IIGE Vice-Director Dr. Keiko Ikeda presented at the Research Consortium for the Sustainable Promotion of International Education (RECSIE)'s Summer Institute on International Education Japan held at Nanzan University betwen August 26-28, 2019. 

 

Dr. Ikeda's seminar reflection is shared below. 

 

 

 

 

Monday, August 26, 2019

By: Dr. Keiko Ikeda, Kansai University

 

Subcommittee | “COIL Seminar”

Lecturer's Impressions

　

 

As part of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) Inter-University Exchange Project, COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning) has taken off across Japan within the past year. The unanimous consent by Japanese university officials to adopt COIL practice can be considered an extremely rapid development given the relatively gradual spread of COIL practice throughout the United States over the past several years. However, the permeation of COIL along with a firm grasp of what exactly COIL practice entails is another story. It brings to mind the phenomenon of the spread of the term “active learning”. The attention it garnered was admirable, but without a firm establishment, COIL too risks falling to the wayside at the introduction of the next new craze in educational developments. If such is the case, COIL practice may be dismissed without being able to see its practical advantages as a form of international education. It may be counterproductive to make such a statement at the very start of the spread of its influence, but I find myself embracing a sense of impending doom in watching the development of COIL practice within Japan. 

 

In line with this, I shared what COIL entails and discussed the deviations of the main purposes of COIL practices in the first half of this session I requested to lead. Activities that utilize various online tools are being increasingly adopted into the classroom, but in what ways do these activities alter/influence/change the curriculum and bring forth intercultural learning (IL)? In addition, what are the multilayered skills and competencies instructors hope to develop with collaborative tasks (the “C” in COIL)? There are many who when they hear about COIL think it has something to do with an IT seminar. However, it is not so much a skill to be developed as it is at its core, pedagogy. It is with this in mind that I designed this seminar. 

 

COIL is just one of the many forms of VE (Virtual Exchange) expanding across the globe. It is neither the end-all-be-all, nor is it suggested to be the penultimate form of virtual exchange. I feel that VE has immeasurable potential, and I have no doubt that it will become the “natural” course of learning in the Society 5.0 world that the young people of today will face in the near future. Even now in the field of international studies there are areas in which the development of such ICT/IT has not been mastered. There remains the question of how ICT can be utilized to make progress toward international education. These are the types of issues I hoped to tackle along with the seminar participants in the second half of the seminar.  　

 

As I stated in the beginning, because of the varying needs of the participants, there are any number of points which may have resounded with them on an individual level. I would be very pleased if what I presented has been even slightly beneficial to those who are considering undertaking “COIL”.  

 

 

 

Read about IIGE presentations at RECSIE 2019 here: http://www.kansai-u.ac.jp/Kokusai/IIGE/news/detail.php?seq=36

 

To learn more about the full event, visit http://recsie.or.jp/news/