Discussing Issues on International Collaborative Activities
Kenichi Kubota
Kansai University, Japankubota@kansai-u.ac.jp

Abstract:
The purpose of this paper is to discuss strength and weakness of international
collaborative activities the author has experienced last ten years. When a group of people work
together, they can gain different perspectives and ideas so that they can conduct uniquecollaborative activities. Furthermore, if they can involve in people in different countries, theactivities would be more interesting. In addition, the Internet could internationally accelerate thiskind of collaboration. They also could develop key competencies which were conceptualized by
the DeSeCo Project. However, if they get involved in so different people working together, they
may encounter difficulty to collaborate. Therefore, most people tend to avoid collaborativeactivities.
In the international collaborative activities, their social and historical backgrounds arediverse so that their way of thinking, management, and behavior, and communication styles aredifferent. However, I would like to argue that the international collaborative activities are quite
educational and informative so that we can get great benefit from it. I have been conducting theinternational collaborative activities with people in Syria, Myanmar, the Philippines, Cambodia,China, United States and Korea. The people in respective countries have different backgrounds.
In this situation, we need to negotiate with each other how to come up with better collaboration.
In this presentation, I would like to discuss strength and weakness of international collaborative
research and activities and develop better understanding and fruitful outcomes of collaborative
research.
Keywords: international collaboration, key competency, active learning,1

INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this paper is to analyze strength and weakness of international collaborative activities(ICA) the author has experienced last ten years. The ICA has been gaining popularity among university in the world.
However, it is difficult to develop and continue the ICA for enhancing students learning. In this presentation, I would
like to discuss how we can make the ICA successful in terms of students’ learning outcomes.
Globalization has become prevail all over the world. It is not only the Internet and economy, but also anyother areas, such as transportation, music, etc. Education is not an exception. Students move crossing nationalboarder to enroll in universities in other countries. The number of these students has been increasing in the world.
The number of Japanese students who study aboard, however, has been decreasing. They feel more
comfortable staying in Japan rather than challenging to study aboard. If Japanese students avoid challenge to movethemselves forward, their competency will not be well developed. The Japanese government, therefore, tried toencourage students to study aboard by providing scholarship and other incentives. Many universities in Japan shift todevelop new program in which Japanese and foreign students study together to develop key competencies.
Key competencies are defined by DeSeCo project, OECD. The definition of key competencies includes
not only knowledge and skills, but also flexibility, entrepreneurship and personal responsibility. The students need todraw various competencies according to different contexts. To develop the key competencies, they cannot make theircompetencies develop in the classroom context. They have to cross the border of classroom to move toward outsideworld. After moving to outer world, they put themselves into challenging situation so that they can develop their keycompetencies. I present my experience how I have been managing the international collaborative activities (ICA) last
decade (Kubota 2013; Kubota & Kishi 2012).

MY EXPERIENCES OF INERNATIONAL COLLABORATIVE ACTIVIRTIES
Since I have an experience of overseas volunteer for two years in the Philippines, I realize the importanceof ICA. The table 1 shows the ICA in several countries and description of activities.

Name ofcollaborativeactivities
Philippine fieldwork

Lesson study for
Palestinian refugee
schools
In-service training
for elementaryteacher
Collaboration tosupport Cambodianrural communities
Research on digitaltext book
Collaborative
research for thinkingskills

Table1: Contents of the international collaborative activities
country
Number activities
ofstudents
The
13-20
Junior students visit schools, universities, andPhilippines
NGOs to learn social and cultural contexts in thePhilippines.
Syria
4-8
Collaboration between Japanese students andeducational board of Palestinian refugeeorganization to support lesson study conducted byPalestinian teachers
The7 -10
Both Japanese and Filipino students provide
Philippines
in-service training how to use ICT tools inclassroom at the elementary school.
Cambodia
10 - 12Students provide picture books to ruralelementary school library. Training was provided
to elementary teachers to manage library
activities.
Korea
3
Collaborative research to investigate digitaltextbook used in Korea.
China
1Collaborative research to disseminate newteaching methods with thinking tools.

