ACE/ACSET/AURS2015


“Education, Power and Empowerment: Transcending Boundaries”

October 21–25, 2015 | Art Center of Kobe, Kobe, Japan

The Asian Conference on Education 2015 (ACE2015), incorporating the inaugural ACE Undergraduate Research Symposium 2015 (AURS2015), was held alongside The Asian Conference on Society, Education & Technology (ACSET2015) from Wednesday, October 21 – Sunday, October 25, 2015 at the Art Center of Kobe, Japan. This year’s conference enabled a wonderful union of interdisciplinary study around the joint conference theme of “Education, Power and Empowerment: Transcending Boundaries”, and provided the opportunity for delegates to pursue further research synergies and share in what was a truly global discussion.

As with our previous ACE/ACSET events, IAFOR was particularly fortunate to have a number of leading international experts within the education sector who brought with them a diversity and range of educational experiences and contexts, that inspired ideas and engagement from the delegates. IAFOR would like to thank Professor Eiko Kato-Otani, President of Osaka Jogakuin University, Japan, our ACE/ASCET2015 Keynote Speaker, Professor Tien-Hui Chiang (ACE2015 Featured Speaker & Featured Panel Chair) of the Graduate Institute of Educational Leadership and Evaluation, University of Science and Technology, Taiwan, Dr Myles Chilton (ACE2015 Featured Speaker) of Nihon University, Japan, Dr Yvonne Masters (ACE2015 Featured Speaker), Senior Lecturer in Professional Classroom Practice at the University of New England, Australia, and Dr Jose McClanahan (ACE2015 Future Researchers Symposium Chair & Featured Speaker), Associate Professor of Spanish at Creighton University, USA. It was great to also introduce to our IAFOR audiences our two ACE2015 Spotlight Speakers, Dr Lucy Bailey from the University of Nottingham, Malaysia, and Professor Craig Sower from Shujitsu University, Japan.

At our Japan-based IAFOR events we have always placed great importance on introducing cultural arts and practices into our events, and this year we were fortunate to be able to introduce a Featured Karate Demonstration into our programme. IAFOR would like to thank Sensei Marc Waterfield, Sensei Toshio Yagi and Sensei Hiroshi Nishioka from the All Japan Chito-Ryu Karate-Do Federation, as well as the expert teachers and students from Osaka’s Nishioka Dojo, who practice the Chito-Ryu form of the Japanese martial art.

The ongoing contribution and leadership provided by our Conferences Chairs and the Local Kansai Conference Committee is greatly appreciated by the IAFOR Advisory Board and the IAFOR management team. We would like to personally thank the following 2015 Co-Chairs, International Programme Directors and Local Kansai Conference Committee: Professor Sue Jackson, Professor Michiko Nakano, Professor Barbara Lockee, Professor Jose McClanahan, Professor Keith Miller, Professor Steve Cornwell, Dr Robert Logie and IAB Chair Professor Stuart Picken, for their continuing support, guidance and expertise in making our 2015 Education Conferences a continuing success.

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ACE/ACSET Welcome Letter

Dear Colleagues,

I am extremely happy to welcome you all to The Seventh IAFOR Asian Conference on Education (ACE2015), held alongside the Third IAFOR Asian Conference on Society, Education and Technology (ACSET2015).

Although still in the wonderful Kansai region of Japan, the historical and cultural heart of the country, we have moved to the port city of Kobe, and to our new conference home, nestled between green Mount Rokkō, and the Seto Inland Sea.

This conference holds a special place in the IAFOR calendar, as it was the first conference organised by IAFOR, and is one of its best attended, with many returning on a yearly basis because of the supportive and nurturing research environment, because of the unique networking opportunities, and because of the strength of the organisation’s platform. Since 2009 the IAFOR Education program of events has increased to see events in Europe, the Middle East and North America, as well as Japan, as this year we come together to consider the theme: “Education, Power and Empowerment: Transcending Boundaries”.

This year also sees the introduction of the ACE Undergraduate Research Symposium, where we will be welcoming final year undergraduates who are interested in pursuing postgraduate research and academic careers in the future. We hope that you give them as much encouragement as possible, and attend their poster Saturday afternoon poster session.

