What would happen if a student avatar joined a classroom one day and tried to break the mold of everyday discussions or deliberately opposed the consensus reached and pushed by the classroom leader?

That is what is happening at some small schools in Japan where an avatar app is creating constructive conflict by playing the role of devil's advocate in discussions to deliver improved learning outcomes by challenging the status quo.

The "Virtual Transfer Student" app created in a collaborative effort among academics "can change the atmosphere of classrooms, where it is difficult to express diverse opinions and stimulate discussion," said Keita Kobayashi, an assistant professor of educational technology at the University of Fukui, the main developer of the software.

In September, a disaster prevention class was held at Koshino Junior High School in Fukui, central Japan, which has just six students.

The students in the combined class -- two boys and four girls in their second and third years -- were asked what they should do if their teacher is not present when an earthquake occurs and no evacuation instructions are announced by the school.

When it appeared the students had reached the consensus that it is "better to wait" for their teacher's return, "Himawari-chan" -- the cat avatar virtual transfer student -- suddenly interjected, saying, "For the time being, why don't we just go outside?"

The virtual cat's suggestion immediately sparked discussion, with some students questioning whether taking the advice would be dangerous and others voicing opinions that if they "go this way out, we'll be okay."

Yuzuha Kadoki, 15, one of the four girls and a third-year student, said of the app, "It said things I hadn't thought of and was easy to talk to."

The Virtual Transfer Student is a semi-automated app that allows teachers to prepare dialogue in advance and have it recited in the correct context in the classroom. Teachers say Himawari-chan encourages spontaneous thinking by speaking from the perspective of a student.

Kobayashi, 33, said that while working at middle schools and high schools in the past, he felt that classroom discussions tended to be pulled in one direction by some students, leading to biases that did not contribute to more worthwhile conversations. So, about a decade ago, he started an initiative to develop a robot that makes mistakes.
 

 

In 2021, he began research using avatars at the University of Fukui, hoping to "put them on a more equal footing with children."

Research is being conducted on generative artificial intelligence to improve the content of the statements, but Kobayashi said, for the time being, they are not considering incorporating the technology as "it is still difficult for AI to come up with good questions that will deepen discussions."

Having teachers prepare remarks in advance also has the advantage of helping them improve their teaching skills, he said.

So far, access to the app has been given to about 30 elementary and junior high school teachers across Japan, including in Fukui, Niigata and Nagasaki prefectures, and it has been used mainly in ethics and social studies classes. Of these, 70 to 80 percent are small schools.

Kobayashi says Himawari-chan is not "good at reading a room" but can be helpful because it stirs debate by voicing contrary opinions in small classes where some students tend to dominate.

"When there are just a few students, roles within the group become set, making it difficult for some to make in-depth statements," he said.
One teacher who has used the app in the classroom, praised it, saying, "Even quiet students have started expressing their opinions a lot more and enlivening the discussions."

Initially, the avatar was a human boy, but some students objected to it, so they started using a cat to test whether using a human factored into its likeability.

Kobayashi said, "I would like to use avatars to research what kind of words and appearances are effective in deepening opinions and changing the atmosphere in classrooms where students often find it difficult to express their true feelings."
 
 

A university in Japan recently became the first to successfully breed Japanese eels by hatching fish larvae from older ones farmed in the facility, amid a rapid decline in the fish species' numbers in the wild and a heightened interest in conservation efforts.

Kindai University in Osaka Prefecture, western Japan, recently achieved a "full-cycle" aquaculture of the eels, an endangered species and a prized delicacy. But although hopes are high about utilizing the method for commercial use, the goal has yet to be realized.

The university used similar methods to those of the state-run Japan Fisheries Research and Education Agency, which in 2010 became the first facility in the world to achieve full-cycle eel farming, a process that involves incubating and cultivating eels so they produce offspring.

Although eels available on the Japanese market are 99.9 percent sourced from farms, they usually first need to be caught in the wild while still young, and a massive decline in catches has generated greater interest in the technology as it would enable producers to breed the fish from their eggs.

The university removed the eggs from a female eel for artificial insemination and then allowed the hatchlings to reach maturity before repeating the process to establish a full breeding cycle.

But the university said it has struggled to sustain a large population of young eels due to the many mysteries surrounding their biology.

The juvenile eels, known as glass eels, take time to mature and maintaining them can be complicated as their eating habits often make their tanks dirty, according to the university.

"We will focus on developing the technology to raise glass eels and help in their mass production," said Shukei Masuma, a specially appointed professor at the Aquaculture Research Institute at the university.

The university has also achieved full-cycle farming of bluefin tuna.
 
 

Several Japanese universities shot up in the latest annual ranking published by British magazine Times Higher Education, with the University of Tokyo rising to 29th, the highest position for a Japanese institution since 2015.

In its World University Rankings 2024, the University of Tokyo climbed from 39th place in the previous ranking while Kyoto University jumped from 68th to 55th place.

The magazine said the notable rise in the rankings of Japanese institutions was due to a newly added metric on patents.

Tohoku University, Osaka University and the Tokyo Institute of Technology were also among the institutions rated more highly due to the new indicator that rewards contributions to patents.

The magazine looked at 1,904 institutions in 108 countries and regions, evaluating their performance across five areas including research, international outlook and knowledge transfer.

The top 10 was dominated by British and American institutions, with Britain's University of Oxford ranked first and Stanford University in the United States second.

China's Tsinghua University and Peking University came in 12th and 14th place respectively.

According to a Times official, links between universities and industry are strong in Japan, making it easier to put university research into practice.

However, Japanese universities tended to rate poorly on indicators relating to international outlook and overall research output, with the magazine noting that Japan "faces some real challenges to its international competitiveness."
 
 

 

Third-year junior high students in Japan were only able to answer 12.4 percent of questions correctly on average in an English speaking test for national assessments conducted in April, the education ministry said Monday, marking an 18.4 percentage points fall from when they were previously assessed in 2019.

More than 60 percent of the students evaluated could not answer a single speaking question correctly, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology results showed.

Although national assessments are conducted annually, it was the first time in four years that third-year high schoolers' English was evaluated.

The drop comes after changes were introduced to the English teaching curriculum in the 2021 academic year, putting more focus on students' ability to convey their thoughts and understand those of others in the language.

Aside from speaking skills, the junior high school students provided correct answers to an average of 46.1 percent of questions in the reading, listening and writing sections of the test, a fall of 10.4 points from the previous assessment.

Although the results showed a fall in the proportion of correct answers, an official at the ministry said the test had been "difficult" and explained that it "cannot be concluded that students' English ability has fallen."

With a majority of students unable to correctly answer a single speaking question, some experts say the curriculum is too advanced and that the way the questions are formulated is ill-suited to the task of assessing students' language skills.

The English speaking portion of the test comprised five questions, including one in which students watched a video about environmental issues and then provided answers in English, which included expressing their thoughts. Their responses were recorded on digital devices and sent to the ministry.

To avoid the recordings being sent all at once from across the country, which risked causing a communications failure, the ministry sampled about 42,000 students at about 500 schools in the nationwide April assessment.

The ministry says direct comparisons with previous assessments are not appropriate, as the average is calculated from the sample alone.

While the junior high schoolers' average correct answer rate in reading and listening stood at over 50 percent, writing scores were also low, averaging 24.1 percent.

Prefectures in major metropolitan areas such as Tokyo, Kanagawa and Aichi had the highest results in English reading, listening and writing, according to the ministry.




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