A Proposal of a New Team Building Method in IT PBL:

A Trial of the SENTAI-Hero-Exercise

Chikako Morimoto

and Keisuke Minami

Department of Management, Tokyo University of Science, Tokyo, Japan

SUNS Entertainment, Tokyo, Japan

Keywords: Practical Education, Team Building, PBL, Sentai-Hero-Exercise.

Abstract: In recent years, the development of digital transformation has accelerated worldwide. Therefore, the

importance of practical IT human resource development is increasing day by day. Active learning has been

introduced as a practical human resource development method. In Japan, practical education programs that

transcend the barriers between universities and between industry and academia have been implemented since

2006, and Project Based Learning (PBL) has been widely used as a method to realize such programs. However,

in Japan, the university faculty members don't have enough specialty in project management, and many of

them feel difficulty in team management. Especially, IT faculty members are seemed not good at facilitation.

In this study, we organize PBL from the perspective of project management and report the results of our trial

of a method to smoothly implement team building, which is particularly important when launching PBL for

IT faculty. This method doesn't use any tools and easy icebreaking for the start of PBL.

1 INTRODUCTION

In recent years, STEAM education has been gaining

momentum worldwide in. STEAM is an educational

concept that combines the initials of five words:

Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and

Mathematics. In the background, there have been

dramatic advances in AI and robotics-related

technologies, and STEAM education cannot be

separated from practical IT human resource

development.

In Japan, the Cabinet Office released the "Fifth

Science and Technology Basic Plan" (Cabinet Office

website, 2016), which recommends further

promotion of cross-disciplinary education centered

on ICT, as the number of students majoring in

STEAM fields is small compared to other countries

from 2021, programming education will become

compulsory in elementary schools, and ICT education

is expected to become more widespread.

Active learning (AL) is mainly used to implement

STEAM education. Especially in recent years, PBL is

often used. However, there are few institutions of

higher education in Japan that specialize in teaching

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0085-1337

project management, and the diffusion of know-how

is insufficient. In Japan, where there is an urgent need

to secure practical IT personnel, project management

education for PBL teachers is an important issue.

However, IT faculty members are not good at

communication and facilitation. Although there are

faculty members who can perform simple

icebreakers, PBL requires even more intimate

relationship-building. There is a need for practices

that can be implemented by inexperienced faculty.

Therefore, in this study, we developed a practice

that is simple to implement. This is the "Sentai-Hero-

Exercise," which can be used for team building in the

introduction of PBL.

2 PRACTICAL IT EDUCATION IN

JAPAN

In this chapter we will introduce the overview of IT

education in Japan.

364

Morimoto, C. and Minami, K.

A Proposal of a New Team Building Method in IT PBL: A Trial of the SENTAI-Hero-Exercise.

DOI: 10.5220/0011828600003470

In Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2023) - Volume 2, pages 364-370

ISBN: 978-989-758-641-5; ISSN: 2184-5026

 2023 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. Under CC license (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

2.1 The Study Guidelines of the

Ministry of Education, Culture,

Sports, Science and Technology

In Japan, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports,

Science and Technology (MEXT) has established the

"Courses of Study" to define standards for curriculum

development in elementary and secondary education.

The "Courses of Study" ensure that all schools

throughout the country maintain a certain level of

standards. Children's textbooks and timetables are

based on these guidelines. The Courses of Study are

revised approximately every 10 years.

As a specific educational content, the

enhancement of STEAM education is clearly stated.

For example, the following contents are described.

 Activities to identify problems in everyday life

(mathematics)

 Observation and experimentation with a

perspective (Science)

 Statistical education for collecting and

analyzing necessary data and solving problems

based on the trends (Mathematics)

 Enrichment of content related to natural

disasters (Science)

In particular, foreign language and programming

education are included in compulsory elementary

school education and must be studied by all

elementary school students. This is a major point of

this revision and has a very significant impact on the

curriculum. Regarding learning methods, the Courses

of Study emphasize active learning in order to

promote interactive education and independent

learning. In interactive education, group work and

discussion are encouraged. However, the specific

teaching methods are left to the schools and teachers.