I would like to thanks the conference chairs, Professors Sue Jackson and Michiko Nakano (ACE), Barbara Lockee and Rob Logie (ACSET), and José McClanahan (AURS); the keynote, featured, and spotlight speakers, and each and every delegate, representing more than 50 countries. I would also like to thank our university affiliates, who bring their institutions’ reputation and academic credibility to help make The International Academic Forum a reality.

We welcome your active engagement in this expanding global academic community of individuals and network of institutions, and I encourage your active engagement and participation as a route to intellectual and personal empowerment, as we transcend boundaries of nation, culture and discipline, in the search of new friendships, and new knowledge.

I look forward to meeting you all.

Warm regards,

Dr Joseph Haldane
President, IAFOR

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Speakers & Conference Chairs

Professor Sue Jackson

Birkbeck, University of London, UK

Featured Speaker & ACE2015 Conference Co-Chair

Professor Sue JacksonProfessor Sue Jackson is Pro-Vice-Master (Vice-President) for Learning and Teaching, Professor of Lifelong Learning and Gender and Director of Birkbeck Institute for Lifelong Learning at Birkbeck University of London. She publishes widely in the field of gender and lifelong learning, with a particular focus on identities.

Sue’s recent publications include Innovations in Lifelong Learning: Critical Perspectives on Diversity, Participation and Vocational Learning (Routledge, 2011); Gendered Choices: Learning, Work, Identities in Lifelong Learning (Springer, 2011, with Irene Malcolm and Kate Thomas); and Lifelong Learning and Social Justice (NIACE, 2011).

Conference Chairs Workshop Presentation | “Interdisciplinarity in Education & Interdisciplinary Writing and Publishing in Education”

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Professor Eiko Kato-Otani

Osaka Jogakuin University, Japan

Keynote Speaker

Eiko Kato-Otani is President and a Professor of Osaka Jogakuin University. She received her Ed.D. in Language and Literacy from Harvard University. Her research interests include children’s language development as influenced by interaction with adults in home and preschool settings. She examines cultural differences between Japan and the US in home and preschool settings. She instructed kindergarten teachers using picture books on how young children can develop their language skills in 2008 as part of the projects of Osaka City Children and Youth Bureau. She published three picture books in collaboration with the children in the project. She also contributed to changing her university’s learning environment by using the latest technology. Osaka Jogakuin started iPod One to One in 2004, being the first school to ever use iPods in education. She is an Apple Distinguished Educator 2011 and uses her IT skills in her teaching. She also tries to experience herself how a new language can be learned. She is taking Korean lessons and speaks conversational Korean.

Keynote Presentation (2015): “Language Learning: Then and Now”

Technology has changed our lives in many ways. How we learn a language is one way. When I was studying English, I used the various materials available at that time such as TV, radio, cassette tapes and pen pals. However, learners today can take advantage of the latest technology such as the Internet, social media, smartphones, tablets and digital books. Osaka Jogakuin University (OJU) started “iPad One to One” in 2012. “iPad One to One” means that each student has her own iPad to assist her learning. The English faculty members of OJU have created 12 e-books, which help students learn better because the books are motivating and incorporate various digital resources available. In my talk, I will contrast materials used in language learning in the past with the variety of technological resources currently or soon to be available for language learning today.

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Dr Barbara Lockee

Virginia Tech, USA

Featured Speaker & ACSET2015 Conference Co-Chair

Dr Barbara Lockee is Professor of Instructional Design and Technology at Virginia Tech., USA, where she is also Associate Director of the School of Education and Associate Director of Educational Research and Outreach. She teaches courses in instructional design, message design, and distance education. Her research interests focus on instructional design issues related to technology-mediated learning. She has published more than 80 papers in academic journals, conferences and books, and has presented her scholarly work at over 90 national and international conferences.

Dr Lockee is Immediate Past President of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology, an international professional organisation for educational technology researchers and practitioners. She earned her Ph.D. in 1996 from Virginia Tech in Curriculum and Instruction (Instructional Technology), M.A. in 1991 from Appalachian State University in Curriculum and Instruction (Educational Media), and B.A. in 1986 from Appalachian State University in Communication Arts.

