NEWS

What is a MOOC ?

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are free online courses that anybody can take, and those who complete the course can earn an official certificate for a fee. Top universities around the world offer MOOCs, and the total number of registered learners on the Coursera and edX platforms has reached more than 130 million. Along with self improvement, learners are using MOOCs to improve their professional skills, and the individually validated certificates are helping learners advance in the workplace and make career changes.

Featured Courses

Coursera

Let’s Read! Learning Japanese through Science & Technology-1

This course focuses on improving Japanese reading comprehension through vocabulary and expressions retention, with a theme of Science and Engineering research at the University of Tokyo. In addition to reading, illustration videos and interview videos allow you to practise "listening" and "writing" skills. You can also broaden and deepen your knowledge in the related areas.

FURUICHI Yumiko (Professor, Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo)

edX

Tokyo Hillside, Tokyo Riverside: Exploring the Historical City

In recent years, Tokyo became a global tourist destination as interest in the city increased in the lead-up to the planned 2020 Olympics. While the Olympic venues are concentrated in the city’s southwest and along the waterfront, Tokyo’s historical center and the roots of its urban culture are located in the northeast of the city, in an area stretching from Nihonbashi north through Kanda and Akihabara toward Ueno and Yanaka, and eastward to Asakusa. This area remains home to a wide range of unique historical and cultural heritage. This course offers an introduction to Tokyo’s urban history as Prof. Yoshimi explores northeast Tokyo by foot and boat in two sections: Tokyo Hillside and Tokyo Riverside. Visiting lesser-known historical places that have endured Tokyo’s modern transformation, this course will provide participants a different perspective on Tokyo when visiting for tourism, study, or work. Prof. Yoshimi proposes a method of geo-history that examines the city’s history in the context of its topography and social geography. Both the Hillside and Riverside sections focus on the spatial changes that took place as Tokyo underwent modernization. In particular, the course focuses on how the experience of three military occupations impacted Tokyo’s historical development. The first occupation was at the end of the 16th century, when Tokugawa Ieyasu established a new regime in Edo (modern-day Tokyo). The second was in the late 19th century, when the forces of the new imperial army arrived from Kyoto in the west. The third was the occupation by the American military that began in 1945 and preceded the rapid urban development of the 1950s and 1960s. The lectures will explain how the hillside and riverside areas were impacted by these occupations and underwent urban changes as a result.

YOSHIMI Shunya (Professor, Interfaculty Initiative in Information Studies, The University of Tokyo)

Coursera

Learn How to Teach by 6 Min. Micro Teaching

How should we work on class design and improvement? This is a program to learn specifically how to design and improve classes through the creation of a 6-minute microteaching class. The program is designed for current and prospective teachers from elementary to higher education, and can be completed in three weeks. The program is designed to help learners understand the significance of the “6-minute microteaching class,” and practice the necessary knowledge and theory based on the “ADDIE Model,” a concept for creating such classes, through a variety of work (hands-on experience). Then, through creating a graphic class design and a class design sheet, learners design and conduct a microteaching class. Afterwards, learners will review the microteaching class and work on improvement. In addition to watching videos and completing worksheets (individual work), the course also emphasizes the expansion and deepening of learning through interaction with other learners in the learning community, such as discussion forums.

KURITA Kayoko (Professor, Graduate School of Education, The University of Tokyo)

Coursera

Global Health Policy

In this course, learners will become familiar with principles and theories of global health problems, and major challenges and controversies in improving global population health as well as practical applications of quantitative methods to analyze and interpret issues and challenges for policy. Topics will include health and foreign policy, health governance, acute disease surveillance, non-communicable diseases, burden of disease, universal health coverage, health systems strengthening, health financing, and human resources for health and ageing.

SHIBUYA Kenji (Professor, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo) Stuart GILMOUR (Associate Professor, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo) NISHIURA Hiroshi (Associate Professor, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Tokyo)

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