2.2 Current Status of IT Education

According to the "Policy Package on Education and

Human Resource Development for the Realization of

Society 5.0 (Interim Summary)" released by the

Cabinet Office in December 2021, the content has

been changed from the perspective of human resource

development based on the assumption of an

industrialized society to one that emphasizes the

development of human resources for value creation

and innovation creation in a human-centered manner.

Furthermore, to achieve this, more emphasis will be

placed on human resource development related to

digital technology. This also has an impact on the

mandatory programming in elementary schools

mentioned in the previous section.

Regarding science and math literacy, the issue of

gender disparity has been pointed out. At the end of

secondary school, 39% of girls have high science and

mathematics literacy, 27% of girls choose natural

science and mathematics in higher education, and 16%

in engineering, manufacturing, and architecture. This

is the lowest percentage among OECD countries.

As for the current state of ICT education, 41.0%

of elementary school students own a dedicated

smartphone and use digital devices daily. However,

their main use tends to be for games, and the ratio of

students utilizing computers for learning is quite low

among OECD member countries. On the other hand,

they are strongly affected by the filter bubble

phenomenon, and the impact of "peer pressure" inside

and outside of schools has become an issue, making

the development of digital citizenship an important

issue. Furthermore, the number of teachers who can

handle programming education is small, and the

possibility of not being able to provide adequate

education is an issue.

2.3 Practical IT Education at

Universities

Turning to university education, practical IT human

resource development has been conducted since 2006

at the initiative of the Ministry of Education, Culture,

Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) for

universities with information fields nationwide. That

was called the "Collaborative Network for Practical

Information Education Across Fields and Regions"

(enPiT), an educational project for master's degree

and undergraduate students. enPiT was implemented

until March 2021 and has been expanded nationwide

with 35 universities across Japan. enPiT2 was

implemented until March 2021 and was expanded

nationwide, centering on 35 universities nationwide.

Although enPiT was highly satisfactory from the

perspective of both students and companies, there were

some problems with the system for implementing

education. Those were based on PBL but there was a

lack of personnel specializing in project management

among university faculty in Japan. So the PBL was

mainly conducted by faculty members who had

temporarily transferred from companies or jointly with

companies. After the end of enPiT program in 2021, it

is not possible to ascertain whether project manage-

ment knowledge has taken root. In addition, many

Japanese university faculty members are not trained as

education specialists in the first place, and many of

them feel uneasy about PBL management. Especially,

IT faculty are deemed not good at communication, so

practical faculty training is required.

A Proposal of a New Team Building Method in IT PBL: A Trial of the SENTAI-Hero-Exercise

365

3 RELATED STUDIES

3.1 Active Learning

Active Learning (AL) has been practiced mainly in

the U.S. since the middle of the 19th century Taba

stated in his 1932 book that "active learning is that in

which the learner has some activity" (Taba 1932),

indicating that attention has been focused on the

learner's independent activity since that time There is

no unified definition of AL but it is used differently

depending on the context, referring to the learners'

own active learning itself, as in Bonwell and Eison's

"the act of learning in which students are made to

engage in activities of acting and thinking about the

content of their actions" (Bonwell and Eison 1991),

or the educational methods used to achieve this.

Yamauchi analyzed educational technology papers in

Japan since the 21st century and organized them into

four areas of research: teaching, evaluation,

environment, and support (Yamauchi 2018).

In recent years, more specific research has been

conducted on the effectiveness of AL

implementation. For example, Michael Prince (2004)

compared active learning, collaborative learning,

cooperative learning, and problem-based learning in

engineering education, and described the importance

of selecting methods that match class objectives.

