What is COIL?
Reitaku University adopted COIL (Collaborative Online International Learning) in 2019.
COIL is an educational method to realize collaborative learning between two or more countries using ICT tools, and was launched in 2006 by the COIL Center at the State University of New York (SUNY).
A joint syllabus was developed between courses at overseas and domestic universities, and students from the two countries cooperate with each other to form teams to tackle common problems and conduct project-based learning.
Portland State University and Reitaku University
In a joint class with our U.S. partner school (Portland State University’s Department of Graduate Education), 12 first-year economics students (English courses) from our university and four graduate education students from Portland State University’s Department of Graduate Education participated for about seven weeks starting in October 2019. The purpose of the program was to help the graduate school of Portland State University’s Department of Graduate Education improve the English communication skills of undergraduate students taking English courses at the university through collaborative activities. The COIL program with Portland State University will continue in the second semester (fall semester) of 2020, with a new theme called “”Universal Mark”” and activities to create a pitogram of the Universal Mark through collaborative learning incorporated into the classes of both universities.
・Course title: Intercultural Communication
・Requirements for participation: TOEIC score of 600 or higher * Requirements for students of this university
・Participation method: Zoom
・Theme: Thinking about Universal Design
University of Marburg (Germany) and Reitaku University
In a collaborative class with our partner school in Germany (the Graduate School of the University of Marburg), 3rd and 4th year German language and culture majors are practicing “”learning by using German””. In the class, students deepened their knowledge of German culture from various sources and improved their expressive skills through training to explain in German. The students from Marburg University, who are studying German language education, prepared and taught topics on German culture (everyday culture) to our students.
This collaborative learning has helped both Japanese and German students to develop intercultural competence, which is the ability to communicate across different cultures. In the future, based on the basic skills cultivated in the first and second years, students are expected to learn the culture behind the language and enhance their communication skills through collaborative study with German students in the third and fourth years.
・Subject name: German Social Studies B
・Target: 3rd and 4th year students of German language and culture major
・participation mathod: Zoom
Other Program Examples
We have also conducted joint classes with Jyotzeno Institute (Finland), study activities with students studying Japanese at a nursing school in Indonesia, and cross-cultural exchanges with Narasuan University and Phayao University (Thailand).
Benefits of COIL
Through COIL, students will be able to experience different cultures while still in their home countries, and learn from each other across countries with no financial burden. There is also the advantage of increasing the possibility of joint research for faculty members, and we hope that this will lead to the “”internal internationalization”” of the university and the internationalization of the local community.
Reitaku University aims to implement more COIL programs and provide more learning opportunities for students.