Operationalizing Updated Tsunami Hazard Assumptions in School Evacuation Planning: Insights from Teacher Training and Implementation Challenges in Japan

The quality of education in Somalia is deficient, and the limited number of trained teachers is the leading cause of the poor quality of primary schools. In Somalia, the landscape of teacher training has various challenges that demand restructuring of the existing in-service teacher training programs to enhance the competence of teachers and contribute to the effectiveness of learning outcomes. In-service teacher training is vital for the quality of education, particularly in Somalia, where most teachers lack basic competence for being teachers at primary schools. It will result in eliminating untrained teachers from schools in a cost-effective and approachable way. It is globally accepted that in-service primary teacher training promotes continuous professional development and enables teachers to create a conducive learning environment. In this contribution this paper aims to critically analyze the existing in-service teacher training program at the Federal Government of Somalia to propose an innovative model that is applicable nationwide. The paper used a document analysis research approach to collect and analyze secondary data. The paper was guided by the demand and supply theory for teacher training. The paper found that the current teacher training institutes use an unstandardized traditional curriculum that is inadequate to equip teachers with the required competence. The research findings contributed to understanding insights about in-service primary teacher training in Somalia. The paper proposed an innovative model for in-service teacher training that motivates teachers to enroll in in-service teacher training and enables them to improve their knowledge and skills through online and face-to-face training modalities with specialized subjects and mentoring support. Therefore, the paper recommends that teachers should frequently attend training programs through an innovative model for teacher training to enhance pedagogy skills and subject knowledge and boost pre-service teacher training. Further studies are also recommended to assess and improve the effectiveness of the proposed innovative model for in-service primary teacher training.

The analysis of regional (local) timber markets is important in order to make understood the regional characteristics of the flows of timber. For this reason, the author analyzed the changes of timber supply areas in Miyagi Prefecture in relation to the rapid growth of demand in Sendai timber market. The results of the analysis are summarized as follows: (1) The timber supply area of Sendai includes Aomori, Iwate, Miyagi, and Fukushima Prefectures, but most of it is made up of the eastern region of Miyagi Prefecture and Sendai City itself. (2) In the eastern region of Miyagi Prefecture, the sawmills are divided into two groups because of their sales areas. The northern area, which is mainly concentrated in Motoyoshi County, ships most of its timber to Sendai and outside of Miyagi Perfecture such as Tokyo. The southern area, which is located in Ishinomaki City, ships their timber to the small local consuming areas of Ishinomaki and Sendai. (3) In Ishinomaki City, the largest timber producing area in Miyagi Prefecture, the location of Woodwork Manufacturing Estate for Sendai timber market affected the organization of timber supply. Up to the middle of the 1960's when the Woodwork Manufacturing Estate was established, most of the sawmills were small to medium, in size and used only domestic timber and shipped most their products to local consumers in Ishinomaki. Put, since then, some of the large sawmills and factories in the Woodwork Manufacturing Estate have supplied the imported timber to small to medium sized sawmills in Ishinomaki City and become wholesalers of timber as well. Consequently, some of the larger factories have come to control the small to medium sized sawmills in terms of the supply of imported timber. The existence of a dual structure between the large and the small to medium sized sawmills in the timber industry in Ishinomaki was to be noticed (4) In the Motoyoshi County, where is an abundance of forest resources, most of the sawmills which were established at the ealier stage, and most of their products were supplied to the consumers in Sendai, with a exception of a few small sawmills which met the local demand for timber. But for the past 5 to 10 years, most of the sawmills have started to ship their products to the markets in both Tokyo and Sendai. Owing to the shortage of domestic timber, the linkage with the Sendai market becomes rather unstable recently. (5) In the case of Sendai City, the size of mills are small, but sawmill operators also perform the function of dealers in timber market. This has been brought by the diversified demand in the market. Thus, it would be appropriate to recognize the sawmills in Sendai as timber dealers rather than as sawmills. They sell timber produced by other sawmill together with their own products. They usually buy timber and deal with sawmills in Motoyoshi and Ishinomaki in the wholesale market in Sendai. In addition to these another feature of sawmills in Sendai is based on the fact that most of mills are located in such a conjested urban area that they cannot meet the rapid growth in demand for timber.

