COIL

ICT (Information and Communication Technology) has been evolving, and there is a need for innovation where ​social and economic systems can utilize ICT. Similarly, in university education, it will be effective to implement ICT (that continues to evolve) to conduct COIL classes.

Two approaches, “synchronous” and/or “asynchronous” are applied.

An emphasis is placed on collaboration between faculty and students, and among students themselves. Be aware of “learning collaboratively”, not just distance education.

COIL can be implemented by adding to existing classes

• Fostering the ability to discover issues and find their solutions
• Developing global perspectives
• Improving cross-cultural understanding
• Improving IT literacy (ZOOM, SNS, G-suite, Microsoft 365, etc.)

The empowerment of the university education

It is important for us (instructors) to be aware of what better education is for our partner universities and to create educational content that is internationally acceptable. Furthermore, it naturally creates an environment where students can motivate one another and enhance their abilities.

Educational Quality Assurance

We (instructors) will be able to visualize our university at a global level by creating a rubric with overseas instructors. This would be one indicator for overseas people to select our university.

Network Effect

Hierarchical hub-and-spoke system
During the network formation period, the first one that starts creating a network becomes the hub. In other words, there will be a chance for us to become a hub of Asian networks.

The “Innovative Workshop” (IW), offered by the Faculty of Economics at Osaka Metropolitan University (OMU), is a small-sized class for 16 students.

It aims to cultivate the ability to “discover issues” and the ability to “find solutions” through active learning and group work. We work collaboratively with the Development Economics (ECONDEV) class that is offered by De La Salle University (DLSU) in the Philippines.

We conduct research jointly by working in groups. Students in each university are divided into small groups of about three to six according to five issues - income, education, health, immigration (migration), and population-, and the groups that deal with the same issue learn collaboratively.
They exchange documents, etc. through their shared folder.
When we conduct joint midterm and final presentations, two classrooms (OMU, DLSU) are synchronously connected through a video conference system and a Web conference system.

Discovering issues and finding their solutions can be difficult to learn, if they are based solely on the existing social context. More effective outcomes can be expected, by providing students opportunities in regular classes, to work on the same tasks with overseas students based on different social contexts.

In AY2019, we offered the IW course with 14 classes, two of which were joint classes between OMU and DLSU.
The aim of the course was to enable students to conduct a comparative study between Japan and ASEAN from the perspective of macroeconomics.

Students were divided into five groups based on the topics listed below.
Through this course, they enhanced their ability to identify issues and propose their solutions from a global perspective.

• Inflation
• Unemployment
• Trade surplus/deficit
• Policies on government spending and taxation
• Policies on interest rates (financial policies)

Students’ research presentations were shared in the joint classes with De La Salle University.