2018 IIME REPORTCountry/Region [ Australia ]School[ Hillman Primary School ] Teacher [ Fiona Nutz ] Grade ( 5-6 )JP school [ Une Elementary School ] Teacher [ Yuya Maeda ]Member ( 15 )# Subjects, Activities and Hours of the lessons
Subject
Conception of the lesson
Japanese
Understanding Japanese culture, learning new vocabulary
language
Location and diversity of countries in the Asian region and their relationshipSocial Scienceswith Australia,
Social Sciences

Cultural diversity of the world’s people.

Hours346# Theme and Message of the muralThemeSeasons

Message

Similarities and differences between the seasons of Ako, Japan and Rockingham,Australia.

United thoughts toshare with the world# Effects and Problems
Effects your students have gained*Leadership skills*Dedication*Empathy for other cultures around the world.

Points for further improvement*Would love to do some sort of video link if chosen
to do this project again (unfortunately the Dept ofEducation does not allow us to use Skype).

# How has your impression toward your partner’s country/region and the world changed?
Changes in the students
Changes in the teachers*Greaterappreciationof other cultures (outside of*Greater appreciation of Japanese culture
AustraliaandJapan)
throughviewing on the forum.
*Greater appreciation of their own culture.
*I enjoyed working with teachers and students in our*Greater understanding of the Rockingham area
Sister City and it helped build more ties between ourtwo cities.

# Flow of the Activity
ContentMonthMEET
Selfintroduction

SHARE
Research onthe theme

UNITE
United message/

SepOct

Nov

What you did
Your students attitude/reflection*Powerpoint – individual *Got to practice their Japanese
student photos with them language skills as they wrote theirintroducing their name and introductions in English and romaji
hobbies in English andJapanese.
*Powerpoint – areas ofinterest around the schooland local area.

*Brainstorm by our students
on all their ideas.
*Students created postersonRockinghamandAustralian culture.

*Greater understanding of our local
culture and other cultures that haveinfluenced local events.

*Powerpoint and forum
discussion on what it shouldlook like, combining ideas
with our partner school.

*Put into focus for the students that ourseasons and Japan’s seasons areopposite. Thinking of those events weboth celebrate and what they might look
like in each country.

*Draw designs on mural,then paint.

*Our students were worried their work
wouldn’t be up to the standard of ourpartner school. They were really
impressed by the painting of ourJapanese school. Our student’s
confidence grew as they strived tocomplete their best work. They werevery proud of their efforts and showed
great enthusiasm and passion.

Mural design

CREATE
Mural painting

APPRECIATE
Reflection/Appreciation

FebMarMar*Presented completed muralat whole school assembly.
*Taken to local Counciloffices.
*Powerpoint – explaining thesignificance of the pictureson our mural.
*Made boomerangs to send
to our partner school

SubjectJapanese
LanguageSocialSciences

SocialScienceArt*Proud of their accomplishments.
*Learning more about Japanese culture– especially that of children their age.
*Appreciative to share their culture withanother culture.
SocialSciences

# Effect and evaluation gained through the collaborative learning
Evaluation: Rank 5 to 1 (5: very effective / 4: effective / 3: so- so / 2: not so effective / 1: not effective at all)

Expected effect
Understanding yourown cultures
Understanding yourpartner's cultures
Information literacy(research, share)

Communication ability(interactive exchange)

Critical thinking(objective, logical views)

Active learningand action
Collaboration(in the class, with partners)

Expression ability(in words, in pictures)

Evalua
tion

5

5

3

3

4

5

4

4

Appreciation ability(the mural, the wholecollaborative learning)

5Scenes / points teachers felt the effects
My students learned to differentiate between our local culture andevents that have been influenced by other cultures.
My students appreciated looking at the Japanese half of the mural andseeing what we had in common and what was different. They loved thevideos and photos on the forum. They were very appreciative of theorigami sent as a present to them from our partner school.
The forum was good to share ideas but maybe we needed to send more
videos of our ideas.
The forum was excellent to use, and a great way to see what othercountries around the world were doing.
Would love to find a way to do video conferencing if we did this projectagain.
Had trouble with emails going to my junk folder to start with.
My students needed to identify which were parts of our culture andwhich things were recent additions from other cultures – my students
struggled with identifying some of these, but it was a great opportunity tolook as this and produced some deep and interesting conversations.
Our side of the mural was very much student-led with just a little
direction from me. Students were actively involved in all stages and werewilling to do their own research outside of school to contribute to ourdiscussions.
Excellent feedback between the two schools on the forum.
My students were from different classes and willingly gave up their lunch
times to work on this project with other students.
Students were happy to take advice and feedback from myself and otherstudents to adjust their pictures if they didn’t think convey the meaning
we wanted.
Students appreciated displaying the mural to the whole school, parents
and the local community. They are looking forward to hearing what ourpartner school thought of our efforts.