It is a biography of a Japanese lecturer at Harvard with detailed "history" of her PhD study and the classes she teaches using active learning methods.
Some things were impressive; she changed her major from mathematics to Japanese history when she entered a graduate school, she finished her PhD in just three years after gaining required course credits at an astonishing pace, and her Japanese history class grew so popular that she achieved multiple awards from the students.
It was very different from the book "Justice" by Michel Sandel, another professor at Harvard teaching ethics and social issues. His book explains how we can recognise, justify, or find a solution to certain problems around us, just like he does in his class. Dr Kitagawa's, on the other hand, mostly talk about her early career life as a PhD student and a lecturer. In that sense, it is more of an essay than an academic book.
The new methods she used to teach her class seems more interesting than the conventional lecture style - just listening for 90 minutes in a 300-seat auditorium. Active learning are useful such as writing, drawing, walking to a library, working in a group. The more audience, the harder it becomes to keep their attention.
The amount of learning depends on the student's motivation, but having them do something is effective rather than sit there the whole time. Looking back my undergraduate experience, most memorable classes are; ethics where I served as one of the presenters, English presentation class where I gave a short speech every other week and got feedback from the lecturer and my peer students, and food preservation class where the professor collected questions from all the students and answered each one of them - it was a very good idea to prevent fake attendance and encourage students' curiosity.
Overall, the book was OK.. It was also interesting to read other people's reviews on this book.
It is important to mention that students' evaluation of lectures are sometimes more or less popularity vote, so it may not be a absolute indicator of a "good" class.
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