of logical writing to produce a coherent academic research paper based on empirical data, and develop effective communication skills for presentations and discussions.
Spring 2014
Critical Thinking
This was taught as a general education English class. This was my first philosophy-lite class for non-native speakers and required some rather large adjustments in terms of what students could do.
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (Moral Imagination)
As a general education class, I read the The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" together with students, focusing both on the English, the plot arc, and the transformation of the characters.
Academic Writing
In this class, I taught students the basics of academic writing, culminating in a short paper. This was a required course for students getting English teaching licenses.
Academic Reading
This was a required course for English majors. In this class, students presented about Sophie's World under my guidance. Each student was also required to bring prepared questions to class.
English Communication
I taught two different groups the same material this semester as a Required General Education Class. This class was for social science majors, and we worked from conversation handouts and practiced making speeches.
English Communication
I taught two different groups the same material this semester as a Required General Education Class. This class was for Math Education majors, and we worked from conversation handouts and practiced making speeches.
Intercultural Understanding
This was a required course for students getting English teaching licenses that focused on core concepts related to culture and identity by looking at how individuals who are "half-Japanese" by genetic identity experience Japan.
Fall 2014
English Communication
This was the second semester of a required communication course for Social Science Majors
English Communication
This was the second semester of a required communication course for Math Education Majors
Critical Thinking
This was the second time I taught Critical Thinking in English in an EFL environment. For this class, I made it a flipped class by putting videos on youtube (
https://g.komasin.com/ctv1) and using the class time to help students make progress on worksheets.
Academic Writing
In this class, I taught academic writing to non-native speakers. Based on the previous semester, I focused on common sentence types used in academic writing (comparing, arguing, concluding, contrasting). I further looked at various formats of writing by including a free-writing component based on "National November Writing Month" (Nanowrimo).
International Understanding: Descartes and Locke
In this class, I taught a small group of students in Japanese and English. The main topic was Descartes and Locke and the idea of freedom.
Intercultural Understanding
This was a required course for students getting English teaching licenses that focused on core concepts related to culture and identity by looking at how individuals who are "half-Japanese" by genetic identity experience Japan.
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (Moral Imagination)
This was the second time I used The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe as a text to work simultaneously on reading comprehension and moral imagination.
Introduction to the Humanities: Plato and Aristotle
In this class, I taught an 8 Week section of a general education course on Plato and Aristotle. In the course, we looked at the ethical implications Plato's early dialogues and Aristotle's Nicomachean ethics comparing their models of moral knowledge.
Spring 2017
Presentation
In this class, I taught presentation skills to the third group of students to join the Global Education Leader program at Hokkaido University of Education. We emphasized solid presentation skills built around well-designed hook-driven outlines.
A Christmas Carol
In this class, students read A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens and used this as a basis for evaluating moral concerns that arise in business practices.
Academic Writing
This was a special section of writing entitled Writing for TOEFL/IELTS for students in the Global Education Leadership Program at Hokkaido University of Education. It was designed to give students the academic writing skills they would need in order to do well on tests to study abroad and then successfully complete assignments while abroad.
Academic Writing
Stephanie Komashin and I taught sections of Academic Writing at the same time. In this version, we were still developing the content for what became our flipped course. In this course, we looked at how to properly write a paper using an eight step process that emphasizes an argumentative thesis, using objections to formulate the structure of the paper, and good citation practices.
Spring 2020
Critical Thinking
This version works from the third version of flipped lectures (
https://g.komasin.com/z/ct). As in previous versions, the main topics are making and evaluating arguments, deductive arguments (standard forms and validity), inductive arguments (generalizations, arguments by analogy, and strength). This new set addresses common student questions such as explaining the conditional and better explaining what makes inductive arguments "strong" or "weak."
Presentation
In this class, I taught presentation skills to the sixth group of students to join the Global Education Leader program at Hokkaido University of Education. We emphasized solid presentation skills built around well-designed hook-driven outlines.
Education and Technology
This class looked at the relationship between technology and education. In the first part, we will learn several different approaches to relating technology and education. In the second part, students gained practical familiarity with several different technologies. Finally, students considered and wrote about problems in technology and developed/defended their own views on how technology and education should be related. (This particular section was for advanced students).
Education and Technology
This class looked at the relationship between technology and education. In the first part, we will learn several different approaches to relating technology and education. In the second part, students gained practical familiarity with several different technologies. Finally, students considered and wrote about problems in technology and developed/defended their own views on how technology and education should be related. (This particular section was for intermediate students).
