We aim to create and expand active learning opportunities for students via the advanced introduction of intensive education to the School of Social Sciences. We will realize a “learning ecosystem” in which students design their own learning and advanced, issue-based inter/trans-disciplinary education that implements everything from acquiring an education to problem solving.
SOCIAL
INNOVATION
ACCELERATE
PROGRAM
PROGRAM
OVERVIEW
Nurturing Students to Find Solutions
for Unanswered Problems
Aiming to nurture people who can solve critical social problems,
Waseda University is beginning the “Social Innovation Accelerator Program.”
The various problems in modern societies are changing day by day,
their scope is expanding, and they are becoming global in scale.
In order to accurately grasp and elucidate increasingly complex social issues,
it is not enough to have only a single academic field,
and having an inter/trans-disciplinary approach that combines multiple academic fields is essential.
The School of Social Sciences, which is introducing this intensive education in advance,
has a long history of and achievements in inter/trans-disciplinary education.
By even further deepening inter/trans-disciplinary education, which is a characteristic of the schools,
we are aiming to nurture “social innovators” who do not merely acquire an education,
but who formulate solutions to social issues by bringing together knowledge from multiple fields.
Producing social innovators who concentrate advanced knowledge,
work on global issues, and co-create social change
Spreading the intensive education model throughout Waseda University and other universities
Through the introduction of intensive education, we will introduce effect verification of educational/learning results and will introduce evaluation recycling. As a tool for this, we will develop and model an inter/trans-disciplinary education rubric. In the future, we will aim to spread the intensive education model not just to the School of Social Sciences, but to all of Waseda University and other universities.
PROGRAM
INTRODUCTION
Advance Introduction of Intensive Education
to the School of Social Sciences In this program
we will promote the careful selection and integration of course subjects in the School of Social Sciences. In addition to narrowing down the number of course subjects that students can take at the same time, we will hold course subjects multiple times a week to realize focused learning so that students can intensively study subjects related to a specific issue.
Current StateLong-term wide and shallow study (spring semester)
After ReformsShort-term intensive study (spring quarter)
Instead of separately taking 10 course subjects in a week, intensively take several course subjects in a week
Additionally, course subjects will, in principle, be completed in one semester, which will make it possible to design educationplans that are more flexible than ever.
Overview of the Social Innovation Accelerator Program
The School of Social Sciences’ Three Educational Philosophies
Through introducing intensive education, we will accelerate the nurturing of abilities in “inter/trans-disciplinary” education, “global culture,” and “open innovation.”
- Inter/Trans-Disciplinary
- Acquire problem-solving capabilities that bring together knowledge from multiple fields, and social vision capabilities to open up society.
- Global Culture
- Acquire international expressiveness ability and collaboration ability to communicatewith players from a variety of countries, languages, values, and interests.
- Open Innovation
- While going back and forth between theory and practice, between consideration and action, acquire the ability to independently self-correct in order to overcome contradictions and conflicts by oneself.
Early Establishment of a “Cross-Disciplinary Approach”
In order to understand increasingly complicated modern issues, it is not enough to have the knowledge of a single academic field, and it is essential to have multidisciplinary academic knowledge that spans both the sciences and the humanities. However, it is quite difficult to see how to connect and utilize academic knowledge if one merely absorbs the academic knowledge from a variety of fields.
The “Cross-Disciplinary Approach” is a methodology that brings together and links such multidisciplinary knowledge to solve problems. Through this program, we will make students’ learning deeper and more multifaceted by establishing the “Cross-Disciplinary Approach” at an early stage.
Evaluation/Verification
In order for students to have self-realization in the implementation of this program, we will construct a “learning ecosystem” that is a mechanism for hard work and focused study, develop and utilize an “inter/trans-disciplinary rubric” that aidsin self-evaluation and self-correction measures, and evaluate the learning outcomes of our students and of this program from multiple perspectives.
Furthermore, the Waseda University Center for Higher Education Studies will investigate and analyze the efforts and results of this project, and will then feed back the results to run the PDCA cycle and ensure the project’s quality assurance.