Featured Presentation (2015) | “Empowering Learners as Designers – The Rise of the Maker Movement”

As instructional pedagogy shifts away from teachers as the possessors of knowledge to learners as creators of knowledge, strategies have emerged for operationalizing this educational change. The “Maker Movement” reflects a current classroom trend that is based on Seymour Papert’s educational theory of constructionism and years of related research. This session will trace the evolution of the Maker Movement and explore the power of engaging learners as designers, creators of tangible evidence of their own meaning-making.

Conference Chairs Workshop Presentation (2015) | “Interdisciplinarity in Education & Interdisciplinary Writing and Publishing in Education”

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Marc Waterfield

All Japan Chito-Ryu Karate Do Federation

Sensei Marc Waterfield (5th Degree Black Belt, Master Instructor, Chito-Ryu Karate Do) is Chief Liaison of the Public Relations Division for the All Japan Chito-Ryu Karate Do Federation and Coach of the Buntoku Senior High School Karate Do Team. He currently holds the rank of Go Dan, 5th Degree Black Belt and the title of Shihan, Master Instructor and was the youngest non-Japanese ever to attain this level at the age of 33. Marc began practicing Chito-Ryu Karate Do at the age of ten in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada and had a successful competitive career, competing Provincially, Nationally and Internationally. Marc has represented Canada and Japan in International competition and has been living and working in Kumamoto Japan since 2001. During this time he received his M.A. TESOL from Kumamoto University (2008) and accumulated a great deal of work experience in the education system, first as a scholarship exchange student at Hokkaido University of Education (1999-2000), then as an ALT on the JET Programme in Nishigoshi Town/Koshi City (2001-2008) and as a full-time teacher at Buntoku Senior High School (2008-Present). Marc is experienced in the unique Japanese approach to education and sport known as Bunburyodou which is a concept of combining the principles of Bushido, the Martial Way with education and is grounded in developing the character sets of courtesy, respect for one another and determination to achieve one’s goals.


Toshio Yagi

All Japan Chito-Ryu Karate Do Federation

Born in 1948 in Tokyo, Japan, Sensei Toshio Yagi is the former President and Director of MITSUI SUMITOMO INSURANCE Claims Adjusting Company, Limited and former Auditor for Tokyo Tomin Bank, Limited. Toshio began practicing Karate Do as a young man. He has studied and holds Dan Rank in various styles such as Shotokan, Shito-Ryu, and Chito-Ryu Karate Do. He is also practicing Chito-Ryu Karate Do and Kobudo, Weapons regularly. Toshio is a consultant, advising the following companies: Uchiyama Loss Adjusting Co., Ltd., Best Solution Inc., T.F.K Inc., and the Promotions Planner for Shimamoto Insurance Co., Ltd.


Hiroshi Nishioka

All Japan Chito-Ryu Karate Do Federation

Sensei Hiroshi Nishioka (5th Degree Black Belt, Master Instructor, Chito-Ryu Karate Do) is the Head Instructor of Nishioka Dojo located in Izumisano City, Osaka, Japan. He began practicing Karate Do in 1983 under the guidance of Shimoida Sensei. In the summer of 2000 Hiroshi placed third at the Chito-Ryu National Karate Do Championships earning him a place on the Japanese National Team. In 2003 Hiroshi retired from competition to focus on developing his Dojo. In 2007 the Nishioka Dojo was built and in 2013 a large team of junior and senior athletes competed in the Chito-Ryu World Karate Do Championships (Soke Cup) held that year in Hong Kong; four athletes representing Nishioka Dojo won gold medals at the Hong Kong Championships. These athletes are honoured to perform for you today.

Featured Karate & Power Demonstration

The conference theme of Power and Empowerment is explored in this karate display from expert teachers and students from Osaka’s Nishioka Dojo, who practice the Chito-Ryu form of the Japanese martial art.

Chito-Ryu traces its ancestry back to old Chinese martial arts of the Tang dynasty (618-907AD). Later, these martial arts that were brought to Okinawa from Fukien Province, China were passed on through the diligence and thoroughness of many past masters. Chitose Tsuyoshi (O Sensei) mastered the spirit and techniques of To-de which possesses a rich history and long tradition.