Emergency Evacuation Readiness of Full-Time Wheelchair Users With Spinal Cord Injury

This paper describes the approach applied to the introduction of self-reliant internship into the in-service TVET (Technical Vocational Education and Training) teacher training at the Technical Teacher Training Institute (TTTI) in Afghanistan. As data show in 2014, Afghan TVET teachers neither meet the legal requirements set by the government (Bachelor degree) nor have contacts to or work experiences in private or public sector companies. They have no knowledge of the working requirements they are preparing their students for. Consequently, in-service teacher training at the TTTI has to provide it’s learners with knowledge and skills in accordance with the market requirements. Thus, at the TTTI Capacity Building is focusing among others on the multifaceted interdependent relationship between teacher-student-company in order to empower teachers to be able to contribute to the employability of their students. In this respect TTTI’s in-service teacher training foresees the teacher’s participation in a private or public sector self-reliant internship to benefit from the expertise of companies’ work force and employers and actualize their understanding for the world of work. Afghan TVET teachers completing successful the TTTI in-service training are able to train many cohorts of students for the labor market or self-employment with the gained competences. Two subsequent cohorts of TTTI trainees - government employed TVET teachers undergoing in-service teacher training - have been participating for their first time in self-reliant internship in 2013 and 2014. According to the findings, recommendations are given for using the approach of introducing internship in in-service training for TVET teacher capacity building.

To predict and suppress human casualty in a future tsunami disaster, it is crucial to analyze victim information from past disasters and clarify the causes of human casualty. Examining the causes of human casualty requires analyses that combine various hazard information and victim information in subregional units. This study aims to grasp the factors that caused human casualty during the Great East Japan Earthquake in 2011 using Miyagi Prefectural Police Headquarters’ victim information. Therefore, at Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture, we researched the spatial distribution of causes of death based on the victims’ addresses and the corpse location, as well as the occurrence factor of each cause of death. As a result, we obtain the following results. (1) The spatial distribution of victims based on the corpse location is more clearly related to the hazard than the victim’s address. In other words, it is proved that the detection site of the body is significant when examining the relationship between human casualty and hazards. (2) The hypothesis of each cause of death is verified based on the spatial distribution of each cause of death, hazard information, the victim’s age, and the date of detecting the body. As a result, it is suggested that drowning, death due to fire, and hypothermia are causes of death related to external forces. It is also suggested that hypothermia and heart disease are causes of death related to individual fragility. (3) Such a possibility showed that the cause of death could not be identified for death from unknown origin due to the bodies’ decay resulting from taking time to detect the dead bodies. (4) We propose a diagram of relationship between the causes of death and the occurrence of factors of death at Ishinomaki City. In the future, to generalize the relationship, it is considered that the same analysis will be required in the coastal municipalities of Miyagi Prefecture.

The dimension and degree of a disaster can depend on the vulnerability of the location, the people and the community. One of the key lessons learnt from the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake disaster was that schools should prepare a school contingency plan in advance. To do so, they should fully understand their school’s disaster risk in the worst-case scenario in order to protect children’s lives at the school. Therefore, schools are required to customise their preparedness measures according to the school’s locality. The training programme, ‘Understanding disaster risk based on geographic features of a school district’ was developed and implemented in Ishinomaki City, Miyagi Prefecture, which was severely affected by the 2011 tsunami. The training programme was a spin-off of a school-based disaster education programme implemented in Ishinomaki City and was expected to support the customisation of schools’ disaster manuals according to the school district’s disaster risk. In order to strengthen teachers’ map-reading skills, the training was organised in three steps. The first step was to enable teachers to acquire basic map-reading skills and read a contour map to understand the geomorphological features of their school district. The second step was to have teachers compare these maps to hazard maps (for tsunamis, floods and landslides) to understand the links between geomorphological features and disaster risk. The third step was to have them identify emergency evacuation sites and evacuation shelters for each hazard type in their school district. It was found that the training helped to increase the participants’ confidence in understanding these maps.

Teacher training is one of the major components of continuous professional development (CPD) which makes the teacher stay updated and informed regarding the innovative pedagogy and methodology. In-service teacher training is a systematized planning or program through which teachers refresh or upgrade their professional knowledge, skills, and practice. This study aimed to explore the perceptions of secondary-level English teachers on in-service teacher training. The study assessed the perception of the teacher towards in-service teacher training. The study adopted a narrative inquiry methodology. Five participants were selected purposively from Godawari Municipality, Lalitpur. Data were collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews and after transcribing, translating, and classifying them, the data were analyzed thematically. Self-efficacy theory developed by Albert Bandura has been applied to analyze the study. The findings of the study indicated that teachers were positive towards in-service teacher training. They opined that in-service training supported them in their professional development to conduct different hands-on activities effectively in their classrooms, and after this school-based training, they updated themselves with innovative pedagogy and methodology. The teachers demanded regular in-service training based on their needs. Further, teachers focused on ICT-based teacher training rather than theory-laden conventional training but they were not satisfied with the top-down approach of in-service teachers training packages. The study concludes that research needs to be carried out on the impacts on students' performance through teacher training.

