NEWS

2021 BEGIN Jr. Program, an online learning program for high school students, was held for two days on Saturday, March 27 and Sunday, March 28. Since 2018, we have offered this program as a 3-night, 4-day summer course, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it has been implemented online as a shortened two-day program since last summer. This time, 40 students, including students from 16 prefectures and students from outside Japan, joined in the program.

BEGIN stands for Basic Education Growing Infinity Nexus, and the program aims to “connect each other’s growth infinitely through basic learning at APU.” Participants tackle five missions to develop the skills they will need to become global human resources—namely, an understanding of diversity, teamwork, problem identification and solving skills, and presentation skills. For the final mission, students were tasked with designing their future selves 10 years down the road, and they all gave presentations on the topic.

The program also featured lectures from EDLSC Professor KONDO Yuichi as well as two APU alumni, INOUE Takaaki (APM Class of 2011, Japan) and ROJPRASITPORN Julapong (APS Class of 2019, Thailand).

The planning, implementation, and moderation of this program were all supervised by second to fourth year student Teaching Assistants (TAs). They demonstrated that by mastering the functions of Zoom and Miro, an online whiteboard tool, learning can be deepened through online group work in a similar fashion to the in-person program.

APU plans to implement the same program again in the summer. More details will be posted on the site below.
Website for applicants: http://www.apumate.net/