Fall 2020
Critical Thinking
This version continues working with V3 (
https://g.komasin.com/z/ct). Due to the COVID situation, the worksheets have been moved online, providing valuable feedback for each question. The main topics are making and evaluating arguments, deductive arguments (standard forms and validity), inductive arguments (generalizations, arguments by analogy, and strength). This new set addresses common student questions such as explaining the conditional and better explaining what makes inductive arguments "strong" or "weak."
Presentations, Publications, and Ethics in Research
In this session, I taught graduate students at Hokkaido University tools for publishing their research. We also had sessions looking at ethical issues that arise during experiments and during the publication process.
Teaching Methodologies for English-mediated Instruction
This is the sixth time that I have taught teaching methodologies for English-mediated instruction. The main themes are the differences between language teaching and English-mediated instruction, how to construction a lesson in English that is not about English, and second language acquisition.
Business Writing
In this class, I introduced students from the Global Education Leader program at Hokkaido University of Education to Business as an academic discipline, providing them with basic familiarity of the concepts of global trade. This class culminates with an assignment to integrate questions of global trade with moral concerns by looking at the cost of doing business with immoral actors.
Fall 2021
Business Writing
In this class, I introduced students from the Global Education Leader program at Hokkaido University of Education to Business as an academic discipline, providing them with basic familiarity of the concepts of global trade. This class culminates with an assignment to integrate questions of global trade with moral concerns by looking at the cost of doing business with immoral actors.
Teaching Methodologies for English-mediated Instruction
This is the seventh instance of Teaching Methodologies for EMI. The main themes are the differences between language teaching and English-mediated instruction, how to construction a lesson in English that is not about English, and second language acquisition.
Critical Thinking
This continues the online use of V3 (
https://g.komasin.com/z/ct) and online worksheets with personalized feedback. The main topics are making and evaluating arguments, deductive arguments (standard forms and validity), inductive arguments (generalizations, arguments by analogy, and strength). This new set addresses common student questions such as explaining the conditional and better explaining what makes inductive arguments "strong" or "weak."
Presentations, Publications, and Ethics in Research
In this session, I taught graduate students at Hokkaido University tools for publishing their research. We also had sessions looking at ethical issues that arise during experiments and during the publication process.
Fall 2022
Critical Thinking
This is the seventh time this class has used the V3 flips (
https://g.komasin.com/z/ct). In this class, I taught English majors critical thinking remotely with the assistance of 4 TAs. I added two new items in this class: (1) A notes tool that enabled students to track what happens in the lectures and (2) Two new items on cause versus correlation and reported information.
Presentations, Publications, and Ethics in Research
In this session, I taught graduate students at Hokkaido University tools for publishing their research. We also had sessions looking at ethical issues that arise during experiments and during the publication process. Major topics of interest this time were computational engineering papers and mining engineering.
Business Writing
In this class, I introduced students from the Global Education Leader program at Hokkaido University of Education to business as an academic discipline, using the interpretation of chart data as a foundation and looking at the nature of global trade and the impact of war.
Teaching Methodologies for English-mediated Instruction
This is the eighth instance of Teaching Methodologies for EMI. This version raised the standard by looking at the history of language learning, the rise of method, and the differences between language lesson and language-mediated lessons.
Fall 2023
Teaching Methodologies for English-mediated Instruction
This was my ninth time Teaching Methodologies for EMI. Here, we looked at the history of language education, the rise of method, and the advent of content-focused approaches in the 21st century.
Critical Thinking
This is the eighth time this class has used the V3 flips (
https://g.komasin.com/z/ct). In this class, I taught English majors critical thinking remotely with the assistance of 4 TAs. I added two new items in this class: (1) A notes tool that enabled students to track what happens in the lectures and (2) Enhanced versions of content on the problem of induction and reported information.
Presentations, Publications, and Ethics in Research
This was my fourth time teaching academic presentation and publication graduate students at Hokkaido University. This year focused on combustion engineering, human biomedical engineering, and structural engineering.
Business Writing
This class introduces students to writing e-mails, business plans, and the idea of global business.
Fall 2024
Critical Thinking
This is the ninth time using version 3 of the flips. I've expanded the notes and added more practice problems.
Presentations, Publications, and Ethics in Research
This was my fifth time teaching academic presentation and publication graduate students at Hokkaido University. This year focused on combustion engineering, human biomedical engineering, and structural engineering.
Teaching Methodologies for English-mediated Instruction
This was my tenth time Teaching Methodologies for EMI. Building on the previous version, I've expanded the consideration of prior teaching methods to contrast them with EMI.
Business Writing
This class introduces students to writing e-mails, business plans, and the idea of global business.