**4. First-year experience and active learning**

Japanese universities, first-year students, after entering the universities, experience the active learning through first-year experience class. First-year experience has been expanded rapidly in Japan, with developments taking place over the past 20 years being particularly remarkable.

Aforementioned the 2008 Central Council for Education report indicates "graduate attributes" as a barometer for "learning outcomes" shared within undergraduate programs. Graduate attributes include the following elements: (1) knowledge/understanding, (2) general skills, (3) attitude/intentionality, and (4) comprehensive learning experiences and creative thinking ability. Among these, the element of general skills is positioned as a necessary attribute whether it is with respect to intellectual, professional, or social pursuits—that includes the components of (1) communication skills, (2) quantitative skills, (3) information literacy, (4) logical thinking capacity, and (5) problem solving ability.

Such skills are expected to be learned via undergraduate education curricula, wherein new educational types and methods such as first-year education and service learning are given high priority in additional to traditional classroom-style lectures [16]. Active learning in particular is becoming a fixed pedagogical method within first-year experience.

Recently, more than 90% of four-year universities and colleges introduce the first-year experience in the curriculum. Those four-year universities and colleges structure FYE as the transitional function to university study, rather than simply attempting to increase the level of knowledge. This function of FYE helps students to become proactively involved with various The New Movement of Active Learning in Japanese Higher Education: The Analysis of Active… http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.80836 47

**Figure 1.** Experience of active learning at FYE.

not delivered, but is constructed, created, and acquired. Then, he defines that active learning includes all active types of learning, which surmounts passive type of learning. Then, he explains passive type of learning implies that listening to unidirectional knowledge transfer type of lecture and active type of learning indicates that students are engaged in activities such as writing, speaking as well as presenting and the externalization of cognitive process

Chickering and Gamson indicate that the behaviors of speaking, writing, connection drawing, and applying learning are learning outcomes, and these outcomes are regarded as universal skills, integrative learning experiences, and creative thinking skills in postmodern as well as a knowledge-based society. Therefore, various active learning pedagogies are shared as effective methods to acquire such outcomes. Students often form a group and develop a group

Prince argued that active learning functions to take its place of the other pedagogies [10]. One of the characteristics of active learning methods is to use small-group work. Kenney and Suzuki describe that "placing students into small cooperative groups gives them a chance to work toward a common goal while building interpersonal and problem-solving skills" [11]. There are several relevant literatures showing that small-group work functions as a practice of active learning [12–15]. These relevant literatures indicate that many practitioners of active learning introduce small-group work in their classes as a method of active learning [12].

Japanese universities, first-year students, after entering the universities, experience the active learning through first-year experience class. First-year experience has been expanded rapidly in Japan, with developments taking place over the past 20 years being particularly remarkable. Aforementioned the 2008 Central Council for Education report indicates "graduate attributes" as a barometer for "learning outcomes" shared within undergraduate programs. Graduate attributes include the following elements: (1) knowledge/understanding, (2) general skills, (3) attitude/intentionality, and (4) comprehensive learning experiences and creative thinking ability. Among these, the element of general skills is positioned as a necessary attribute whether it is with respect to intellectual, professional, or social pursuits—that includes the components of (1) communication skills, (2) quantitative skills, (3) information literacy, (4)

Such skills are expected to be learned via undergraduate education curricula, wherein new educational types and methods such as first-year education and service learning are given high priority in additional to traditional classroom-style lectures [16]. Active learning in par-

Recently, more than 90% of four-year universities and colleges introduce the first-year experience in the curriculum. Those four-year universities and colleges structure FYE as the transitional function to university study, rather than simply attempting to increase the level of knowledge. This function of FYE helps students to become proactively involved with various

ticular is becoming a fixed pedagogical method within first-year experience.

study, which has an element of peer learning in such active learning model [9].

**4. First-year experience and active learning**

logical thinking capacity, and (5) problem solving ability.

through such activities [8].

46 Active Learning - Beyond the Future

elements that they would never have an opportunity to experience within strictly knowledgebased classroom lectures. Hence, active learning methods are frequently employed in the FYE in Japanese four-year universities and colleges. Those active learning methods frequently used in the FYE are discussion, writing, ICT, collaborative learning, debate, and peer teaching.

**Figure 1** shows the frequency of active learning style at FYE classes through the responses of first-year students from four universities in 2010. We conducted the survey for the first-year students in four universities and 4723 first-year students responded for this survey in 2010. As shown in **Figure 1**, when we consider the responses marking both "frequently" and "often," the rate of students who experience the active learning such as presentation, learn applied skills, and discussion reaches around 50%.