The core of AL is, as mentioned above Bonwell

and Eison (1991), "Learners' self-directed learning by

realizing the need for learning. In other words, it is

important to elicit a learning attitude through

reflection. Therefore, coaching and facilitation skills

are necessary for educators. In the perspective of

research on AL, according to Yamauchi (2018), there

are very few studies on the skills and competencies

required on the part of educators. The need for teacher

education will become increasingly important in the

promotion of AL.

3.2 PBL Research in the IT Field

Through a series of enPiT initiatives, a great deal of

knowledge has been accumulated about PBL in the IT

field. For example, various efforts have been made,

such as Kondo et al.'s practical report (2014) on ICT

environment development and Hiroto et al.'s report

(2019) on assessment. In addition, Tanabata et al.

have attempted to evaluate the amount of

participation of members in PBL using function

points (2014). Especially since the implementation of

enPiT, various practical studies have been conducted.

However, most of the research is related to devices

such as PCs, network environment, curriculum

structure, and evaluation methods, etc. There are few

studies on relationship building among students in

PBL or on teaching methods. This may be attributed

to the fact that the faculty members in charge

specialize mainly in ICT and have little knowledge of

management.

4 APPROACH OF THIS

RESEARCH

4.1 PBL Structure

PBL can be divided into two types: Project Based

Learning and Problem Based Learning. In this study,

PBL is used in the sense of Project Based Learning,

which is mainly used in Japan. This is due to the

background that group work is introduced for the

purpose of learning through dialogue as described in

Chapter 2. However, in practical IT human resource

development programs such as enPiT, Project Based

Leaning is often conducted on real issues (=Problem)

(PPBL). In either case, project management

knowledge and skills are important.

In project management, Lesson Learned is

important. The aim is to improve the quality of

project management by learning from experience and

applying it to the next project. In other words, PBL

projects are also learned by pairing reflection with

learning. And this applies not only to learners but also

to educators' projects.

Learning through dialogue," which is the most

central type of learning in AL, is about deepening

learning by gaining awareness through dialogue with

others. PBL is also considered to deepen learning as

AL through learner reflection. Applying this to PBL,

PBL has a double project structure. In other words,

there are two projects: one for students to work on as

learning, and one for educators to work on as class

management. Each project is paired with project

management and reflection for learning. Figure 1

shows the elements of PBL.

The educator's project includes management of

the hard and soft aspects of the operation. In other

words, the creation of mechanisms such as

curriculum structure, implementation environment,

and evaluation methods correspond to the hard

aspects, while team management and motivation are

the soft aspects. This study focuses on the soft

aspects.

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Figure 1: PBL structure.

4.2 Team Building

This section summarizes how relationships grow.

Building trust is important in the workplace (Lee and

Karimata 2017). People cannot build a relationship of

trust simply by meeting each other. A trusting

relationship is built gradually through mutual

exchange (communication). Figure 2 shows the

growth process of trust.

Figure 2: Growth Process of trust.

After "meeting" each other, people "get to know"

each other through the process of exchanging

information to learn about each other and about

themselves. In this process, they "know" not only

personal information, but also various other things

such as skills and approaches to work. However, it is

not possible to know all these things at once. Work is

done through the cooperation of multiple people, and

through this process of "cooperation," we learn more

about each other. The process of knowing includes

"knowing" in the sense of "obtaining information"

and "knowing" in the sense of understanding the

intention or true meaning, or so-called

"understanding. The term "knowing" has been the

subject of various studies in cognition, psychology,

etc. Here, however, we use the term "knowing" to

focus on the process of building trust in business. As

a result of repeated "knowing" and "cooperation,"

"trust" gradually accumulates. In other words, it takes

a certain amount of time for interpersonal trust,

systemic trust, and contextual trust to be established.

When trust is further developed, the relationship

becomes a "good friend" with a sense of intimacy.

However, in a working relationship, becoming good

friends has not only a positive aspect but also a

negative one. In other words, there is a risk of

becoming "familiar" with each other. Familiarity

tends to lead to compromise, which must be avoided

to achieve the project goal. In business, it is important

to maintain a level of "trust”.