Furthermore, O Sensei studied the various forms of Okinawa Te. One discipline, which originated in Shuri City, a town of nobles and Samurai, was called Shuri no Te (首里の手). In recent years Shuri no Te has become known as Shorin-Ryu (小林流). The second discipline, which originated in Naha City, a commercial town, was called Naha no Te (那覇の手). In recent years Naha no Te has become known as Shorei-Ryu (昭霊流).O Sensei assimilated the essence of these so that he could enhance To-de among the Japanese martial arts. In addition, the present day Chito-Ryu style of Karate Do also incorporates a sound medical, physiological and scientific base in order to foster health in all, especially youth and the elderly.

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Dr Yvonne Masters

University of New England, Australia

Featured Speaker

Dr Yvonne Masters is currently a Senior Lecturer in Professional Classroom Practice in the School of Education, University of New England (UNE), Armidale, Australia, a position that she accepted after 5 years as Director of Professional Experience in the same School. Prior to taking up her position at UNE, Yvonne had 30 years’ experience in secondary schools including in the roles of Curriculum Coordinator, Deputy Principal and Principal, which developed her skills in leadership, project management, curriculum and assessment. Her teaching experience spans three Australian states. Yvonne’s research interests centre on teacher education, professional experience and virtual worlds, with a particular focus on distance education students. She has a keen interest in developing an understanding in pre-service teachers of the need for a caring and professional approach to teaching. Her goal is the development of teachers who respect their students and empower them in classrooms rather than dis-empowering them through punitive and unreasonable responses. Yvonne gained in 2010, in collaboration with other researchers, an Office of Learning and Teaching (OLT) grant entitled VirtualPREX: Innovative assessment using a 3D virtual world with pre-service teachers, and at the end of 2014 received an OLT Seed Grant to develop resources to equip pre-service teachers for the new wave of virtual schools. Yvonne has written and co-written seven book chapters, two journal articles and presented six refereed conference papers in the last three years. While Yvonne is an active researcher and a teacher educator, her deep passion is providing school students with an engaging classroom where each student is respected for their own individuality and provided with an environment that facilitates their learning.

Featured Presentation (2015) | “Communication and the Empowering (or Disempowering) Teacher”

Regardless of the age of their students, teachers can be agents of either empowerment or disempowerment. Ginott (1972) stated that “I’ve come to a frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom” and, as such, it behoves all teachers to think deeply about their communication in a learning environment. The main form of communication is, of course, language and major social theorists, such as Bourdieu, Foucault and Habermas, have recognised the importance of language as social capital. It is acknowledged that language not only has power, but frequently ‘is’ power, and how we use language in education is a vital boundary between empowerment or disempowerment for our students.

In this presentation, the ways in which communication, albeit unwittingly at times, can be either empowering or disempowering for students will be explored. The presentation will have three main foci: the ways in which language can inadvertently disempower; the ways in which communication is crucial for inclusivity; and the ways in which students can be either empowered or disempowered through the use of different means of communication in online learning environments. The presentation will be interactive as well as informative, and attendees will be asked to undertake brief reflections drawing on both personal experience and knowledge of education practice to more deeply explore how communication can build up or break down boundaries.

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Dr Tien-Hui Chiang

South Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taiwan

Featured Speaker

Dr Tien-Hui Chiang, the Department Head of South Taiwan University of Science and Technology, is the President of the Taiwan Association for Sociology of Education. He was a Fulbrighter, a co-editor of ‘Crisis in Education’, and a 985 Project Professor of Beijing Normal University. He has given keynote speeches at many international conferences in Japan, India, South Africa, Greece, Slovenia, Singapore and China.

His specialty covers a wide range of fields, including teaching, comparative education, education policy, globalisation/higher education, cultural studies and sociology of education. He has produced over 100 essays. This outstanding performance earned him many prizes, such as the 2011 Distinguished Scholar of the Taiwan Association for Sociology of Education, the 2011-3 Distinguished Scholar of the Ministry of Education, and the 2014-6 Distinguished Scholar of the Ministry of Education.

