2020 Faculty Courses Liberal arts and basic science courses Humanities and social science courses
Essence of Humanities and Social Sciences42:Consensus Building
- Academic unit or major
- Humanities and social science courses
- Instructor(s)
- Takehiro Inohara / Tatsurou Sakano / Shigeo Nishikizawa / Mitsuyo Toyoda / Tomoki Takada
- Class Format
- Lecture (Zoom)
- Media-enhanced courses
- -
- Day of week/Period
(Classrooms) - 3-4 Wed (Zoom)
- Class
- -
- Course Code
- LAH.S437
- Number of credits
- 100
- Course offered
- 2020
- Offered quarter
- 3Q
- Syllabus updated
- Jul 10, 2025
- Language
- Japanese
Syllabus
Course overview and goals
[Important]
(Updated August 28th, 2020)
This year, assessment will be based solely on assignments submitted every week.
Each week’s assignment consists of a short summary of what you learned in the class and a report on the theme presented by the lecturer (about 800 characters).
The deadline of submission is 5 pm on Monday the week after.
(Updated July 28th, 2020)
Because this year's classes are offered live via Zoom, there will be some changes to assessment criteria and methods, etc.
Details will be announced, as soon as it is decided, to the registered students by OCW-i emails.
Zoom Meeting ID and password you need to attend the classes will also be notified by OCW-i emails, at least two days before the first class.
Please check regularly your emails and the announcements list for this course in OCW-i.
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The theme of this course is “Consensus Building.” This course deals with various topics and knowledge on consensus building through lectures. Specifically, this course takes up: “consensus building in nature restoration project,” “practice of social experiment of “Deliberative Poll”, “education and the development of public engagement,” and “participatory approach and consensus building."
This course aims to cultivate the students’ abilities to understand the knowledge structure on consensus building and to convey them to others concisely.
Course description and aims
Upon completion of this course, students should be able to:
1) State the definitions of “consensus” and “consensus building;” and
2) Explain to others the knowledge structure on consensus building by using the concepts such as consensus building, nature restoration project, public participation and public engagement, education, “Deliberative Poll,” project management.
Keywords
consensus building, nature restoration project, public participation and public engagement, education, “Deliberative Poll,” project management
Competencies
- Specialist skills
- Intercultural skills
- Communication skills
- Critical thinking skills
- Practical and/or problem-solving skills
Class flow
This course is offered in the "Active Learning" mode which requires students to take an active role in their own learning. Therefore, it is required to submit a summary report at the end of each class.
One class deals with one topic. Each topic is lectured by an expert of the topic. At the end of a class, each student writes and submits a summary report on what he/she learned through the lecture.
Course schedule/Objectives
| Course schedule | Objectives | |
|---|---|---|
| Class 1 | Guidance and introduction | State the definitions of “consensus” and “consensus building.” |
| Class 2 | Through some case studies of nature restoration project, we discuss and understand the theory and the techniques in order to build a creative consensus among various stakeholders. | Understanding the theory and the techniques of consensus management for nature restoration. |
| Class 3 | Practice of Social Experiment of “Deliberative Poll”: Based on the design principles and the examples of practices of “Deliberative Poll,” we see that deliberation by randomly sampled citizen is an effective way to overcome the trade-off problem between the number of participants and the quality of their deliberation, and a key factor to realize deliberative democracy. | Understand the design principles and the properties of “Deliberative Poll.” |
| Class 4 | Education and the Development of Public Engagement: How can education contribute to the development to public engagement? On the basis of case studies of American and Japanese school education, students discuss and deepen their understanding of the maturity of public engagement from the perspective of human development | Read “Convention of the Rights of the Child” proposed by UNICEF and consider the meanings and challenges of this convention from the perspectives of “consensus building” and “human development.” |
| Class 5 | Participatory Approach and Consensus Building: Principles, methods and challenges of public participation will be explained in terms of consensus building by looking into a case study | Understand how to develop the process both of public participation and consensus building among multi-stakeholders. |
| Class 6 | Group work for consensus building: students experience consensus building. | Explain the difficulty and significance of consensus building. |
| Class 7 | Review | Explain the outline of the knowledge structure on consensus building to others. |
Study advice (preparation and review)
To enhance effective learning, students are encouraged to spend approximately 100 minutes preparing for class and another 100 minutes reviewing class content afterwards (including assignments) for each class.
They should do so by referring to textbooks and other course material.
Textbook(s)
None required.
Reference books, course materials, etc.
Course materials are posted on OCW-i and/or provided during the classes.
“Consensus Building,” (Keiso-syobo, 2011, ISBN-13: 978-4326301966)
Evaluation methods and criteria
Assessment will be based on “summary reports” written during each class (40%) and two reports at the end of the course (30% each; total 60%).
If you are absent from a class, regardless of the reason, points are subtracted from the evaluation portion of the "summary reports."
There are no make-up assignments.
Read the course materials posted on OCW-i to find out the content of the class you missed.
Details of the requirements of the two reports will be explained in the first class meeting.
Related courses
- SHS.P441 ： Graduate Lecture in Politics, Law and Administration S1A
- UDE.D409 ： Planning Theory
- UDE.D471 ： Principles of Public Systems Design
- GEG.S401 ： Environmental Policy
- GEG.E501 ： Environmental Impact Assessment
- SHS.M461 ： Graduate Methodologies in Cognition, Mathematics and Information S1
Prerequisites
Prospective students should have interests in consensus building.
Contact information (e-mail and phone) Notice : Please replace from ”[at]” to ”@”(half-width character).
Prof. Takehiro Inohara, inostaff[at]shs.ens.titech.ac.jp
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[Important]
(Updated August 28th, 2020)
This year, assessment will be based solely on assignments submitted every week.
Each week’s assignment consists of a short summary of what you learned in the class and a report on the theme presented by the lecturer (about 800 characters).
The deadline of submission is 5 pm on Monday the week after.
(Updated July 28th, 2020)
Because this year's classes are offered live via Zoom, there will be some changes to assessment criteria and methods, etc.
Details will be announced, as soon as it is decided, to the registered students by OCW-i emails.
Zoom Meeting ID and password you need to attend the classes will also be notified by OCW-i emails, at least two days before the first class.
Please check regularly your emails and the announcements list for this course in OCW-i.