Brent A. Jones
Konan University, Hirao School of Management
Brent A. Jones has taught English for Specific Purposes in Hawaii, Japan and other parts of Asia since 1987. He was the coordinator of the Business English program in the Economics Department at Kobe Gakuin University from 2005 - 2009. He is currently the Director of Language Programs at Konan University, Hirao School of Management, where since 2009 he has helped develop a content and language integrated (CLIL) program. From April 1, 2018 to March 31, 2019 he was a Visiting Professor at the Peter Gustavson School of Business at the University of Victoria. The short list of his research interests include L2 learning motivation and engagement, instructional technology, instructional design, CLIL, curriculum and materials development, genre approaches to second language reading and writing, and extensive reading.
Sessions
Engaging learners with team-based learning (TBL)
This presentation introduces an action research project conducted at a university in western Japan during the 2019 Fall semester. The project involved a group of twenty-eight non-English majors enrolled in an elective business-focused project taught by the presenter and aimed at investigating the effectiveness of augmenting a project-based learning (PBL) curriculum with team-based learning (the other TBL) elements. This interactive talk starts with some contextual background, goes on to offer brief outlines of PBL and TBL, and then gives a week-by-week overview of how each class meeting unfolded as well as how technology was used to manage the course and assess performance. Some of the more salient findings include increased learner engagement and achievement as measured by readiness assurance tests, both individual and team. After covering the findings of the intervention, its successes and shortcomings will be evaluated. It is hoped that this research might inspire others to experiment with PBL, TBL and other active learning approaches in their second language classrooms.