During the war of independence, it was found that South Sudan had one of the worst educational indicators. About sixty percent of the teachers were untrained and many of them were primary school drop-outs. The Government of the Republic of South Sudan addressed this problem in various ways including pre-service, in-service teacher training and accelerated learning programmes. This paper investigates the in-service and accelerated learning teacher training programmes. Data was collected from various NGO reports, interviews with persons directly involved in primary teacher training in South Sudan and secondary literature. The in-service and accelerated teacher training programmes generally resulted in raising the level of education and training of the serving but untrained teachers in South Sudan.

As a veteran of more than 30 years of teaching high school physics students and 20 years of providing in-service training for other physics and physical science teachers, I wrote this manual as a guide for teaching about a topic that I consider to be very important in developing a big-picture understanding of the physical world. I hope that it will prove to be useful for classroom teachers, my target audience, and also for those providing pre-service or in-service training for teachers.

Despite substantial government investment in in-service teacher training to promote participatory teaching methods in Tanzania, secondary school classrooms often remain dominated by teacher-centred approaches, resulting in low student engagement and suboptimal learning outcomes. This study focused on The Impact of In-service Teachers’ Training on Participatory Teaching methods in Ward Secondary Schools in Morogoro Municipality, Tanzania. The study was guided by Constructivist Learning Theory (CLT) and three objectives, which include: to identify the pedagogical approaches used by the trained teachers in implementing participatory teaching methods in the classroom; to examine the extent to which students are engaged in learning during Teaching; and to observe teachers’ competencies and support during teaching. The study used pragmatic philosophy and employed a mixed method approach as a means of data collection and analysis. The study sampled 40 trained teachers and 80 students from 10 schools, selected through probability and non-probability sampling. The research instruments used by the researcher included questionnaires, an interview guide and focus group discussions. The quantitative data were analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences SPSS version 24 and presented using means, frequencies and percentages. Thematic analysis and narration were used to analyse qualitative data. The findings revealed that the majority of trained teachers insisted that in-service training programs on participatory teaching methods increase creativity and more interactive way of teaching learners. The study concludes that while in-service training effectively promotes participatory teaching, its sustained impact depends on continuous institutional support and infrastructure improvement. The researcher recommended that the Ministry of Education and Local Education Authorities should strengthen in-service teachers’ training programs in order to update their teaching skills; also, school administrators should motivate teachers who use participatory teaching methods and encourage trained teachers to work in teams in order to share their experiences. Finally, longitudinal research should be conducted by the researchers and education institutions to assess the long-term impacts of in-service teachers’ training on participatory teaching methods for both teachers and students.

The State of In-Service Training of Teachers and Teacher Training in National Education Councils

Inaiishi-stone is black slate which has been produced from Ishinomaki city, Miyagi prefecture, Japan. The development of the facilities made in Inaiishi-stone for Shinto-shrine yards in modern Ishinomaki city was investigated from field survey and literature reference. Shinto had been the established state religion in modern Japan (1868–1945), therefore Shinto shrine yards were re-maintained. Most of the elements of established state Shinto shrines were there in Ishinomaki city. The development time of stone-works of Inaiishi conspired to the development time of established state Shinto. Various new facilities made in Inaiishi-stone, including sign of shrine name with status, monument of the death in international war (loyalty to the Emperor), and obelisk style facilities, had been founded in Shinto shrine yards in Ishinomaki city. And traditional “Torii” gates of Shinto shrines had been renewed into Inaiishi-stone Torii. Large Inaiishi-stone Torii gates were founded due to technical improvement in Inaiishi-stone masonry. Some of Inaiishi-stone facilities were carved with the prayers of the people lived in the periods when international wars had been continued.

