高等教育政策と大学の自己変革 : 広島大学大学院教育改革支援プログラム「Ed.D型大学院プログラムの開発と実践」における取組を手がかりに

The aim of this paper is to explore the problems in the Teaching Assistant System in Japan and to attempt addressing them. In the first part of this paper, the nature of the T.A. System in Japan was identified by comparing it with the U.S. four problems in the T.A. System in Japan emerged from this comparison; 1) working as a T.A. intervenes with the research tasks of some graduate students, 2) the development of their potentials to acquire good teaching skills as T.A. seems to be unrealized, 3) the salary is not enough as a financial support, 4) there seems to be a feeling of T.A.s not being appreciated socially. In the last part of this paper, the attempts of the Ed.D. Program in Hiroshima University to address the above mentioned problems and to seek strategy to improve the T.A. system in Japan were analyzed, particularly its Teaching Practicum aspect. Two results emerged from this analysis; 1) Teaching Practicum is a unique attempt towards a mutual training among graduate students themselves, and 2) through a cycle that involves classroom observation → syllabus construction → review meeting before class practicum → class practicum → review meeting after class practicum, deliberation meeting with student members and advisers, the student teacher is expected to have her/his own teaching abilities improved and developed. The Teaching Practicum in Hiroshima University is an initial attempt to address the two problems in the T.A. System in Japan as mentioned above, more particularly the latter one.