Applying this to Enokida and Matsuodani's team

growth model (2004), the process of knowing begins

in the formative period, followed by a period of

mayhem through cooperation. During the tumultuous

period, understanding of the aims and intentions of

the other party is advanced, and the team is

considered to move toward the normative period

while deepening mutual understanding. In today's

projects, where teams need to be set up quickly, the

leader needs to be actively involved in team building

from the early stages, rather than letting things

happen naturally, to ensure a smooth transition to the

normative phase. The leader must be actively

involved in team building at an early stage, rather

than letting it happen naturally. Li and Karimata

(2022) introduced that interpersonal trust arises when

others engage in verbal and non-verbal conformity,

consideration, equality, self-disclosure, and

integration. In other words, early team building is

effective, and it needs to be even more relational than

icebreaking.

4.3 Proposed Method

We propose the "Sentai-Hero-Exercise" developed in

this study as a team-building method that can be

implemented even by teachers with limited

experience in team management. This is an exercise

in which members play the role of SENTAI heroes*

(hereafter referred to as "team heroes") by applying

the famous Japanese form of team-based heroes to

PBL teams.

*SENTAI heroes: SENTAI Hero is the "Super

Sentai" series. It is a Japanese TOKUSATSU TV

drama series started in 1975 by Toei Co. and has been

broadcast for more than 50 years, with a new show

aired every year with a new setting. Although the

settings change, the format remains consistent, with

several characters transforming into heroes armed

with their own color-coded masks and suits to fight

evil trying to take over the world. Super Sentai is a

popular content series broadcast in 150 countries

around the world as Power Rangers.

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The purpose of this exercise is to perform the

relationship-building steps of "knowing" and

"working together" in a short period of time. This

requires a deeper level of cooperation than a typical

icebreak. Furthermore, the objective is to enable

participants to proactively facilitate team building

even if the educator does not have team-building

skills.

The "team hero" was chosen as the theme for the

exercise because (1) it is widely known and easy for

participants to visualize, and (2) it can be adapted to

project members with various personalities. In

designing the exercise, we interviewed actors who

had played heroes in TV shows to design the

composition of team members and the team-building

process.

Team heroes have a vision of the world they want

to achieve and the monsters they need to fight. To this

are added the goals and impediments to achieving the

project. To accommodate diversity, each hero should

have strengths and weaknesses, as well as special

skills that match their personality. The goal is to

create a relationship in which members help each

other and enhance the strength of the team. It is like a

child playing "pretend," where members introduce

their strengths and weaknesses and discuss how to

demonstrate and cover them in order to achieve the

project's goals, thereby building mutual

understanding.

The Troop Hero Exercise consists of five steps.

They are as follows.

Step 1. Self-introductions [know]

Aim: To break the ice.

What to do: Briefly talk about the name you would

like to be called, your strengths and special skills, and

your role in the team.

Step 2. The world and the monster we are aiming

for [Cooperation]

Aim: Become aware of the project goal and the

challenges to reach it.

What to do: Express the project goal in one sentence

that they can understand. Personify the obstacles that

will be the most difficult to achieve the goal and make

them into monsters.

Step 3. Team name and hero name [know]

Aim: Self-disclosure.

Each team member decides on a hero name and a

name. At that time, they talk about their strengths and

roles, and how they will contribute to the team's goal.

Ask each other questions to find commonalities and

decide on a consistent name. Discuss special moves

against the monster. Also, decide on a team name that

synthesizes the names of the heroes.

(e.g., Ichiro Tanaka, the Python Helping Blue who

dashingly appears when he has technical problems)

Step 4. Transformation pose [cooperation]

Aim: Transformation into a team member

Decide the hero's name and the pose when saying the

team name.

Step 5. Presentation [Cooperation]

Aim: Commitment to the goal

Make a declaration to the whole class

4.4 Practice and Discussion

4.4.1 Contents of Implementation

We tried the exercise in August 2022. Three teams

were targeted, with five to six participants per team,

all of them mixed teams of business person and

university students. Each team will work on the

development of a new product as a three-month

project, following the design thinking process. This

exercise was conducted as a team-building activity.