Featured Presentation (2015) | “How Teachers Consolidate the Phenomenon of Cultural Reproduction by Using Duality”

Giddens argues that the combination of acknowledgeability and capability allows the actor to develop creative actions that free him/her from social constraints. Such duality suggests that if teachers are empowered and recognise the inequity of educational results, evident with the phenomenon of cultural reproduction, they may behave as transformative intellectuals who employ a cross-boundary strategy assisting working-class students to produce good academic performances. This enables education to practice the emancipatory function by opening the gateway of upwards mobility for this student group that suffers from a severe shortage of cultural capital and, as a result, is unable to develop a habitus good at academic curriculum. However, although some secondary teachers in Taiwan recognise the rules or properties of educational selection mainly determined by examination scores, they do not use this perception as a resource to develop creative pedagogy, but as a strategy to promote their status as excellent teachers who are good at employing a 3Rs pedagogy aiming to produce excellent students good at tests. As a result, the phenomenon of cultural reproduction remains.

Other Panel Presentations:

The Element of Inclusion: Reverse Inclusion
Yung-Tso Kuo
National University of Tainan, Taiwan

A Study of Junior High School Students’ English Reading Comprehension Strategies in Taiwan
Chien-Jung Pan
National University of Tainan, Taiwan

When Waldorf Education meets Orff Schulwerk Improvisation: A case study of third grade music class in Taiwan
Mei-Yung Chang
National University of Tainan, Taiwan

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Dr Joseph (José) McClanahan

Creighton University, USA

Featured Speaker & AURS2015 Co-Chair

Dr Joseph (José) McClanahan is an Associate Professor of Spanish and Associate Chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. There, he teaches at all levels of the curriculum, including language and culture courses abroad. He has taught in both Latin America and in Spain. Recently, his research interests have focused on the area of teaching courses related to Languages for Special Purposes, in particular courses related to teaching Spanish to future healthcare professionals. He also has a strong interest in curricular development and design that centers on new students entering the university. He has also led student educational trips to almost every continent on the globe.

Conference Chair Address (2015) | “Shaping the Future: Why Incorporating Undergraduate Student into Research and Scholarship is So Important”

In higher education today, many faculty hear administrators pushing for more undergraduate research on their campuses. It has even become part of the marketing materials by admission departments. And yet, outside of the traditional hard sciences like biology, chemistry, or physics, many professors do not fully understand how they can incorporate undergraduates in to their own projects and what it means to collaborate with them in their scholarship. As such, this presentation aims to explore how to better include these students into your research agenda, help dissipate some of the commonly held myths about undergraduate students in research, and discover the benefits of this work for both faculty and students alike. Higher education is evolving. Students and faculty are changing at a rapid pace as well. Therefore, as educators, it is paramount that we continue to move forward by adapting and creating new ways of shaping the future for our students and for the educational experience.

Undergraduate Research Symposium Workshop (2015) | “Undergraduate Research and You – A Conversation about Engaging Students in Research Across All Disciplines”

This session is specifically geared towards professors or instructors who work with undergraduate students. Here, we will focus on creating a dialogue with everyone present in order to discover how we are able to involve more undergraduate students in collaborative research projects. Moreover, we will explore disciplines that have long been considered non-traditional areas of student-faculty research (ie. Humanities, Social Sciences). We welcome professors and instructors who have already engaged students and those who are looking for ideas about how they may take part. We envision an interactive session with input from facilitators and participants alike.

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Professor Myles Chilton

Nihon University, Japan

Featured Speaker

Myles Chilton (B.A. University of Toronto; M.A. and Ph.D. University of Chicago) is a Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at Nihon University. Originally from Toronto, Canada, Chilton has been in Japan for over twenty years, where in addition to continuing his work in exploring relationships between contemporary world literature and global cities, he has become increasingly interested in the pedagogy of literature in EFL classrooms. He has published articles in such journals as Comparative Critical Studies, The Journal of Narrative Theory, and Studies in the Literary Imagination. More recently, he published on global English and literary studies in Japan in World Literature and the Politics of the Minority (ed. J. Han; Rawat), on the absence of the city in Canadian literature in Literary Cartographies: Spatiality, Representation, and Narrative (ed. R. Tally; forthcoming from Palgrave Macmillan), and on the threat of instrumentalized English studies in Deterritorializing Practices in Literary Studies (eds. M. Guzman and A. Zamora). He has also presented papers on these and other topics at universities around the world. In addition, he is co-editor of the new journal Lit Matters: The Liberlit Journal of Teaching Literature, and is on the editorial board of the IAFOR Journal of Literature and Librarianship.

