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This week, from March 7th – 11th, 2016, the Global Health Office is hosting the annual Niigata University Canada Study Tour.

The Tour, funded by Japan Student Services Organization (JASSO), provides students from Japan’s Niigata University with an opportunity to discover health sciences at McMaster and explore the similarities and differences between Canadian and Japanese teaching/learning styles.

“The students are most interested in learning about PBL,” says Professor Megumi Sato, one of the Tour’s chaperones, who goes on to explain that problem-based learning is difficult to apply in Japan, where cultural differences mean that classes are more lecture-based. “We have a culture of ‘silence is beautiful’ in Japan, but if there are elements I can take from PBL, I would like to learn about them,” says Sato.

This year’s delegation consists of two Professors (Kayoko Sekijima and and Megumi Sato) and three undergraduate students (Yuki Orimo, Naoto Kamiyama and Akari Tsujikawa) from Niigata University’s Medical Laboratory Sciences program.

“I am so happy to be visiting McMaster University again, because each time, I discover new perspectives related to teaching and learning,” says Professor Kayoko Sekijima, who is participating in the Tour for the third time.

Student Naoto Kamiyama, who is visiting for the first time, says, “I’m looking forward to being involved in class discussions and learning about the current status of health care and medical systems in foreign countries like Canada as well as Japan, because I want to be a medical technologist with wide knowledge.”

Andrea Baumann, director of the Global Health program, welcomed the visitors on Monday with an introduction to McMaster University and health science education.