Hello everyone, this is Abe (M2 student).
There are many things in life that we put aside and procrastinate, saying “I’ll do it someday”.
As for me, since the beginning of M1, I have been thinking that I would like to write an article to briefly introduce what we do in the weekly meetings.
Next thing I know, it is now nearing the end of my master’s programme, but here I am, finally convinced myself to write this down. Good job, me!
At ICME, we have a meeting every Wednesday for about an hour, at a convenient time for everyone(The language used is English).
To briefly summarize what we do in that hour,
- Greetings and status report
(What did we do for the past week? daily events such as “I went mountain climbing”, “I’m planning to go thrift-shopping”, or “I went bungee jumping” (which isn’t quite an everyday event), and the daily struggles of choosing a career. We really don’t restrict what we talk about. Of course, we will also report on the progress of our research.
- Presentation
We also listen to a member’s presentation on a rotating basis every week. We usually present whatever we wish, but on the 17th, Professor Onishi made a presentation on Item Analysis.
- Planning for next week’s meeting
We plan a suitable time for meeting, and decide on who would present the next meeting.
That was the gist of what we do every week. The atmosphere is more like having a cup of tea and talking with each other, rather than a “meeting”. Of course, we will talk academically in the presentation, but I feel that it is very meaningful to share what we like and what we are having trouble with during the status report.
(This status report and social disclosure is related to what I am researching, so I have a lot to talk about, but I shall restrain myself till next time …)
The following is a (very) brief summary of Dr. Onishi’s presentation this week.
It was about the calculation method of Item Analysis in the Multiple Choice Questions (MCQs). Dr. Onishi used MS Excel to quantify “Which question can discriminate between high-scoring test taker, and the rest?”, using a mock post-test data for a hypothetical MCQ question. We were able to see his calculations using Excel through the screen sharing function of Zoom.
We usually attend online seminars through Zoom, but when I think about it, the fact that the screen of the instructor’s computer was delivered in real time via the Internet – this itself might seem quite bizarre just 5 years ago. maybe even unthinkable, a couple of decades ago. So as I write this down, I am reflecting that the rate at which technology transforms learning and education, often exceeds our imagination.