Featured Presentation (2015): “English Power”

English studies are often assumed to be crucial to student empowerment; ability in the world’s lingua franca supposedly opens doors and expands horizons. Underlying this assumption is anxiety over the implications of the global spread of English. It is often seen as agent of destruction of not only local languages, but also of Anglo-American domination of local cultures, ways of thinking, and representation – in other words, it is seen as a power that must be kept in check. In my presentation I will discuss English studies as a locus of disciplinary power, how this power was derived from and in some ways structured external structures of political and cultural power, how the discipline is interrogating its internal discourses of power, and its place in globalized circuits of educational power. In particular I will discuss ways in which English language study has responded by rethinking its pedagogical practices and the authority of the native speaker, and how literary study increasingly recognizes that English language textual production and reception have widened their geographical and linguistic bases. I will also discuss questions raised by these developments, including whether globalized English should be seen as decoupled from its Anglo-American historical and cultural origins, and why, paradoxically, a traditional Anglo-American literary canon remains prevalent, particularly in non-Anglophone countries. Many argue that literary studies in particular has more work to do to break out of its traditional Anglo-centric critical and pedagogic paradigms, while others counter that the discipline should concentrate on the language rather than its contexts of production and reception.

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Dr Lucy Bailey

University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus, Malaysia

Spotlight Speaker

Dr Lucy Bailey is Assistant Professor in the School of Education at the University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus. After completing her BA at the University of Oxford and her M.A. at the London University Institute of Education, Dr Bailey was awarded a Ph.D from the University of Bristol. She has lived and worked in many countries, including Denmark, New Zealand and the Czech Republic. Her current research interests include children who cross national borders for their education – both refugees, asylum seekers and students at international schools. She has also published on education policy, gender and education, and management systems in education.

Spotlight Presentation (2015) | “Encouraging Children to Care: Developing a School Curriculum That Fosters International Empathy and Action”

It has been posited that the internationalisation of education will promote the development of empathy and action at a global level. For example, the International Baccalaureate Organisation claims that its programmes enable students to “be able to engage with people in an increasingly globalized, rapidly changing world” (IBO, 2014). However, the development of empathy and caring behaviour towards others is a complex process, which necessitates transcending the boundary between the self and other. Moreover, the degree to which caring actions are directed towards the geographically immediate community, or directed towards people at a distance, may be mediated by the regional and national boundaries which are erected during the schooling. In consequence, the degree to which the IBO system succeeds in creating engaged global citizens deserves further examination, both to evaluate the success of this curriculum and to identify key features which facilitate or inhibit such forms of engagement.

This paper reports on a study of the pro-social behaviour of students in international schools following the curriculum of the International Baccalaureate Organisation. Drawing on data from nine case-study schools, each covering the 3-18 age range, and located across three continents, the study included over 150 interviews with school personnel and students, and a survey of over 2,000 students. Building on the work of Noddings (2002) on fostering an ethical curriculum, aspects of the curriculum that facilitate the development of global caring behaviour amongst young people are identified, and ways in which these might be replicated in national curricula are discussed.

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Professor Craig Sower

Shujitsu University, Japan

Spotlight Speaker

Craig Sower is Professor of English at Shujitsu University in Okayama, Japan, where he has taught writing and teacher-education at both the undergraduate and postgraduate levels since 1998. He is a graduate of the School for International Training. Mr. Sower has lived in Japan since 1988, and has written and presented extensively on curriculum development, teacher-education, writing, intercultural communication, TESOL, TEFL, American progressive education, Japanese education, yutori kyoiku, and education reform.