The participants knew each other as business person

and university students, but the business people and

university students were meeting each other for the

first time. The exercise was scheduled to last

approximately one hour, including the explanation of

the exercise. The following is a description of the

content of the exercise and the results of the

observations.

First, the overall flow was explained and Step 1.

was conducted. The team members were gathered for

the development of a new product, but since no role

other than that of the leader had been determined, I

asked the team to discuss the roles they would need

to play. Ten minutes were used here. This phase

corresponds to "meeting" and "getting to know each

other. Since they were meeting for the first time, they

awkwardly introduced themselves.

Next, Step 2. and Step 3 were conducted in

succession. because the time for Step 1 was short,

much time was spent on linking strengths to roles in

the team and on establishing commonalities. As a

result, the team spent about 25 minutes, exceeding the

scheduled 10 minutes. At this point, the leaders of two

teams had already taken the initiative to draw out the

strengths of their members by becoming the leaders

of the heroes. The remaining team was facilitated by

a member other than the leader.

Next, Step.4 was conducted. 2 teams had

members who participated remotely, so it was

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difficult to think of specific physical movements.

There were some poses that the team members could

not do because of their stiffness, and there were some

opinions that they did not want to do them, resulting

in confusion and conflict. However, since the

presentation time was fixed, those who did not want

to do the poses seemed to have compromised to some

extent. It took 55 minutes from the start of the

exercise to this point.

Finally, as Step.5, the teams made their

presentations. Each team announced its name and

transformation. The figure3 and figure4 show the

presentation; one of the participants was on Zoom, so

he was transforming himself in the computer. The

facilitator was only in charge of the opening

explanation and timekeeping and left the rest to the

teams. Finally, the session exceeded the scheduled

time and ended in 1 hour and 15 minutes.

4.4.2 Result

According to the participants' questionnaire, this

exercise was found to be beneficial for team building,

with approximately 70% of the participants

answering, "very good" or "good" and 30%

answering "average. When asked the question, "Do

you think you could have become a team? About 70%

of the participants answered "Yes, I think so. The free

description included the following items: "I think I

was able to understand and get along with the team

members to some extent in a short period of time

(about one hour). The game was fun, and I think it

will be useful in other team-building activities as

well. Positive evaluations of the exercise were

notable. The new product development meeting held

the week after the exercise was very smoothly for all

three teams.

4.4.3 Consideration

The results of the participants' questionnaires suggest

that even a short time was effective for team building.

However, in this trial of the SENTAI-Hero-Exercise,

the target project was the development of a new

product, and it is thought that many of the participants

were originally proactive in their interactions with

others. As a result, it is possible that the team building

process went smoothly even in a short exercise. Since

we were only able to evaluate the progress of the

project through observation, it is necessary to study

the evaluation method.

However, the use of the Team Hero format made

it easy for the leader to exercise leadership even

among members who had never met each other

before, and the members were able to "get to know"

and "cooperate" with each other while having fun.

The fact that the facilitators were able to build the

team by themselves with little intervention is also

commendable.

Figure 3: Step 5 (one member in PC).

Figure 4: Step 5.

5 CONCLUSIONS

In this paper, we organized the structure of PBL and

proposed a exercise method that facilitates team

building even for teachers with little experience in

team management. we found that the Sentai-Hero-

Exercise can implement team building even with little

experience in facilitation. We also confirmed that the

exercise enables the "knowing" and "working

together" of the trust-building process to be

conducted in a short period of time, promoting mutual

understanding among teams, and achieving

teambuilding. Future issues include implementation

in teams with a larger number of members and

demonstration of the proposed method by teachers

with limited experience in team management.

A Proposal of a New Team Building Method in IT PBL: A Trial of the SENTAI-Hero-Exercise

369

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant

Number JP22K02839.

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