Increasing digitalization in school expands teachers' options to design learning arrangements, but also creates demand to promote digitalization-related skills in STEM disciplines. Given this growing demand, universities are being asked to participate in the design and evaluation of evidence-based in-service teacher trainings. University-based out-of-school student labs have already demonstrated capacity to develop innovative offerings related to domain-specific digital technologies. Their incorporation into pre-service teacher trainings has yielded favorable outcomes. Consequently, there is potential to incorporate them into in-service teacher training as well. Research is needed regarding the impact of such trainings at different levels, particularly with respect to teachers' professional knowledge and beliefs. In this study, eight different in-service teacher trainings covering various STEM disciplines were designed in cooperation with out-of-school student labs to promote the use of subject-specific media in the classroom. We examined the overall effects of these trainings on teachers' beliefs regarding their professional knowledge, self-efficacy, and technology commitment. One hundred and five STEM-teachers (M age = 41.74 years, SD age = 9.45 years, 33% female) participated in eight distinct and discipline-specific in-service teacher trainings. Participants' self-assessed professional knowledge, self-efficacy, and technology commitment were evaluated in a pre-posttest-design, using questionnaires with a 6-point Likert scale. Furthermore, outcomes and initial values of the intervention group of teachers were compared to those of a comparison group (n = 569; M age = 40.92 years, SD age = 11.46 years, 67% female). The results of the pre-post comparison indicate a positive effect on all analyzed dimensions of self-assessed professional knowledge. No significant differences were found regarding participants' self-efficacy and technology commitment. Additionally, participants' prior technology commitment was already high and remained consistently high after intervention. This is confirmed by the results observed in the comparison group. The pretest values of the intervention group were significantly higher than those of the comparison group in the dimensions of self-assessed professional knowledge, technology commitment, and self-efficacy. Similar results were observed when posttest data of the intervention group were compared with those of the comparison subgroup comprising participants who had previously participated in other digitalization-related teacher trainings.

Purpose: One of the critical issues in addressing migrant students is the improvement of cultural adaptation. Therefore, the objective of this study was to analyze the drivers for enhancing cultural adaptation in addressing migrant students through education. Methodology: This study was applied in terms of its objective and utilized a mixed-methods approach (qualitative and quantitative) in terms of execution. The study population in both sections consisted of managers and teachers familiar with the research field, from which 18 individuals were selected as samples based on the principle of theoretical saturation using purposive sampling. The research instruments included literature review, semi-structured interviews, and a researcher-made questionnaire. Initially, experts were interviewed, and then 15 of those who expressed willingness evaluated the importance of the extracted drivers. In this study, the coding method was used to identify the drivers for improving cultural adaptation in addressing migrant students through education, the importance and uncertainty method to identify key drivers, and the structural analysis method using MICMAC software to understand the influence of the drivers. Findings: The findings indicated that the most important drivers for enhancing cultural adaptation in addressing migrant students through education were, in order, training managers on how to interact with migrant students, short-term training for teachers, training all students on how to interact with migrant students, training parents on how to teach communication principles with different cultures, training teachers by school managers, short-term training for school managers, training managers on how to deal with errant teachers, training migrant students on how to handle other students' behaviors, in-service training for teachers, training teachers through brochures, and training migrant parents to enhance their children's communication skills. Additionally, the drivers' impact levels were ranked, with the training of parents on communication principles with different cultures, training managers on interacting with migrant students, training managers on dealing with errant teachers, training migrant parents to enhance their children's communication skills, training all students on interacting with migrant students, short-term training for teachers, in-service training for teachers, training teachers by school managers, short-term training for school managers, training teachers through brochures, and training migrant students on handling other students' behaviors being the most influential. Conclusion: Cultural specialists and planners in the country can utilize the identified drivers from the present study, considering their importance and impact, to improve cultural adaptation in addressing migrant students through education.

The study investigated the effectiveness of Action Research Course, one of the five component courses of the in-service English teacher training program implemented by National Foreign Language 2020 Project in Vietnam. The primary purpose of the course is to help in-service teachers of English develop the ability to do action research in their teaching context. How effective the course is, what alternative strategies can be used for the implementation of the course, what problems prevent the course from meeting the need of the course’s participants, and what improvements should be made were examined in this study. The evaluation on the implementation of the Action Research applies Context, Input, Process and Product (CIPP) model, which is developed by Stuffflebeam to assess strengths and weaknesses of the course for accountability and improvement. A total of 30 in-service teachers of English were interviewed and course documents were reviewed to generate data. Data analysis reveals that the course is effective to develop in-service teachers’ ability to do action research though improvements should be made to textbook and practice session of the course.Keywords: Action research, CIPP model, evaluation, in-service teacher training, The National Foreign Language 2020 projectCite as: Anh, V.T.K. (2017). Evaluating the implementation of Action Research Course in an in-service teacher training program in Vietnam. Journal of Nusantara Studies, 2(2), 88-97.