Spotlight Presentation (2015) | “Untried and Untrue: Common Core’s Mechanization of Education”

In 2013, according to National Public Radio, two-thirds of Americans had not heard of the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI). A year later, 80% knew about CCSSI, and 60% were opposed. The confluence of Big Business and Big Government support for CCSSI has fed growing opposition including parents, teachers, and civil libertarians. While much of the debate concerns the contents of the standards, this paper focuses on the process used to develop CCSSI and the bureaucracy that would operate it.

The CCSSI claims to be state-led, internationally benchmarked, and based on the latest research, but it is not. In July 2009, $4.35 billion in federal funding was made available to recession-shocked states through the Race to the Top program. Participating states were required to adopt CCSSI and join one of two approved assessment consortia. In 2010, before the standards had been written, 46 states and Washington, D.C. agreed to join. As of May 2015, only 28 states and Washington, D.C. remain committed. Supporters say CCSSI is state-led and voluntary; critics say federal funding is intimidation and bribery.

In addition, opponents are concerned about centralization and the collection of real-time data on students and teachers. Mandatory, copyrighted curriculum, textbooks, lesson plans, and Core-aligned assessments remove teachers from heretofore-key elements of education. To many, the use of cameras and biofeedback devices on students to obtain fine-grained data seems Orwellian. Opponents fear such monitoring of classrooms will transform education from an art into an exercise in industrial-style Taylorism. We can do better.

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Professor Michiko Nakano

Waseda University, Japan

ACE2015 Conference Co-Chair

Michiko Nakano is a Professor in the School of Education at Waseda University in Tokyo. She is currently Director of the Digital Campus Promotion Office, Director of the Distance Learning Center, and Director of Cross-Cultural Distance Learning. A former Deputy Dean of Student Affairs, School of Education at Waseda University and a former Chairman of the Department of English Language and Literature. Dr Nakano’s research concentrates on the practical applications of Computer Technology as it relates to Language Teaching and Assessment. She is the co-founder of the Pan-Pacific Association of Applied Linguistics (PAAL), and co-editor-in-chief of its journal, and a former secretary general of the Japan Association of College English Teachers (JACET). Dr Nakano has edited and published more than 220 papers and books.

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Professor Keith W. Miller

The University of Missouri, USA

ACSET2015 Conference Co-Chair

Keith W. Miller is the Orthwein Endowed Professor for Lifelong Learning in the Sciences at the University of Missouri – St. Louis. In that position, he is partnering with the St. Louis Science Center. Dr Miller’s research interests are in software testing and in computer ethics, and he is a past editor of the editor-in-chief of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine. He was awarded the 2011 Joseph Weizenbaum Award by the International Society for Ethics and Information Technology. He is the principal investigator of a recent grant from the U.S. National Science Foundation to study the effects of ethics education for computer science students.

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Professor Robert Logie

Osaka Gakuin University, Japan

ACSET2015 Local Conference Co-Chair

Robert Logie is an associate professor at Osaka Gakuin university. His current research interests are logics of agency, fuzzy and modal logics and network intrusion detection systems.

After working as an engineer on roads and bridges in the north of Scotland and as a high school teacher in Bermuda he drifted towards academia. An M.Sc. at Strathclyde led to Oxford with work in the Department of Engineering Science and at St. John’s College. He returned to Strathclyde to manage an AI applications laboratory in the Centre for Electrical Power engineering before marrying someone he met at Oxford and moving to her home country.

Work in Japan started at IBM’s Yamato software laboratory where he worked on developing database query visualisation tools and database access modules for Lotus’s Domino server. His wife was posted to Geneva where Rob started a Ph.D. at the Open University and leading to his current research interests.

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Videos

Dr Yvonne Masters

University of New England, Australia

Featured Presentation (2015) | "Empowering Learners and the Power of Words"

In this follow up interview to her Featured Presentation at The Asian Conference on Education 2015 (ACE2015) Dr Yvonne Masters sits down for an interview with ACE2015 Conference Chair, Professor Sue Jackson. They go into more details about Dr Masters' research on student engagement, especially in regards to distance-learners. Dr Masters explains why it is important to instill a sense of belonging in learners. She also describes how communication and language can empower, while at the same time if not treated carefully, can disempower. She gives specific examples of how seemingly innocuous words, when used out of context, can be very harmful. The conversation concludes with a discussion of Dr Masters' work and research on virtual worlds.

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