2

period1994 present
2006 -2011

2007 present
2011 present2010 - 2011
2011 present

Each ICA has different objectives and activities so that we cannot simply compare with each other. Forinstance, some students participate in the Philippines fieldwork to go to the Philippines for two to three weeks during
summer vacation. They visit elementary and secondary schools, universities, and NGOs, observe their activities, andexchange ideas and opinions. This is the first time for almost of all students to visit the country so that they feel freshto see everything and are bewildered. The students stay at the Filipino home, and visit rural areas. They gradually
understand the situation in the Philippines and become more interested in learning about the Philippines.
Both undergraduate and graduate students work together in some projects. Since the undergraduate
students cannot communicate with foreign people, the graduate students lead them to work better. The undergraduate
students imitate the graduate students’ behaviors to learn managing activities and communicate with local people.
They also work together with Cambodian students to work at a rural elementary school. The Cambodian students
help Japanese to translate local language to English.
In case of collaboration research with China, Japanese graduate student introduces “thinking tools” toChinese elementary school. The Japanese graduate students provide workshop for Chinese elementary school
teachers to learn how to apply “thinking tools” for their lesson. This activity is collaborative research between Japanand China. Collaborative research is not easy, even among Japanese scholars. The ways of carrying research isdifferent from each other. If we can conduct research with foreign researchers, we have to consider different not onlyin culture but also in ways of carrying our research method and ways scholars working together.
As I mentioned, each ICA has different feature so that I cannot develop a simple model we can apply any
ICA. Rather, we have to develop a specific ICA model adjusting to unique context.

FINDINGS
Through ICA Experiences, I found that the students developed their key competencies and actively
participating in the ICA. After joining the ICA, some students went aboard to study for a year. Some other students
went to developing countries as overseas volunteers. Some students gained self-confidence to present their paper at
the international conference.
It is, however, not easy to carry out the ICA because individual teacher alone cannot manage this kind ofactivities. It is important to integrate the ICA into educational system. Like practicum and internship, the ICA can bea course in curriculum so that the ICA is officially recognized as important educational activities. If the ICA isaccepted as a course, university administration will try to support the course, such as budgeting.
At present time, most students work as part-time to gain enough money to buy air plane ticket and coveraccommodation. It is rare to get funding for the ICA. It was fortunate to get support inviting Cambodian, Chinese,and Korean students visiting to Japan last two years. This kind of funding, however, is not stable to support students.
The university administration needs to set budgeting system of the ICA. Faculty members also need to recognize
importance of the ICA for nurturing key competencies.
We also have to understand difficulty of the international collaborative research. The ways of conducting
research are quite different in different countries. For instance, funding system, research methods, relationshipbetween professors and students, time concept, how to handle things, etc. are all different. Researchers in both sides
need to understand these differences and adjust each other to implement the collaborative research.
We can utilize the Internet tools to communicate each other in the collaborative research. The Internet tools,
such as Skype, Facebook, and Google+, are powerful to collaborate closely. We sometimes irritate because response
is not quite speedy as we expect. People are busy some time so that they may forget to respond or take time. If we do
not understand partner’s situation, we may get frustrated. However, we still need face-to-face context to understandand create more close relationship.

3FUTURE DIRESTION
Globalization is ongoing world trend. We cannot just stay and do work only within our countries. Ifinternational collaboration is “MUST” , we as educational researchers actively move ourselves forward to find ways
to work together. ICoME is one example to collaborate among Korea, China, and Japan. This conference has nearlyten years of experience. Number of participants has been increasing and diversified, including the Philippines,Malaysia, and some other countries. I believe that it is the time we should more collaborate each other in the future.
Literature Reference
Kubota, K. (Ed.).(2013). Koto Kyoiku ni okeru Tsunagari Kyodo suru Gakushu Kankyo Dezain: Daigakusei noNodotekina Manabi wo Shiensuru social Media no Katuyo. (Desining Collaborative Learning Environment :Utilization of Social Media which Support Students’ Active Learning) Kyoto: Koyo Shobo.
Kubota, K. & Kishi, M. (Ed.).(2012). Daigaku Kyoiku wo Desgin suru: Kose Shugi ni motozuita Kyoikujissen.
(Desinging University Education: Educational Practice based on Constructivism) Kyoto: Koyo Shobo.

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