Second Interview with Mr. Yasuda, a Teacher

Today, I had the pleasure of interviewing Mr. Yasuda, a former colleague of mine and now a school teacher.
Hatori: Mr. Yasuda, when did you first encounter computers?

Yasuda: I believe it was about 40 years ago. I think it was around the time of the PC9801 and the early days of MS-DOS.

Hatori: I don't really remember those early PCs. I did have one at home, but I can't recall what I was doing with it. We had a printer too, and there were some simple games. I also used Ichitaro to create flyers for events like xx meetings.

Yasuda: It was pretty much just a word processor. I also spent a lot of time on computer communications, connecting to services like Nifty and PC-VAN. Those were like the SNS of today. Most people today wouldn't even know what a modem is. We used to download MIDI files for karaoke data via wired broadcasts and play them on the PC9801. Nowadays, with YouTube, there's little need for MIDI files.

Hatori: The last time I saw you was before the pandemic. I imagine the pandemic brought significant changes to schools. For example, how do absent students catch up on missed classes? Do they just miss out entirely?

Yasuda: At school, we use applications for individual follow-ups where students and teachers can communicate. Questions are also handled through apps like LoiLoNote.

Hatori: Is that a standard practice, or is there a specific rule for supporting absent students?

Yasuda: It depends on the teacher. For things like regular tests or specific evaluations, we make sure to follow up. For example, if a quiz is part of the assessment.

Hatori: In our company's partner educational institutions, we record all class content and distribute it to absent students. This way, even if a student misses a class due to illness, they can still review the class at home.

Yasuda: I believe that's the direction we're heading. Our school still has some gaps in the system. There are also copyright issues to consider. During the pandemic, some departments recorded lectures and distributed them to students, but we ensured they did not share the data elsewhere.

Hatori: I always think that some students will inevitably upload the videos to sharing platforms.

Yasuda: From the perspective of the teacher who conducted the class, the content is their intellectual property. So, if students upload it to a sharing platform without permission, it's illegal.

Hatori: During the pandemic, how did you conduct classes? Did students still come to school?

Yasuda: During the pandemic, we mostly recorded videos and sent them to students rather than conducting live online classes.

Hatori: One of the students from our partner institution mentioned that during online classes via Zoom, most students would turn off their cameras and do other things after attendance was taken. It seemed like attendance was very lenient, and the quality of education was quite poor.

Yasuda: That relies on the student's goodwill.

Hatori: For university classes conducted online, students could log in for the first few minutes for attendance and then turn off their cameras and leave. Can we really say they attended the class?

Yasuda: At our school, we assign tasks that require students to listen to the class. We check these tasks afterwards. While online classes may end at the session, having a follow-up step, such as using apps like LoiLoNote, helps resolve this issue.

Hatori: However, students can still ask their friends for answers, right?

Yasuda: Yes, they can cheat in that way.

Hatori: Having students in front of you and on screen is different. Solving this through software and systems is a challenge our company is tackling.

Hatori: Did you notice a difference in students' academic performance before and after the pandemic?

Yasuda: The gap between students who study diligently and those who don't has widened. In private schools, the typical approach is to guide students closely, but those who could study independently excelled. It's time to rethink the school system. Instead of teachers instructing, it's more about students figuring things out, and teachers verifying it. I heard in an education critic's lecture that native speakers teach English poorly on purpose to make students realize the mistakes and think for themselves. Students must have the desire to learn and experience success step by step. This trend is called active learning, requiring teachers to improve their coaching skills.

Hatori: In a few years, all tests will be on tablets. Tablets make grading easy and fast, taking less than a second to calculate scores.

Yasuda: We use an app called Saiten Navi. We scan students' paper answers, upload them to the server, and divide the grading among teachers. For instance, Teacher A grades question 1, Teacher B grades question 2. This method also makes calculating question-specific accuracy rates easy. There is also an automatic grading mode.

Hatori: The best grading system would be using a mark sheet for answers, which are entered on a tablet and automatically graded by the computer. This way, there's almost no burden on the graders. However, the challenge is handling essay questions. Can we completely eliminate essay questions?

Yasuda: "I believe it will still be a few years before technology can automatically grade technical problems. It seems that OpenAI's ChatGPT in Japanese is still lagging behind. The National Institute of Informatics, under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of NONBUKAGAKU-SYO, is developing TOUROBO-KUN. They are testing it by having it solve past exam questions from the University of Tokyo and CENTER-TEST(注:旧センター試験のこと) to see how many correct answers it can get and to reach a level where it can pass. However, there are still areas for improvement with descriptive questions. This suggests that computers have not yet fully mastered the nuances of the Japanese language. That said, the accuracy is improving significantly. For example, if we record the content of this conversation right now and input it into ChatGPT with the command 【summarize this article in 100words】, it can do that now. However, it is not perfect when asked to summarize the content of an essay question. Even when asked to summarize a novel, there are still some errors. This is partly because there are still few AI engineers and Japanese language experts specializing in Japanese. In contrast, the accuracy is said to be high for English."

Hatori: "What exactly is the fundamental difference between multiple-choice questions and technical problems?"

Yasuda: "It's whether or not you can express it in your own words. Also, it's a matter of vocabulary."

Hatori: "But it seems that people who score high on multiple-choice questions also have a high correct answer rate on technical problems."

Yasuda: "Well, I think you'll understand if you look at the modern Japanese problems from the University of Tokyo (laughs). You can't get the correct answer by just extracting the information. You have to rephrase it in your own words. Recognizing and understanding words is different from connecting those words to other words on your own, and ultimately, the level of expressiveness is different. Expressiveness is related to communication skills. It's the process of listening to what the other person is saying, interpreting it in your own way, and then outputting that interpretation. This requires training."

Hatori: "Thank you very much for the interview today. It was a very educational and valuable opportunity. It made me want to develop systems for grading using tablets and systems for online lectures at our company. Thank you very much."